Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. Today, the vice presidential debate. And will there be a second presidential debate? It's in jeopardy. Coming up today, Charles, C.W. Cooke, Crystal Ball and Sagarin Jedi, all with their thoughts on where we go from here. Hey, everyone, it's Megan Kelly, welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and what a debate last night. Did you watch it? I watched it.

I thought it got a little tedious at times, but overall, I thought the moderator did a fair job. And the candidates. Well, we're going to talk about it. With me now is Steve Krakauer. He's my executive producer here on the show. And he's also the editor and writer of the newsletter Fourth Watch, which is well worth your time, by the way, because he's sort of a media watchdog himself, Steve. So I thought on balance, that the candidates were generally respectful of one another, that they were pretty measured.

There were no meltdowns like we saw in debate number one between the top dogs. It was a little boring. And my mind started to wander about, I don't know, an hour in, like, what am I going to do tomorrow for breakfast has never a good sign. That never happened in debate number one. And I thought the moderator, Susan Page, was fair. I didn't I don't think any criticisms of her today as being biased toward one side or the other are fair.

She I went back and looked at every single question in the transcript and she was right down the middle and she was pretty vanilla in the way she phrased the question. She covered things you'd expect, you know, Obamacare, China, trade, covid, the economy, fracking, climate change. I mentioned, you know, it was Supreme Court. It was all stuff you'd expect abortion. Maybe this topic selection leaned left a little, but not enough to really criticize Susan Page.

That was my overall thought. Would you think? Yeah, I would say the same thing.

I thought that she did a pretty good job. I will say it seemed that she was very interested in two things in asking her questions, which I thought they were good questions, not really super interested in the answers and whether the candidates actually answered the questions. I would say both sides, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, didn't exactly give a straight answer to two specific questions, and there was no follow up to press for that.

The other thing, because she was scared, you know, what lists that she was going to lose control, like with Chris Wallace? You know, you could see the fear in her eyes like, oh, God, I don't want the train to go off the rails.

Yeah, I think, you know, it was a little different scenario now that President Trump was not up there. The, you know, a stirring stirring the pot a little bit or maybe was the plexiglass that was between them that really kept it a little bit more subdued, but that there was that. But you also really did seem obsessed with keeping fair time, which was interesting, obviously, that that became a storyline after also CNN actually timed it that they spoke almost exactly the same amount of time while ABC had it, that Harris spoke more on CBS had it, that Mike Pence spoke three minutes more.

So I don't know how how we all do our timing, but she was very I thought you did a good job of really trying to keep it balanced in terms of the speaking time, at least as she did. But I will say as a moderator myself, some of those moments were frustrating. I liked that she left it up to the candidates to beat up on one another. You know, that was good, I thought. And but there were a couple of moments where I would have loved if she just would have given us a moment of.

So what is the answer? Yes or no? Just quick, like just quick put it right to them. And if they dodge again, don't let them complete the answer with a long dodge. You know, just I'll give you ten seconds. Yes or no. Are you or are you? I would have loved that. And I think the audience would have benefited from it.

No, the only one who did that actually was my pets. I mean, you know, in trying to press for a specific answer and. Well, exactly.

The Supreme Court, which we're going to get to in a minute, I thought overall, since I thought Pence was very strong on policy, she was very strong on covid.

But I thought without a knockout blow, without, like the massive fall down by either candidate, you'd have to give the win to her because her her side is winning in the polls. So the question is whether this could change the dynamic of the race. And I think like most vice presidential debates, it it didn't. So if you wanted to sort of say, well, it was a wash, that's not necessarily great for Team Trump because they would have preferred a knockout blow where they really change the dynamic.

Right, right. Especially considering and I know you're going to get to this also later on the the news this morning that I don't know exactly how many more debates we're going to be getting. You need to make the most of every opportunity here. Yeah. The CNN postdebate poll had the pre debate numbers versus the postdebate numbers for Pence and Kamala Harris, almost identical in the sense that not a single person actually moved from from before to after, which is not exactly surprising.

But but it was interesting to see.

Well, and I think some people on the Democratic side saw what they wanted to see. And same on the Republican side with respect to their attitudes in that debate, which which we'll get to. But Frank Luntz had a focus group that was very focused on, among other things, Kamala Harris is interruptions or her her eye rolls and her her sort of scoffing at some of Mike Pence's answers and things like that can can affect a voter's willingness. Side with you or there the amount that they like you, right, if you're too boisterous or too much of a bully like we saw with Trump in debate number one, it can turn people off.

And if you're too nasty or smug that I had a vote on a guest on the Kelly File who I loved, she was a Democrat, but she constantly rolled her eyes at the other side's answers. And I pulled her aside to say, you don't want to see seem smug or angry because you're going to turn off the viewers. They're not going to listen to you when I get to you. And she mastered it for a while and then never quite nailed it.

But you always have to worry about that man or woman.

You have to worry about how you look when you're not speaking and what signals you're sending. Right. Right. Especially in a format like this where there are no one shot. Right. Everything is a two shot. You see the reaction from the other candidate to what the candidate who's speaking is actually saying. It's the sort of the broadcasting side of it that that's interesting there. Yeah, no, I think even just some of the postdebate reaction was watching CNN, ABC.

Phillips said she should have pushed back in certain ways, Dana Bash, that she didn't get a lot of help from the moderator. So I don't I don't know why she would get help from the moderator, but that was that was not about which all sort of translates to me that, you know, Howard did fine, but not great. Right? Well, I think one of the things I tweeted about was she had some she had several strong answers on the points, but I was distracted by the headshaking in while he was speaking.

