The Megyn Kelly Show - ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About ＂Drone＂ Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson

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00:00:31.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.820 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.

00:00:47.480 Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done yet? I have not.

00:00:51.340 And it is a stressor. It is. I like, as your kids get older, you don't even really know what to buy.

00:00:58.180 It was so much easier when they were younger.

00:01:00.840 Anyway, God bless everyone, and I hope it's going better for you than it is for me.

00:01:06.440 If you have great ideas for a 15, 13, and 11-year-old, I would love to hear them.

00:01:11.960 You can email me, Megan at megynkelly.com.

00:01:15.200 And before the week is through, I'll offer you some of the ideas I have come up with.

00:01:19.640 Maybe we can share and contrast.

00:01:21.200 In any event, today, we start with this delicious news.

00:01:26.780 I mean, you never see, you never see these media organizations held to account for their

00:01:34.380 vile lies they tell about Donald Trump.

00:01:38.200 I mean, it's rare to see it happen at all.

00:01:41.000 And trust me, as a media figure, I'm not clamoring to see media figures get sued for defamation,

00:01:46.440 for, you know, mild sins or even moderate sins.

00:01:50.120 But this was just so egregious.

00:01:52.180 And they did it over and over and over again at ABC News.

00:01:55.740 They didn't care.

00:01:57.500 They clearly enjoyed saying what George Stephanopoulos said.

00:02:02.380 And it made them feel good about themselves.

00:02:05.720 This is George Stephanopoulos's, I'll just leave the dirty teen joke there, that that's

00:02:12.440 how he feels about saying nasty things about Trump.

00:02:17.440 And finally, it came back to bite him.

00:02:21.700 I would love to see what's in his text messages to his producers, because I guarantee it just

00:02:27.360 cost ABC News $15 million.

00:02:29.500 That's almost certainly what happened.

00:02:32.960 So you may have heard this over the weekend.

00:02:35.540 Trump sued ABC News and ABC News caved.

00:02:40.120 They collapsed.

00:02:42.160 They gave in like that and quickly settled the case with President-elect Donald Trump after

00:02:49.660 the network's top star, George Stephanopoulos, had been ruled by the judge to be required to

00:02:56.900 sit for a deposition.

00:02:58.260 He fought it.

00:02:59.020 He didn't want to have to do it.

00:03:00.760 And the judge late last week said, well, you have to.

00:03:04.940 You said a bunch of dumb shit.

00:03:07.000 You've been sued for defamation.

00:03:08.900 I've refused to get rid of this case thus far.

00:03:12.240 And you must sit like any other defendant, you privileged whatever.

00:03:19.040 You must sit for a deposition and answer questions from Trump's lawyer.

00:03:23.360 Trump earlier in the case had said, I'll sit for deposition, but not right now because I'm

00:03:29.280 like running for president, so I'm kind of busy.

00:03:31.280 And the judge gave him a delay.

00:03:32.800 But the judge also looked at Trump and said, you must sit, too.

00:03:36.280 You got a little time on your hands.

00:03:37.900 I'm aware of your job.

00:03:39.000 So Trump was going to have to sit, too.

00:03:42.220 But Trump, we know, is willing.

00:03:44.640 Trump sat when he was getting sued by E.

00:03:47.920 Jean Carroll.

00:03:48.480 Remember, that's that famous exchange with her lawyer.

00:03:53.240 He's like, you, for example, would never be my type.

00:03:56.060 When she said, did you say you can grab women by the you know what and they'll let you do

00:04:02.640 it and you're in a star?

00:04:03.340 And he said, well, for thousands of years, that's been true, unfortunately or fortunately.

00:04:08.800 That was Trump sitting for a deposition in a civil lawsuit that was against him.

00:04:14.580 So he will do it.

00:04:16.520 But George Stephanopoulos would not.

00:04:19.220 He got the order that he would have to testify under oath and they caved.

00:04:26.480 They collapsed.

00:04:27.940 They gave in and cried, uncle.

00:04:29.960 It's sad because I would have loved to have read that deposition transcript.

00:04:34.240 You guys are probably familiar with the absolutely disgusting interview that led to all of this

00:04:39.660 with George Stephanopoulos.

00:04:40.980 We did a big episode on this because he had on Congresswoman Nancy Mace back in the spring.

00:04:47.040 And remember, he was disgusted that this rape victim could back someone who he kept claiming

00:04:57.440 had been found liable for rape.

00:05:00.240 That was the defamatory statement over and over and over.

00:05:03.500 And we pointed out that that was false.

00:05:05.500 And I believe we even suggested that Trump should sue him, that he that that was completely

00:05:10.220 inaccurate, wrong.

00:05:12.660 And it was liable.

00:05:13.760 Um, and we focused on the fact that he thought it would be super fun and really like make

00:05:18.800 him look good to go after a rape survivor, Nancy Mace, and really twist her, her facts

00:05:24.220 and her words in her face.

00:05:25.720 Like, if you were raped, how could you support a rapist?

00:05:29.340 You claim you're a rape victim.

00:05:31.480 How could a rape victim support a rape?

00:05:33.760 Great, great positioning.

00:05:35.880 You're idiots.

00:05:37.240 Stephanopoulos is an idiot.

00:05:38.400 And so are his producers, because let me tell you, in all my years at Fox, nevermind my shorts

00:05:43.720 did an NBC, the producers have a couple of main jobs.

00:05:47.800 One is to arm the anchor with facts.

00:05:50.320 Fail.

00:05:51.280 Okay.

00:05:51.860 Fail there.

00:05:52.880 And two is to protect the anchor.

00:05:55.760 You protect the anchor.

00:05:57.560 And so if the anchor is out there saying something colossally stupid, usually if you have a great

00:06:04.780 producer, they'll get in your ear to say, no, it's this, no, it's that.

00:06:09.620 Be careful.

00:06:11.280 That happens with me all the time on this show.

00:06:14.160 My producers, the ones who run herd on various segments that I'm doing, if they, they realize

00:06:18.160 I've said something inaccurate or that I'm searching for a fact are constantly in my ears.

00:06:22.520 That's why I wear these headphones to say, oh, it's this, or it's that.

00:06:26.120 This whole thing that you're watching and listening to is a team effort.

00:06:28.680 And 10 times that a hundred times that on ABC broadcast news and a Sunday show, like

00:06:37.000 the one George Stephanopoulos sits for partisan hack.

00:06:40.460 He's been there a long time.

00:06:41.560 It doesn't make him any more respectable.

00:06:43.300 He's a partisan hack.

00:06:44.380 He started off as a partisan hack and he remains one.

00:06:47.320 He's just too ballless to own his partisan nature.

00:06:51.860 It wants us to believe that he's straight and narrow now, notwithstanding all those years

00:06:55.320 helping Bill Clinton.

00:06:56.240 And the irony of him going after a rape supporter in that way, how could you support a rape

00:07:01.420 supporter?

00:07:01.860 My God, the nerve to support a rape supporter, a rape committer after his years running the

00:07:06.840 war room, tearing down Bill Clinton's sexual assault accusers.

00:07:11.480 I mean, it's just rich.

00:07:13.400 So now the whole thing has cost him his reputation and his company, $15 million.

00:07:21.820 Okay.

00:07:22.320 We're going to get into all of this.

00:07:24.880 There's more.

00:07:25.700 There's more.

00:07:26.240 On the media front, not only with him, but also here.

00:07:30.000 Do you remember the story we brought to you on Friday with Hugh Hewitt in which we questioned

00:07:33.980 CNN's Clarissa Ward's report about allegedly stumbling into this dramatic rescue of a Syrian

00:07:42.740 war prisoner?

00:07:43.860 Oh, he's there under the blanket and there's no bucket for waste that we can see.

00:07:47.960 And he's as clean as I am sitting on this set, even though he says he's been behind bars for

00:07:52.280 three months and five or four days without food or water.

00:07:55.700 And he's not blinded when he sees the sun and he like all sorts of weird things.

00:08:00.880 Well, there's an update.

00:08:02.660 Joining me now today for the full show, the EJs, Emily Jashinsky, DC correspondent for Unheard

00:08:09.320 and host of Undercurrents, and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon

00:08:14.260 and co-host of the podcast Ink Stained Wretches.

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00:08:30.520 And one of the most significant is our national debt.

00:08:33.220 Look, the fact is our nation's broke and that debt is a house of cards that cannot be quickly

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00:08:39.040 So the strategy remains the same when it comes to your investments.

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00:09:29.880 Ladies, welcome back.

00:09:32.500 Are you enjoying the ABC meltdown and collapse as much as the surrender in this case as much

00:09:39.180 as I am?

00:09:39.840 I'll start with you, Emily.

00:09:40.640 Well, I'm also enjoying really ABC's peers in media freaking out because of the ABC

00:09:46.980 settlement.

00:09:47.660 I mean, that's been, I think, equally as delicious as watching so many people now criticize ABC

00:09:53.260 for quote unquote caving.

00:09:54.980 And, you know, what was a pretty serious case?

00:09:57.900 I mean, that it's just in the last 24 hours that so many different people in media are now

00:10:04.480 accusing ABC basically of enabling Trump when they were staring down the barrel of a very,

00:10:10.120 very problematic deposition being in litigation with an incoming president.

00:10:14.460 And all of that would entail for their, for the incoming administration, their coverage

00:10:18.420 of the incoming administration.

00:10:19.660 I mean, like you said, I'm not cheering on like lowering the threshold for defamation for

00:10:25.200 journalists.

00:10:25.900 And I don't necessarily think this lowers the threshold.

00:10:28.200 I think it really was a very, very serious case.

00:10:30.280 So all kinds of schadenfreude to be enjoyed this morning.

00:10:34.740 You know, the thing that got them in trouble, Eliana, was he went out there, repeatedly said

00:10:40.440 that a jury had found him liable for rape, which is not what happened.

00:10:45.860 A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse.

00:10:49.720 And they said no on the rape charge.

00:10:53.820 Then the judge wrote up his like interpretation of what happened.

00:11:01.760 Obviously, this judge was not a Trump fan.

00:11:04.500 And the judge, Lewis Kaplan, wrote as follows after the fact when Trump was seeking a new

00:11:10.020 trial, the judge wrote the finding that Miss Carroll failed to prove that she was raped within

00:11:17.240 the meaning of New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped

00:11:24.800 her, as many people commonly understand the word rape.

00:11:29.960 OK, nobody even understands what that means other than this judge wanted someone to see

00:11:35.940 the word rape and Trump's name in a headline.

00:11:38.740 But the fact remains, the jury's verdict is the jury's verdict.

00:11:44.260 And no judge can change it with words after the fact or their post-verdict interpretation.

00:11:50.580 The judge can throw it out.

00:11:52.080 The judge can lower the charge potentially by throwing a charge out.

00:11:56.020 But he can't increase the charge from sexual abuse to rape.

00:12:00.300 It's not a possibility.

00:12:02.000 Neither this judge nor any other.

00:12:03.260 And the bottom line is Trump was not found liable for rape by this jury.

00:12:09.540 And despite that fact, George Stephanopoulos went out on the air in that interview and

00:12:15.040 sounded like this sought to.

00:12:18.700 And you've endorsed Donald Trump for president.

00:12:21.220 Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape.

00:12:24.800 Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury.

00:12:27.860 I'm asking you a question about why you endorse someone who's been found liable for rape,

00:12:31.980 someone who's been found liable for rape.

00:12:33.960 You have to answer the question.

00:12:35.700 Why are you supporting someone who's been found liable for rape?

00:12:37.840 They are afraid to come forward, as you said, because they are defamed by those who commit

00:12:42.080 the rape.

00:12:42.660 You don't find it offensive that Donald Trump has been found liable for rape.

00:12:45.380 Well, actually, what you're doing is defending a man who's been found liable for rape.

00:12:49.140 I don't understand how you can do that.

00:12:50.520 The judge affirmed that it was in fact rape.

00:12:53.880 Donald Trump was found to have committed rape.

00:12:56.360 That's just a fact.

00:12:57.140 And that's why he's now having to pay $15 million or his news organization is Eliana.

00:13:05.360 So what do you make of it?

00:13:08.600 This is astonishing for a number of reasons, a couple of which we haven't touched on yet.

00:13:13.900 But I really can't recall a case in which a major national news organization had to pay

00:13:21.560 a sum like this to a celebrity or politician in the U.S.

00:13:28.900 And that's particularly because the protections for news organizations are so high.

