[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Below is the video of remarks made by Fox News personality and author Joe Concha at the Freedom Center’s Las Vegas Retreat. The event was held Sept. 11 & 12 at Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. Don’t miss it!
Transcript below.
Transcript:
Thank you. Now, it’s funny, my kids started school this week. We did a cruise last week and then, in Norway of all places, which is the most beautiful place on earth, I just want to say. Socialist, yes, beautiful also.
And it’s funny because, you know, and I share the story because I, I kind of want to like, you know, yeah, there’s more to the TV than just me. I’m also a husband to my wife Jean, who’s a doctor, ran track at Georgetown way back when. So I have the in-shape hot doctor, which is like, I don’t know what happened exactly, I don’t know how I got to this position, but it’s cool.
And I also have two kids, Liam, who is ten, and my daughter, who is 11, and it’s like, it’s freaky because my daughter just, she’s in middle school now, used to be in elementary school. So she started last summer. She went out of elementary school. She was Miley Cyrus and, you know, she was Hannah Montana and now she’s Miley Cyrus. Like, this morphing thing is really bad, trust me.
But it’s funny because I look at my son and I’m like, oh my God, you’re ten years old. Like, where did the years go? And I’ve shared this story with a couple of you that have been at a couple of my events before, but it’s worth repeating for the folks that are here.
I don’t know about you guys, but when kids are born, sometimes people pick out the name months in advance, which I think is a bad idea because all the relatives get involved and they shoot down every proposal. So we’re like, all right, let’s just wait for the baby to be born. And then when you know, he comes out of the womb, we’ll look at his face and say, all right, that looks like an X, right?
So sure enough, it’s a C-section, unfortunately. And the doctor pulls my son out of the womb and says, “Congratulations, dad. It’s a boy.” And I look down, I go, “And what a boy!” And the doctor says, “No, that’s the umbilical cord. You got to cut that.” Oh my God. Oh, I mean, he is Irish, that would not have made a lot of sense. That’s certainly for sure.
So then my wife goes and she’s Irish and Scottish and so she’s like, “Boy that looks like a Liam, like that looks like a strong Gaelic boy.” I’m like, “Yeah, Liam, you know I like those Taken movies. Liam Neeson, you know, that could work, right?”
But I’m looking at that jawline. I’m looking at those eyes. And I said, “Honey, let’s go, let’s go Brandon. Let’s go Brandon.”
And then she looks at me and says, “I don’t know. I got a real funny feeling about this.” Now, this was 2015. There was no Brandon as Biden, but she knew the hairs were standing on the back of the neck, no question. So we went with Liam. But it could have been just as bad with my daughter because when she was born, we did the same thing.
I said, “Honey, that’s a Karen.” Same thing. “I got a funny feeling about this too.” That was 2013. So yeah, she ended up a Cameron instead, and we’re all happy about that. On a serious note, I’m sure, you know, the other speakers – I’m sorry I couldn’t attend the other speeches before I flew in today. And then, of course, Fox calls.
The Will Cain show? And they’re like, “Oh, can you come on?” I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m in Vegas.” “Oh, don’t worry, there’s a studio right down the block from you.” Son of a –! You know, you can’t get away from these people, but you can’t say no either. And obviously with what happened with Charlie this week, Charlie Kirk, our friend, you know, when they want to have you on to talk about that, you don’t say no because he was such a monumental figure.
I enjoyed many great conversations with Charlie. I still can’t get over the fact that he was only 31 years old. And you think about an 18, right? Think about what you’re doing when you’re 18.
As a guy, I can tell you what I was doing. Let’s see what school am I going to? Which school is ranked in the top ten in Playboy? Most best party schools. All right, figure that out. Went to Maryland. It was number three at the time. You know what fraternity am I going to pledge? What’s spring break?
Am I going to go on like you’re thinking of, like, you know, pretty superficial things? And Charlie just had this higher calling right through his state to say, you know what? I don’t like the direction of this country. I don’t like being told that young people will never vote Republican or be conservatives. He goes, we just have to have the conversation.
We have to go to the campuses, which was seen as a foreign concept or a conservative on a, on a college campus. No way. And he didn’t care. Like he was completely fearless. And the fact that he started this thing is at 18 and before, you know, he was murdered two days ago. Three days ago, it grew to millions.
And President Trump will tell you that he probably flipped Arizona for him in this election, because he got the voter registration out that much. And obviously, Turning Point, is based in Phoenix. So I just find it amazing that, you know, I was asked not too long ago, who do you think the future of the Republican Party is?
It was a question that won an event like this. And reflexively you give the easy answer. Well, of course it’s JD Vance and Marco Rubio. That’s probably your 2028 ticket. I can’t see it being anything else, quite frankly, unless Trump runs again, of course, which is a profound possibility anyway. But then, you know, I kind of like added something I said.
I said, but keep your eye on Charlie Kirk, I say. He’s only 31, but picture Charlie Kirk 20 years from now, still in his prime at like age 50, and how big that movement is going to be then, because he’s only getting better. You see him in interviews. He’s an optimist and he reaches across the aisle more than anybody in this country, because at his events, he’ll call on people who disagree with him most and say, you guys go to the front of the line, I want to talk to you first.
I mean, the ultimate exchange of ideas. And he was he was gunned down for, for, for doing that. And I’m still, quite frankly, numb by the whole thing. But the media reaction that we’ve seen through this and the reaction of people that have like real jobs, like lawyers, doctors, professors, that people that work in your schools posting online giddy videos celebrating the death of a man who had a young daughter, a young son, a beautiful wife, Erica, obviously he’s still a son to his parents, and people in this country are actually celebrating it.