And I know she was trying to signal I disagree or he's not telling the truth, but it it had a turn off effect on me. I stopped to stop. Right.

You actually were tweeting a lot during the debate. And I have to say, I went to bed last night. I saw him to pull the tweet that had the most read tweets and talk about it with you at the time. That was you tweeting pences so much better than Trump at defending Trump. And then I wake up this morning and you're you're trending nationally on Twitter for a different tweet, which was take it like a woman don't make faces, which apparently has has drawn out people like.

I'll just give you an example, like Bill Burton of one who says be better. Meghan expressing disgust. It lies, deception and constantly being talked over is worth reaction. Oh, please.

The point is not whether he was, in fact misleading. The point is, what message are you sending to the audience at home? You want to project calm, cool, controlled and ready to go when it's your turn, you know, respectful of the process and ready to go when it's your turn.

You know, there are a lot of moments in these presidential debates where you could be doing that, but most not. Let's put the first presidential debate of this cycle to the side.

But usually the candidates will try to maintain their poker face until you get to them out of respect for the audience who is trying to listen and doesn't want to see. SCOFFING And I think between the headshaking and she had a couple of you know, the thing about I'm speaking I'm speaking when she first did it, I liked it because I do think when you get interrupted and it does happen a lot to women in the boardrooms and so on, I do believe more than men.

It's a it's a good tool. I'm speaking or I'm not done. I like that, but used too much. It crosses over to what is this, an attempted feminist moment or it she was clearly trying to project like, you're rude, the floor is mine and I will not seat it. And I started to get turned off by it, like at least switch it up to one sec or just let me finish or I'm not quite done. Right.

Just just like squeeze in alternatives, because it started to seem like an obviously rehearsed thing.

Right? Yeah. And then it got the reaction from people like George Stephanopoulos, who called Mike Pence a man explainer. Was there was there a debate reaction that stood out to you? Oh, yeah, many of them, but one more point uncommon. Yeah, the other thing she was saying was I will not be lectured by the vice president on this or on that. And it was just I think she was dying for him to do something really sexist and he didn't.

And so she had her little lines ready to go, but she was unleashing them on the wrong target. She thought she was going to debate Donald Trump, who was going to be his normal self. And she had a gentleman sitting over there who was debating her like she might be the future vice president.

And George Stephanopoulos may have said, yes, I may have said George Stephanopoulos said that he was mansplaining to her.

And to her credit, Martha Raddatz interrupted and said, no women can be interrupted, too. She wants to be vice president and women don't get to be treated in an especially special way. Just because there are women out there. What's what equality means is you get punched in the face just like the other guy gets punched in the face and you take it. And that's what my tweet was taken like a woman instead of how they always say tiger like a man.

My point was women can easily maintain composure, maintain facial expressions and hold their cards to the vest until it's their turn on the on the debate stage, just like a man can. And she needed to do that because today people are talking about her facial expressions instead of the substance of her answers and that that's on her. So, OK, the reactions to the debate, as I said, they they fell along party lines. But I once again, I was channel surfing around and I couldn't believe first what I heard from Gayle King on CBS News.

Listen to it.

At one point when they were talking about systemic racism. I think it's very interesting timing that a fly would land on my head at that particular time when he said that there really wasn't systemic racism. I saw the fly basically go and say what I mean. It was very interesting. That was I don't want to call that a highlight, but that was certainly a memorable moment.

A memorable moment for Gayle King. Was the fly saying, say what?

Oh, my God. Like she actually treated it as if it were a thing, that there was a message that God sent the fly down to pass judgment and Mike Pence and comments about white supremacy. I mean, you got to be kidding me. A Twitter love the fly. But I don't understand how the fly made it into any post to be like actual television coverage, but it did everywhere.

Well, and how did it make it into the room, which I had been told had been hermetically sealed?

People were basically forced to wear hazmat suits until the moment they began to be like they were, they truly continued to treat covid like it is the bubonic plague. I realized we need to take precautions, but that how many layers could they have had between the people who are already 12 feet apart on that stage? OK, then there was MSNBC and Nicole Wallace.

You tell me whether whether this comment was a bit loaded was a problem tonight, is it?

Vice President Pence appeared flaccid and anemic and that's going to hurt him with men.

Then she went on to add not just flaccid, but limp and lame. And then Maddow doubled down on. Yes, flaccid. What are they trying to say, Steve?

You know, it's really it really leaves a lot to the imagination. Yeah, no, I think are they just trying to come up with what's like the worst insult they can level at Mike Pence and say on television, I guess. Well, yeah.

I mean, even going there, obviously everybody knows what they're trying to say. Like, he's this he's not a virile man. He looked weak. He's not somebody who could get it done in the bedroom or in the boardroom or in the Oval Office. I mean, that's that that's what they're telegraphing without the use of those words over and over.

And if any similar remarks had been made about a woman, everyone, everyone be crying sexism. Right. They'd be crying sexism. But the truth is, Mike Pence was controlled.

It's like you almost can't win because if you're interrupting and all fiery and energetic the way Trump always is, they say you're a bully. And if you're a gentleman who's controlled and just measured the way Mike Pence always speaks, then you're limp and your flaccid. And I thought those comments were out of line.

Yeah, that was that that was not shocking from MSNBC, but it was sort of surprising. All right. We talk a lot about the people talking on the stage.

