Join Eric Hansen as he delves into a week of intense political drama on the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. From Zoran Mamdani’s chilling rhetoric as New York’s new mayor-elect to Dick Cheney’s impactful legacy, this episode uncovers the layers of political narratives reshaping America’s landscape. We explore the rising influence of controversial figures like Nick Fuentes and dissect how Tucker Carlson’s provocative platform fuels political discourse.
00:28:22 Kevin McCullough’s Perspective on Election Results
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. It’s Friday, November 7th, 2025. I’m Eric Hansen, and this week, Tucker Carlson gets into and out of trouble, sort of. Plus, Congresswoman Nancy Mace blows up and Zoran Mamdani wins the race for the mayor of New York. Let’s begin with the socialist mayor-elect of America’s biggest city.
SPEAKER 03 :
I settled in to watch Zoran Mamdani’s victory speech. And it was like, this is like right. I don’t mean to laugh because my heart breaks for cops in New York and business owners and Jews and people, white people. He’s not real fond of white people. the rage came out last night, and it was chilling. This is like a Batman movie. I keep saying it’s like the Joker won the mayor’s race in Gotham City. He’s a Batman villain. There wasn’t any smiling last night. Listen to this guy. I’ve got to give you a taste of this if you missed the victory speech, because people are saying, wait a minute, what happened to the nice smiles and the warm fuzzies and the funny TikTok videos? We thought he was a nice guy, and it’s all… He gets up on that podium and I have expected, you know, him to do like a metamorphosis, like change into this creature. Because here was the angry, raging Zoran Mamdani. I guess the real Zoran comes out after he won the election.
SPEAKER 05 :
Trump can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him. It is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one. So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know Just as Donald Trump does. That when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, no smiling last night. All those smiles, gone. He really is the perfect Batman villain. I mean, it’s like right out of the movie.
SPEAKER 08 :
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most controversial political figures of the 21st century, passed away this week. Our special correspondent, Roger P. Shulman, joined the show to remember him.
SPEAKER 03 :
The former vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, has died. He, of course, served two terms as vice president under George W. Bush. He died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease. And already social media is sort of blowing up. with commentary about what people think of the Cheney dynasty and the Cheney legacy. It’s no secret that Mr. Cheney and particularly his daughter Liz, the former Wyoming Congresswoman, We’re no friends of MAGA or Donald J. Trump. Let’s bring in our newsman, Roger P. Shulman, and get this kind of this formal announcement. Roger, I have to comment. Before the show today, you and I were talking in the hallway, and you and I were both surprised. I really thought he was 90, 90-something years old, 84 years old, relatively young man. I thought he was older than that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, I did, too, because he’s been in the news in politics since 1969 when he started as a congressional intern. He was a congressman from Wyoming for about 10 years. Then he became a defense secretary. He was vice president. He was in the administrations of Wyoming. Nixon and Ford, and he, of course, was vice president. He was a heavy smoker in his youth, and he had his first heart attack, first of five heart attacks at age 37. And even with the problems he had with his heart and other difficulties, he was a top man, a very, very important man in the administration of George W. Bush. In fact, they considered him the COO, chief operating officer of his presidency. Now, he had a successful heart transplant in 2012, and he lasted this long. He also had a pacemaker for a while, and he was so afraid that the terrorists would hack it and send him a fatal shock. He had the remote control of that device disabled. So he was also in various locations during the attack. The terror periods, he and the president were always separated because of the possibility of a terrorist attack. And he was always kind of thought of as a Machiavellian person controlling things from some dark hole somewhere. And he kind of liked that. He thought it was better than being highly publicized. But he was highly publicized in the end and was a very influential member of our government for many, many years. before his dislike of MAGA and of President Trump.
SPEAKER 03 :
Roger P. Shulman joining us from the newsroom. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Tucker Carlson brought podcaster Nick Fuentes on his show this week, which stirred up a lot of controversy. Our video producer Christian Russell stepped up to the microphone to help us make sense of it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Christian, you and I have been talking a lot about this whole Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens thing, and you’ve got a really good interpretation. How old are you? Remind the audience how old you are.