It’s sick. So I have this one video. I saw it on the way over here and I’m like, I got to play this for everybody. This is Nancy Pelosi. I’ll just play it and you guys can respond to it. Because finally a reporter asked her like, hey, should you guys tone down this rhetoric as far as calling the sitting president the United States Hitler a fascist, an authoritarian?
And here’s her response. People don’t have any intention of saying something that’s going to lead to something dangerous, but we cannot take responsibility for the minds that are out there and how they hear it. Oh, so you can’t take responsibility for your own words that may drive people to try to kill people or kill them? I mean, remember a year ago, tomorrow is September 13th.
What does that mark? It marks the I hate the word anniversary. They got to come up another word here because it’s not exactly something to celebrate. But that’s when a gunman sat outside the sixth hole at Trump International, West Palm Beach. I did a speech there actually back in May, and I walked to where the sniper’s nest was, and I could not believe that this guy, Ryan Ruth, who had a whole manifesto voting Democrat, saying that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, who must be stopped, which 95% of people take that as a guess at the ballot box?
Like we have to make sure he doesn’t get back in office. And 5% means stop, stop him. In terms of with a gun or with something else. And you look at the sniper’s nest, and this guy was there for more than 12 hours, 12 hours. And I talked about this in my book. Might as well put up the cover here.
By the way, since I’m going to transition to this, this is the greatest comeback ever, inside Trump’s big, beautiful campaign. I wanted a longer title. I mean, it’s, you no longer have Moby Dick anymore, right? You have to have a very long title for bucks. Brandon knows this, right? So in this case, I wanted the greatest comeback ever.
Inside Trump’s big, beautiful campaign ellipsis, unburdened by what has been, a nice little knock there. You got to get the whole thing there. Like, Joe, we got Trump on there. We got your name. We can’t fit it. So I had to settle for this. But in the book, I believe it’s chapter six. We talk about that second assassination attempt and just answer me one question, and you can no one walk the perimeter of a golf course that Trump was playing in?
And a guy could sit there for 12 hours with tactical gear, all this stuff, and you didn’t walk the perimeter. And then in a previous chapter, July 13th at Butler, Pennsylvania, no one thought to secure the one building that has line of sight to Donald Trump, a 20 year old kid, outflanked the entire Secret Service, outflanked local police, was able to fly a drone over the site a day before then, just to see where the best spot was.
And boy, did he find it and then was able to hide a high caliber rifle behind an air conditioner at the same building was able to scale. The building was able to be up on the building for a while and then a police officer. Finally, someone discovers that he’s up there. The police officer goes up there and, cooks.
The, the shooter turns and the police officer runs down. Fire your weapon. Hit him in a like, I don’t care what were you doing? So again, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I think you guys see me on TV. I try to be pretty common sense, but what happened in those two instances when you consider that they knew there was a threat in Butler and somebody decided to say, break a leg, Mr. President, we know there’s a threat out there, but don’t worry, we’ll handle it.
It’s fine. Who sent him out there and why? And then no one was. No one was fired after that. The the head of the Secret Service, he had to resign in shame, but still no one was fired. So you see this and you think about it, and then you see what happened to Charlie. And that’s a different situation, because obviously he’s not a presidential candidate or a president.
He’s a soft target, right? He’s at this university, University Valley, Utah Valley University. Excuse me. So they’re not going to secure the buildings. They’re not going to have snipers all around to make sure this doesn’t happen. But, you know, in cases like this, like my wife said, are you still going to do the speech? I’m like, yeah, it’s fine.
I mean, no, no, no, it’s going to happen. I’m not remotely on the level of Charlie Kirk in terms of visibility. She goes, but I’m afraid like there’s going to be copycats and they’re going to figure out you’re here and they’re going to take you down. Fortunately, we have we have Moose and Rocco that are here from security.
Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it. Don’t know if you ever saw Caddyshack. Hey, moose. Rocco, help the judge find his wallet. They look just like those characters. It’s amazing. That was my Rodney. It’s not bad, is it? I watched it with my kid a couple days ago. He’s a he’s a golfer. So that’s that. But overall, I mean, I, I’m just numb by what happened to Charlie.
But I do know that he will be. This movement will be bigger and better and stronger than ever as a result of this. And I just, again, we’re going to miss a ton. And I just wanted to, you know, acknowledge knowledge that, and by the way, it’s funny, I’ve read one quote from Charlie before I go.
All right, on on this topic, you said when people stop talking, really bad stuff happens when marriages stop talking, divorce happens when civilization stop talking, civil war ensues. When you have a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group or person. I mean, that was like strangely prophetic.
And he did an interview on June 29th. I don’t remember the podcast, but the interviewer said, when you die, how do you want to be remembered? And Charlie kind of like chuckled like, hey, I’m, you know, I just turned 31. Like, you know, I’m not going anywhere type of thing. The guy’s like, no, seriously, what do you want your legacy to be like a pretty, you know, ominous, you know, question?
Ask somebody when they’re 31 years old. And he says, I want people to remember me for most, for my faith. And that’s what’s always driven me. And in the end, the money is nice. Sure. But it’s all about my my God and my family. That’s one and two. And a distant third is all the other stuff that you know before.
So anyway, I thought I’d share that I’m glad to hear that. Ben Shapiro went on his show yesterday, and Ben does a lot of events on college campuses as well. And he said, if you think that I’m going to do anything differently than I have before, then I won’t say the word if you like. In other words, defiance.
