Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist and The Epoch Times Senior Editor-at-Large Roger Simon in-studio to report on Chris Christie’s covert speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition event in Las Vegas and presidential prospects for a missing Gavin Newsom.
Leahy: We are broadcasting live from The Star News Network Studios in Washington, D.C. Our National Political Editor, Neil McCabe, is with me here in Washington. Back at our Studios on Music Row in Nashville, Grant Henry, the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report, and my good friend, my former boss at PJTV, Roger Simon, the senior editor at large for The Epoch Times.
Roger this Republican Jewish Coalition event out in Las Vegas that you attended. Chris Christie, I don’t know, somebody invited him. He gave a speech that landed with a thud. Tell us about that. And Donald Trump’s reaction to that speech.
Simon: I don’t know about Donald Trump’s reaction to that speech, but I don’t think he’d have to react because it didn’t matter. As I said in the early times, I was glad when it ended. He gave a covert anti-Trump speech. And it wasn’t so covert.
But what he did was he spent most of his speech saying, we have to look at the future and not look back at the past. Meaning Trump was wasting his time looking at the previous election.
Actually, though, Christie, all I can say to him is patooty. Forget him. (Laughter) But I think Trump may have won the last election. I won’t mince words about that. But on the other hand, he’s spending a little too much time addressing it. It’s a both-end situation.
The rank and file of the Republican Party should be looking at it because election integrity is the most important issue for our country going forward because we haven’t had election integrity maybe in the history of this country. It’s something to really look at.
Leahy: Absolutely. You were out in Las Vegas, but that’s not too far from your old stomping grounds in California. Was there a sighting (Simon chuckles) of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who has not been seen since October 27 when he got his COVID booster shot?
Simon: No, I didn’t see him at the craps table. (Chuckles)Â Well, I won’t go there, but it reminds me of a very funny story. When I was about 25, I was actually shooting craps in Las Vegas and there were some guys at the other end of the table, about four or five flamboyantly dressed black guys who looked like they were members of their group, the Mothers of Invention. Remember that?
I’m thinking, well, this is cool. I’m shooting craps with Mothers of Invention. But the real person who I was shooting craps with was, you know how they have paging in the casinos? All of a sudden it came up paging Mr. Jesse Jackson. And it was Jesse Jackson shooting craps.
Leahy: There you go. But what has happened to Gavin Newsom? He was scheduled to go to this climate conference in Scotland.
Simon: So important. You know those conferences are so important. I actually went to one in Copenhagen covering it for PJTV. I went to one that was in a blizzard believe it or not. Everybody. Nobody talks about it.
Leahy: At the last minute he cancels it. At a press conference Tuesday he claimed that it was because his kids had an intervention. But he was able to go to the wedding of the great-granddaughter of J. Paul Getty, which was officiated in San Francisco by Nancy Pelosi.
Simon: I have a question about that wedding. I hope they were wearing masks.
Henry: No, of course, they weren’t. (Laughter)Â
Simon: That was what we call a leading the question.
Leahy: Rules for thee, but not for me. But what is Gavin Newsom up to Roger Simon?
Simon: You know what I really think he’s up to? During the break, I was talking about this. I think he’s going to be the, believe it or not, Democratic candidate in 2024.
Leahy: So you think he’s going to run for president?
Simon: Yes. Because they can’t run Kamala or the president at the moment. What’s his name.
Leahy: What’s his name? Oh yeah. I forget that guy cognitively challenged Joe Biden, as I call him the grifter in chief.
Simon: That’s a good name for him.
Leahy: Do you like that name?
Simon: Yes. Except a grifter has to do stuff. I don’t think he’s doing anything. I think it’s all coming through the same kind of earphones I’m listening to right now.
Henry: Yeah, it’s being given directives, and he’s just following the master.
Leahy: I think you’re right. Grant Henry, what do you think the odds of Gavin Newsom, the Where is Waldo governor of California that he will consider running for the Democratic nomination for president?
Simon: Consider? Don’t lead him.
Henry: And I’d say, look, they’re fairly high. I don’t think any Democrat is being misled or hiding right now that Joe Biden is an ineffective leader. At an absolute minimum, he’s an ineffective leader. And he’s arguably not the person running the country right now.
Something has to happen. You look at Gavin Newsom. He has a family pedigree. He has all the right last names and to steal some of Roger Simon’s thunder here as he said this during the break when we were talking.
Look, he survived the Larry Elder scare, okay, so he’s demonstrated already that he can get the financial backers and he can actually run somewhat of a competent campaign. He’s young, he’s good-looking. He’s got the jawline for it. Do you know what I’m saying? All the things are fitting in there.
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: I’m going to bring in Neil McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network. He’s plugged into what’s going on in Washington at a national level. Neil McCabe, what do you think of the odds of Gavin Newsom often missing governor of California that he might run for president?
McCabe: Well, if he doesn’t want to run for president, it may be forced upon him because they’re in a panic right now because Kamala Harris is looking like the airhead apparent. The Daily Mail is reporting this morning that she was talking to French scientists on her trip using a Pepe LaPew accent.
Henry: Is that a real story? Are you making it up?
McCabe: I guess she felt that they would understand better with a French accent. But why not? She grew up in Canada. So she puts on that southern accent when it’s appropriate.
Gavin Newsom, he also has his own challenges. Larry Elder gave him quite a scare. And unfortunately, Republican staffers and consultants have no idea how to handle the abortion issue…
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Roger Simon” by Roger Simon. Photo “Chris Christie” by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo “Gavin Newsom” by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0.
Biden has ruined any chances of another Democrat getting elected next term. But, of course, never underestimate the Republican’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Nominating an establishment type RINO like Christie would do just that. The dude belongs on a treadmill, not in the Oval Office.