The Joyce Kaufman Show 1/15/26 - Hollywood activist, Marco Rubio the President in waiting, Elon Musk, US Military uncovers Iran's defenses and more

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight and unapologelic, with your host, Joyce Kaufman. So I can't stop myself sometimes from just laughing because... Very often I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who sees this and who has figured it all out. And then I realized that's not true. There are a lot of people who see things similarly to the way I see them. And some of them make very compelling, you know, commentaries or arguments. And it's just, it's amazing to me. And I get such a kick out of it when I find somebody else say what I've been thinking even better than I could say it, which is rare, but it does happen. And right now there's a piece by Alexander Larman in The Spectator. I think it's the Spectator World, so it's the international version, which I love, but it's not. always relevant to my show or prep. But there's a great piece in there. And he said he made the compelling case for actors shutting up. And you know how I feel about these actors and actresses. It's not that they don't have a right to use their platforms to say the things that are important to them. Of course they have a right. But do they not realize? That their hypocrisy when they use the platform like a Golden Globes award show is glaring. And people like me aren't going to tolerate that. You can't be a social justice warrior behind your bodyguards and your Bentley and your $20 million house. It just doesn't work that way. There are some social justice warrior types. that you really do listen to what they say. I can think of a few, not many, but what's her name that was married to Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie. Whether you like her or don't like her, whether you disagree with her or agree with her, she kind of lived out her social justice lifestyle. You know, she lived in, I mean, she had multiple homes, but she didn't. live as lavishly as some of these people do. She adopted all these children from Africa and Asia and she's raising them all. Although I kind of wonder about the way she's raising Shiloh. But for the most part, if she wants to tell me something, I can at least see that she puts her money where her mouth is. But these other ones, they're just horrifying. So Claire Foy, who is an actress, she did an incredible performance in The Crown. And just recently, she was interviewed by Harper's Bazaar because she has a new film, Aches for Hawk, which is an adaptation of the Helen MacDonald memoir. And I guess she thought she was just going to get an easy ride. Everybody loves her.

And even though that magazine usually does give the left an easy ride, you wouldn't think of it as being an investigative magazine or hard-hitting questions or anything like that. But she made some remarks that have blown open the whole question. of what the point is of actors getting involved in public discourse and whether they should or whether they should just stick to reading the script. Read the lines that have been written for you because you're not as bright as the writers. How about that? Foy said when she was asked about her public opinions that it was not her place to sound off on social or wider issues. She commented what I believe and who I am and where I stand on things is constantly in flux as much as it is for everyone else. And I have absolutely no authority to discuss or proclaim about anything other than what I do as an actor. So if you're just making noise for the sake of it, then you should probably shut up. And so I tend to shut up. Those are actually pretty nuanced, intelligent words from a pretty intelligent person. She has not parlayed the career success that she won with the crown. into, you know, being a Marvel superhero like, you know, what's his name, the Hulk there. You know, she didn't do that. But instead, she continues to make interesting and kind of original films. She did First Man. the Space Odyssey movie, all of us strangers. She's probably someone who people would listen to if she started offering her opinions like an Angelina Jolie. And the fact that she has explicitly disavowed her ability to do so without suggesting for a moment that she's some sort of limited bimbo who doesn't have strong views is pretty refreshing. and a big shift in an industry that has a bunch of blowhards. As long as they say what they perceive to be the right thing like Ruffalo, Hulk, you know, the hard left, they've got to have hard left views, which would have the actor canceled if they were on the opposite end of the political spectrum, right? If you said the kinds of things on the right that Ruffalo said on the left at the Golden Globes, Probably be the end of your career. Nobody can say that Claire Foy is a conservative. They can't say she's a right-winger. They don't know. She refuses to discuss her political opinions publicly. But don't think for a minute that they are in any way unorthodox or extreme.