Good, Ben. Good for you. So anyway, so that’s the title and that’s the book. And you see that, you know, when I interviewed Trump, he said, what are you going to go on on the cover? And, I said, well, why don’t you guess? He goes, you don’t seem like a predictable person to me. He goes, I bet you all your people, your publishers said to put on the assassination photo, right?
I go, yep, they did. He goes, but you didn’t do that, did you? I go, no, he goes, I have a feeling I know which one. I said, okay, he goes, it’s one of two. It’s either me and the garbage truck or me at McDonald’s. I go, yep, you got it. He goes, you know what you’re doing? Because I thought that this was so emblematic of the campaign that captured it right there.
You call somebody Hitler? And then there he is working the drive through and the fry station and McDonald’s at last check, like Adolf wasn’t doing that, like back in the 30s, right? Like, hey, I think I work at this fast food place. And in Germany, you know, whenever they have, like the version of Shake Shack. So this completely, you know, dismissed that entire narrative.
And we even saw it last night, you know, in the Bronx, Randy Levine, president of the Yankees, who was nice enough to get me tickets about a month ago through Larry Kudlow, which was nice. And I asked Larry, I said, my kids want to go to Yankee game, but I’m priced out of this. And he goes, you know, anybody?
And I didn’t know he knew the president of the Yankees. He goes, I’ll get you in touch with somebody. And then I get a call, hi, Joe, it’s Randy Levine. I got the guy who runs the Yankees, and he’s like, yeah, I’ll have tickets for you. Could also come to my suite. All this stuff. So generally nice guy.
So Randy has Trump to the Bronx last night and it was a rousing ovation. I don’t if you saw, you know, the USA chants and the whole thing and like you’re wild there’s hope because that’s Mamdani, AOC country, the Bronx. Right. And sure enough, you know, Trump got a great reception. But again, he’s he’s shaking hands with Aaron Judge and he’s with the Yankees.
He’s taking team photos. And again, the whole fascist thing kind of goes away. So he’s winning that argument, that narrative every time. And that’s why I went with that particular pitcher. And he told me that that was the most downloaded photo of 2024, which I found remarkable. I not the assassination attempt. He goes, no McDonald’s. So, you know, go figure on that one.
But that was the thing when I talked to it. Was it Chris Christmas of, you know, who was one of the campaign managers along with Susie Wiles. He said, you know what? I send Trump to McDonald’s. And that photo and those images of him, you know, waving goodbye at the drive Drive-Thru, he goes that those get hundreds of millions of views by the time it’s all shared and all done with Kamala Harris does a speech at the Ellipse in Washington.
It’s forgotten within two hours. Right? And meanwhile, she’s going on CNN. You know, where I think they have more employees than they actually have viewers at this point on CNN, which is not the cringe news network. Yes. And then miracle on MSNBC with Al Sharpton, you know, but she also donated $500,000 to his, nonprofit, foundation before the interview.
Like you have to pay off Al Sharpton to give a Democrat a soft interview. What are you doing? So that was kind of funny. But in the end, yeah, between the first and second assassination attempts and seeing what happened with Charlie, it’s a dangerous time in this country. And. And I was asked by Sandra Smith yesterday, she goes, do you think that this will be a turning point where the rhetoric gets turned down?
The answer is absolutely not. We’re already seeing it today where you have Dan Goldman. He’s like the poor man’s Adam Schiff in Congress. Louis may have worked with him. He was on the air today again calling Trump, a fascist dictator, who must be stopped like it took two days and they couldn’t even, like, let it go, not knowing that this is horrible for the country.
But the book begins in Wildwood, new Jersey, which was interesting because what is Trump doing in new Jersey? That’s a blue state. But, you know, he felt he could win it. So then I contacted the campaign and I said, hey guys, I’ve never been to a Trump rally before because I live in new Jersey, that he doesn’t come here very often.
You know, can I attend and go backstage, maybe talk to the president for a little bit or, you know, Mr. Trump? And they said, sure, Joe, not a problem. We’ll send transportation I don’t got. All right. Cuz I had like a 17 year old Acura at the time that shook. If you went more than 60 miles an hour.
So and you got to drive to Wildwood, which is like three hours away from me because I’m up north. So then I get an email after that, you will meet the Trump plane at LaGuardia airport at this terminal, I’m like, I’m going on the plane. The have you been on the plane? Yeah. It’s cool. Right? So you get on.
And meanwhile my kids had some sports in the morning. I was coaching, I barely ate, so I’m like, oh boy. All right. There were Trump steaks, right? He had Trump steaks. Maybe some lobster tips. I’m thinking like all these wonderful like foods that they’re going to serve on this thing. And then sure enough, Wendy’s. Tater tots. Cheeseburger, Coke.
Of course I’m thinking where’s McDonald’s? I mean, I thought that was a thing, but in LaGuardia airport, they apparently only have Wendy’s. They don’t have McDonald’s. So go figure about that. So then we fly down to, Atlantic City, and then we have to drive to Wildwood from there, half hour drive or so. And I’m in the now at this point, I’m in the, what’s that thing called again?
The what? Yet? No, I wasn’t in the beast, I was. It’s not the caravan. It’s called the motorcade. Thank you. Yeah, I’m. I’m very little sleep. Thank you for that. And so it’s the Garden State Parkway down there. Has two lanes. All right. And they close off one lane like the police do. And then the motorcade takes up the right lane, and you just go down that way or something.