SPEAKER 06 :
Actually, I’m going to be over the hill next month. I’ll be 30. I turn 30 on Pearl Harbor Day.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. So get ready for Medicare. It’s knocking on the door. Christian is a 29-year-old New Yorker. You tell me about your take on the whole Nick Fuentes phenomenon, because you’re the one that I kind of lean into and I rely on to help me understand what Gen Zers are thinking and feeling and saying. And look, you’re the one that’s pointed out to me, this guy’s a lot more popular than us boomers want to let on.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, well, so I think I’ll first start with the idea of censoring someone like Nick Fuentes. One, so his whole platform and popularity grew out of him being deplatformed and censored. So he’s the first person to not be verified on X to have a million followers. That happened a vast majority of that while he was deplatformed and censored. His Rumble, he’s the second most streamed person on Rumble behind Alex Jones. Both of those people, you know, deplatformed, censored, taken offline, kind of had all that accomplishment without any kind of perpetuating by mainstream media, quote unquote, whatever that means. But all that to say that this popularity existed before any sort of highlighting by like Tucker Carlson or anybody like that. And now it’s just Streisand effect. Now the more that we’re highlighting it, it’s perpetuating a cycle of popularity. But the reason that Nick Fuentes and people like him are popular in the first place is because they’re taboo provocateurs. It’s edgy and it’s cool. It’s like punk rock, you know? It’s underground and it’s something that… is created with the mythos of it, the more that that’s fed into it, then the more it’s paid off. And it’s ironic and cool and edgy to be into it because it makes people PO’d. People want… The reaction. We live in a reactionary society now. So the more of a reaction you could get out of Randy Fine or Ted Cruz, the more dividends you’re paying to the power of a Nick Fuentes. So it’s kind of like an ironic shakedown by internet trolls, you know? Continuously making someone like Nick Fuentes more… Powerful. Somebody like Tucker Carlson’s platforming of him isn’t necessarily making him more palpable. It’s honestly just proving the point that Internet trolls can get under anyone’s skin. And that’s the power that they that they really have, the cultural currency of internet.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I’m thinking about your description of Nick and Candace and other even Tucker, I guess, to a degree as provocateurs and that edginess, that tabooness, that that’s what makes them popular. But in a way. To kind of bring this thing full circle, it’s kind of Trumpian. When you think about it, Trump, right? I mean, Trump came along and was edgy and said taboo things and talked about the media in a way nobody ever had. And they tried and they did their best to deplatform him.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s the – like, as a young guy who, like, leans right on some issues, you know, like, one thing I really liked about kind of, like, the conservative Republican Party was the idea of not squandering people based off their ideas and their speech. Yeah. So, I mean – I’m not a perfect case example of anything, but I do think I speak for a lot of people my age where it’s like that’s one thing, especially during COVID, where the Republican Party did well was to not censor and stifle speech and people. And these kinds of things done by like the kind of party apparatus is sort of a signal thing. the exact thing that is appealing for people like me.
SPEAKER 03 :
So it’s a double-edged sword. And you agree with me, I take it. The way to handle this is to engage, not to try to continue to deplatform and silence people and stifle them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah, totally, because the more you try to just cover it up, the more anyone’s interested in watching it. Like me, I never really cared about Nick Fuentes, but he’d pop up, and he’s an engaging guy. You could watch his clips and understand what people find funny about him or whatever, but then… It becomes oversaturated when it goes, I don’t know, on the mainstream, I guess. It becomes less interesting, and I don’t care. No one really cares except for the people that are really into it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, yep. All right. Thank you, Christian.
SPEAKER 08 :
New York Magazine ran a piece this week on President Trump’s deportation policy. It may be the ideal example of media bias.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yesterday, I’m on the plane coming back from Israel, and I read… New York Magazine. Cover to cover. Cover to cover. The trap at 26 Federal Plaza. If you’re watching on Salem News Channel, there’s the cover. And it was page after page of pictures of families crying, women thrown to the ground. You see? Are you watching right now on Salem News Channel? The amazing spectacle of ICE officers ripping families apart, sending people to Lord knows where. And it was a narrative that three journalists put together for New York Magazine that if you read it without the benefit of any other counter-narrative, you would be absolutely convinced we are living in the 1940s. we are witnessing a tyrannical, horrific abuse of government. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow night in the mayor’s race, but of course this timing is not a coincidence. To have a magazine like New York Magazine come up with this kind of a narrative really got my attention because The thrust of the whole coverage is the cruelty of families who just show up at the immigration facility in lower Manhattan, in 26 Federal Plaza, thinking that they’re just happily doing what they’re supposed to do, and they get sentenced to a hearing date by an immigration judge saying, And they’ve got their baby strollers and they’ve got their children and they’re holding kids by the hand. Mom and dad, just the happy families are showing up for an immigration proceeding. They get a date set, maybe 2026. One date I saw was in 2029. And then when they walk out of the room and they’re in the hall, They get scooped up by ICE officers. And they’ve got nicknames for the ICE officers. One of them is a young woman who doesn’t wear a