What is and what isn't acceptable in Hollywood is continually shifting. And there are some people emerging who are interesting. You know, Kiera Knightley, who recently gave like a pretty incredulous kind of response to the people who criticized her casting in a new audiobook version of Harry Potter. She said, I think we're all living in a period of time right now where we're all going to have to figure out how to live together, aren't we? And then it was, you know, widely, probably correctly, seen as her mocking all the people who, you know, took up arms against rowling. And overnight, she became a heroine for turfs. and a hate figure for the woke. It may have made her life easier if she just take a leaf from Foy's book and get quiet. Actors have always had political views. And believe me, the John Wayne's and the Charlton Heston's campaigned just as hard for Republicans as most of the Hollywood stars do for the Democrats today. The difference was in the era of John Wayne and Charlton Heston, holding different opinions to your neighbor was unlikely to lead to the end of your career. While you should not read too much into Clarifoy's statement, other than it being a sensible and overdue acceptance of actors need to shut up and avoid waiting into issues that don't concern them, the fact that someone has finally said something that obvious is a rarity in the entertainment industry. She should be applauded for it. That's all. So I love the fact that she was showcased by Alexander Larman for being just right on the money. She said, that's not my business, not my job. There are plenty of people like me out here doing that. I wouldn't try to star in the queen. How about that? That's really what's amazing. is that nobody who does what I do for a living expects to be taken seriously if they try to capitalize on what little celebrity or fame they have and do something that they are totally unprepared for or ungifted at. You know, I love to sing, but I can't make records. It's just, it was just nice to see that this Claire Foy is so able to articulate what should be obvious to all actors and actresses. That is not your lane. Stay in your lane. That's all. If some people, I was watching a movie the other day.

And Sean Penn was in it. And I was immediately repulsed. He just came on the screen. And it looks like he's probably playing a really interesting part. It looks like an interesting movie. But I said to my husband, I don't want to watch this. Sean Penn is in it. Like, I don't watch movies with Robert De Niro in him. Just I can choose not to. And it's not that I'm canceling them. Everybody else can go to their movies, but I just, I find them repulsive when they say things like F the president. No, you know, I don't need the Whoopi Goldberg in my life. What's her name? The one up in Ireland, they're Rosie O'Donnell. They can all keep their opinions. Or go ahead, share your opinions, but don't expect me to pay to see your movies or watch your TV shows. All right, let me take a quick break, a quick time out. Don't forget to download that 850 WFTL app. Put it on your phone, your laptop, wherever you want it. You could be listening to podcasts and getting breaking news, all that good stuff with that app, or just check out our website, 850WFDL.com. I'll be right back. So the other interesting piece that it was also in the Spectator world was not the same edition, but I think one that came. later, more recently, was Ben Dominich, who's married to Megan McCain. I don't get that, but whatever. Wrote a piece pretty much saying what my husband and I have been saying for the last three weeks, and certainly it's one of the hardest things for me to say. But... What Donald Trump has been able to do for the last year around the world, this Don Monroe Doctrine, as people are referring to it, is really kind of passing over JD Vance and turning Marco Rubio into the president in waiting. And believe me, that is a tough one for me to swallow. I have to be fair. And Marco Rubio has been a superb Secretary of State. He's turned out to be much more of a fighter than I expected. He's certainly on the right side of international geopolitical issues. And he articulates their position. really better than Trump is able to, better than anybody. And the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is now the best version of himself. He's like the laid-back Gen Xer of the cabinet. And I remember when I was slated to work with a congressman, I thought this congressman was just the grade and was going to go places and all this other stuff. I couldn't have been more wrong. But he told me that Marco Rubio was going to be the Shining Star. And then he also told me that Tim Scott would also, you know, have a very storied career. And I poo-poohed both of them. And today, I have to say he was right.