I look to my left and there’s two women, like in a Ford Festiva, and they’re probably like 75 years old, and they look petrified, like, where are we? What happened? And I’m thinking the same thing. Like, how did they penetrate the motorcade? How did it go? How did the Golden Girls do that? You know, so then like, you see them and eventually police car like, kind of like veers them off and takes them off and they weren’t arrested or anything.
And you could just tell they were confused and that was that. But that was like my first sign. Like, that wasn’t the best security now was it? I mean, how did that happen? And then when we got to Wildwood, the stage was the background was basically the boardwalk where all the rides are. Right. Roller coasters and things above Trump.
And they left the rides running, which I found interesting because, well, why would you do that? Because then you’re above basically the state. You have a pretty clear shot and I’m thinking all these things. But remember Trump, this is before the first assassination attempt. So I’m thinking, well they got it under control. And then I’m like looking down the beach.
And I’m like I don’t think anybody’s actually being checked. Like there’s no metal detector here or anything like that. And the boardwalk is maybe 150 yards away. And I’m like, but the scope you probably, you know, up there where it’s crowded, I go, this is really weird. But then the worst part was above there was a plane just circling around a small plane.
But it said like, we love Trump, but how are you allowing a plane to fly over the stage? It was insane. So that that was the first chapter, which kind of like set up obviously what would happen later. And then a couple weeks later I flew down to Atlanta and that was the Trump Biden debate. And we all saw what happened.
You know, I was like a mike Tyson fight back in the 80s, like and within 90s you knew this thing was over. You know, Biden’s brain to turn to applesauce? It did actually, for the first book that we mentioned in the in the intro, which was, come on, man, the truth about Joe Biden’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidency.
Again, long title. I was saying in 2020, I wrote that book in 2021 that this is a guy that shouldn’t be nowhere near being a golf starter at your local golf club, let alone being the president of the United States, because you heard these things. He said during the primary debates like when your kids go to bed, make sure you turn on the record player for him and let them listen to you like this guy’s gone, you know?
And yet somehow he won. Go figure. So after that, you know, we saw what happened during that debate. And then think about the it’s the craziest three weeks I have ever seen in politics. And covering this for a long time, where there’s a debate and then Biden’s trying to save his candidacy. He does these interviews that do not go well at all.
And then on July 9th, because he’s getting desperate, he says it’s time to put Donald Trump in a bullseye, unquote. He said that, you know, it didn’t apologize for it only after Trump got shot. And he’s like, yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. So again, words have consequences. But, I’m at Fox. I’m about to go on the big weekend show.
It’s a show that I host from time to time, Miranda as well. And Miranda, you were there that night as well. It was me, you Chaffetz and Katie right. Pavelich yeah I think you were in makeup at the time right? I was the only one in the green room. And I’m watching kind of taking notes like he may announce that J.D. Vance is going to be his VP.
Some claim, you know, paying close attention. And sure enough, those shots rang out. Pop pop pop pop pop. And I screamed like, Holy shit. I think he got sorry about the language, but that’s what I said. I go, I think he’s hit. And then sure enough, he goes down. And then for that minute you don’t know what’s what’s happening.
And then suddenly, like, he gets up and you’re like, okay, I think he’s okay. There’s blood on his face, though. So that was, you know, really jarring. And then he puts up his fist fight, fight, fight. So when I interviewed him, my dad says, like, what’s the first thing you should ask him? I go, I’m, I’m going to ask him about that because you don’t know if there’s a second shooter there.
Like you’re exposing yourself like the Secret Service. The one woman that was in it, clearly he was towering above her. Like you’re a clear shot again. I said, Mr. President, what made you do that in that moment? He said, well, I knew my son was watching and I knew my wife was watching. And then you’re like, kind of paused.
He thought about it and he said, and I knew the country was watching, the world was watching, and I knew that it would be a sign of weakness if I didn’t do anything else in that situation. He says there was a stretcher that was on that stage that they wanted me to stay down and go on to, he said.
There was no effing way that I was going on that stretcher. I was going to say, fight, fight, fight. And you can see him saying, that’s it, right? So that was like a big reveal in the book. I never heard about the stretcher before. So yeah, that was pretty interesting. But then even afterwards, like you see the media coverage like a presidential candidate just got shot right on national television.
And the Washington Post headline was, noises ring out at Trump rally, forcing him to leave stage noises. I mean, it’s enough to make your hair hurt. It was incredible. So, you know. So again, May 27th Biden Trump debate. And then Biden tries to save candidacy. Trump gets shot. And then two days later it’s the Republican National Convention, which which I went to as well.
And it’s as if like it’s two days ago, a guy got shot and there he is walking out with a bandage on his ear. And then you watch MSNBC and you have a guy named Ari Melber on there who says, well, you know, this is really maybe a play for sympathy because, it’s a prop. So he, you know, he could probably appeal to more suburban women.
You’re listening to the prop where the blood come from, you moron. Would you have a ketchup packet like a handy Ottoman? Just, I mean, insane. And then Michael Steele, who was first Richard Steele. I always get the two confused. Michael and Richard Steele is the referee. That’s right, Michael Steele. And then he goes on. He goes, I want to see Trump’s medical records.
They haven’t released them yet. We don’t know if he got shot again. This is your this is national television right. So I, I, I went off on that. And then obviously he chooses JD Vance which I’ll admit I wanted two other candidates before JD. I wanted either Glenn Youngkin Virginia. So I figured he’s at 60% approval in a purple state.