mask typically. Her nickname is Icicle. And I think there’s a picture of her, if I’m not mistaken, in this big profile in New York Magazine where she’s sucking on a lollipop. Like a villain from a Marvel movie. You know, like an action movie. You’ve got good guys and bad guys. And to New York Magazine, the good guys, the heroes, are the illegal immigrants who are simply going down to fill out their proper paperwork, get a hearing date. And the bad guys is the law enforcement community scooping them up and whisking them away. And I’m telling you, if you read this, like I did on the airplane yesterday, If you read this magazine, you would be convinced that we are living in a dystopian, horrific, dark, ugly chapter. Now interestingly, when they talked about these illegals who are being processed in these federal immigration courtrooms located on the 12th and 14th floors, nowhere in the article of the people being detained or put in detention, nowhere does it ever say what these people have done. In other words, there’s no explanation about why. And the article says we don’t even know why. Some people are targeted and others are not. They quote Icicle, the young petite ICE officer, as saying we’ve got to find more people to arrest. It’s like filling quotas. Now, in a way, we all saw this coming when President Trump campaigned on a promise of the biggest, most comprehensive mass deportation effort in American history. I mean, this is not new. But as we predicted, now the media is doing its part to villainize this mass deportation effort. Despite the fact that a majority of Americans still agree with it, There’s no question that there’s a segment of our population, particularly young people, who see things like this New York Magazine article, and they say, oh my gosh, I can’t be a part of this. Let me give you some good news from my pillow because every day I get to tell you about this great American company. And I asked the team last week, hey, it’s November. All the Christmas ads are starting. People are going to be thinking about what to do for Christmas. Can you give me a big discount for my audience? How’s 80% grab you? Whoa. 80% off the MyPillow, the body pillows, the bolster pillows, the Made in America socks, the toppers, the mattresses. You’ve supported MyPillow for years. And if you want to step up and enjoy Christmas shopping online from the comfort of your home, then go to MyPillow.com. Look for that Mike Gallagher special square. Click on the box. And when you enter the promo code MikeG, you’ll see the savings come right off in real time. Up to 80% off at MyPillow. How about that for an early Christmas present? From our team to you. Go to MyPillow.com. Look for that Mike Gallagher special square. Click on the box. And then with anything you order, enter the promo code MikeG. MyPillow.com. Promo code MikeG. MyPillow.com. Promo code MikeG. Or call 800-928-6034. 800-928-6034. Promo code MikeG. Sing along with me. For the best night’s sleep in the whole wide world, visit MyPillow.com.
SPEAKER 08 :
Promo code MikeG. This is the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. I’m Eric Hansen. We invited our frequent guest host and South Carolina native, Joey Hudson, on the show this week to answer a burning question. What is going on with Nancy Mace?
SPEAKER 03 :
Can you kind of take us through this and explain? If people are seeing Nancy Mace popping up on their social media feed over this airport incident, give us the Joey Hudson perspective over what in the world went down.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, here’s what happened. According to Nancy Mason, as you mentioned, she had a news conference yesterday because this thing has just blown up big time. She was going to the airport last Thursday to catch a flight, and there’s a provision, according to her, it’s a federal statute, that a member of Congress can request to be met and taken through a special entrance to the gate. Basically, it’s where the airline crews and the employees in the airport enter the airport. So according to her, and she released text messages, screenshots of text messages from her staff where they had requested this with the Charleston airport. Now, evidently, there’s a back story there, too. She must not care too much for the airport executive or whatever because she mentioned him several times and even said in the news conference yesterday that if she’s governor, people like him will be fired. He will not be an employee. But they had prearranged for her to be met at the curb and walked through, escorted through the airport. When she arrived, no one was there. So you see her on the security camera, which was released, walking into the main entrance of the airport. Then she walks down through the terminal, and she’s at the gate by herself alone. And so she enters, and by that time – Some security folks, TSA folks, catch up with her. But she is confronting them. Now, there’s no audio on the video, so we can’t hear what she’s saying. But according to the incident report, because she was written up, and by the way, Mike, if you and I had acted the way she did, we would have been arrested on the spot because you just can’t confront TSA agents the way she did on Thursday. So eventually they showed up. And she accused them of targeting her and not taking her security seriously. And according to her in the news conference yesterday and according to the incident report, she dropped the F-bomb multiple times and just basically called them effing idiots and that they were incompetent and that type of thing. So she was asked about her language yesterday. And here’s what she said. Did I drop the F-bomb? I hope I did. Did I call them effing incompetent? If I didn’t, they absolutely earned it. She’s not backing down. She’s digging in.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, Joey, is the word erratic being used to describe Nancy Mace’s reaction to this? I think I’ve seen like 400 posts from her on X alone.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, erratic is probably one of the more kinder adjectives being used for Nancy Mace right now. People are just scratching their heads thinking, what is going on with her? Because you just don’t act like that if you’re a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a candidate for governor. People don’t really know how to respond to this.