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C.W. Cooke is National Review editor and an amazing, brilliant writer. And I always love listening to you on the podcast, The Editors, Charles, because your takes are always so insightful. So thanks for being here. And what what are your thoughts and what we saw last night?

It was certainly different than the presidential debate that we saw recently.

I was on Brand last night. I watched this in a cigar bar and at points you couldn't hear it. And I thought that that was almost as interesting as when you could. In that. Kamala Harris came across to me badly in both settings. Now, I should say your audience probably won't know who I am, I don't like Kamala Harris. I am perhaps her number one enemy. She's my nightmare candidate. She's an authoritarian. And on every single issue, she takes the wrong box for me.

But I thought that Pentz won the debate. He couldn't answer every question. He was weak on health care. The Trump campaign has been weak on health care, and that's because they don't have a plan. He wasn't especially convincing on coronavirus, but other than that, I thought he did better than she did. And I think she comes across badly, both when she's speaking and when she's not. What did you make of the headshaking, the I'm speaking and I will not be lectured to by the vice president.

Well, if you remember, back to the presidential primaries when they were parodied by SNL, the the Kamala Harris character was constantly trying to create memes quite literally on those sketch, you would move her head into the shot and the background would be a famous meme. And this is something. But she's got a bit of a reputation for. She did it during the cabinet hearings. She did it during those debates. She does it on on the stump as well.

It struck me that that was scripted. I mean, she almost behaved as if she were debating Donald Trump. Now, that behavior from Harris would have been appropriate against Trump because his behavior was absolutely disgraceful. But pences wasn't I mean, irrespective of whether pences a gentleman or limp choose your own adventure. He's not Donald Trump. He doesn't interrupt rudely, try to shut people down, try to dominate the interruptions and crosstalk were fairly normal. And I thought she had decided ahead of time that she was going to keep doing that so that a certain subset, many of whom are in the media, would say, oh, look, you go girl.

But to me, it just came across as fake and actually weak.

Hmm. What did you do for me? I thought the exchange of the night was on the Supreme Court, and for once someone and it was Mike Pence really tried to push her on whether the Biden Harris ticket is going to pack the Supreme Court if they win, which is a huge, huge deal. I know we've gotten a short form in the media now, but the audience needs to understand, if they get in there and add three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is done.

It will be over as a credible institution in the United States. You're you're basically talking about rendering ineffective the leading court in the third branch of government.

It's a huge deal. And the fact that they keep getting away with dodging on it, when Kamala Harris said in the primary process that she is open to packing the court, she told that to The New York Times. So there she is on the stage. She gets asked about it. We have a little bit of the exchange. Let's listen to that.

Now, you've refused to answer the question. Joe Biden has refused to answer the question. So I think the American people would really like to know if Judge Amy Tony Barrett is confirmed as the Supreme Court of the United States. Are you Joe Biden, if somehow you win this election, going to pack the Supreme Court to get your way? I'm so glad we went through a little history lesson. Let's do that a little more. In 1860, I'd like you to answer the question yes.

And she didn't and then he tried again and she didn't, he tried again and she didn't. And even though she was saying, OK, let's talk about packing after the third time he tried to make her answer, what she answered was President Trump is deported 50 federal judges, not one of them is black. So we never we never got an answer, Charles. No. And a history lesson was false. MacLaughlin National Review pointed out last night, I'm glad you introduced this subject the way that you did, because I feel often as if this is talked about as if it were a minor policy dispute, excise tax rates or insurance reimbursement rates.

It's not this is an extraordinary proposal. This would be the most radical change to the American system of government in at least a century. When it was last proposed by Franklin Roosevelt, his own party didn't just reject it, but said this is tyranny. This is the worst thing that has ever been presented in the Senate. And bear in mind, his own party had three quarters of the seats in the Senate and in the House. He'd won forty six out of forty eight states.

So it's extraordinary enough that there are people in America in public office who are proposing this. But then not to say whether you support it or not is, I think, the biggest story of the election. Now, President Trump very often says terrible things, things that I have written against him on for four or five years. He's bad on the First Amendment. He hasn't done anything, thankfully, but he says terrible things about it. He says he doesn't know whether he'll accept the election result.

He dismisses the Constitution when it doesn't suit him. He lambastes the Supreme Court when it rules against him. This is bad, but it pales in comparison to this proposal, which, remember, would not just blow up the judicial branch, as you say, but as a prerequisite would blow up the Senate because you can't do this without abolishing the filibuster, which would change the way the Senate has worked for more than a century and put a lot more power to affect Americans lives regardless of the state they live in, in Washington's hands, without without mass by it.

So this is this is enormous. And I find it deeply, deeply alarming that neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris have a have an answer for it.

What did you what did you make about the moment? Another another moment that's making news for probably the wrong reasons is it happened when the fly went on Mike Pence's head and she was attacking him and President Trump on the issue of white supremacy again and once again, she said, you know, Trump stood on this debate stage on a debate stage and refused to condemn white supremacy, referring to the last debate where he was asked, will you condemn it? He said, sure.

Then they said, do it, do it. And then they get in the Cowboys exchange and then said reference back to his Charlottesville comment that there were, quote, fine people on both sides. To me, it's it is annoying because if you go back and look at what President Trump said about Charlottesville and what happened there that day, he did say there are fine people on both sides. And and he was talking about protesters who were there in response to taking down a Robert E.

Lee statue.