00:13:34.000 So you can't be sued just for saying something untrue.

00:13:37.900 You can't be sued for liable or defamation for saying something untrue.

00:13:41.640 Trump would have had to show that George Stephanopoulos did so with actual malice.

00:13:48.460 That's the standard.

00:13:49.520 And it's a very high standard.

00:13:52.180 But this case never went that far.

00:13:55.520 And I think that's the question is ABC actually might have had a strong case because it is so

00:14:05.120 hard to win these lawsuits.

00:14:07.240 And the question is, why did they settle?

00:14:12.120 Why did they settle and why did they settle now?

00:14:14.120 Was it that they didn't want to be involved in litigation with the sitting president of

00:14:18.440 the United States?

00:14:19.440 Or was it that they knew very embarrassing and unflattering things would come out in the

00:14:25.560 discovery process or that Stephanopoulos would be forced to make embarrassing admissions in a

00:14:31.580 deposition?

00:14:32.140 We don't know.

00:14:33.780 But to me, there are there are some serious unanswered questions about why the settlement

00:14:38.420 was made and around the timing of it that lead to speculation around those things.

00:14:43.820 I have to assume that it was one of those things and that paying 15 million dollars now

00:14:48.880 was less painful for them than going through a humiliate potentially humiliating or embarrassing

00:14:54.880 discovery process.

00:14:56.120 But, you know, what they also skipped was the motion for summary judgment phase, because

00:15:02.380 that's filed after you get depositions from each side.

00:15:07.160 What normally would happen is they take Stephanopoulos' deposition, they take Trump's deposition

00:15:11.880 and whoever else's that they wanted, and then you get all your deposition transcripts

00:15:15.460 ready and you file as the defendant a motion for summary judgment, meaning give me a win

00:15:21.040 here, judge, and dismiss this defamation claim against ABC without a trial.

00:15:27.360 Because here, you can see right here that everyone admits the judge said this, but the problem

00:15:34.860 is that they didn't do that.

00:15:37.840 So they wanted to get out of this before they even had that serious shot at getting it dismissed

00:15:43.680 altogether by the judge.

00:15:44.820 They, which tells me, they didn't want him sitting for deposition.

00:15:50.340 That's why they paid the 15 million.

00:15:52.420 That plus they were probably, yes, a bit on bended knee because they're afraid of Trump,

00:15:56.720 not so much in his capacity as a plaintiff, but in his capacity as the president elect.

00:16:02.180 And they need him.

00:16:03.780 ABC News needs to have a relationship with him.

00:16:06.640 And this is no way to do it, to continue to lie about him, to maintain that your lies

00:16:11.920 were justified, you were allowed to tell them, notwithstanding the fact that it is indisputable

00:16:16.780 he was not found liable by a jury for rape, as Stephanopoulos said over and over, Emily.

00:16:25.600 He said, yeah, you wrote the clip of him saying that's just a fact.

00:16:29.800 And it's sort of the problem with people like George Stephanopoulos crystallized in one perfect

00:16:35.760 example.

00:16:36.240 That's just a fact about something that's absolutely not a fact.

00:16:41.040 In fact, it was found the opposite.

00:16:43.560 Like literally the jury answered no.

00:16:45.820 And it's also interesting.

00:16:47.140 I mean, we haven't even touched on the rank misogyny in that interview, which is just

00:16:51.260 maddening to watch.

00:16:52.660 He's telling Nancy Mace exactly how she should feel about this as a woman, as somebody who's

00:16:57.120 survived sexual abuse.

00:16:58.420 But he also, Trump was, I believe, in this judgment, found liable of something much lower

00:17:03.660 than rape, which was sexual abuse, which George Stephanopoulos could have used that.

00:17:08.820 There's something very particular about wanting to accuse Trump of being held liable of rape

00:17:14.100 that they knew better.

00:17:16.260 I mean, they wanted to use this Aaron Blake Washington Post story they put up on the screen

00:17:19.920 if people were watching this and saw the ABC clip.

00:17:22.300 They used this Aaron Blake Washington Post story about what Judge Kaplan, who was trying to

00:17:26.540 hedge and show there was wiggle room on how people understand rape being different than

00:17:31.640 the legal standard of rape.

00:17:32.740 It was just ridiculous for a judge to be involved in.

00:17:35.080 But they wanted that Washington Post story to give them license to say that it's just

00:17:38.660 a fact when the jury said something completely different.

00:17:42.760 And it didn't.

00:17:43.220 I mean, it doesn't hold it does not hold any weight or credibility.

00:17:47.560 It's just a ridiculous claim.

00:17:49.100 So it didn't work out for them, clearly.

00:17:51.100 If George Stephanopoulos had said the judge found that.

00:17:59.560 That the finding Miss Carroll failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of the

00:18:05.960 New York penal law does not mean she failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped her.

00:18:09.920 If they want to say that, which I grant you is far less catchy, they would have been fine.

00:18:14.540 I mean, that's the problem.

00:18:16.560 They were trying to take this judge trying to throw the E.G.

00:18:20.660 and Carol a bone.

00:18:21.680 But the judge knew that the judge could not declare Trump a rapist.

00:18:25.240 So it's just kind of like, well, the finding that she didn't fit that she didn't prove she

00:18:30.220 was raped doesn't mean she failed to prove he raped her.

00:18:35.080 As many people commonly understand the word rape, like all this is so fucked up that the

00:18:39.800 judge was doing this at all.

00:18:40.720 Like, what are you talking about the common understanding of the word rape?

00:18:44.300 There is a statutory definition of the word rape.

00:18:48.320 It was provided to the jury and they checked no when they were asked to decide whether Trump

00:18:55.400 had done that.

00:18:56.320 They check like this is an egregious statement by the judge anyway.

00:18:59.420 But let me tell you, as somebody who does this all the time, talks about legal rulings and

00:19:04.940 things that are dicey about people, we bend over backwards, bend over backwards to make

00:19:12.040 sure we track the exact language.

00:19:14.820 Because if you don't, that's how you get in trouble.

00:19:17.960 We're not perfect either.

00:19:19.420 But if we screw it up, we'll come back on and correct it.

00:19:22.160 We'll come back the next day and say, OK, here's what we meant to say.

00:19:25.480 They never did that.

00:19:27.140 I don't know whether Stephanopoulos had 10 producers in his ear saying over and over,

00:19:31.040 not rape, not rape, I think they didn't say that.

00:19:34.380 I think they did not do him a solid because they popped up that article that you just pointed

00:19:39.480 out from the Washington Post as like his proof, you see.

00:19:43.780 And so this segment was long.

00:19:45.080 It was like 15 minutes long.

00:19:46.940 That thing pops up and he's like, there, I have it right there because the Washington

00:19:50.780 Post wrote this.

00:19:52.540 And I guarantee you that's his team trying to help him out.

00:19:55.320 Like, yeah, yeah, it's rape.

00:19:57.160 It's rape.

00:19:57.600 And what you really needed was a damn lawyer to say or someone who knows how to read a

00:20:02.940 legal opinion to say that doesn't excuse his statements over and over that a jury found

00:20:10.740 him liable for rape.

00:20:13.220 It's not true.

00:20:14.820 But the thing is, Eliana, they were I guarantee you the whole crew was so gleeful about attaching

00:20:21.280 this word to the vile Trump.

00:20:23.960 They couldn't help themselves.

00:20:25.720 I'm actually not sure if in their own mind they even distinguished between sexual assault

00:20:34.480 and rape and that they themselves may be so convinced that Trump is guilty that they

00:20:40.360 elided the two things.

00:20:42.660 You know, we just don't know what happened behind the scenes.

00:20:44.920 But it's perfectly plausible to me that they dislike their visceral dislike of Trump goes

00:20:51.040 so far that that they weren't all that familiar with the the distinctions that the jury made.

00:20:58.820 Frankly, you have to prove when you're suing when you are a public figure claiming that you

00:21:06.520 have been defamed as Trump was claiming.

00:21:09.980 And by the way, to the point you raised initially, when that happens as a public figure, people

00:21:15.620 have the highest ability to say bad things about you.

00:21:18.820 The First Amendment protects speech and it really protects speech about public figures and it

00:21:25.200 really protects speech about political public figures or political acts taken by public figures.

00:21:31.820 It's a political person in the public sphere that has the most protection you can get under

00:21:36.540 the law.

00:21:37.240 So that's why the media generally gets away with saying false things about politicians

00:21:43.180 as long as it as long as it doesn't reach this extremely high standard.

00:21:47.780 And that high standard is it has to be malice.

00:21:50.820 And what is said with malice?

00:21:52.140 And what does that mean?

00:21:52.820 It means with knowledge that it's false, like I'm knowingly lying about you.

00:21:58.180 I know you weren't found liable for rape and I'm saying it anyway.

00:22:02.740 Or the more frequent standard is the reckless disregard for its falsity.

00:22:09.020 So you don't care.

00:22:10.360 So this is a scenario where this is what got Fox in trouble with Dominion, where Dominion's

00:22:16.800 sending in letter after letter saying this isn't true.

00:22:22.060 There's no evidence for it being true.

00:22:24.380 Here's this that proves it's not true and that that proves it's not true.

00:22:28.200 And all you have on the other side and saying it's true is like the the unsupported declarations

00:22:33.480 of Sidney Powell.

00:22:35.100 That's how you get to reckless disregard of whether, in fact, it's true.

00:22:38.800 So it has to be like, really, it can't just be like, I didn't do my homework.

00:22:44.280 That's negligent.

00:22:45.660 That's not reckless.

00:22:46.940 OK, so the standard is very high.

00:22:49.820 And this is why I think that there were texts and there would be instant messaging between

00:22:55.540 George and the team.

00:22:56.680 All of that.

00:22:57.320 That's all what the anchors use.

00:22:58.780 And I used it many times, too, at Fox and NBC, where you're corresponding with your

00:23:02.600 Stephanopoulos guaranteed was corresponding with his producers during that whole segment.

00:23:06.020 And I guarantee you that those communications don't reflect well on anybody and anyone involved.

00:23:11.520 And it could possibly be the team may be saying it's sexual abuse.

00:23:16.020 It's sexual abuse.

00:23:16.860 And George refusing to acknowledge that.

00:23:20.620 And then perhaps the team finally just realized they weren't going to bend him and threw up that

00:23:23.780 Washington Post article.

00:23:24.920 But whatever it is, it didn't look good for him, Eliana.

00:23:28.800 I think we can agree on that.

00:23:29.960 Right.

00:23:32.060 It's a really bad look.

00:23:33.460 And I would add to this, it sets a scary precedent for two other libel suits that are underway,

00:23:42.960 one against CNN and one against NBC, that are far stronger cases and have progressed much

00:23:49.000 further than ABC News.

00:23:50.880 Let this one progress.

00:23:51.960 The one against CNN is about an incident that occurred on Jake Tapper's show where a former

00:23:59.400 military veteran who was or a military veteran who was working to extract Afghans out of Afghanistan

00:24:07.600 during the collapse of the government there, CNN insinuated that he was engaged in fraud.

00:24:15.580 And at MSNBC, where they called a doctor working in immigrant detention facilities, a uterus collector,

00:24:24.820 arguing that he was performing hysterectomies unnecessarily.

00:24:29.000 And those suits, you know, Jake Tapper's deposition was taken.

00:24:33.500 And dirt came out in that.

00:24:36.100 So this has to be sending a chill, not just through ABC, but like CNN and MSNBC cannot be feeling good today.

00:24:44.500 Mm hmm.

00:24:45.820 You mentioned, Emily, that I think you were the one, I can't forget whether it was you or Elyon,

00:24:52.060 I think it was you were talking about the disgusting nature of the interview to begin with, right?

00:24:55.680 There was not a good look for George Stephanopoulos from the start, as I mentioned in my intro,

00:25:00.420 going after a rape survivor.

00:25:04.080 She was only 16 when she was raped, Nancy Mace.

00:25:06.240 And obviously, any thoughtful person would say,

00:25:10.660 that is not the soft spot I want to exploit for purposes of looking tough on my show.

00:25:17.900 I mean, think of the level of douchebaggery in order to think that'll be a fun way,

00:25:23.660 one, to really hit her with over and over.

00:25:25.500 And then even in the line of the clip we showed, you have to answer, fuck off.

00:25:31.180 I am here as a courtesy to you.

00:25:34.520 I don't have to do anything.

00:25:36.560 You don't like my answers?