It's probably the only thing he was right about. Think about the incredible amount of, well, sophistication just to get a dictator detained and transported alive out of Caracas. I mean, that mission was literally planned, mapped out for months. They worked it and reworked it. And it was because that's what Donald Trump wanted. That's what the commander in chief was calling for. And he was specific. There will be no American casualties, won't tolerate them, special forces, use them, get in, get out, and be ready. When I say, go, go. And, you know, amazing. The helicopters that were all around Maduro beforehand really were there to set it in motion. There must have been a lot of nervousness and a lot of worries because this was a very risky mission and just one little piece could have gone wrong. But just a couple of hours before it started, you saw Marco Rubio sitting calmly. He's sitting at a table in Mar-a-Lago, and he's singing along to Pitbull and throwing up his hands at the chorus of Fireball in a celebratory mood. There he is, the American Secretary of State, constantly memeable, always on his phone. What an incredible journey to this moment, right? Once he was ridiculed for his high-heel boots and his, he had that robotic talking at the debates, he was the... the ordained inheritor of neo-conservative dreams. You know, he was posing with Nikki Haley and Trey Gowdy and Tim Scott in South Carolina, which was like the last establishment gas before the reality of the 2016 cycle set in. But Marco Rubio has remade himself into something interesting. His wit, his come at me on the camera attitude makes him immune to the jabs of talk show critics. He's now the best version of himself. He's the laid-back Gen Xer. He's cool. He's composed under pressure. And sometimes, you know, he winks at the audience. This is a guy who officially does not give an F. And that's a very powerful thing if you're the Secretary of State of the U.S. He is a dyed-in-the-wall social conservative, a Mike Huckabee supporter in 2008, went on to get a Senate seat after the 2010 Tea Party. Time magazine called him the savior of the Republican Party, Hispanic and establishment-friendly, Hispanic face.

And as a presidential candidate, six years later, he tried to bring everyone in for the win, running a campaign that seemed more like a general election than a primary, but that didn't work out. At a rally in Hyaliyah, which of course is a Cuban-heavy Miami-Day neighborhood, he stayed late on stage to take questions from Megyn Kelly. as supporters were cheering only for the interview to end too late for people to vote at the polling booth. And that's the moment people remembered, you know. But he learned a lot of lessons from that. There was a brief moment where it seemed he might quit the Senate or even take a break from politics entirely, but then he came back. And he ended up being a stand-up guy, standing out as a politician who had learned from the defects of the club for growth and was more open to moderation. He became an increasingly loyal Trump supporter advocating for all of his national security policy without hesitation. and putting the best spin on anything the commander-in-chief did or said. And it didn't go unnoticed by the president. And when the campaign to return reached the point of vice presidential consideration, Marco Rubio was at the top of the list. He was second only to JD Vance. which was driven in part by the fact that Trump was running as a citizen of the state of Florida, and Marco Rubio's inclusion would have spurred election ballot lawsuits and legal hassles that were undesirable. You know, they already needed a lot of lawyers. But it was well known among those closest to the campaign that Marco Rubio was the preferred candidate of Susie Wiles, who's Trump's chief of staff. and that many close to Trump believed him to be a more capable and compelling VP than JD Vance, who just seemed to, you know, double down on Trump's strong appeal in Appalachia. But maybe think about it. Marco Rubio dodged a bullet because as Secretary of State, he has expanded that role dramatically. He's now also the National Security Advisor, and he's got all these other duties. There was a joke out that said the Oakland Raiders have announced Marco Rubio as their new head coach. You know, Secretary of Everything has more jobs than he can count. And how is he doing at those jobs? Very well, apparently. The thing is that I don't know what JD Vance is doing. And maybe Marco is doing too much. But Marco seems to know what he's doing, and I'm not sure that J.D. does. Marco Rubio, for what it's worth. is married to a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. He's still a Florida man deep down. And the tension between him and JD Vance must be the talk of Washington. And he's still a Florida man deep down. And the tension between him and JD Vance must be the talk of Washington. And already there are a lot of people taking sides.

Those that are close to JD Vance say that his elevation is assured, a foregone conclusion, an endorsement from Trump will make it an uneventful primary. Others, some more Marco Rubio supporters, but more who have the knowledge borne of prior contests, say things are going to get messy. I'm in that camp. JD Vance's squad has openly intimated that he has no intention of participating in presidential debates. And those close to Ted Cruz have something to say about that. And he understands this rivalry with Marco Rubio is what it is. Yep. JD Vance gave an interview to Fox News in which he entertained a hypothetical. If an opportunity is presented that would make Marco Rubio look good, be great for the administration, and wouldn't really involve me at least publicly, what do I do? Well, if I'm optimizing for 2028, I try to kill the opportunity. But if I'm optimizing for the country, for the administration, and to be a good human being, we do it. Mm-hmm. So was that what he was doing when he seated that scene to Marco Rubio at Maralago with the Secretary of State at President Trump's shoulder? Hmm. I don't know, but I'm telling you, this is interesting. It just keeps getting better. And wouldn't it be something? If the first Hispanic president was a... Cuban Gen Xer from Florida. You gotta love it. Even though he and I have had nothing but bad blood between us, I am still, I'm pro-American. And anybody who can do what he's done, a Secretary of State, will have my support. All right, let me take a break here, a quick time out, though. So you stay right where you are. I'll be right back. So I think like everybody else, I've been wondering, you know, what President Trump has sort of said about Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Prize winning. And actually, the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, he doesn't think she can handle leading Venezuela. He's made that quite clear. And I don't think he's changed that opinion. The secretary Karoline Leavitt was talking today. And she was making these remarks. while there was a lunch meeting going on at the White House with the president and Maria Corina Machado. And...