And his point was, some people don't like that. Some people don't like the scrubbing of American history.

And he went on to say that day, and I quote, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis in the white nationalists. I'm not he made that clear. But he gave them enough, you know, I don't know. He gave them enough that they've used it against him at every turn. And we see it in every presidential debate. And I just don't know whether anybody's ever adequately debunked it. Well, it's difficult to debunk because they keep asking and keep asking, and Trump, since he first entered politics in 2000, has condemned white supremacy about 20 times, mostly in unequivocal terms that he is Ottley on every topic.

Incoherent is not a man who, unlike Mike Pence, string's paragraphs together. But there's really no evidence that Donald Trump is a white supremacist. I think this is more of a media construction I noticed after the debate with Joe Biden. CNN went within about three or four hours from declined to condemn, to refused to condemn, to actively courted. This is this is narrative building. Now, there are times when Trump needs to be called out. Absolutely.

For example, when he criticized Judge Kyril and said that he would be unable to give Trump fair treatment because he was of Mexican origin, that was outrageous. That was racism. Yes. Think Paul Ryan called it a textbook example of racism. There's no need to invent or endlessly hype this. And I think it is alarming that they keep asking this question over and over and over again, even when they get an answer to it, rather than asking questions that really, really matter.

A good one to follow up with over and over again would be. What do you mean you won't necessarily respect the outcome of the election? That would be a great one to push and push on, because he said this now twice this year, and he said it once in twenty sixteen during a debate with Hillary Clinton. It's obviously not up to him whether he gets to remain president, but I want to know what that means in practice. And yet we fixate on this, which is really a chimaira.

Mm hmm. I've listened to you on the editors from National Review and one of the points you make about Trump is a frustration of yours with him is he's he's really not that eloquent. And right now, the past few months, we've seen America itself, the idea of America come under attack time and time again. It's systemically racist, the lies of the 16 19 project that it was formed in order to perpetuate slavery, things that they're trying to undo now quietly at The New York Times without being honest about their mistakes.

And Nicole Hannah Jones, who wrote it, saying that now there's a group pushing for her to be her Pulitzer Prize to be taken away.

But anyway, your frustration is you would love to see a Reagan type go out there and really defend some of these principles and talk about why they're important. In watching Pence last night, I thought he could be your guy. I sent out a tweet saying, you know, it's amazing to me how how much better Pence is than Trump at defending Trump. And you don't you don't need my PEDs necessarily, you need almost anyone who isn't President Trump. This is one of the real frustrations of the moment in that there is a strong case for President Trump as a check on an increasingly crazy left wing in America, a left wing that doesn't just consist of the Democratic Party, which has moved far and far and far away from the Clintonian era Democratic Party.

But but in the media and in academia and in Hollywood, there is an argument. Look, we need somebody who will act as a check on that. And it's just odd to me that it's Trump now. There's not much choice. Trump is the nominee. He is the president. But almost anyone else would first be more eloquent, would do his reading, would take it seriously, would watch his words, but two would care about his position.

Part of my frustration is not just Trump's in eloquence and unwillingness to work hard, but is that he is at the head of this movement of people who care very deeply about a whole host of issues. And he likes to present himself as the guy standing in the breach.

And yet he is so capricious that he seems unlikely to prevail. So, yeah, I'd much rather someone else with that who could do this well, but also would not waste his chance and alienate half the country with with stupid shenanigans when it really does matter who prevails in this fight.

To me, I thought Vice President Pence put some meat on the bones of the top line that we get from Trump. And it was interesting to listen to him and for him to drill down a little, pardon the pun, on things like the Biden Harris position on fracking. You he stayed on them. And I learned some stuff last night, which I can't say about the first debate.

Can I ask you about whether you think he's really not going to do this next debate? You know, that that broke this morning, that Trump is saying that apparently the presidential commission unilaterally said the next presidential debate is going virtual without consulting with the candidates in the campaigns, which is, if true, a problem. And Trump responded, that's pathetic. And I'm not doing it. So what happens there?

Well, it's difficult to try to get into Trump's mind, I assume he thinks he has some leverage here, which he does, although it's arguably worse for Trump if there's no second debate because Trump's losing and he needs to make up ground. And it would probably be better for him if the. More recent impression of the candidate in the minds of people entering the voting booth were at a second debate in which he was more respectful and more direct rather than that debacle that we saw last time around.

Trump's a guy who tries to negotiate every single question. That's how he operated as a businessman. And I assume that's what he's doing here. I hope it is because he needs that debate to have any chance, I think, of staging a comeback.

Yeah, I don't think there's any way he doesn't do the debate, but I am reminded of the two thousand fifteen sixteen election cycle where he was mad at me about my my question to him on the women at the first debate Fox hosted. And then he said, if I weren't if I was going to be pulled as a moderator by the next debate, he wasn't going to show up. And we thought our bill and right up to the I mean, we're talking 15 minutes before we went on air that night, Bret Bear, Chris Wallace and I were all thinking he's going to come he's going to come in underdog to save the day at the last second with a helicopter drop.

And we had a podium ready to go out on stage for him. And we all had questions for him and he did not show.

So anything is possible with him. As we have learned over and over, I mean, this is the story of President Trump right from the beginning, I didn't think that he would be the nominee. I think that he would be elected at every stage along the road. I thought, well, he must change. Surely he can't be this chaotic. Surely the office that he has won will change him. If I were president, which of course I can't be and I want to be, but if I were president, I would spend all of my time in the White House feeling as if Abraham Lincoln's eyes were following me around the room.