And if Trump wins Virginia, you’re gonna have a very early night. And it seemed logical. And then Marco Rubio, I thought, was so strong in interviews. I had interviewed Marco just a couple weeks before that. I’m like, boy, he would be really good too. And then JD, my concern about him was in Ohio. The governor won by 25 points in the same race that JD only won by six.
I’m like, where all those votes going, you know, but you can’t think that way is what I’ve learned later it’s like because as you got to know JD story and you see how good he is now as far as like he’ll go into any media outlet. Especially remember ABC Martha Raddatz where she goes, well, it’s only a couple of apartment complexes that have been taken over by Venezuelan gangs.
And he’s like, are are you hearing yourself only a couple, you know, so he has exceeded all expectations. I asked the president about that. He goes, oh, he’s exceeded my expectations by 200%. And now you can never imagine anybody else but JD Vance being the 48th president of the United States. And obviously Marco is as the vice president.
So that’s that’s how that’s going to go. I would think it’s probably going to be Newsom versus Vance. And you should relish that matchup, because all you got to do is just go through the record and, you know, hair gel and nice teeth only get you so far. Trust me, I know. So that’s that. The meanwhile now Kamala has one decision to make now now she’s installed by the way.
So Biden drops out on July 21st, which really pissed me off because finally I got on vacation. I had not been on vacation. You guys say I’m on the air a lot, right? Finally, I’m in Cape May. Beautiful cape May. It’s July 21st. I put my phone down. I’m like, I’m going to leave it in the hotel room.
I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to read about anything. I got my book right. Some baseball book. I forgot it was, bottom of the 33rd, I think it was called. And I’m walking out. I got my wagon. Because when you’re dad and you have a ten and 11 year old, you have the wagon with all the toys, maybe a couple of beers or whatever.
Fine. But the wagon helps. And the minute I swear my toes hit the sand, my wife goes, he dropped out. Biden dropped out? Yeah, I’ll be back. Go back to the hotel room because I have a home studio, so I’m kind of like the break glass guy. Like, we need to get somebody on quickly, right? Like, prepare is on like a golf course for charity for a son somewhere, like, you know, it’s a it’s a Saturday afternoon or Sunday.
I forget what it was. There’s not a lot of people around. So they were calling me like, can you join? I go, I’m, I’m in Cape May. I’m not near my, my home studio. They said, don’t worry about it. You can take your phone. Just perched it up on something and then we’ll send a zoom link and we’ll go that way.
I’m like, all right, yeah, we could do that. That’s fine. Then I go to the closet, I’m like, oh, f I have nothing to wear. I didn’t pack a suit or anything. I got like a shirt from Banana Republic from like 2003. It’s just like horrible yellow, a whole bunch of baseball uniform. Like I collect jerseys and then like one other shirt that was kind of a button down shirt, but it was purple.
I’m like, in this moment, do I can I find something? So I went down and I asked, like the maitre d at the restaurant, I’m like, are there any, like, waiters here that have like an extra shirt that I might be able to borrow, just something presentable. And then finally Fox calls me like, oh, we were able to get I forget who like somebody big like Dana or Bill Hemmer or somebody like, oh, stand down for now, but we’ll probably call you later to come on.
Then I realized that there are no men’s stores within 40 minutes of Cape May, new Jersey. None. You know, Flip-Flops, fine Hawaiian shirt. Fine dress shirt. No, I found one at Marshall’s. It worked out well and found a tie as well. So? So that was that. But in that span. Presidential debate. Biden drops out, Trump is shot, JD Vance is selected, and Kamala Harris is installed.
Soviet style without one vote from the public. But yeah, they’re going to save democracy. Remember that. So then Kamala has this big decision she’s got to make, and the decision is, okay, well, who should I choose as my vice president? I got I got Shapiro in Pennsylvania who’s at 62% approval. I really need to win that state.
Or I can take I don’t know, a bunch of other people that are probably pretty qualified in this situation. No. I’m going to take that goofy 80 sitcom dad from Minnesota, the guy who put the tampons in the elementary school boys from. Yeah, him. Oh, did he lie about, you know, going into war? Yeah. He did. Did he get a DUI for going 96 miles an hour?
Not what he was, like, 18 years old, in his 30s while he was a teacher. Yep. That guy. There was no vetting whatsoever. So the one decision she had to make, she completely screwed up. And when I heard she selected walls, I didn’t say it’s over, but I’m like, that’s really going to hurt. Because if you saw interviews with this guy, I mean, he really is the goofy 80 sitcom dad.
Like, there’s the jazz hands and everything else. He was like, knew that was a bad decision. So that was a big, big moment in here. And then it’s amazing. Kamala goes six weeks without doing one interview. And when I say one, not even like the view calls. Nope, not doing it. Rachel Maddow calls. Nope. Not doing it. CNN, Dana Bash nope, not doing it.
Six weeks. They don’t allow her to speak. And that’s the irony is that’s what her polling was at the highest when you didn’t hear from her is actually a good thing, because in 2019, when she ran for president and didn’t even get to 2020, the minute she started speaking as the minute that everything went south. Yeah. So then finally, she does an interview and it’s like a media blitz.
So she does Colbert, Howard Stern, and then The View. And the most delicious irony in the entire book is the fact that The View ended her candidacy. Isn’t that great? Because Sunny Hostin asked a question, which this is the one question you exist to answer. If you had to do something differently from Joe Biden over the last four years, what would it be?