She said, I forgot how she put it, but it was really, she's very good at what she does. She's also expecting a baby again. She said, I know the president was looking forward to this meeting and he was expecting it to be a good and positive discussion with Miss Maria Corina Machado, who really is a remarkable and brave voice for many of the people of Venezuela. She added that the president's earlier assessment was based on realities on the ground. It was a realistic assessment based on what the president was reading and hearing from his advisors and his national security team. And at this moment in time, his opinion on that matter has not changed. So imagine, you know, she's sitting there at Mar-a-Lago. And I'm sure the Secretary of State who I just talked about, Marco Rubio is there as well. She just watched an unprecedented military operation take out Nicholas Maduro in Caracas. And one would have thought Donald Trump would have inserted her. Instead, he had an interview yesterday with Reuters, with a reporter from Reuters, and he said, she's a very nice woman. I think we're just going to talk basics. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. Now, think about that statement because that's intense. She went into hiding. And in January of 2024, when she was banned, for running for president by the Supreme Court, by Maduro's mocked up Supreme Court. That was January of 2024. So she goes into hiding. She gets succeeded by Edmundo Gonzalez Urisia in the 2024 election. And both the United States and the European Union recognized him. as the rightful president-elect. Maria Corina Machado said in July that Gonzalez won the election with 70% of the vote, and that the results showing Maduro as the winner were fraudulent. And then, even then, U.S. Secretary of State back then, that moron Anthony Blinken, agreed. Yeah. Blinken said that if you look at the evidence, It's clear to the United States and most importantly to the Venezuelan people that Gonzalez won the most votes in Venezuela's presidential election. Now, after the capture of Maduro and his wife, and after they got transferred to New York, and at their first court appearance, which I guess was what the first week of January, where they pleaded not guilty, Maduro told the court that he is the president of his country and that he was kidnapped. Delci Rodriguez, who was his second, his deputy, is currently alongside a whole bunch of Maduro's inner circle running the show. They're in charge of day-to-day government operations.

in Venezuela. And Trump said that he had a great conversation with Delci Rodriguez, the first direct communication between the two since Maduro was ousted. We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things, Trump told reporters, and I think we're getting along very well with Venezuela. Well, let me put it to you this way. If Donald Trump says you're getting along very well with him, trust me. You're getting along very well with him. You're probably scared to death is what it is. Right. And that's why he can sit in Marlago or sit in D.C. or sit in New York or sit in Michigan and he could talk about Greenland. And now they're forming a working group. I mean, think of all of the stuff we've heard since he was elected and Greenland came up. I mean, they just lambasted this idea. And now Denmark and Greenland are forming a working group to find some kind of agreement on the future of the island. Well, let me tell you where Trump stands on this. He's taking Greenland. He's going to keep Russia and China out of there. That's it. Anybody who doesn't think that. You obviously are not paying attention. Cuba's another story, but I'm not really sure. And by the way, Elon Musk went in with Starlink to Iran because, of course, the internet was shut down. I don't want them hearing anything or talking to anybody. But, you know, Elon Musk, he went in there and apparently Starlink got blocked. And it wasn't the company, you know, it wasn't Starlink. It wasn't Elon Musk who made that announcement. You know, the jamming was taken place. And the experts are saying that it's definitely either China or Russia that's doing it. Very, very intense. Now, you know, yesterday. A lot of us were watching with bated breath as there were reports of fighter jets taking off from northern Israel and Europe that were flying over Iraq towards the Iranian border. Now, to the average person looking at that, the silence that followed. looked like a nothing burger. Like, oh, it must have been a mission aborted, a false alarm. But really, I read some, I don't even remember where this came from, that what you really were looking at was psychological warfare. That President Trump and the Israeli leadership did not just launch a mission. They launched a trap. By creating a scenario where the Iranian regime was certain there was going to be a massive kinetic strike any minute, and they forced the Ayatollahs to hit the red button on the entire defensive strategy. Because the regime believed the end had come, and so they activated every emergency protocol they have spent years perfecting in secret.