And, you know, the city is called Washington. This would have an effect on me, but it hasn't on him. He doesn't play by the rules. He's not going to change. You know, this is what you've got. So who knows? But it would be to his disadvantage to to put it in terms he would understand. It would be a bad deal for him if he backed out. Yeah.

And, well, one of the effective negotiation tactics in any deal is to be willing to walk away, to actually be willing to walk away, which I imagine he is. And he's played that card right away. And now we'll see that. I don't think the Commission on Presidential Debates is really known for its strength and and fortitude. So I'm going to guess they're going to cave quickly.

We'll see how. OK, lastly, can we talk about the polls, some of the polls that have come out? I just don't believe there was a Quinnipiac poll saying Biden's up 11 in Florida. I don't believe that in up 13 and Pennsylvania. I just there is no way Biden is up 11 in Florida. I just like no, even the Florida pollsters down there are saying no.

But he's also behind Trump is in virtually every poll in these major swing states. And now there are some reports that they may be scaling back on advertising in places like Wisconsin and even Ohio. So what is the state of the race today? I think Joe Biden is winning the race. The national polls are catastrophic for Trump. The state polls are closer. I mean, this morning he's still up half a percentage point over where he was at this stage in 2016.

And that's not because it's four years ago. That was the Access Hollywood tape. This has been broadly true for the last two weeks. Now, of course, you have to average those out. Doesn't do a much good if he's winning in one state, but getting blown up in another. But it is a lot closer at the state level. And those polls are really noisy. I mean, he's not losing by 11 in Florida. As you say, there is another poll in Florida recently that had it tied.

That was one two weeks ago, had him up for the same is true in Pennsylvania and Ohio, North Carolina and to an extent, Arizona. And oddly, the most recent poll out of Arizona has Trump only down two. So I suppose the answer to the question is, I don't know. But if you are down in pretty much every single averaged poll in every single state, you need to win. You're losing the race unless there is an astonishing mistake with the way polls are conducted across every single polling firm, across every single region.

And that was to some extent true with the state polls in 2016 and 2018. But I don't think it was true enough to have him winning if the race stays as it is today. The biggest question in this race is how big is the guy Trump vote? How big is it? And is it going to be enough as it was last time to get him over over the hump?

OK, so I want you to stick around.

Normally, I'd be saying a body now, but to stick around with me for one second, because we do this feature on the show called You can't say that it's a nod to cancel culture and say that you can't think that you can't be that. Oh, wait, this is America. So the late I want you to stay because you wrote my favorite column of the of the past month by anyone on this particular issue, which also caught my eye.

So here's what happened for the audience. There's a writer for Inside Higher Education who wrote a column called Why America Needs College Football. And it featured examples of how college football can can help Americans get through this this difficult time we're going through. Well, apparently, that's racist. And this guy, I guess, was forced to issue a very somber apology and he did it in a follow up column.

I'll just give you a couple of quotes. You get the feel. Here's a quote. I am sorry for the hurt, sadness, frustration, fatigue, exhaustion and pain this article has caused anyone, but specifically black students. I am struggling to find the words to communicate the deep ache for the damage I have done. I don't want to write anything that further deepens the pain experienced by my ignorance related to black male athletes in the black community at any time, but especially in light of the national racial unrest.

Your thoughts on that one, Charles? Well, I should start by saying that even if this person had written something genuinely offensive, this apology would be over the top. You know, this is redolent of. The sort of concessions you would expect from somebody under torture or in a Maoist apology camp. But what he actually wrote was that football might help us get through these uncharacteristically difficult times. College football holds a special bipartisan place in the American heart.

Vermont, he's writing this from Ohio State. This is not some random school. This is the football school. And he said in the piece that football gives players a platform to make statements about issues they care about. I mean, he mentioned racial equality. He talked about athletes kneeling to protest police brutality. He said colleges should empower athletes to do this. I mean, this was not some. Insane racist rant. This was a very normal, very well measured piece from a professor at Ohio State saying people in Ohio like watching football, it will be great when it comes back that it has spawned this apology.

It is baffling to me because, you know, you not only have to apologize, there has to be the period of self flagellation and it better be real, as Professor Matthew Mayhew just found out, your response, which I recommend as a read for everyone, I tweeted it out, but you can also see the National Review. This is a quote from your piece. This professor has managed to pen a piece of craven absurdity so perfect in scale and composition that it is difficult to imagine how it might ever be topped.

But this is what you have to do right now.

Maybe this guy will keep his job because he really, really, really bent the knee. He bent every knee and he's still on his knees. Yeah. And you know what I find so sinister about it as well is that anyone who is not sucked into this way of thinking can see the power dynamics that are underplaying it. In that as recompense for his saying college football is popular, he's promised to put himself under the tutelage of some other professors at the university who presumably will give him all of that correct opinions that he will now have to follow and say out loud, that's not what a university is for, and that's not why we have a free culture in the United States.

That is the opposite of an intellectual approach. And and the fact that his immediate instinct was to say, OK, I will go away, unlearn everything that I have ever learned. Again, what he has to unlearn is that people like college football and he will throw himself at the mercy of others who will tell him what is right. And then for the rest of his life, presumably he will hew to the ideas. I think that's terrifying, that that is that is the opposite of what we should want America to be, that we have to start standing up and just saying, I refuse.

I, I disagree. And I, I won't be saying what you want me to say. Charles, such a pleasure, as always. Thank you so much for being here.