00:25:38.300 Don't invite me back.

00:25:39.540 I don't have to do what you tell me.

00:25:42.200 All of it is so, he's such a bully.

00:25:46.640 And all the statements and the approach are evidence of what an arrogant prick bully he is.

00:25:54.060 How he treated her, how he spoke about Trump,

00:25:57.080 how he came after her with his demands to do it the way he insisted.

00:26:01.680 And here is a little bit just to remind the audience of that dynamic

00:26:04.820 as he aggressively went after Nancy Mace and sought one.

00:26:07.380 How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?

00:26:12.000 It's a shame that you will never feel, George.

00:26:14.460 I'm not trying to shame you.

00:26:15.600 You are.

00:26:15.680 And I find it offensive, and this is why women won't come forward.

00:26:19.020 Women won't come forward because they're defamed by those who perpetrate rape.

00:26:22.460 I'm asking you a very simple question.

00:26:23.980 And I answered it.

00:26:24.860 You're shaming me for my political choices.

00:26:26.940 I'm asking you a question about why you endorse someone who's been found liable for rape.

00:26:31.280 Just answer the question.

00:26:32.320 I'm questioning your political choices because you're supporting someone who's been found liable for rape.

00:26:37.020 You're not answering the question.

00:26:38.340 I think it's disgusting.

00:26:40.200 Well, you're welcome to say that, but you also have to answer the question.

00:26:43.280 What you're doing is defending a man who's been found liable for rape.

00:26:48.260 Okay, by the way, let's just show them the jury form, okay?

00:26:51.080 Oh, you heard it over and over.

00:26:51.960 Been found liable for rape, who a jury found liable for rape.

00:26:55.740 Here's the jury verdict form.

00:26:57.940 I can't read that.

00:26:59.300 But I remember that it says, did he commit rape?

00:27:06.200 And you can see we highlighted it here.

00:27:07.660 It says no.

00:27:08.660 And then they say, did he commit sexual assault?

00:27:11.220 And it says yes.

00:27:12.900 But look at that.

00:27:13.520 I mean, it's clear as day.

00:27:15.600 This is what the jury found.

00:27:18.860 And Stephanopoulos would not adhere to it.

00:27:23.460 Emily, so yeah, speak to the dynamic of the overall exchange.

00:27:26.640 Well, yeah, I mean, so he is, you can tell, like a dog with a bone.

00:27:31.620 He will not let this question go.

00:27:33.180 It's one thing to just ask Nancy Mace the question, although it's, to your point, Megan, laughable

00:27:38.520 that George Stephanopoulos, who very famously defended Bill Clinton in some very scummy ways

00:27:45.740 for many, many years, thought that he was the guy who should put this question to Nancy

00:27:51.660 Mace, that him as a man, he should be rhetorically beating down on Nancy Mace over and over and

00:27:59.000 over again with the moral credibility of a journalist to just make sure that she has her feet held

00:28:06.500 to the fire on this question.

00:28:07.720 I mean, that is laughable.

00:28:09.860 Nancy Mace did a really good job of saying that you're shaming me.

00:28:12.540 She performed fantastically in that.

00:28:14.420 And just to the point about the jury sheet right there, it's so important because he

00:28:20.000 is saying this is a fact.

00:28:22.460 And as we were talking about, maybe there's this like left wing feminist opinion that the

00:28:27.540 judge is getting to in that like op ed that the judge wrote so inappropriately that says

00:28:32.500 we can broaden the definition of rape to include all of these different things.

00:28:36.740 That is actually something feminists have tried to do despicably for a very long time.

00:28:40.500 So you can maybe make that argument, but you can't say that it's a fact.

00:28:44.720 And so while he is trying to push Nancy Mace further and further like a dog with a bone on

00:28:50.940 this really disgusting line of questioning, truly shaming her, as she said rightfully, he

00:28:55.320 also he doesn't have the moral credibility, nor does he have the journalistic credibility.

00:28:59.320 It is a total farce.

00:29:01.200 It is the problems with journalism in one perfect segment.

00:29:05.720 Exactly right.

00:29:06.500 And then so that happened in March of twenty twenty four, that segment and and by the

00:29:11.020 way, just just in case people have forgotten, Bill Clinton was accused multiple times by

00:29:14.620 multiple women of sexual abuse, assault and rape.

00:29:18.260 And who defended him?

00:29:19.660 George Stephanopoulos at every turn with much more credibility than E.

00:29:23.300 Jean Carroll.

00:29:24.880 Far more.

00:29:26.260 George Stephanopoulos created a whole war room to defend Bill Clinton again.

00:29:29.880 So for him to sit there and look at Nancy Mace and say, how could you support a rape support,

00:29:34.540 a rape defendant, a rapist, someone found liable for rape?

00:29:38.740 How could you support somebody like that?

00:29:41.060 The only thing missing from Nancy Mace's great response was how could you, George Stephanopoulos,

00:29:47.280 you ran a whole war room trying to tear down those.

00:29:49.960 Don't lecture me on what's going to stop rape victims from coming forward.

00:29:54.220 But what's going to stop them is people like you and your buddies for Bill Clinton who insulted

00:29:59.420 them, called them trailer trash and unleashed the greatest legal teams in the in the country

00:30:05.440 against these poor women who had absolutely no means to fight for their dignity and to

00:30:10.400 protect themselves and from other women's against your predator boss.

00:30:14.360 OK, so just stop.

00:30:16.300 Anyway, George Stephanopoulos was not called out that way.

00:30:19.900 He's been called out by people like us, but this is the first time he's really had to

00:30:24.060 own up for his terrible behavior in one of the many ways it was terrible.

00:30:28.080 Two months after he was with Mace in March of 2024, he goes on Colbert, which is on Arrival

00:30:35.900 Network, CBS.

00:30:37.280 And look at this.

00:30:39.960 Now you're being sued for defamation.

00:30:43.100 Why?

00:30:43.520 Because of an interview like that.

00:30:45.000 I was interviewing a congresswoman named Nancy Mace, who used to be highly critical.

00:30:49.340 My hometown, Charleston, South Carolina, of Donald Trump.

00:30:53.760 And she was famously started her political career in a statehouse when she was in the

00:30:58.760 statehouse talking about being a victim of rape.

00:31:02.180 And so I asked her how she could be as as a victim of rape.

00:31:08.000 How could she support someone who a jury has found liable for rape?

00:31:11.660 Trump sued me because I used the word rape, even though a judge said that's, in fact, what

00:31:16.540 did happen.

00:31:17.280 And in fact, we filed the motion to dismiss last week.

00:31:20.640 But she she's now fallen on.

00:31:23.580 And she she tried to say that I was the problem for asking the question rather than he being

00:31:28.380 the problem because a jury found him liable for defamation and sexual abuse.

00:31:34.160 OK, so what's so galling about that, Eliana, is, as you well know, when you're involved in

00:31:39.040 litigation, you know, like if I get involved in litigation, I would never make a comment out

00:31:44.840 about it about it publicly because it's stupid.

00:31:47.640 It's as stupid.

00:31:49.140 Oh, you don't do it because it can come back to haunt you.

00:31:52.840 And it was absolutely foolish for him to go.

00:31:55.340 But you know why he did?

00:31:56.340 He knows that for sure.

00:31:57.200 The ABC lawyers told him that he had swagger around this.

00:32:01.920 He was like, I know I'm only four foot two, but I'm going to take down the president.

00:32:07.520 F you, big man, I'm George Stephanopoulos.

00:32:11.980 He's got the Napoleon complex and he felt the need to try to act like a tough guy.

00:32:18.400 Well, that's where the malice comes in, where not only have you been apprised that you made

00:32:24.120 a factual error that impugned somebody's character by saying a falsehood about them

00:32:31.300 on national television, you then go and repeat it and dig your heels in once again on national

00:32:38.200 television.

00:32:39.280 And so that, I think, is actually pretty good grounds for showing malice, where you say,

00:32:44.760 not only did I do it the first time, but I was right.

00:32:48.360 I was right.

00:32:50.220 No apologies.

00:32:51.880 Because the pretty easy way to get out of these things is to do what ABC News has now done,

00:32:55.820 where you put a correction up and say, we regret the error.

00:32:58.760 But that is not, that is not the attitude that George Stephanopoulos took in the Stephen

00:33:03.140 Colbert interview after the litigation had been filed.

00:33:07.380 They could have avoided this whole thing if the very next week on his show, he went out and said,

00:33:14.700 I would like to apologize to President Trump.

00:33:17.040 Totally.

00:33:17.660 He stated the following things.

00:33:19.460 Those things were not true.

00:33:21.460 This is what I should have said.

00:33:23.000 That's it.

00:33:23.860 That shows a potential jury or judge.

00:33:26.580 You didn't have actual malice in your heart.

00:33:28.280 You did your best to correct the record.

00:33:30.140 It doesn't necessarily totally exonerate you, but as a practical matter, it does.

00:33:34.740 And instead, you had him out there, again, little Napoleon, trying to show how tough he was.

00:33:42.260 Because, you know, he obviously had something to prove.

00:33:44.960 Oh, and by the way, so he made their comments in March.

00:33:47.300 In May, he goes on Colbert.

00:33:48.860 In July, ABC News' motion to dismiss this case was denied.

00:33:54.520 Denied.

00:33:55.420 They tried to get it dismissed on the papers, and the judge said no.

00:33:59.440 They have stated a claim.

00:34:02.080 This can be seen through to discovery.

00:34:05.400 So that was July.

00:34:06.680 Hello, folks.

00:34:07.260 We're knocking on the door of Christmas and Hanukkah right now.

00:34:11.180 We're in December.

00:34:12.220 So once they lost the motion to dismiss, they easily could have settled it then.

00:34:16.480 You know, we know what comes next.

00:34:18.420 Discovery.

00:34:18.980 We've got to turn over our texts, our documents.

00:34:21.420 We are definitely going to have to give George over.

00:34:23.500 They knew that.

00:34:24.400 Producers on the show are going to have to give an over for deposition.

00:34:27.120 Then we're going to have motion practice and possibly a trial.

00:34:30.000 So they didn't even let it get—they let it go through, I assume, they had discovery,

00:34:34.160 where papers were exchanged.

00:34:36.020 They would have had to in order to have George's deposition ordered.

00:34:39.280 You can't take somebody's deposition without having seen any of the papers or the texts

00:34:43.200 or anything behind it.

00:34:44.800 And I assume that happened, and now he was about to have to sit.

00:34:49.840 I really think something about George sitting was what made them fold, because it's not

00:34:56.700 unprecedented for talent to have to sit.

00:35:00.440 You know, we saw it at Fox News that the Murdoch sat.

00:35:03.720 In the Fox News Dominion case, Rupert Murdoch sat.

00:35:09.740 Not all the talent sat, but talent have sat in these losses.

00:35:13.620 Jake Tapper, you point out, he sat.

00:35:15.240 But George Stephanopoulos would not sit.

00:35:19.940 And there's a reason for that, my friend.

00:35:21.900 And meantime, Emily, here is a taste of the media meltdown around this, as they're getting

00:35:28.740 the vapors over any sort of white flag being waved at Donald Trump's SOC 24.

00:35:37.120 But it seems to me that there's a lot of this bending the knee going on.

00:35:41.580 I mean, to me, it seems this is a time for our industry to stand firm, because Trump is

00:35:46.760 not going to change his ways when he gets back in the Oval Office.

00:35:49.300 He's going to continue to say things that need to be fact checked.

00:35:52.440 And you can't have the news industry worrying about this sort of stuff when they're just

00:35:56.920 simply doing their jobs.

00:35:59.240 Well, if some bend the knee, others have to stand up straighter.

00:36:02.620 You know, the former Time Magazine editor Richard Sengel said this morning, Trump has sued dozens

00:36:06.400 of publications and media outlets in the past, trying to, quote, intimidate the press into

00:36:10.720 self-censorship, not to actually win any particular case.

00:36:14.040 He did win, in this case, with a big payment.

00:36:16.020 But that broader concern about self-censorship is one that I know many viewers and readers

00:36:20.580 are worried about.

00:36:21.560 And ultimately, Jim, as you know, we work for them.

00:36:23.500 We work for the viewers.

00:36:25.480 OK, first of all, if George Stephanopoulos bent the knee, we'd be looking at a lily-pution.

00:36:30.280 I'm like, where'd George go?

00:36:31.660 Where's what happened?

