Did the Democrats just say the quiet part out loud?
Since Joe Biden ran for president against Donald Trump in 2020, the mantra has been that the Dems need to ‘save democracy’ from the existential threat that is Trump. If you’ve ever wondered whether or not those parroting the claim actually believe it, columnist and podcaster Ezra Klein just revealed the answer (hint: they don’t).
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by former acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell to discuss the surprising admission and what it says about the state of the media in the United States.
The Truth About Trump
Klein was on Tim Miller’s The Bulwark Podcast this week to discuss what he described as Biden’s bleak chances to prevail in November should he stay in the race. At one point, the conversation shifted to Trump and that is when the Vox co-founder-turned-New York Times columnist shocked Miller with this exchange:
KLEIN: You don’t know how the party can replace him. You don’t want to be blamed for any of this. You just stay quiet and walk the calm path to defeat. I think it is clear people are weighing the set of things. Like, ‘It would be quite unpleasant for me personally to come out against the president as an elected official in a Democratic Party and weighing what will happen if Donald Trump wins and saying, in a revealed preference way, ‘I can live with Donald Trump winning.’ And I’ve had people say that to me off the record, to be fair…
MILLER: Really?
KLEIN: …I’ve had top Democrats say to me basically something like, ‘I don’t know why all these Democrats who think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy are acting the way they are. But the reason I’m acting the way I am is because I don’t think that.
MILLER: Who the f–k is this? Who are these people? Out your sources, Ezra. I’m about to be in leaking text mode over here myself. That is crazy. I guess it’s consistent, but it’s maddening, no?
KLEIN: I find it maddening, but I do find it consistent. Look, you can say this is true in a lot of things, right? It’a charge Republicans always throw at liberals, which is that if they really believe climate change was such a problem, they wouldn’t fly on planes. And I think that people’s means ends are less connected than this…
Megyn called the admission “amazing” given the robustness of the ‘evil Trump’ narrative. “They lifted the dress up and under it they found a bunch of Democrats who are ready to vote Trump or at least don’t really find him that big of a problem,” she noted.
Media Matters
As Grenell explained, Klein’s comments “undermine” the ‘threat to democracy’ messaging the left has been hawking. “They’re undermining their message. They’re saying their message is not working,” he said. “Look what you’re missing through all of this conversation… they’re not defending their policies. They’re literally talking about everything else… They can’t get the Democratic Party to stand together, let alone the entire country.”
In Megyn’s view, the last two weeks have been “a little window into what life would be like if you had honest brokers in the media covering what is really important.” Yet she thinks it is but a fleeting moment. “It will slide back closed again just as soon as they decide who the Democratic nominee will be,” she added.
Grenell agreed. “Imagine a world where we just had skeptical media for both sides. We would be so much better off,” he noted. “One, you wouldn’t have Joe Biden at the top of the ticket because he would have gone through some sort of scrutiny in the beginning. And we wouldn’t even have Kamala Harris because, if you’re a California politician, you’re never scrutinized or vetted by the media.”
He was, however, willing to be slightly more optimistic about the future. “We have to have a world where the media absolutely does their job,” he concluded. “I hope that this is a moment that changes them… [because] we’ve got a generation of young journalists who are absolutely terrible at doing real journalism.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Grenell by tuning in to episode 835 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.