I thank you so much for having me. Joining me now, Crystal Ball and Sagarin getI of Rising on the Hill Dotcom, which is well worth your time. You can see it on YouTube. Guys, thank you so much for being here. So let me start with you. Crystal, what did you think was the most important moment last night?

So overall, it was actually sort of weird how normal the debate was, like two very conventional, very traditional politicians trading talking points. And I think, let's be clear, no minds were majorly made up last night. It's not going to be a game changing kind of event. But I thought Carmella's opening answer, which she had clearly, carefully prepared about coronavirus, was her strongest of the night. And ultimately, I think is also what the election is going to boil down to.

OK, I think we have that. Let's listen.

What would a Biden administration do in January and February that a Trump administration wouldn't do? Would you impose new lockdowns for businesses and schools and hot spots, a federal mandate to wear masks? You have two minutes to respond without interruption.

Thank you, Susan. Well, the American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. And here are the facts. Two hundred and ten thousand dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over seven million people who have contracted the disease, one in five businesses closed. We're looking at front line workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over 30 million people. Who in the last several months had to file for unemployment and here's the thing.

On January twenty eighth. The vice president and the president were informed about the nature of this pandemic. They were informed that it's lethal in consequence, that it is airborne.

And she went on, I thought that was a strong answer to and I thought in general, her best stuff of the night was uncovered. Absolutely. And look, it's the top issue for Americans covid and the economy. She pulled them both together. And this is the reason why the bottom has fallen out of Trump's numbers. It's the first thing in his presidency where he really can't talk his way out of it. Mike Pence did the best job that he could defending their record, but honestly doesn't have a lot of a leg to stand on at this point, given how impacted people's lives have been and given the fact they pulled the plug on any stimulus this week, the moment of the night for her, as far as I saw it was it came right after that when she said to him something to the effect of how can you keep the country safe when you couldn't even keep your own White House safe?

And he said, we have boundless confidence in the American people and sort of put it on individual responsibility. And she responded, You respect the American people when you tell them the truth. And it's asking too much of them to not equip them with all of the information they need to protect themselves and their families. That she went back to the Bob Woodward interview. And that really was an important moment in this race in the Bob Woodward interview. It's not the fake news media.

It's Bob Woodward. With Trump on tape and Trump acknowledging for four months, I thought they're being unfair to the guy because a lot of doctors didn't realize how serious this was until we were a couple of months in a lot of really well respected medical professionals. And I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt. But when you hear him on tape saying to Woodward, I knew, I knew it, I know it's really bad and it's bad not just for adults.

It can be bad for kids. He's going down the list and then saying, but I'm I'm going to. The reason I'm not saying that because I want to keep people calm. And she, I think, did the right thing by trying to zero in on what she sees as the consequences of that. Yeah, I think that's right.

I mean, there was an open question like, is Trump just deluding himself as you just cherry picking data and like sharing what he actually thinks with the American people and is very misleading? Or is he actively like does he know better? And that's what those tapes ultimately revealed. And yeah, it was the first Trump era book, like all of these people have written these books to try to make lots of money off of Trump's infamy and whatever. This was the first one that actually landed because it was him on tape, because it was Woodward and because it was about an issue that people really actually care about.

Yeah, I mean, it is definitely what would happen with covered in the economy is absolutely what if Trump loses what cost him a second term? Saagar, what did you think about last night? Yeah, I take this view of even in the best of times, vice presidential debates are largely irrelevant. And look at us. We're already the morning after. And the main news is not about this debate. It's about the next one which the president says he's not going to participate in.

But we always have to remember that these are the two people who are one heartbeat away from the presidency. And so what I was really looking at are how do Mike Pence and Kamala Harris kind of conceive of themselves within the realms of their own parties? A lot of people were saying this is kind of the first debate for twenty twenty four. I think that's very true.

The thing that stuck out to me the most was about Kamala Harris theory of the Democratic Party.

She was talking and bragging about her coalition, and I expected her to be like, oh, suburban women and white working class men who felt betrayed by the president. No, she went all in on kind of trying to embrace these never Trump and more like neocons who frankly, I think created the conditions for this country and the for the election in the country for Trump's election in the first place. So I just thought it was we have that very revealing moment.

President Trump has several times refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. If your ticket wins and President Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power, what steps would you and Vice President Biden then take? What would happen next? You have two minutes. So I'll tell you, Joe and I are particularly proud of. The coalition that we've built around our campaign, we probably have one of the broadest coalitions of folks that you've ever seen in a presidential race.

Of course, we have the support of Democrats, but also independents and Republicans. In fact, seven members of President George W. Bush's cabinet are supporting our ticket.

We have the support of of Colin Powell, Cindy McCain, John Kasich, over 500 generals, retired generals and former national security experts and advisers are supporting our campaign. Yes, so you didn't think that was going to particularly speak to I don't know to whom Socrata disaffected Republicans?

Yeah, the way the way it plays to me is like you're trying to win over Nicole Wallace voter who's already voting for you or you're trying to appeal towards that type, basically that type of commentator.

And I just couldn't believe I mean, the only one of the only people who is less popular than Donald Trump is George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. And we're talking there about people who worked in his cabinet. We're talking about many of the people that led us into war in the first place. And if you could think of a single event, I mean, I think I boil it down to Iraq and two thousand and eight as to why Donald Trump is president of the United States.