SPEAKER 03 :
I guarantee you this benefits her competition in the crowded gubernatorial field. And let me just say this. Let me just get this out on the table right here and now. I can’t speak for you, Joey Hudson, but me, I’m Team Pamela Evatt. You know, I’ve known her over the years. She’s been Henry McMaster’s lieutenant governor, correct? And I think this benefits Pamela Evatt, does it not?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it certainly should. If Pamela will just kind of stay out of it, let Nancy implode, I think she’ll be fine.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and Pamela Evanscott, we saw her at the event that you had at Hudson Farm. Now, it’s a crowded field, right? Ralph Norman’s popular. There are a whole bunch of people. Who else is in that field?
SPEAKER 04 :
Our Attorney General Alan Wilson is running, and then State Senator Josh Kimbrell is also a candidate, yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, all a bunch of good people. They’re all a bunch of good candidates. But look, I’m making news. I officially endorse Pamela Evans. I hope that’s not the kiss of death. I hope that doesn’t hurt her. I hope it helps her. But she’s been a good friend of the show, and I’ve watched her work. She’s a rock-solid conservative, and she’s the real deal.
SPEAKER 08 :
After Tucker Carlson angered many on the right with some nasty comments about so-called Christian Zionists, he decided to make some amends.
SPEAKER 03 :
I saw this clip of Ben Shapiro tearing into Tucker Carlson, calling him a bad friend, a bad person. Here’s a big op-ed by Douglas Murray in the New York Post that, you know, Tucker’s awful. And all because he platformed Nick Fuentes, the… The young provocateur. Douglas Murray writes, just a few years ago when the podcaster was pretending to be friends with President Trump, Tucker Carlson was caught privately saying of Trump, I hate him passionately. In September, another person that Carlson claimed to be friends with, Charlie Kirk, was shot dead. Carlson used the aftermath of his friend’s assassination not to demand that the suspect be prosecuted. He didn’t seize the moment. No, he chose to use the occasion to deflect attention from the perpetrator seized by the FBI and return to his pet obsession, the Jews. So, of course, the accusation is that Tucker is an anti-Semite. Now, all of this is pretty regrettable. I kind of hate to see this But there is a real presence of young anti-Semites like Nick Fuentes that are captivating a lot of young Americans, a lot of young people who are turning to them for guidance or clarity or direction. And we can’t ignore this. Got to talk about it. Got to discuss it. We’ve got to tackle it. Evidently, the pushback that Tucker got over his insulting Christian Zionists was so intense that he apologized for it. Or maybe he just had an awareness that it was bad. And it was bad. He said he hates Christian Zionists. Well, here he was yesterday on the Part of the Problem podcast. I believe that’s podcaster Dave Smith. Here’s what Tucker said about his description of Christian Zionists.
SPEAKER 07 :
But I just want to say at the outset, because this has been weighing on me, I did say something that I really regret saying that I didn’t fully mean. I said it because I was mad, which is always when I say I don’t really mean when I get pissed. My wife’s always telling me this. I was snippy and I didn’t explain it. And I said something to the effect of I despise Christian Zionists. And I’m just sorry that I said that because I don’t. I’m mad at a certain kind of thinking. Some of the nicest people I know are Christian Zionists, actually. You know, if you’re in a car crash, they would save you. If you need someone to watch your bank account, they wouldn’t steal from you. They’re like really good people and sweet people. I want to be very specific quickly about what I was talking about. In a couple, at least a couple of different occasions, the Israeli government bombed churches in Gaza and killed a bunch of Christians. And not an accident, of course. And this is like a very high tech military with precision. I mean, they, you know, gave gave pagers with bombs on them to Hezbollah. So like this is this a military, the National Defense Institution that understands what it’s doing. They didn’t accidentally bomb two churches and kill these Christians and they never apologized for it. And so I brought this up with a couple of Christian leaders, including the Speaker of the House, and said, like, what is, you know, how can, we’re paying to bomb churches? Because we’re paying for it. And the response I got from every single one was the Bible commands us to support Israel. And I said, so Jesus is telling us that we need to get on board with murdering Christians? Is that what you’re saying? And they basically were just like, shut up. And I found that extremely, as a Christian, extremely upsetting. And I’ve never kind of gotten over that. But I should have said that. That’s what I was talking about specifically. We cannot support the murder of innocents. I don’t care what the pretext is. That is not allowed in our religion. And if it is, then it’s not my religion. That’s not what the New Testament says at all. It’s not even a close approximation of what it says. There’s no justification for that. in the New Testament, period. So I am distressed. I don’t hate. I shouldn’t have said despise, but I’m very distressed about that. And that’s specifically what I was talking about. So I just want to apologize dearly for not being clearer.