And she looks at the sky. She goes, you know, nothing really comes to mind. Like, my God, she actually said that she’s supposed to be the change candidate, and she wouldn’t change one thing about an open border, about inflation, about all these things. I mean, that was that was the end of her, no question. But then when the the knife really like, you know, twisted in terms of her candidacy was the Alisyn up there in New York.
Right. The Catholic vote, whoever wins the Catholic vote always wins the presidency. And she sends a video instead with with a woman named Molly Shannon, who was relevant during the Clinton years. So that’s not good, right. And she’s Mary Catherine. Remember that Saturday Night Live and she’s rubbing the armpits and everything, and they’re basically insulting Catholics on this video.
And at the Al Smith dinner at the Waldorf in New York on Park Avenue, she actually got booed in the deepest blue city in the world. I mean, it’s impossible to do. Meanwhile, Trump was like the Dean Martin of, you know, roasters at this thing. You know, at one point he said this was the best joke because, you know, Democrats keep telling me that there’s more than two genders.
And I didn’t believe him until I met Tim Walz. It was like perfectly timed, you know? And the crowd loves it’s Manhattan. It doesn’t matter. He he owns it at that point. And what else was there? There was oh. He goes out, there’s white dudes for Harris. He goes, I’m not really worried about them because they’re out of spite again.
Miranda. Oh, man, I should have wrote this down right. Oh, that’s right, he goes. The white Jews are happy because because their wives and their wives lovers are all be voting for me. Yeah. That’s right. I’m on two hours sleep. I’m sorry. And and then there was, Joe Rogan, who played a big role from a media perspective.
Trump goes on there, you got to go to Texas. Joe will not come to you. You got to go to his studio. Trump went down there, did three hours with them. JD did for Kamala Harris. Her campaign said, okay, you got to come to us because we’re busy and we’re only do an hour and we need the topics approved beforehand.
And Joe Rogan’s like, yeah, go pound sand. Like, no, I’m not doing that. You know, so that that was that was a huge moment as well when Trump would go on, Theo van and with, Joe Rogan obviously did a nice interview with Miranda a couple weeks ago. As a matter of fact, that was excellent. Good job for all the work we,
Then Madison Square Garden comes, and I went to that as well. Good. It’s close. And you walk in and I hadn’t seen that many people happy in one place at one time since my spring break in Cancun. I mean, it was a party, you know, I met a girl named Muffy on my Cancun spring break. I swear to God, I.
Yeah, and like, I didn’t think muffins exist today. Martha’s well before my wife, so please don’t. You know, delve into that very much. Anyway, so there’s Israeli flags everywhere, which was interesting, right? Again, this is the Nazi. But Israelis like the Nazi. That’s kind of weird. But then this, this guy, a comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe. Right? Yeah.
He is up five hours before Trump and he tells a joke how there’s a garbage problem in Puerto Rico, basically, which there is like it’s documented, like they have an overflow of garbage. They have nowhere to put it. You know, it’s a bad thing. So then you look at the media reports afterwards and this was like the RNC all in one night, right?
Tucker was there and Doctor Oz was there, and JD was there, and Dana White and Hulk Hogan and Megan. That’s right. Megan was there as well. Right. Our friend. So, yeah, I mean, this was like an all star thing. And I walked out of there and I’m like, boy. And by the way, when you walked out, there were 20,000 people outside, according to New York Post.
So 20,020 thousand out again, this is New York. It’s insane. So then I’m watching MSNBC on the way home, or at least the clips on on X, and I see that this was actually an ode to the Nazis. And here was the logic around this. And this is just so craptastic. It’s great. They said, because the Nazi Party had a a convention there in 1939.
Okay. Therefore this was a dog whistle to all Trump supporters that he’s having it there to tell you that it’s like Nazi isms in all over again, ignoring the fact that this is the place where Marilyn Monroe sang to JFK on his birthday. Happy birthday. Mr.. You know that that happened. Ali fought Frazier. The Knicks actually won championships in that thing.
The Rangers won one because they suck. I’m a devil, Stan. Sorry. And, you know, but overall, like, a lot of, like, crazy things happened there, including for Democratic National Convention. Right. And Hillary Clinton was honored there. And I could go down the line and they tried to connect this dot. And then they said, because of the Puerto Rico joke, that Puerto Rican voters were all leaving Donald Trump for Kamala Harris.
In other words, I know you hate inflation, and I know you really hate an open border. I know you really hate this foreign policy that gives billions of dollars to Ukraine with no end in sight. But you’re going to change your vote to Kamala Harris, because a guy you never heard of before told a joke about Puerto Rico.
I mean, I look back on this and it’s like, this was the most insane campaign you’ll ever see. So obviously that was nuts. And then two days before the election and Selzer who’s that retired now she is the pollster, the gold standard for the Des Moines Register. And every time she puts out a poll before an election, apparently you could take it to the bank.
All right. This is gold right here. And she said that she had in Iowa, mind you, Kamala Harris plus three a state that Donald Trump won by 14 points in 2016, by 12 points in 2020 and was leading Joe Biden by 18 points in May of 2024. But now, because Kamala Harris is on the ballot, it’s a 21 point swing in a state where Republicans basically outnumber Democrats 2 to 1.
I mean, this is insanity. And obviously this is not a poll that she just conducted. And the math came out that way. I believe that she was trying to manipulate something because that it’s one thing to go like five points here or there, 21 points. So, you know, laugh that one out of the room. Then election night comes and, you know, it was pretty and I’d say boring, but it seemed like it was in the bag early on.