And you're talking about people who played central roles in both of those things. I just I mean, you look and you see how she conceives of the Democratic Party within that realm. And I think that's very profound in terms of what the future of the Republican Party is going to look like to. Can I think of that? Go ahead, Crystal.

One thing that is remarkable in this race is that, you know, the the Trump Pence approach to attacking Carmela and Joe has been like, oh, they're these radical socialist lefties. Not only has that not landed, but it has actually their favorability. Both of them have gone up over the campaign. And you know how incredibly unusual that is. In that moment, there was an opportunity to launch what is, in my view, a more effective and more potent and more reality based criticism of Kamala Harris, that she is a tool of the establishment.

She's a tool of the donor class. She's the tool of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. We saw that in her record as California AG. Same thing with Biden. No one believes he's a radical leftist. Like I wish Megan I am a leftist. I want him to be that he is not and he's never going to be. And no one believes it. But he has been a tool of the corporate establishment. They called him the senator from MBNA because he did the bidding of credit card issuers in the state of Delaware.

That was an attack that could have landed. But the way that they've gone about this has actually bolstered the favorability ratings of both Comilla and Joe, which every time they they say Joe Biden is a leftist, Cristol gets little rainbows in her eyes.

I mean, look, I always know it's true.

So what did you think? We had a heated debate earlier. We were talking about Kamala Harris and her. She was shaking the head. And, you know, I'm speaking I'm speaking. Just as a quick aside. I was mentioning my Steve told me that I was trending on Twitter for saying take it like a woman, stop making faces.

May be stoic, like you can handle this. Like you don't have to interject with those kinds of faces. And the reaction to that tweet has been insane. My my team just told me that the actor Billy Baldwin just tweeted out, don't be gross, Megan. You sound like Harvey Weinstein. It's unbelievable. Well, you know, getting attacked by a discount.

Baldwin It's so troubling. I'm just sure why it. Spare me any moralizing, any mention of Harvey Weinstein from an industry that protected that predator for years.

And honestly, it's like Mike Pence was not raping Kamala Harris. Mike Pence was not threatening Kamala Harris his career if she didn't do what he wanted or say what it's like. He was saying things with which she disagreed. She reacted in a way that was distracting and to me seemed petulant. And neither harassed nor any woman is immune from criticism because of our gender. That's true equality.

That means we can take it too suspiciously as we give it and give it to you as the Rorschach test, because I thought the first time she did it, I thought it was strong. I thought it was assertive and and for me it was fine. And look, there are gender dynamics at play. There are race that that is all certainly true. And there's like a tightrope you can walk. But by the way, it's hard for a man to debate a woman in certain ways, too, because of those same gender dynamics when she kept doing it to me.

And just again, it felt a little rehearsed. It felt a little t shirt ready. And it was a funny moment. I watched the CNN coverage afterwards and they were talking a lot about this. And they were like, I think the audience is really going to feel that the moderation was unfair to Kamala and that she really got run over by pense. And then they put up the speaking time. She actually got more speaking time than Vice President Pence.

So, you know, there was like such a different perception of what happened than what actually unfolded, in my view.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Maybe it was just it was so nauseating to me watching like Dan Rather and MSNBC and all the immediately afterwards talking about this mansplaining moment. I mean, it's like you said, give me a break. If you're in the vice presidential debate, you're not immune from criticism whatsoever. And it was so obvious she had prepared the Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking line for like t shirts and, yes, clean mugs to be sold on the Biden website.

It was it was just a joke. So there's some woman I don't know her, but her name is Charlotte Clymer, and she's got some 300. Followers on Twitter who tweeted out your male buddies who thought pens won, they don't like women in power, sorry, it's so absurd to immediately play these identity cards when there's any criticism is absurd and people can see right through it. And speaking of media insanity, just looking at the headlines, apparently, Steve Schmidt, who is the the most I mean, he's the craziest never Trumper you ever seen.

He's like he he pushed Sarah Palin through as John McCain's vice presidential nominee and he's never forgiven himself. And the self flagellation that's gone on from that day to this is just it gains in intensity. But he just said to on MSNBC that the fly on Mike Pence, his head is a mark of the devil.

Seems like a really totally even handed and reasonable to make about it.

This is something we should be listening to, right? No, I mean, look, he's trying to sell books or linking project donations, whatever. That's what this is all about, money. And there's a lot of suburban moms out there in America who love hearing that. And they like former McCain staffer says Mark of the Devil, it really gets them going. But look, and actually, interestingly enough, personnel were just taking a look at some research, Lincoln Project ads, people like Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson and many others.

The ads that they're cutting are the least effective ads that are being run by Democrats, according to some new analysis we were looking at. You know, it's more effective talking about health care and the economy. What is so new? You know, they've raked in millions. They've raised so much money. And so, yeah, it's not ultimately about winning. And I mean, for me, it's depressing that someone like Steve Schmidt, who was a McCain person and the Iraq war and Sarah Palin and all of this is now some like liberal hero like what is going on still, just like Nicolle Wallace and Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, people are still plotting them off as Republicans as somehow like they're fair and balanced because they've got somebody who once had an R after their name on not so much.

OK, let's look forward. What do we think is going to happen with the with the next debate? Because now Trump is saying you can pound sand. I'm not doing a town hall debate virtually.

Yeah. I mean, I actually think it I'm not sure. Maybe because you interviewed people virtually. We do it every day. It's not I mean, the flow of the conversation versus in person is just so radically different, especially in the current age. Like you cancel somebody's mic if you're talking over them and however it would work. And it's also a town hall format. I think it's a real loss for a virtual debate. And I think Trump in his complaint, which was that they can cut you off, I think is correct, which is look, I think if Trump wants to go out there and behave exactly the same way he did last time, Godspeed, let him let America see exactly the case that they are making.