00:36:35.160 You have to stand up straighter, even straighter, get straighter.

00:36:39.080 We have to go.

00:36:39.740 It's super tall, Emily.

00:36:41.000 Now that ABC News has came, the rest of us have to be even mightier to stand up against

00:36:47.340 the giant.

00:36:47.840 No acknowledgement.

00:36:49.440 They did the wrong thing.

00:36:51.060 Why don't they just get a lawyer before they have these discussions to advise them?

00:36:55.660 Well, here's what's infuriating.

00:36:56.920 These are the defenders of capital T truth, right?

00:36:59.980 I mean, first of all, does Jim Acosta not realize that his network settled with Nicholas

00:37:03.500 Sandman in another very, very serious defamation case?

00:37:06.800 So I guess they bent the knee in that one.

00:37:08.880 So maybe his moral credibility is also in question.

00:37:11.800 But secondly, these are the guardians of capital T truth.

00:37:15.200 CNN ran those famous ads during the Trump administration about how they'll tell you

00:37:18.820 something is an apple or a banana when Trump is telling you it's an apple.

00:37:23.140 They'll tell you, no, it's actually a banana.

00:37:25.780 Like they are so sanctimonious.

00:37:28.080 And yet they are the ones in this case who are defending George Stephanopoulos for doing

00:37:32.340 actually a really shitty thing, which is telling people that they are hearing a fact when what

00:37:38.480 they are hearing is an opinion.

00:37:40.040 And that is just about, as far as I'm concerned, one of the very worst things that an anchor,

00:37:44.660 a host, somebody who was telling you, I'm coming straight down the middle.

00:37:47.560 I think that's one of the worst things you can do because that is exactly why your audience

00:37:52.180 comes to you.

00:37:53.040 They want to trust you.

00:37:54.120 They want to trust that if you're telling them something is a fact, that it actually is

00:37:58.180 a fact.

00:37:58.620 And it's not just your editorializing, but that was pure editorialization on Stephanopoulos'

00:38:04.140 behalf with an assist from the judge and the Washington Post.

00:38:08.300 But it was opinion nonetheless.

00:38:09.920 And that is, I think, one of the biggest sins in journalism is to tell people that you're

00:38:13.580 just playing it straight and when you're actually opining.

00:38:16.340 And so actually what his peers should be doing is saying, you screwed the rest of us here in

00:38:21.660 a really big way, and we are going to do better because of it.

00:38:25.240 To the extent they talk about this being, quote unquote, chilling, I hope that it does

00:38:28.920 have a chilling effect.

00:38:29.900 I'm saying that even as a journalist against some of this really, really bad behavior that

00:38:34.880 is misleading people who are desperate for facts.

00:38:38.420 So if you're telling people you're delivering facts, just do it.

00:38:41.160 And to the extent you're not, I do hope it chills that.

00:38:44.260 We have the ad here.

00:38:45.940 Remember this?

00:38:46.460 That was a great one.

00:38:48.980 This is an apple.

00:38:51.260 Some people might try to tell you that it's a banana.

00:38:53.820 They might scream banana, banana, banana over and over and over again.

00:39:00.320 They might put banana in all caps.

00:39:03.820 You might even start to believe that this is a banana.

00:39:08.260 But it's not.

00:39:10.600 This is an apple.

00:39:13.920 Oh my God.

00:39:15.420 Facts first.

00:39:16.160 It reads CNN.

00:39:19.140 Zucker classic.

00:39:20.220 Yeah, personally done at his request, reportedly.

00:39:25.500 So, yeah, I guess that's not how the jury saw it.

00:39:29.060 They saw an apple and it was George Stephanopoulos who saw a banana.

00:39:35.280 That's really what happened.

00:39:36.700 He saw the banana.

00:39:37.660 He saw the banana being misused in ways the jury did not.

00:39:40.700 And this jury was not on the same page.

00:39:45.020 It's really amazing to watch it all go down and to watch the suffering.

00:39:48.620 Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter not saying, this is a moment to reflect on how to be more careful.

00:39:54.700 And you know what would be a great idea?

00:39:55.880 Bring in a defamation attorney to educate all of us so that we don't make a similar mistake.

00:40:01.600 Instead, it's they bent the knee.

00:40:04.600 The rest of us have to stand stronger.

00:40:07.800 And you know what I think should happen now, especially given that and sort of this reaction across the left-wing media?

00:40:13.640 I think Trump should start writing letters to the people at MSNBC who called him a rapist over and over and over.

00:40:23.580 I mean, now he's got a settlement for $15 million is going to his presidential library and they had to pay attorney's fees, a million bucks, and they had to issue an apology and a statement on their reporting, admitting that it was false.

00:40:36.340 If I were Trump, I'd be having my lawyer do a LexisNexis search for all the people who said in a factual way.

00:40:44.560 I mean, you could say, I believe he's a rapist or it's obvious to me he raped her, right?

00:40:49.880 That's all fine.

00:40:50.480 That's opinion.

00:40:50.960 But you cannot say, as Stephanopoulos did, he is a rapist.

00:40:56.300 He raped E. Jean Carroll.

00:40:58.460 That's defamatory.

00:41:00.120 So if I were Trump, I would spread the pain around.

00:41:05.900 You know, the most astonishing thing in the Acosta-Stelter clip is that they're defending as some matter of journalistic integrity,

00:41:17.600 the right to say false things about the president of the United States and to misinform their viewers on national television.

00:41:25.020 One would think the reaction would be, you know, this is unfortunate, but we have such a major responsibility that we do pay a price when we screw up

00:41:34.980 and don't correct ourselves in and don't correct ourselves promptly and tell our viewers the truth in a in a prompt manner.

00:41:43.520 And fortunately, here at CNN, we don't have anything to worry about because we just strive to bring viewers the truth and the straight facts every day.

00:41:53.420 But I mean, it's this this this is not the one I would really try to stand on principle on.

00:41:58.460 No, it's not.

00:42:00.720 Let me tell you something.

00:42:01.820 This is why we did a long episode that we released over the weekend about how the Duke lacrosse case, you know, the fake rape case unfolded and collapsed

00:42:12.800 and how it was really the beginning of what we now call wokeness in the media, the way they covered these stories,

00:42:19.000 how they they choose a side based on skin color, potentially class, privilege and gender.

00:42:26.520 And how they never learned, even though that case blew up in their faces, they just never learned.

00:42:32.900 They doubled and tripled down and so on.

00:42:34.780 It's a good episode.

00:42:35.800 You guys should listen to it.

00:42:36.580 I actually got some sweet notes about it from the players, families.

00:42:42.460 So.

00:42:44.260 We did that and we were pointing out that the media that that's the reason that this alternative ecosystem was born, you know, the digital lane.

00:42:52.400 And I said on the show, necessity is the mother of all invention.

00:42:55.020 You know, people just they realized over time and Trump really helped how dishonest the media was and is and just demanded someplace else to go.

00:43:07.440 And then bit by bit, it started populating and they they fled.

00:43:12.280 They fled the mainstream, so-called mainstream in incredible numbers like that.

00:43:17.960 The GMA is cratering in the ratings.

00:43:21.720 We've talked about MSNBC now regularly getting, I mean, slashies in the demo, which is below 50,000 slashies is true shame, shame, shame.

00:43:33.600 You would never want to look the boss in the face if you've gotten slashies under 50,000 in the 25 to 54 year old.

00:43:39.780 That's what sets your advertising rates and the collapse in the overall is what goes to how much your cable subscribers are going to renew your deal for.

00:43:49.520 How much are they going to pay to have MSNBC or CNN on their lineup?

00:43:52.500 Less this go around than they did the last, that's for sure, because the power of these networks is diminishing quickly.

00:43:58.860 So they're going to lose money in advertising and they're going to lose money in their subscription fees that they get.

00:44:03.840 And then you look at what's happening in our lane.

00:44:06.160 And my executive producer, Steve Krakauer, said this to me just recently because, you know, we keep a number, an eye on our numbers.

00:44:13.220 It made news back in July when our YouTube feed beat the YouTube feed of NBC News, CBS News, the BBC, Sky News and many others.

00:44:24.900 OK, it made news, made national news.

00:44:28.720 November, which was a presidential election, as you know, not just from Megyn Kelly, but for all those same organizations.

00:44:36.760 As far as I know, CNN and all these others made a big deal out of the presidential election, too.

00:44:41.180 In November alone, we just on our YouTube, this does not count SiriusXM audience.

00:44:48.640 This does not count a podcast, our podcast audience.

00:44:52.480 It does not count social media audience, just YouTube.

00:44:55.500 In one month, we had 194 million and a half, 194 million views.

00:45:03.680 OK, almost 200 million people were watching this show in November.

00:45:10.400 Think about it.

00:45:11.580 How did the others do?

00:45:13.580 NBC News, we crushed them by 50 million.

00:45:17.120 CNN, we they beat us by we had two thirds of their audience when we last looked at it in July.

00:45:25.220 We had two thirds of what they were getting on YouTube.

00:45:27.880 CNN, we killed them this time.

00:45:30.160 They they lost to us, too.

00:45:32.100 They got 155.

00:45:34.060 We beat them by 40 million.

00:45:37.320 I could go on.

00:45:38.400 I mean, all the mainstream, you know, Nets, they lost to us.

00:45:43.980 That's all of them.

00:45:45.280 All there's that's that's Jake Tapper.

00:45:47.860 That's Anderson Cooper.

00:45:49.200 That's the 9 p.m.

00:45:50.880 lady who never smiles.

00:45:52.380 That's the morning show.

00:45:53.620 That's all of them.

00:45:55.400 All of them together.

00:45:57.460 Lost to just this show.

00:45:59.540 Yay.

00:45:59.840 Good for us.

00:46:00.420 I'm happy to have a victory lab.

00:46:02.200 I won't lie.

00:46:02.840 But it's really not about that.

00:46:04.040 My point, the point I'm raising is they're collapsing.

00:46:08.540 And my God, I shudder to think what's going to happen this month when they're all their

00:46:12.440 audiences fled.

00:46:13.400 You know, that was when their audience's interest was at its peak.

00:46:16.280 Our numbers are still very strong.

00:46:18.380 So are Fox's.

00:46:19.180 You know, anyway, the point is, how can this model continue, Emily?

00:46:23.320 How can they how can these anchors continue to be paid these mega millions dollar sums?

00:46:28.660 Rachel Maddow took a pay cut for her one hour a week from 30 million to 25 million a year.

00:46:37.480 But there is just no way that this business model can be sustained for much longer.

00:46:43.800 Well, no, I'm glad you brought that up, because as you were going through those numbers, I'm

00:46:47.520 thinking in my head, the overhead that sustains this model that is losing to much more nimble

00:46:54.480 and leaner operations is astounding.

00:46:57.620 I mean, if you look at I mean, just even the bare bones like Joe Rogan said, it's so funny

00:47:02.480 how upset many people in the corporate press get about Joe Rogan, because he's just out

00:47:06.920 there with like his whiskey on the table and cigars on the table in a room.

00:47:10.920 He has like two camera views.

00:47:12.940 It's just like insane how competitive that is with these operations that have, you know,

00:47:17.980 their midtown glossy newsrooms with just the salaries.

00:47:24.640 I mean, it's just incredible.

00:47:25.680 So it's not sustainable.

00:47:28.280 And there was a glimmer of recognition of that when Jeff Zucker tried to launch CNN Plus,

00:47:35.220 I think is what it was called.

00:47:36.780 But just it was such a disaster because they didn't have the guts or the courage or the

00:47:41.740 wisdom to say what needs to happen on something like CNN Plus.

00:47:45.280 Not only do we need to take the overhead down and get on this off ramp to the digital world,

00:47:49.960 we actually need to understand the content demands of our audience, which would be, you

00:47:55.240 know, they understand you can draw a line from Duke lacrosse to the Rolling Stone, Virginia,

00:48:01.060 rape hoax piece to the Aziz Ansari Me Too movement piece.

00:48:05.560 Like the American people sort of see what's happened and the CNN audience sees what happened

00:48:10.140 and they find it interesting.

00:48:11.300 And they now want people to be way more authentic in their delivery because they lost their trust

00:48:17.460 as they sort of traced that line in real time.

00:48:20.160 So a lot of people's lives get ruined unjustly, were lied to over and over again about politics.

00:48:24.760 So, I mean, they are not willing to create the content.