And it kept getting these reports that the turnout in Philadelphia and Detroit and Atlanta was, was down. And the rural, places like Pennsylvania, Scott Pressler and all the Amish that he had registered, among other people as well, the lines were out the door and Trump wins North Carolina, if anyone’s Georgia, then they just go down one by one.
You have Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, all seven swing states. But the best part was on CNN, you have Jake Tapper and John King, and they’re at that, you know, the big map kind of thing. And Tapper says, are there any counties where Kamala is outperforming, Joe Biden in 2020? And he goes, no, not one. And Tapper goes, not one goes, well, there may be one in California later, he’s like, oh my God.
So overall, Trump made 89% of counties in this country, more than blue, 89%. I mean, this was a complete bloodbath. And in the end, it’s almost as if, like the cool kids triumphed over anger, right? And they were supposed to be the Joy campaign, Kamala and and goofy. And instead, you know, it was actually Trump that was having a good time with McDonald’s.
And then, you know, obviously Biden compares Trump supporters to garbage. So what does Trump do? He finds a garbage truck in Wisconsin and then gets dressed up like that. Like totally outflank them in every way, shape or form. So, in the end, you know, we we now have d I is dead. Right. The S&P hit another high today.
What is 46,000 something. Thank God I bought Nvidia two years ago. Oh my god. But but seriously overall I mean the stock market’s at record highs. Obviously we’re we’re seeing more peace in the world Ukraine Russia. That’s a complicated one at least. But at least Trump trying and not just throwing money at the problem in, in perpetuity.
Gas prices are way down. At this point, the guy is now dead. Men playing against women in sports is not a thing anymore. So we’ve had, like a cultural shift as well. We see the deportations going on, like with the Democrats mascot, Kilmer, Abrego. Garcia, and more people are for deportations than ever before.
When back in 2020 or 2016, that was not the case. So Trump is winning the narrative at this point. Meanwhile, the two most popular Democrats right now, according to Gallup, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and they’re on this Fight the Oligarchy tour. We’re going to fight the oligarchy, which no one talks like that. Right? That was like a bad Larry David doing Bernie Sanders.
But all right, I tried my best. I’m Catholic, what can I say? But anyway, so but it’s funny because I go to these rallies and AOC and Bernie fly private $15,000 a pop. I take the middle seat on JetBlue with always two overweight people next to me. It’s like a conspiracy. It happened again coming out here. Thank God I was exhausted.
I just slept, but but in the end, you know, you have them voting against protecting women in sports, voting against the Lake and Riley Act. How could you vote against that? Like you can vote with Republicans sometimes it’s okay. Like maybe protect the women in this country from being raped or murdered by those who are here illegally. I mean, this is not conservative versus, you know, liberal.
This is just common sense stuff. And they keep going on the wrong side of every 80, 20 issue. I mean, they couldn’t even stand for that kid during the state of the Union, 13 year old with terminal cancer, terminal cancer. And Trump honors them and they all sat on their hands. I mean, this is a party that is leaderless.
It is rudderless, and they have no idea what to do at this point, including what the reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder. So anyway, that that is my spiel. That was my speech. And now we’re going to open up to question and answer. Thanks so much, everybody.
Hi, Aquarius here. If you want to know what my sign is, I’m Aquarius. We’ll start off with some light ones. Boxers.
Audience question:
Yeah. So we we’ve been watching for the last 25 years while the left is, has gradually expanded and dramatically expanded the debt with a little help from us, dramatically expanded regulatory power. And now they’re about to pack the Supreme Court. The trend, the long term trend is for growing government power, growing debt, growing abuse of power. Trump can reverse it for three years, right? Maybe Vance can reduce it. But how do we long term, what’s the long term strategy for doing what Ronald Reagan talked about or even what Trump talks about for taking power out of Washington and giving more of it back to the people?
Joe Concha:
Reducing, ultimately, if you want to reduce the debt like Doge was great and they found a lot of screwed up stuff that we’re spending money on. But Social Security and and Medicaid, I mean, these are things that are just sucking our money, like out until you fundamentally change those two things, then you’re not going to be able to ultimately reduce the debt in the way that we have to in order to protect the future for our kids and our grandkids. But the problem is, no one has the political will to do this.
I mean, no one wants to touch that. And even Trump has said, I’m not touching Social Security. I’m not touching Medicaid, because the minute you do that, you lose elections. So that’s that’s the choice. You could try to do that. And then if you don’t have the votes to do it, and we see Mike Johnson has what, a three vote margin in the House I mean really two, when you consider Thomas Massie is a perpetual no on everything.
So yeah, that’s what’s got to be done. But I don’t see who has the political will to do that. And then eventually Social Security won’t be solvent. It’ll it’ll it’ll go belly up, and then we’ll continue to take care of people, including illegals that we absolutely should not. So at least Trump is trying to with, with Medicaid kick off people off those rolls who are here illegally, who should not be getting benefits from our tax dollars.
But it’s just not enough. I know that’s not like a very optimistic answer, but it’s kind of the real one, you know? Thank you for your question. That was excellent.
Audience question:
Thank you. Great presentation. You woke us all up. Could you comment on, on tariffs? Some of us, for a number of years have been reading I think it’s called the Wall Street Journal. And, we, we read it because it’s a supposedly a conservative outfit. That makes some sense. But, these days it’s going, south. And Trump is using tariffs as a geopolitical, tool to deal with the world and the problems of the world. My other conservative friends read the New York Times, and they’re very worried that we’re going to lose the next election, because of tariffs and what it’s going to do for the economy. Just comment on that?