And those town hall debates have made for some famous moments in American politics. The H.W. debate with George W. Bush. I thought President Obama's 2012 town hall was a big moment for him. So if you look back through that, I think Trump actually can excel and has done decently in the town hall format in the past. So it's a bit of a loss. But I think he's going to stick to his guns. I don't think it's going to happen.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of a terrible landscape for him because virtual is not good for him. I mean, clearly, he will be diminished by that and they'll be able to cut his mike. And, you know, that may have served him actually last time because people obviously hated his debate performance ultimately in the way that he decided to conduct himself. But, you know, he only has a few weeks here to turn it around and he needs a big turnaround.

This is in twenty sixteen. The polls are way more in Biden's favor now than they were in Hillary Clinton's favor at that point. So we all want to go like, oh, about twenty sixteen. So this is a different landscape than what we faced last time around. People are already voting. It doesn't have many more opportunities to make something happen. This debate was one of the last chances that he would have.

Well, that was my reaction when I saw him at the last debate being so loud and interrupting and so on. I thought this is not the behavior of a man who's winning. This is it's a kind of tell. It's a tell. But I don't think there's any chance he he misses the opportunity to change his numbers. He's also he's a smart businessman. I mean, I realize he's had some business issues according to those tax returns, if those are real.

But he I think he understands that getting out in front of people is the way forward for him in terms of his his core supporters. I know, like Ben Shapiro was like, no, go back in the basement, go back in the basement, just let your policy stand. But I think in Trump's mind, he wants to get back out in front of people and I can't see him truly bailing.

And then it leaves the question of is there something about the town hall he doesn't want to do? And then he reappears for debate number three, right?

Yeah, I. I think that's definitely within the realm of possibility. Sorry, they can't talk now. So I on the podcast, I think I think it's definitely within the realm of possibility that we just see him in debate number three whenever covid and everything is cleared. And I think you're right, though, Megan. I mean, I, I doubt he would pass up an opportunity, but at the same. Time when he's the president, he can set the terms, he could say, I'm going to do a prime time address on the night of that, most people would cover it.

And I think that at the end of the day, he's going to have that ability. He did it with some success during the primary campaign in twenty sixteen. It kind of reminds me of that a little bit, his ability to manipulate and have the media, I mean, not even manipulate. Look, he's the president. Like whenever he speaks, the cameras are on, especially in the middle of a campaign. I think he has a little bit more of the upper hand here.

Last question.

Where do you put I'll just I'll phrase it like this. What do you where do you put Trump's chances of winning? Crystal, you first.

Very, very vanishingly low.

I mean, we've been talking to strategists, pollsters, looking at the numbers that are coming out. It is looking extremely bad and not like 20, 16 whatsoever. His attacks on Joe haven't landed. His attacks on Comilla haven't landed. He hasn't laid out look, in 2016, whether you liked it or not, you knew what the guy stood for and you knew what you're going to get if he was president. I don't know what he would do in a second term.

He hasn't made that case whatsoever. And to me, maybe the final nail in the coffin was pulling the plug on the stimulus as millions of Americans are absolutely struggling and devastated me in a suicide hotline, was trending on the sub, write it on our unemployment of people who have been who have lost their jobs, lost them permanently and are looking for someone to give a shit about. And that was lives. And he pulled the plug.

Then he muddied that with another tweet suggesting people might get checks. I mean, with so many as with so many things with Trump, I don't understand what exactly the next move is.

What where do you put the chances? Because I know like five thirty eight, Nate Silver Silver's got it. He's got a fifteen percent chance of winning. But I'll never forget going out there on election night in twenty sixteen. And it was the Washington Post saying it was something like higher than 90 percent that he was going to win. Right. Yeah, I'm always I mean, I'm sorry that she was going to win, that she was right. I always carried I've seen Trump, you know, he's wily like a fox.

I won't count him out just as much. I give him probably like one in five. But I think if he sealed his fate, there are two moments. February twenty twenty eight, downplaying the virus, comparing it to the flu. And a couple of days ago when he killed the stimulus, he can try and crawl out of the hole with the airline thing or trying to reinstate it. But he gave Pelosi the excuse that she needed not to strike a deal.

Millions are going to go without checks and without money, and now they've got somebody to blame. And that's a very strong reason to vote, not vote for him. Well, less than a month to go, guys. Thank you both so much.

Thanks again. Here's here's my question for you guys.

What do you think is Trump? He's he's so unpredictable. Do you think the second presidential debate will go forward? The town hall debate that's supposed to happen in about a week. You can actually at our show for the replies. It's at on Twitter at Megan Kelly Show, not the Megyn Kelly Show, just at Megyn Kelly Show. And I'd love to see some of your answers because I'm I'm baffled as to what his next move will be.

OK, I know what our next move is going to be. Tomorrow, we will be dropping our podcast with Candice Owens in a very revealing, really smart, interesting discussion. She's she's brilliant. As you know, she's only 31 years old. What that woman is going to do in her future, there's just no stopping her. But tune in because I think you're going to enjoy it. And I'm certainly enjoying being with you guys. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day.

Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No bias, no agenda and no fear. The Megan Kelly Show is a devil may care media production in collaboration with RedZone Ventures.