00:48:28.500 They might be willing to like sort of take the playbook, you know, and sort of look at the

00:48:33.320 numbers, but they're not going to see improvement if the content itself.

00:48:37.380 Like it's one thing to have a good YouTube audience and to, you know, take, take your

00:48:40.920 costs down and be a little bit more nimble and build digital platforms.

00:48:45.000 It's another thing entirely to give people the content they want.

00:48:48.140 And that's where they're going to go wrong.

00:48:50.460 Yeah, they, they don't get it.

00:48:52.280 We played that soundbite last week of Leslie Stahl talking to Peggy Noonan, like, I don't,

00:48:57.260 I don't know why this is happening.

00:48:59.160 Why?

00:48:59.800 Why is the legacy media collapsing?

00:49:02.520 Hello, Leslie, you should come on.

00:49:05.200 I will explain it to you.

00:49:06.540 I'd be happy to, um, you have a lot of examples at CBS news.

00:49:10.540 And by the way, you know, ABC news, this is just the latest, you know, that we're talking

00:49:16.740 about, like in a stream, there was a day not long ago where that hot mess that they air

00:49:24.460 in the mornings called the view had to issue not one, not two, not three, but four corrections,

00:49:32.580 legal corrections, four legal notes.

00:49:35.100 We only have three of them on camera, but look at this.

00:49:37.000 Sorry, everyone.

00:49:39.040 I have another legal note.

00:49:40.700 Oh my God.

00:49:41.900 Both Trump and Pam Bondi have denied allegations of a quid pro quo.

00:49:46.480 I have a legal note.

00:49:47.700 You want to take this one, Joy?

00:49:49.140 Or are you good?

00:49:49.460 Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime.

00:49:54.940 That's true.

00:49:55.460 Also, another legal note, Pete Hegseth's lawyer said he paid the woman in 2023 to head off

00:50:02.480 the threat of a baseless lawsuit.

00:50:04.500 He has denied any wrongdoing.

00:50:06.540 Not to mention what they did at that debate, where once again, they tried to fact check

00:50:16.220 only one side.

00:50:17.580 And then when their fact checks got back checked, they cowered.

00:50:22.500 They cowered in fear.

00:50:23.620 I mean, this is a pattern with them.

00:50:25.540 They're lucky it was only 15 million.

00:50:27.440 We're not done with the media.

00:50:29.620 Trump has just announced he's suing another outlet.

00:50:34.100 We'll talk about who it is and we've got to get to what happened with Clarissa Ward,

00:50:40.160 not to mention the drones.

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00:52:02.420 Unbelievable what's happening right now.

00:52:04.400 I've got to tell you, it's just the meltdown continues.

00:52:08.360 Here's Steve Schmidt from the discredited vile Lincoln Project on the Stephanopoulos ABC News

00:52:16.580 settlement.

00:52:16.920 Quote, the pace of capitulation will increase, and along with it, a deep freeze will settle

00:52:23.520 over most of America's newsrooms, end quote.

00:52:27.140 Well, I've got news for you, Steve Schmidt.

00:52:30.020 If Trump winning against ABC News or getting them to settle in that case causes a deep freeze

00:52:37.840 in any given newsroom, then they're doing the news wrong.

00:52:41.480 Because those of us who cover him and the other side fairly have no fear whatsoever.

00:52:48.280 I mean, all you can do is your best to remain factual and to label opinion as such.

00:52:55.840 No one's perfect.

00:52:57.140 ABC News isn't expected to be perfect.

00:52:59.580 But when they screw up or any other newsroom screws up, you're expected to own it.

00:53:04.820 And the law acknowledges that.

00:53:08.240 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:53:10.420 Today's show is brought to you by Grand Canyon University.

00:53:13.480 GCU believes the American dream starts with purpose and can help you fulfill your sacred

00:53:18.180 calling.

00:53:19.120 Find your purpose.

00:53:20.220 Visit gcu.edu.

00:53:22.220 And if you go to GCU, I bet you learn a little bit about the First Amendment, or at least have

00:53:27.920 the opportunity to, and should understand that while it's vast and very protective of

00:53:32.920 speech, it is not complete.

00:53:36.540 There are exceptions to your abilities to say certain things.

00:53:41.140 And you may not defame someone.

00:53:43.180 And the standard for defamation is very, very high.

00:53:46.540 You will not be found liable unless you breach it.

00:53:49.700 ABC News was not found liable.

00:53:51.200 They settled this case because they knew.

00:53:54.820 They knew either what they did was wrong, what they said on paper, or when they put

00:54:00.180 George under oath was going to be extremely embarrassing, or that the risk was simply too

00:54:05.460 great in proceeding to trial.

00:54:07.460 Back with me now, Emily Jashinsky, DC correspondent for Unheard, and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief

00:54:12.040 of the Washington Free Beacon.

00:54:15.380 Okay, here's more.

00:54:17.460 Brian Stelter.

00:54:18.120 ABC News settled Donald Trump's defamation suit against the network and George Stephanopoulos

00:54:23.800 because this problem needed to go away.

00:54:27.600 An ABC executive remarked, on condition of anonymity.

00:54:32.140 Ooh, big scoop.

00:54:33.480 Okay, V goes on.

00:54:35.060 But the speculation about why ABC agreed to settle and why now and why at such expense is

00:54:42.740 not going away.

00:54:43.640 This is not a scoop.

00:54:44.900 This is nothing.

00:54:45.980 Because it needed to go, hello.

00:54:47.660 Yeah, you get it now, right?

00:54:49.320 We all understand it.

00:54:51.500 The light bulb went off.

00:54:52.440 Oh, that's what happened.

00:54:53.080 Here is something that just happened.

00:54:56.940 Trump is down at Mar-a-Lago, as you know, and just announced another lawsuit that's coming,

00:55:04.080 not against a media figure, but against Iowa pollster Ann Seltzer.

00:55:10.820 Listen to this.

00:55:11.600 I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very,

00:55:19.660 very good pollster who got me right all the time.

00:55:22.760 And then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three or four points,

00:55:26.380 and it became the biggest story all over the world.

00:55:29.820 And in my opinion, it was fraud, and it was election interference.

00:55:33.020 And we'll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow.

00:55:37.260 We're filing one on 60 Minutes.

00:55:39.080 You know about that, where they took Kamala's answer, which was a crazy answer, a horrible

00:55:44.560 answer, and they took the whole answer out, and they replaced it with something else she

00:55:49.760 said.

00:55:51.140 Okay.

00:55:51.800 Just correcting there.

00:55:52.900 It looks like they're going to file it against the Des Moines Register, the paper for which

00:55:56.660 Ann Seltzer works, and not necessarily her personally, but obviously it's all based on

00:56:01.060 her.

00:56:01.600 By the way, just a thing for the viewers.

00:56:03.200 You heard Trump there say, and in my opinion, it's fraud.

00:56:05.580 In my opinion, it was fraud.

00:56:06.880 Why does he say that?

00:56:07.820 Why does he add that phrase?

00:56:09.220 Because he understands what the legal limits are.

00:56:11.840 If he says they committed fraud and they didn't, they could sue him.

00:56:17.520 That's what he's worried.

00:56:18.520 So he couches it as opinion, which is protected by the First Amendment.

00:56:23.500 And if George Stephanopoulos had said, in my opinion, he raped her, he would have been

00:56:27.840 protected too.

00:56:28.780 He can say that.

00:56:29.440 He cannot go out there and say a jury found him civilly liable for rape, because that's

00:56:35.980 a factual statement, and his statement was not factual.

00:56:41.260 So you heard him there outlining his cases.

00:56:46.280 There, he just settled the one with ABC.

00:56:48.580 He's got one against, now coming, I guess, against the Des Moines Register about that poll

00:56:53.840 that he says was fraudulent.

00:56:57.380 And then you heard him reference there.

00:56:58.880 He's also suing 60 minutes for $10 billion.

00:57:03.980 Is that right, guys?

00:57:04.880 $10 billion for their editing of the Kamala Harris interview.

00:57:10.300 And there is another lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Committee for its behavior around it's

00:57:20.960 the honor it gave the New York Times for its coverage of the Russia hoax.

00:57:25.500 And while that third one sounded the most absurd to me, it's just survived motion practice.

00:57:32.180 A judge refused to throw it out on the papers.

00:57:34.360 And it's as crazy as it sounds, like David Axelrod just sent out a tweet describing it as

00:57:39.780 he's suing the Pulitzer Committee for honoring the Times' coverage of Russian election interference.

00:57:44.780 That's not exactly right.

00:57:46.240 He's actually suing the Pulitzer Committee for its own statements about its decision to honor

00:57:53.280 the Times.

00:57:54.560 It was asked to do a review by Trump, who was complaining, saying, why are you honoring

00:57:59.600 them?

00:58:00.260 Everything they reported turned out to be fake.

00:58:02.340 And they did a review, and they came back and said, and I'm reading here, the separate

00:58:08.020 reviews, we conducted reviews, the separate reviews converged in their conclusions, colon,

00:58:15.400 no passages or headlines, that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any

00:58:22.700 of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral

00:58:29.200 of the prizes.

00:58:30.920 And Trump's contention is that's absolutely wrong.

00:58:33.580 There were many, many facts that emerged to show the New York Times had it dead wrong on

00:58:38.140 the Russia hoax.

00:58:39.020 And you saying that was a further defamation.

00:58:42.320 You, the prize committee, defame me.

00:58:44.680 That's fair game.

00:58:46.100 That's not just, hey, you shouldn't have given the honor to them.

00:58:48.980 That would not be a good lawsuit.

00:58:50.200 So there's the Pulitzer Prize one.

00:58:53.320 The lawsuit against 60 Minutes, I will say right here, is laughable and should go away.

00:58:58.720 It is absurd.

00:59:00.340 They are dishonest and should be shamed.

00:59:04.240 But it's not illegal to make an edit that helps one candidate versus another.

00:59:09.940 That one's going nowhere, in my opinion.

00:59:11.980 Don't know about the judge in the case.

00:59:13.440 Maybe it's a Trump-friendly guy that could get him passed a round or two.

00:59:16.840 But that's not going anywhere.

00:59:18.860 In any event, the way the media is going to take this, Eliana, is it's an all-out assault.

00:59:25.680 It's retribution.

00:59:27.520 And what I see is a litigious guy who is continuing in his litigious nature and doing what he's

00:59:34.660 always done.

00:59:35.500 Sue people who say nasty things about him.

00:59:37.840 Yeah, Trump has always had lawsuits as a weapon in his arsenal.

00:59:45.360 And what's surprising, we said this is astonishing that the ABC News lawsuit succeeded.

00:59:52.100 So what's surprising is when they're meritorious, when they have success, when George Stephanopoulos

00:59:57.980 and ABC News are forced to pay $15 million because they were so sloppy.

01:00:02.240 So I have not seen or read about the three that you just mentioned.

01:00:07.540 But it does strike me that the CBS News one, while I know that the three of us have talked

01:00:15.460 about the CBS News edits and Trump's claims about them on the show.

01:00:20.520 So, look, what they did may have been wrong.

01:00:26.140 We may take issue with it.

01:00:27.620 But I sort of doubt they transgressed a law there.

01:00:33.260 And the Pulitzer one I just don't know anything about.

01:00:36.460 I would have to go read their statements.

01:00:38.720 But it shouldn't be surprising to anybody that Trump is suing all these people.

01:00:42.500 He's one of the most litigious people in the country.

01:00:46.620 So, you know, let's just expect lots of legal fines.

01:00:50.660 I will say, though, where he files the suits is important.

01:00:55.020 The ABC News lawsuit was filed in Florida, which meant that unlike some of the other lawsuits

01:01:02.120 that we've seen brought against Trump, which were successful because he faced hostile juries,

01:01:07.920 I think that the ABC News suit had more likelihood of success because ABC News would have faced

01:01:14.920 a hostile jury in the state of Florida.

01:01:17.660 I believe I'm trying to look this up here.

01:01:20.060 I believe the lawsuit against CBS News, which is based on an allegation that they somehow

01:01:25.560 committed consumer fraud by submitting a dishonestly edited interview with Kamala Harris,

01:01:31.400 is in a Texas state court, which would be very helpful to Trump.

01:01:37.220 And I believe, if I'm not confusing my lawsuits, that it's in front of a Trump-appointed judge.

01:01:43.640 I'll go back and look at that.

01:01:44.940 But I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's in Texas and it's in front of a Trump judge.