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Now there’s a lot to unpack there. And finally, after the GOP’s disappointing results in Tuesday’s elections, conservative columnist and talk show host Kevin McCullough put things in perspective.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s important not to fall to despair. And I’ve got to share with you this brilliant column from Kevin McCullough. Kevin wrote at town hall, the verdict is in. It’s ugly. Democrats didn’t just win. They ran the table last night. And these aren’t your mom and pop Democrats. Oh, no. These aren’t blue-collar workers who believed in God, family, and the dignity of hard work. Look, my parents, if I can digress from Kevin’s column for a moment, were blue dog Democrats, Irish and Lithuanian products of legal immigrants who were Kennedy Democrats. They wouldn’t recognize the radicalization of their party. Kevin writes, in New York City, an Islamic radical who openly fantasizes about wiping Jews off the map, confiscating private property and socializing groceries, won by a majority of votes. Think about that. In the greatest city in the world, Kevin says, a metropolis that once symbolized American aspiration and pluralism, a man who despises the very foundations of the republic, now speaks out. for its citizens. Over in Virginia, the story gets darker. The new chief law enforcement officer once mused online about putting bullets in the brains of his political opponents, murdering their kids, urinating on their graves. That’s Jay Jones. Now he’s the face of justice in Virginia. California, the laboratory of leftist decay. The voters there passed a gerrymandering plan that will lock in one-party rule, cripple its already failing economy, and accelerate the great exodus of normal, sane Americans fleeing America. for freer soil kevin mccullough writes it’s like watching a once beautiful mansion rot in real time while its owners toast the termites for their hard work if you squint hard enough kevin writes it almost feels biblical and you know why it’s because it is This is biblical. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about a time when people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Sound familiar? It’s because we’re living in that precise time right now. A moment when the moral compass is so inverted that people celebrate what destroys them. They mock what could save them. They don’t choose love or justice. They embrace hatred, chaos, bondage, violence. But here’s the good news. Paul didn’t just diagnose the darkness. He offered a prescription, a solution. He told Timothy, remember the truth, the real truth, not the shifting social media approved nonsense of the day. Kevin writes, as tempting as despair feels, believers don’t get to surrender. We don’t get to pack up and retreat to the hills. This moment is when real courage is born. God doesn’t call us to win elections. He calls us to be faithful witnesses, to hold fast in the line of truth, even when the votes don’t go our way. What do we do now? Kevin McCullough, in this brilliant analysis at Town Hall, says, we remember what is eternal. We re-anchor our lives and families in the only foundation that cannot be shaken, ever, ever. Tonight, he said, don’t curse the darkness. The truth here is simple. America isn’t suffering from bad politics anymore. We’re suffering from bad theology. We’ve traded in the author of truth for the authors of confusion. That’s Zoran Mamdani. It’s confusing to see this guy last night on that podium raging and spittle flying out of his mouth and just filled with contempt for anybody who sees the world differently than he does. He was smiling. He always smiled. He was such a nice guy. Yes, policies were kind of kooky, but, you know, he probably would try to unify, right? It’s confusing. We’ve chosen in America, as Kevin writes, to call evil good and good evil. And the ballots simply reflected that choice. But today, don’t wring your hands, fold them in prayer. Don’t rage at your neighbor. Invite them to know the one who still redeems broken people and nations alike. Because one day, the ballots won’t matter. The headlines will fade. But truth will remain. And when it does, may it be said of us that when our culture lost its mind, we didn’t lose our mission. Kevin concludes by writing, that is our profound observation and our challenge, that when a nation forgets God, remember him all the more. When truth is mocked, speak it louder. And when darkness wins the night, live so brightly that morning has no choice but to rise.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that wraps up the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast for Friday, November 7th, 2025. Be sure to subscribe to all of the podcasts and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the show, be sure to share it with a friend. I’m Eric Hansen. We’ll see you back here next week on the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast.
Join Eric Hansen as he delves into a week of intense political drama on the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. From Zoran Mamdani’s chilling rhetoric as New York’s new mayor-elect to Dick Cheney’s impactful legacy, this episode uncovers the layers of political narratives reshaping America’s landscape. We explore the rising influence of controversial figures like Nick Fuentes and dissect how Tucker Carlson’s provocative platform fuels political discourse.