Joe Concha:
Okay. April 2nd of this year, when Trump declared, that the tariffs had begun, in essence, the day of liberation, the Dow Jones Industrial, by the end of that week, went down to about 37,000. It’s now at 46,000 and change. Right. In other words, it has gone up considerably. So we kept hearing that tariffs are going to put our country into a recession.
And that hasn’t happened. Right. So I, I think there’s supposed to be have this horrible effect. And he has made some great deals with with many countries. Not not enough at this point. But in terms of the midterms and that election as the economy goes, that’s where the Trump agenda ultimately goes. In other words, if Democrats don’t have to do great in the midterms, they have to win four seats.
That’s it. And historically, that usually happens to the party in power. So if the economy is is going in a bad direction or not, even in only an average direction, they probably win back the house. And then the problem with that is that then you have House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and then perpetual impeachment proceedings on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
And then the Trump agenda is essentially stopped. Right. So we have to get everything done now. Or they could actually defy all odds and hold the house. But I’m not terribly optimistic about that, because what we see is that the Trump magic is not really transferable. And I know this because 2022, we had inflation that was high. And Joe Biden, already 75% of Americans were questioning his mental acuity.
And it was supposed to be a red wave, a tsunami in the house. And they barely took it back and they couldn’t even take back the Senate. So I wonder, like, you know, whatever votes Trump gets, for whatever reason, he can’t seem to convince people, okay, if you voted for me here, also vote for this candidate in this district.
It just doesn’t seem to carry over. So I got two answers that are horrible in terms of the future. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. Like, oh, somebody said something. Hi. Yeah, I did too. It was a goddamn Joe. Wrap it up. It’s 45 minutes. I want to hit the casino.
Audience question:
So, the reason 2022 that I believe, is because of the abortion issue and the emotional, got all a lot of women riled up. That’s my body, my choice. And I feel that’s the reason the 2022 election.
Joe Concha:
You’re right. My body by choice. Except for Covid. Then it’s not your body. Your choice anymore, right? No, I agree with you. It was hot button at the time. They they leaked that Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade.
And now we’ve seen since it’s settled in. Right. Basically like Kansas and Ohio had referendums whether to make abortion illegal in their states and red states still said no, we want to keep it. So I don’t think abortion is really going to drive it. I don’t think Democrats can say that word. It’s still they go with this whole we’re here to save democracy from the fascists.
Like, that is just so old already, and it doesn’t really resonate. So then you have to wonder, all right, what what are they going to run on? And I still don’t know what that is, but that means Republicans have to go on the offensive and share all the successes that Trump’s had. And here’s where we were in 2023 under Joe Biden.
And here’s where we could be in 2027 under Donald Trump. You can’t just say the other side sucks and vote for us. You have to have here’s what if you give us two more years in the House and control the here’s what we will accomplish. And then I think they have a puncher’s chance, no question about it. Oh, I have a funny video I want to share, by the way.
I don’t want to waste that. Right. So I interviewed Trump for my book. It’s the last chapter, and I mentioned that to him that my wife ran track at Georgetown Division one. One point in the country is just like ranked third or something like that. Again, I have no idea how this happened, but fine, it’s a benefit.
Certainly. And so I mentioned this to him, like, boy, she’s not a political person, but she was really upset when she saw Lia Thomas. Right. The guy who has legs like Saquon Barkley, like, you know, winning, swap meets at Penn and getting on the cover, sports illustrated, all that. It’s like, okay. She’s like, enough’s enough.
Like this should not happen. You don’t know how hard it is to get a Division one scholarship. And, you know, she was totally on board in terms of getting more and more involved. So I mentioned this to Trump. So then when we go down to Mar-A-Lago for New Year’s Eve, he invites us down. We end up getting a seat at his table.
There’s like 500 people there, you know, even like Don Jr. And Eric didn’t have a seat at the table. You know, Roger Stone’s like, off here. I’m like, I’m getting a seat. All right, this is cool. Know with the wife, but it’s really loud. So you could only get like maybe three minutes with the presidents at one point.
Like, it looks over at me and he goes, come on over. I’m like, all right. So I go over my wife Jean’s right behind me, and, he goes content. Great job. Is this the runner? Like, I’m not there anymore. I go, yeah, and the doctor I go, yeah. He goes, wow, I wouldn’t want to run against you.
You’re still in pretty good shape, aren’t you? He’s got like this nice black dress on. He’s showing off like, So they end up talking. So I talked to Melania the entire time. Like, is that Versace? You know, like, what am I going to talk about? You. That’s what it was I guess somehow that one. Yeah. And I’m like, it was Barron here, you know.
How is he? I saw Eric and Don before. They look great. And meanwhile they’re just chatting away. So we go back to our seat and then the YMCA comes on and Trump at one point like he gets up, he’s doing the YMCA. Elon Musk is next to him. Melania’s there. And he spots my wife out of the corner of his eye and watch what he does.
Oh. Mr. Trump, and here it comes. Oh come on, come on. Oh, here we go. Now, what do you do in this situation? You know. So there you go. Sorry, I because you wouldn’t mind, would you? I said if we could swap. That’s not a problem at all. The swingers thing. I have never really been into it, but let’s do it.
So anyway, so we end on a happy note. Mike, what do you think? Thank you guys, and take care. Whoo! Off to the craps table.