01:01:49.580 So that's probably what they're banking on.

01:01:51.500 And CBS News is saying this case should be bounced to New York, where we are based and where we

01:01:56.640 committed this alleged offense and where we can get a more left-wing judge that maybe

01:02:02.020 Trump did not appoint.

01:02:03.220 So yeah, by the way, plaintiffs forum shop all the time where they try to file the lawsuit in

01:02:09.100 the jurisdiction most favorable to them.

01:02:11.240 In any event, we'll see how all these play out.

01:02:12.800 Look, all these organizations have more money than God.

01:02:15.440 They can easily, they have lawyers on staff, general counsels and so on, and they can use

01:02:20.160 some of their profits that they've earned in defaming and maligning Trump unfairly for

01:02:24.540 all these years to hire outside counsel to handle these things, right?

01:02:28.220 Like these are two sophisticated parties suing one another, right?

01:02:32.880 Like Trump is a sophisticated party.

01:02:34.940 CBS News is a sophisticated party.

01:02:37.280 And so is ABC News.

01:02:38.920 And so is the Pulitzer Prize Committee.

01:02:40.600 They can handle this litigation.

01:02:42.500 He's trying to send a message.

01:02:44.520 And by the way, I mean, like, it'd be nice if you could get some of the people who called

01:02:48.060 you Hitler.

01:02:48.440 But the problem is that's opinion.

01:02:50.420 No one said, as a matter of fact, he's Hitler.

01:02:54.960 So that one, you know, you can get away with.

01:02:57.900 OK, I want to move on from very close to saying that.

01:03:01.380 Yeah, like he's Hitler incarnate.

01:03:03.760 He's actual Hitler.

01:03:04.820 Right.

01:03:05.280 I think that's actually going to be really interesting.

01:03:07.160 And I actually don't think this is going to cow the news rooms from negative coverage

01:03:11.680 of Trump.

01:03:12.200 It's their bread and butter.

01:03:14.300 It's their oxygen.

01:03:15.360 They won't know how to speak if it's not for that.

01:03:18.580 And some people are like, well, they've already been calmer.

01:03:20.500 They've already been calmer.

01:03:21.800 You know, you know why they've been calmer?

01:03:23.600 Because Trump's not doing anything.

01:03:25.260 There's very little to talk about right now.

01:03:27.460 You just wait.

01:03:29.280 You just wait until Trump gets back in office.

01:03:32.040 None of these news organizations is going to be saying, well, he won the popular vote.

01:03:36.120 Well, he has a mandate.

01:03:37.740 Well, you know, we're going to we're going to back off because we want to get Republican

01:03:40.880 viewers watching.

01:03:41.740 That's not going to happen.

01:03:43.160 They're going to go back to their normal Trump derangement syndrome selves and do what they

01:03:49.660 normally do.

01:03:50.980 And it's not like they defame him every day.

01:03:54.420 What Stephanopoulos did there was really egregious.

01:03:58.280 And if you don't go to that level on your defamation, he probably will ignore you.

01:04:03.500 But if you do what he did, you can and should be sued.

01:04:08.380 That one is totally fair.

01:04:10.320 So I don't I don't predict a chilling effect.

01:04:12.140 I think they love bashing him too much.

01:04:14.980 Oh, great.

01:04:17.920 Is this let me just ask my team a question.

01:04:19.720 Is this is this on the record that is this readable out loud?

01:04:26.860 Yes.

01:04:27.300 OK, sorry.

01:04:28.120 So we, as I said at the top of the show, reached out to Trump's lawyer in connection with the

01:04:34.580 the settlement with ABC News and the 15 million dollars and.

01:04:41.040 OK, just making sure.

01:04:42.640 Hold on.

01:04:43.160 Sorry, forgive me, because we don't normally let this play out live on the air, but I'm

01:04:46.400 just getting it, making sure this is on the record, not just on background before I read

01:04:50.540 anything.

01:04:54.080 OK, we've got to find out.

01:04:56.240 We've got to find out.

01:04:57.160 Forgive me.

01:04:57.580 We don't want to commit similar sins to our colleagues we've been ripping on.

01:05:01.480 But to the extent we can read it, we will in just a minute.

01:05:06.260 OK, here's what we should do.

01:05:07.760 We're going to put a pin in that.

01:05:08.760 We'll get back to it.

01:05:09.480 But let's move on to Clarissa Ward, because I don't know if you gals saw the reporting.

01:05:14.880 Did you see it, Emily?

01:05:15.560 You're smiling.

01:05:16.020 Oh, yeah.

01:05:17.660 I'll never forget it.

01:05:18.900 Indelible.

01:05:19.640 OK, it was indelible.

01:05:22.160 So for the audience members who didn't hear us talk about this with you on Friday, and

01:05:25.900 you should because we went back and we really deconstructed that moment.

01:05:30.120 Clarissa Ward of CNN walked into what was supposed to be a prison in Syria with some handler who

01:05:38.040 was associated with the new Al Qaeda.

01:05:41.960 Adjacent group that's just taken over Syria.

01:05:44.840 And her handler walked into the prison with her.

01:05:48.220 And one of Bashar al-Assad's prisoners was still in prison.

01:05:53.300 She said everything was open.

01:05:55.320 All the cells were open and the people had left.

01:05:57.540 But there was one that was locked.

01:05:58.720 And so she said, we had the guy shoot off the lock on this one cell.

01:06:02.920 They made us turn off our cameras.

01:06:05.020 The cameras go off.

01:06:06.100 And then they open the cell after this guy has now shot off the lock.

01:06:10.260 And they walk into the cell, which looks pristine.

01:06:13.280 Pristine, except for one blanket.

01:06:14.840 Neatly laid out.

01:06:15.900 You don't see anything.

01:06:17.400 I don't know what's off camera, to be fair.

01:06:19.660 But I didn't see a bucket of human waste or human waste or anything.

01:06:22.500 Certainly no trash.

01:06:24.000 No clothes.

01:06:24.680 No debris.

01:06:25.620 Anywhere.

01:06:27.100 Looks clean.

01:06:30.000 Underneath the blanket emerges a man.

01:06:32.420 After several, like, hello, hello, hello, hello.

01:06:34.380 He's lying there.

01:06:34.940 Then finally he emerges like a phoenix.

01:06:36.480 Hello.

01:06:37.640 And Clarissa Ward represents that this is like an, oh my God, it's a prisoner.

01:06:42.720 Look, we found somebody.

01:06:44.360 And then it gets very dramatic and she holds him.

01:06:46.740 You're okay.

01:06:47.280 You're okay.

01:06:47.920 You're okay.

01:06:48.380 You're okay.

01:06:48.740 Meanwhile, she's not speaking Arabic.

01:06:50.160 Well, she says she does speak.

01:06:51.360 She's speaking English to the guy.

01:06:52.740 Okay.

01:06:53.840 And she says that this is one of Assad's prisoners.

01:06:56.760 Then we see them outside and she's like rubbing his back.

01:07:00.040 There he is.

01:07:01.460 And look how clean his outfit is.

01:07:04.400 He doesn't have a scuff on him.

01:07:06.580 He doesn't have dirt on him.

01:07:08.020 His fingernails are clean.

01:07:10.200 His hand is shaking, supposedly.

01:07:13.740 He says he's been in jail for three or four months and he's been in captivity without food

01:07:17.440 or water for four days.

01:07:20.600 Looks fine.

01:07:21.260 Doesn't squint when he first sees the sun.

01:07:23.120 We don't know.

01:07:24.720 Well, some online sleuths noticed a lot of these things.

01:07:30.000 And by the way, we also reported that when Clarissa gave her report to Jake Tapper after

01:07:34.100 the fact, she said she offered him her cell phone so he could call his family.

01:07:38.280 And his response was like, no.

01:07:40.600 She said he was too in shock to call his family.

01:07:44.560 I think we're probably wondering where the guy was for four months, probably wondering dead

01:07:48.140 or alive, but like didn't take the offer.

01:07:50.840 All this stuff is suspicious and made it look very much like Clarissa and her brethren at

01:07:56.500 CNN were used to dump out a little propaganda to the rest of us, which is a sin, especially

01:08:03.120 in this line of reporting.

01:08:04.400 It's the number one risk.

01:08:05.780 You know, after getting shot, it's the number one thing you worry about as a foreign correspondent

01:08:10.020 that some group is going to use you in a clever way where you become their mouthpiece

01:08:14.040 unwillingly.

01:08:15.540 And now there was a reporter who has been in captivity twice in Syria who was like, this

01:08:21.540 is the stinks to high heaven.

01:08:23.320 Syrian prisons are as dirty and messed up and covered with debris as you can get.

01:08:29.460 And this doesn't smell or look right.

01:08:33.420 And now we find out that they've done more investigating the sleuths and the name that

01:08:39.800 Clarissa Ward and CNN attributed to this guy was not correct.

01:08:43.680 It did not prove to be true.

01:08:45.800 The sleuths have been looking into this.

01:08:48.360 It is not the man she said it was.

01:08:50.540 And now CNN has been forced to conduct an investigation.

01:08:55.060 They've launched an investigation to see what happened here.

01:09:00.120 Eliana, I feel like we kind of know what happened.

01:09:05.260 Look, to me, the open question in this, and it's amazing, it was actually a Syrian media

01:09:12.880 watchdog that called CNN on this, is was CNN in on this?

01:09:20.160 Or were they duped?

01:09:22.140 Did they want and were they making a made-for-TV moment?

01:09:30.760 Did they participate in this?

01:09:32.400 Or were they totally hoodwinked?

01:09:35.400 And reports about the man's actual identity were that he was a member of Bashar al-Assad's

01:09:44.580 military forces who tortured those who refused to bribe him.

01:09:51.940 That's what the Syrian media watchdog is saying.

01:09:55.960 So he's a torturer.

01:09:57.120 Not only was he not a prisoner Assad, he was a henchman of Assad's.

01:10:02.560 So it's pretty far off the mark for CNN.

01:10:05.140 Wow.

01:10:07.400 So what was he doing in the cell?

01:10:11.460 Like, if that's true, I can see him wanting to pretend he was a prisoner of Assad's, as

01:10:19.740 opposed to an alleged torturer who was working on behalf of Assad.

01:10:24.580 But he would not have been locked up by Assad in a jail for four months, you know, one presumes,

01:10:32.580 if this is all, if this is the nature of the relationship.

01:10:35.800 So we, even if that's true, Emily, we don't know why he was in this cell with a lock on

01:10:41.220 it and what the game was.

01:10:43.660 Yeah, it may be that he actually duped the rebels who they themselves duped Clarissa Ward

01:10:48.840 and the CNN team.

01:10:50.000 I think it does look like a combination.

01:10:52.300 Yes, the double do, which is, I mean, I, this is perfectly fits the propaganda that Jelani

01:10:57.980 and the rebels right now are trying to just are trying to distribute throughout the Western

01:11:02.920 world.

01:11:03.260 They need Western cooperation.

01:11:04.560 They are Islamists.

01:11:06.780 And what they need to show is that they are, quote unquote, freedom fighters, that they

01:11:10.640 are liberating Syria from Assad.

01:11:13.100 And so literally liberating a man from a prison is sort of exactly what you would expect to

01:11:19.320 see from them.

01:11:20.040 And it's actually so on the nose that you would expect for a pre-produced package by

01:11:24.720 CNN, because if I, unless I'm wrong, this didn't air live, this was a pre-produced package.

01:11:28.920 They had voiceovers and all of that stuff prepped.

01:11:32.300 This should have gone through a lot of layers of editorial oversight.

01:11:35.880 And so it's one thing for Ward to get duped in the moment, if it were happening live or

01:11:39.960 something like that.

01:11:40.780 It's an entirely different thing to have a name and to have so many details.

01:11:45.860 I mean, whoever's editing this package, producing this package would have had the same questions

01:11:50.920 theoretically that people immediately had on the internet about the nature of the setup.

01:11:56.400 Why does this look like it's staged?

01:11:59.120 Why does this all seem so strange?

01:12:00.660 Those questions would have been asked in production.

01:12:03.140 So it's all very, very, very odd.

01:12:06.000 But it does show this sort of credulousness.

01:12:09.320 I think at the very least, it shows a credulousness of being led around by the rebel group and having

01:12:16.000 this opportunity to see someone be literally liberated when the propaganda line is about

01:12:21.380 liberation is just seems it should have seemed to them too good to be true.