They played their best cards before the game even started. Israel and the United States just watched. You know, they're scrambling, they're panicking, and we're watching every move. So in the few hours of this potential attack, perceived attack, they expose their entire nervous system. We now know the exact coordinates of where the hidden bunkers are, where they go during crisis. We know the frequencies, the secret emergency frequencies they use for blackout communication. We know the procedures they follow at every level of command. This was an intelligence harvest of unprecedented proportions. By the time the regime realized that it was a ruse, it was too late to change the locks. So the world is looking for explosions. And all that happened really, well, not all, but amazingly what happened was they dismantled the regime's ability to defend itself. So now Israel and the U.S. are more prepared than they have ever been before. to go in. This is the beginning of the end of this almost 50-year disaster. That, of course, you could lay right at the doorstep of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama and their errors. But for almost 50 years, the long drive towards freedom seemed endless. People were tired. But last night... The question, are we there yet, might have been answered. This was a two-front war for the future of this planet. On the physical front, we're seeing the chess match with China, which is using massive leverage to isolate and reclaim Iran, reclaim Venezuela. And on the spiritual front, this is the ultimate battle of light versus darkness. This is a collision between the Messianic Israel and the corruption of the Ayatollahs. The foundation is crumbling and the era of executions is coming to an end. And I think at this point the momentum is now unstoppable. History is moving at a pace that can't be ignored. They're saying that the regime will fall by March 15th. And that by 2027, Pavlavi will return. And so really, four-dimensional chess, do not be fooled by the lack of smoke on your television screens. The tide turned last night. And the good people of Iran and their allies have probably already won the battle. Now you just watch the clock run out on this dying regime. And once again, I know a lot of people don't like it when I say this, but God is in control. I know how the story ends. Read the book if you want to know. Anyway, don't forget coming up after me is Guy Benson, followed by Will Kane, then it's Joe Pags, Lars Larson, the overnight guys until Jennifer Ross and Stephen Deener come back to wrap this week up.

on the South Florida morning show at 6 a.m. at 9 o'clock. It'll be Brian Kilmeade at noon. It's Eric Erickson. And I get to come back at 3 o'clock. And I'll try to usher you into the three-day weekend because Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday. So, you know, I still have a segment left in today's show. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back. last couple of days about this sort of supervisor who was an anti-Trump guy not that that's a big story anymore but he was an FBI supervisor and he played a very big role in starting up the Arctic frost into the Russian collusion nonsense And he was the one who kept pushing to add the president, Donald Trump, as a formal subject of the investigation. And he would get all these articles from all these left-wing activists and left-wing news sources to make his case. And then he would hand them over. to Congress or he would use them in ways that were absolutely immoral, indecent, and illegal. So his name is Timothy Tebow. And he left his role as the assistant agent in charge of the Washington field office back in August of 2022 because a whole bunch of his anti-Trump posts on social media became public. and he organized the initial electronic communication that authorized the start of the Arctic Frost probe. He circulated email clippings from, you know, NPR, the Washington Post, and he was pushing for a criminal probe of Trump, of course, related to January 6th. And when his colleagues... originally drafted the investigations launch document to focus on the Trump campaign and anybody who was affiliated with Donald Trump, even people who were barely involved, he was the guy who wrote onto all the draft memos, add DJT. Emails indicate that he was pushing to add Trump to the investigative launch document. So these revelations include emails from 2022 where he was doing that, sharing articles, sharing podcasts that were critical of Trump, even included a prosecution-style memo that a former Obama DOJ official drafted. Yeah. He was trying to promote media coverage from outlets, any of them with left-leaning perspectives, well, like most of them, NPR and The Daily Beast. It was always about Trump and his crimes and his efforts to overturn the election. As a matter of fact, they had an email from April of 2022 that showed him approving the starting of this investigation.