01:12:27.680 And that it didn't, I think, is pretty suspicious and unfortunate for their credibility.

01:12:34.100 Eliana, the statement, this is per The Wrap, is CNN to The Wrap.

01:12:40.120 We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given

01:12:45.500 a false identity than they say no one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to

01:12:53.320 visit the prison building featured in our report that day.

01:12:56.380 The events transpired as they appear in our film.

01:13:00.640 The decision to release the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard, a Syrian

01:13:06.960 rebel.

01:13:07.780 We reported the scene as it unfolded, including what the prisoner told us with clear attribution.

01:13:12.800 We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given

01:13:17.440 a false identity.

01:13:19.620 We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.

01:13:24.900 On Sunday, it was Verify Psy, I think it's short for Syria, a website that describes itself

01:13:31.340 as an independent and unbiased platform specializing in fact-checking in Syria that cast doubt on the

01:13:36.760 man's claim.

01:13:38.140 The website's writer, Abdul Salam Al-Hamwi, wrote that the man who identified himself as

01:13:43.940 Abdel Garbal from Homs claimed he had been in prison for three months and then he got into

01:13:50.180 some of the facts that suggest that's not how that looked at all.

01:13:54.360 Then they searched for records for a man named Adel Garbal, could not find any.

01:13:59.600 Instead, they claim he's actually this man named Salama Mohammed Salama, who's also known

01:14:05.260 as Abu Hamza, a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force intelligence who is well known for

01:14:09.160 his behavior and goes on to some of the details that you already offered.

01:14:14.080 Here's the thing.

01:14:17.220 You're kind of in the business of checking those things out if you're CNN and you're Clarissa

01:14:22.300 Ward.

01:14:23.420 It's really not like that big a sacrifice to take an extra day.

01:14:28.520 No one's like going to beat you to that story to kick the tires and figure out whether this

01:14:34.980 guy really is who he says he is.

01:14:37.640 And CNN also has has reporters and producers all around the world, I'm sure, including in

01:14:42.040 Syria.

01:14:43.020 So do you think this is a case of just negligence, downsizing?

01:14:48.920 If in fact they well, they've already been embarrassed because they reported the wrong name

01:14:52.480 from from their own admission, negligence, downsizing or just too good a story, Emily, like it's

01:14:59.020 just too good.

01:15:00.660 She they their star reporter looks like the next Christiana Mampur.

01:15:06.300 Let's do this thing.

01:15:08.380 I think it was probably too good.

01:15:10.120 I mean, at the bare minimum, you wouldn't ask for a name unless you were going to check

01:15:13.460 it.

01:15:13.700 But at the bare minimum, check the name.

01:15:15.600 I mean, they could have been in touch with the Syrian fact checking outlet.

01:15:18.660 Now, it's very hard to do this stuff in Syria right now because there's so many different

01:15:21.580 factions and lines have shifted and allegiances have shifted.

01:15:24.500 So I understand that it's hard.

01:15:25.720 But if you're going to put if you're going to air it and you're going to be so dramatic

01:15:29.700 when it airs, you're going to really push it.

01:15:32.900 Man, just the fact that they don't seem to have checked the name, done the most basic

01:15:38.140 thing, checked the name.

01:15:39.820 And there were all of these obvious questions that people on the Internet raised within like

01:15:42.920 10 minutes of the thing airing.

01:15:44.820 That just tells me they were too excited to like really, as you said, kick the tires and

01:15:49.840 do their due diligence.

01:15:50.840 It just probably seemed too good for them not to use.

01:15:54.860 And like, you know, it could be an even bigger story like, oh, my God, we found an alleged

01:15:59.160 torturer.

01:16:00.200 Like, has he been hiding?

01:16:02.280 What did he have a fallout with his side?

01:16:03.640 Why is he in this prison?

01:16:04.560 It was he really in this prison?

01:16:05.640 Was he placing the did he fool the rebels into doing like if I were CNN, I'd be like, this

01:16:10.000 is like, let's get to the bottom before you hit air.

01:16:12.780 Let's get to the bottom of what really happened there.

01:16:14.360 It's even more interesting if you go to air with.

01:16:16.140 Here's what happened as it unfolded.

01:16:17.740 Then we found out he was lying to us.

01:16:20.640 This is who we found out.

01:16:21.540 Like, that's a great story, but it doesn't really support the narrative that Clarissa,

01:16:27.620 Mother Teresa, went in there and rescued the poor, sad little man who hadn't eaten and

01:16:34.340 rubbed his back.

01:16:35.360 I'm telling you, it's like this is the same network that let Chris Cuomo come out of that

01:16:39.440 basement and pretend that he hadn't been out.

01:16:42.020 Right.

01:16:42.400 We all knew he'd been out.

01:16:45.360 We've seen the reports.

01:16:46.760 He was out fighting with his neighbors during COVID, but then they let him do his dramatic

01:16:50.360 like Mary Ingalls.

01:16:52.260 Pa, I can see.

01:16:53.580 I can't see.

01:16:54.360 Actually, it was I can't see.

01:16:56.060 Anyway.

01:16:56.560 OK, back to the Trump settlement with ABC News.

01:17:01.620 We have now made sure we can read what I was about to read.

01:17:04.940 OK, so our producer spoke with Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito.

01:17:08.840 And here is what he said.

01:17:10.420 Our question was, why did ABC decide to settle the long and short of it is the nature of the

01:17:15.680 claims that were brought and the fact that they were verifiable from a standpoint as factually

01:17:20.020 untrue from George Stephanopoulos.

01:17:22.140 Trump's legal team had separate video clips of George Stephanopoulos on ABC that showed Stephanopoulos

01:17:27.800 knew that Trump had not been found liable for rape.

01:17:31.320 This was not a situation where there was simply a misunderstanding.

01:17:35.420 Um, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Eugene Carroll after the trial on his show, and we

01:17:42.140 had video of his questions to Carroll.

01:17:44.020 And when he asked her how she felt after Stephanopoulos said Trump was not liable for rape, juxtapose

01:17:52.160 that with his questioning of mace.

01:17:54.700 That's very interesting.

01:17:55.960 It's a good point.

01:17:57.180 We actually we should go back and pull that.

01:17:58.820 How about yesterday in the courtroom, the first the first announcement was made and

01:18:04.600 it was that he was not found liable for rape.

01:18:07.800 What were we thinking at that moment?

01:18:10.620 Was there something, this is us, in discovery that scared ABC into settling?

01:18:15.680 Answer.

01:18:16.140 The possibility of something coming out in discovery may have had led to the settlement.

01:18:20.700 Uh, Trump legal team had scheduled to take the deposition of ABC, an ABC rep and George

01:18:27.000 Stephanopoulos.

01:18:28.120 Uh, the lawyer suspects ABC did not want it to happen.

01:18:31.120 Quote, it wasn't something ABC learned that caused them to settle, but rather something Trump's

01:18:36.560 team may learn.

01:18:38.380 He said, end quote.

01:18:40.120 Our question, had they already exchanged documents to my point of normally you exchange texts and

01:18:45.620 papers before you sit for the deposition.

01:18:47.180 Uh, he said that there had been minimal document exchange in discovery.

01:18:51.780 Trump team was waiting on ABC and Stephanopoulos to respond to discovery demands.

01:18:56.060 He said at the time of the settlement, ABC had only quote, produced one piece of paper and

01:19:02.700 quote, very interesting and not provided any other documentation.

01:19:06.340 He believes fear of what Trump could learn about ABC and Stephanopoulos and document exchange

01:19:10.980 may have played a role in the settlement.

01:19:14.200 That's very interesting.

01:19:15.520 So they had handed over one piece of paper.

01:19:19.860 They had not turned over the texts or the instant messages or the, oh shit exchanges when

01:19:26.200 they got the lawsuit or any of that stuff.

01:19:29.500 And they were about to have to, they, they panicked understandably.

01:19:34.260 And, uh, now we'll never know what was in those documents, but spare us the, oh, poor news

01:19:40.060 organizations.

01:19:40.720 How will they ever cover the news now?

01:19:43.400 Eliana, right?

01:19:44.180 It's like, I stand by everything I've written down with my team.

01:19:48.320 Every word I've said on this show, no one's perfect, but I could defend all of it in court.

01:19:54.240 Something's something stinks at ABC news.

01:19:57.440 Yeah, I think it goes back to our initial conversation that they decided that paying $15 million was the less painful, was less painful than the protracted embarrassment and potential humiliation of what would come out in those documents.

01:20:12.560 Um, you know, then the PR costs to them.

01:20:15.780 Um, and, uh, as we saw, it's actually interesting to contrast that with Fox news where basically

01:20:21.860 they did go through discovery.

01:20:23.120 They were going to go through trial trial.

01:20:25.040 They ended up, uh, suffering the PR costs and paying the money.

01:20:28.740 Um, it's like, you know, they might as well just paid the money and avoided all the discovery and the depositions, which is, seems to be what ABC news did here.

01:20:37.000 Yeah.

01:20:37.740 No trial now.

01:20:38.760 I know.

01:20:39.340 Yeah.

01:20:39.600 Um, okay.

01:20:40.020 Let's shift gears for a moment because I, I want to spend a minute on, um, the WNBA and Caitlin Clark.

01:20:48.260 You guys saw that speaking of bend the knee, she did not look like a Lilliputian when she did it.

01:20:53.480 She's tall, a tall lady.

01:20:55.740 And she decided to go woke.

01:20:58.520 And when, um, time magazine made her athlete of the year, she accepted.

01:21:04.780 She was fine going into the spotlight and saying, yeah, thank you.

01:21:09.140 I love to be on your cover and my sexy outfit.

01:21:11.620 Let's do this thing.

01:21:13.260 Interview me and my sexy plunging dress.

01:21:15.600 I do like the spotlight.

01:21:16.880 It feels good to be in front of the camera.

01:21:18.420 Okay, fine.

01:21:19.260 I don't, I have no problem with that.

01:21:21.060 However, I do.

01:21:22.060 When you get out there and you say, but I feel really bad about it.

01:21:25.160 I'm very sad.

01:21:26.180 I'm here because I'm so white.

01:21:28.600 I'm time magazine, so white.

01:21:30.880 And I really wish you were paying attention to the black players.

01:21:34.400 I re that's my true wish.

01:21:36.260 If you could just stop looking at me under the Klieg lights and look over there at the black players.

01:21:41.900 That's what I really want from you.

01:21:43.620 Time magazine.

01:21:44.340 And then she went on to talk about how it's my truth and her right privilege and all that.

01:21:50.300 So, oh, okay.

01:21:51.680 So did the bending of the knee, I mean, I have a soundbite that I want to play for you.

01:21:57.260 And it involves the owner, I believe, of the Mystics, which is, yeah, co-owner, Sheila Johnson.

01:22:04.080 She owns a different team, the Mystics, within the WNBA.

01:22:08.600 And I really think, like, I was very critical of Caitlin Clark for doing this.

01:22:12.660 Maybe, maybe what she said really will win over the WNBA that's been bullying her mercilessly because she's white.

01:22:21.000 And earning, maybe I was just too dense to see it.

01:22:24.820 And Caitlin is very clever.

01:22:26.820 And actually, the league is really going to get behind her now and say, you know what?

01:22:31.620 She is the best.

01:22:33.020 She earned this honor.

01:22:36.140 Let's watch.

01:22:36.940 And this year, something clicked with the WNBA, and it's because of the draft of the players that came in.

01:22:46.080 It's just not Caitlin Clark.

01:22:48.220 It's Reese.

01:22:49.260 We have so many, so much talent out there that has been unrecognized.

01:22:54.140 And I don't think we can just pin it on one player.

01:22:57.120 Why couldn't they have put the whole WNBA on that cover and said, the WNBA is the league of the year because of all the talent that we have.

01:23:12.140 Totally.

01:23:12.340 Because when you just keep singling out one player, it creates hard feelings.

01:23:17.120 And so now you're starting to hear stories of racism within the WNBA.

01:23:21.740 And I don't want to hear that.

01:23:27.120 This is a fool's errand, Emily.

01:23:32.580 Why?

01:23:33.200 Why did she do it?

01:23:34.620 And what did it get her?

01:23:37.080 Yeah, I mean, it's like a cry for help.

01:23:39.280 The best case scenario is that this is just a cry for help for Caitlin Clark, who's been getting the tar beat out of her by players who are taking out their upset, their anger over her white privilege, physically onto Caitlin Clark.

01:23:52.780 I mean, the clips, if you watch them back, are just horrendous and so insane.

01:23:57.920 And that's the type of pressure that she's under.

01:24:00.560 And maybe she thought that she had no choice.

01:24:03.160 She had to say it.

01:24:04.040 It doesn't take the agency away from her from actually saying it.

01:24:06.780 She probably believes it because it's all she ever hears from everyone around her.

01:24:10.700 But even if she didn't believe it, she realizes that it's probably physically dangerous for her not to say something like that.

01:24:16.560 But, of course, it wasn't good enough to say that this is all like that Caitlin Clark isn't about the surge of the surge of interest in the WNBA is not just about Caitlin Clark is stupid.

01:24:25.940 It is literally just about Caitlin Clark.

01:24:27.760 And it's not because Caitlin Clark is white.

01:24:30.100 It's because she had this meteoric, crazy story in the tournament.

01:24:34.740 And it was just a narrative that was too good for people to not pay attention to.

01:24:39.920 It was crazy.

01:24:41.100 It was such an amazing story.

01:24:44.440 And that is what it was.

01:24:46.420 It was not her race.

01:24:47.560 It was that.

01:24:48.560 And, of course, though, of course, we have to listen to CNN segments like that one with Sheila Johnson about how the reason it should have been the whole WNBA

01:24:56.900 literally doing the cringe, everyone gets a trophy routine is because it was hurting people's feelings.

01:25:02.880 I mean, this woman is so out of touch with what like the country is basically in the position right now of throwing all of that like bullshit out the window.

01:25:10.880 And she's going on CNN acting like she has the moral high ground saying it.

01:25:15.320 Right.

01:25:15.980 Hello.

01:25:16.480 It's like 2020 called and they want their commentary back.

01:25:19.300 Eliana, Caitlin Clark is 22 and hasn't yet learned the lesson that bending the knee to the woke mob does not produce better results in one's life.

01:25:32.160 It doesn't.

01:25:34.000 Nothing good will come from it.

01:25:35.760 You will alienate your fan base that does not want to see you buy into their bullshit narratives about race or white privilege in the WNBA.

01:25:44.540 And you will gain absolutely no grace or quarter from your critics who are not persuadable.

01:25:55.700 Well, I think you're exactly right.

01:25:57.480 It'd be one conversation if we were going to talk about, look, she made the decision to go along to get along and this is the way to silence her critics.

01:26:05.840 And, OK, you know, one could understand that.

01:26:09.040 But the reality is that accepting this award and then saying what she said is not going to silence any critics.

01:26:17.260 It's not going to help her go along to get along.

01:26:19.960 And you see that from the reaction of the mystics owner.

01:26:23.500 And which is why it's clear she's young and and stupid and not unsophisticated and doesn't realize this.

01:26:34.060 But the thing that really struck me, Megan, is I grew up a fan of the NBA in the era of Michael Jordan.

01:26:41.140 And since then, as I followed less closely, the major NBA stars have been since Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, all African-American men.

01:26:54.820 And are is the stipulation that female basketball fans are somehow uniquely racist?

01:27:04.820 You know, Caitlin Clark is really talented, but we haven't seen race be a barrier to major, major stardom in the male basketball league and riches.

01:27:16.880 It's a good point. It's a good point.

01:27:18.460 No, I mean, they're obviously saying that the only reason people want to watch Caitlin is that she's white.

01:27:24.080 They're excited because she's white. And I think the record seems pretty clear.

01:27:28.600 They're excited to watch Caitlin because she's great.

01:27:31.360 And that's what we've seen in the NBA, of course.

01:27:34.360 Right. We're reacting to her color.

01:27:36.320 Exactly. Time and again in the NBA where the talent and hard work.

01:27:43.680 There's actually a wonderful Netflix series on about these NBA players.

01:27:47.580 It follows their families. LeBron James is one of them.

01:27:50.680 But, you know, the amount when you watch and really appreciate the amount of hard work it takes to be an elite athlete the way these guys are, it's just astonishing.

01:28:00.320 And when you see them, they're not talking about the racism of NBA fans.

01:28:05.280 I'm sorry, but if she really just wants the spotlight to be on the deserving black players who surround her and on whose backs this league was built, then you shouldn't have taken the honor.

01:28:19.720 Then you should have said, make the WNBA the team of the year, the league of the year.

01:28:26.920 What I don't need right now is an additional singled out honor.

01:28:30.920 That's what she should have done. You can't have it both ways.

01:28:35.560 She wants the attention. She wants to be in the spotlight.

01:28:38.900 And then she wants to just throw a bone to the girls who were rejected.

01:28:42.980 And so it doesn't come as any surprise to me that they don't want her discarded bones and that this did nothing to appease them and actually probably infuriated all of us.

01:28:53.000 We'll see. Okay. More with Emily and Eliana right after this quick break. Don't go away.

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01:30:01.900 So, ladies, have you seen a drone yet?

01:30:04.320 Yeah.

01:30:05.580 No, nothing.

01:30:07.300 I have to tell you in northern Virginia.

01:30:09.020 I got some friends in Connecticut who have seen who have seen something like people are checking their ring cameras, their footage and seeing mysterious items.

01:30:19.840 They're all over New Jersey.

01:30:21.140 Now, the sightings have been New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia.

01:30:26.380 But John Kirby, Pentagon spokesperson, maintains there's nothing to see here.

01:30:35.380 And if there is, we don't know what it is, but there's nothing to worry about.

01:30:38.400 He goes on with Martha McCallum and this happens.

01:30:41.340 As I said yesterday, Martha, as soon as we know, we're going to be as transparent as we can.

01:30:45.520 No, I hear you. This is shocking. I got to tell you, this is shocking.

01:30:47.680 We spend $824 billion on defense.

01:30:51.220 We have the greatest intelligent capability in the world.

01:30:54.300 So how can you stand there and say to the country right now, gosh darn, we just don't know what these are?

01:31:03.360 Because I'm not going to lie to you or to the American people.

01:31:07.040 I'm sure I'm not going to say we know something when we don't.

01:31:09.600 You know, do you know and you can't say? Can you tell me that?

01:31:13.660 No, I'm telling you, Martha, I'm telling you, we don't.

01:31:17.420 You don't. Why not just take one down and figure out what's going on?

01:31:20.520 Well, OK, the idea of taking something down again, you want to worry about public safety.

01:31:25.720 First of all, we don't have enough conclusions to take that kind of a policy action.

01:31:29.320 But let's just assume for a minute, Martha, that we did.

01:31:31.840 I mean, you're not going to want to shoot something down where it can hit somebody's house or hurt somebody.

01:31:36.140 Well, the Coast Guard says that there are 30 of them following one of their ships in the ocean.

01:31:39.400 So would that work?

01:31:40.680 I mean, again, we have to develop the policy options based on what we know we're dealing with here.

01:31:45.840 And we just don't know enough to make those to take those kinds of actions.

01:31:51.000 Bullshit. Those are lies.

01:31:53.080 You can tell those are lies one after the other.

01:31:55.200 We're being misled that I think we're pretty clear on.

01:31:59.300 And, you know, first it was you're not seeing what you're what you think you're saying.

01:32:02.920 They're not out there. People are making it up.

01:32:05.120 Then it was, oh, they're fixed wing aircraft aircraft.

01:32:08.260 And then, you know, the Maryland governor came out and said, hello, we saw drones.

01:32:12.860 And, you know, person after person, credible, credible, credible witness after it came out and said, these are drones.

01:32:18.080 Stop it. Just stop it right now.

01:32:19.820 And now it's OK. They're there, but we don't know what they are.

01:32:22.280 You know, but they said, oh, there's nothing to worry about.

01:32:24.440 And then the New Jersey lawmakers came out and said, no, you can't say that.

01:32:27.800 We don't know what they are.

01:32:28.780 How can you tell us? We don't know whether we have cause to worry.

01:32:32.360 And then you saw him dancing there.

01:32:34.040 And now here's a man named John Ferguson.

01:32:35.880 He's CEO, he says, of a drone manufacturing company in Kansas.

01:32:40.060 He went viral over the weekend.

01:32:42.160 We have not independently confirmed John Ferguson, but this guy's everywhere right now with his theory.

01:32:50.120 Hey, everyone.

01:32:51.560 My name is John Ferguson.

01:32:52.940 I'm the CEO of Saxon Aerospace here in Wichita, Kansas.

01:32:57.460 But I'm a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft, military grade unmanned aircraft, as you can see one of my systems here.

01:33:05.440 I don't particularly believe that these have a nefarious intent.

01:33:10.040 I could be wrong, but I want to give you the truth and what I believe.

01:33:14.440 It's my own opinion.

01:33:15.820 And I've not bounced this off of anybody.

01:33:18.160 So, you know, if you think it's bullshit, whatever.

01:33:21.840 These drones are not nefarious in intent.

01:33:23.980 If they are, they are.

01:33:26.100 But I doubt it.

01:33:28.580 But if they are drones, the only reason why they would be flying and flying that low is because they're trying to smell something on the ground.

01:33:38.740 My belief is they're trying to smell something on the ground.

01:33:42.840 gas leaks, radioactive material, whatever.

01:33:47.980 These drones, I believe, are launched from a location that nobody knows.

01:33:54.720 But I do believe that they're flying low enough that they're just trying to sniff the ground and try to find something.

01:34:02.280 Okay.

01:34:02.820 I did not know that a drone could sniff.

01:34:05.180 Me neither.

01:34:05.640 That is news to me.

01:34:06.420 Okay.

01:34:08.640 I've heard a few different theories along this line.

01:34:10.600 Like, they're out there running a psyop, like, seeing how the public would react if and when they really are needed to respond to, for example, a dirty bomb or the detection of one, that they actually are trying to detect whether something has been released.

01:34:27.560 And that's why they don't want to tell us because it would cause a panic, which would be incredibly criminally negligent, right, to allow people to be whatever.

01:34:37.080 These are all just theories that are being bandied about.

01:34:38.680 We have absolutely no idea.

01:34:41.080 That's the truth, Eliana.

01:34:44.740 Right.

01:34:45.300 We have no idea.

01:34:46.380 And I would say that the Biden administration is bedeviled in terms of its credibility with the public by the fact that there was a Chinese spy balloon flying over the country that it did not tell the public about until Americans saw it hovering in the sky.

01:35:05.680 And they, it was a public pressure campaign that forced the administration to disclose what that was.

01:35:12.900 And so when you hear them saying, we have no idea what this is, I think it sort of strains credulity.

01:35:20.640 And Kirby's response wasn't like, hey, you know, we don't know what this is.

01:35:25.380 We're taking it very seriously.

01:35:26.700 And we're in the process of putting policy options in front of the president.

01:35:30.000 We're going to have, we're going to come to a decision in the coming days.

01:35:34.260 It just didn't, you know, something didn't seem quite right.

01:35:40.160 As Judge Judy always says, it didn't make sense.

01:35:43.900 And if it doesn't make sense, it isn't true.

01:35:46.740 It doesn't make sense, Emily, that we can't shoot down one of these reportedly hundreds of drones to see what the hell it is.

01:35:54.720 Like she says, some of them are over the water.

01:35:57.720 We absolutely could shoot one down.

01:35:59.660 You're going to tell me the military wouldn't shoot down something that could possibly be a threat to national security or the lives of Americans.

01:36:05.760 We don't know what the hell could be foreign released.

01:36:08.040 Bull shit.

01:36:09.240 No one believes that.

01:36:10.640 What I believe is the government knows full well what they are.

01:36:13.500 And it has its reasons for not telling us.

01:36:15.900 We just don't know what they are yet.

01:36:17.140 But we should find out.

01:36:18.580 Here's Trump on what should happen here.

01:36:20.960 The government knows what is happening.

01:36:25.000 There you go.

01:36:26.720 Our military knows where they took off from.

01:36:30.240 If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage.

01:36:33.140 They know where it came from and where it went.

01:36:36.900 And for some reason, they don't want to comment.

01:36:39.760 And I think they'd be better off saying what it is.

01:36:41.860 Our military knows and our president knows.

01:36:45.260 And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense.

01:36:47.680 I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy that blasted out.

01:36:52.600 Even if they were late, they blasted.

01:36:55.880 Something strange is going on.

01:36:57.440 For some reason, they don't want to tell the people.

01:36:59.400 And they should because.

01:37:01.900 He sounds genuinely like he might not know, even though he's getting security briefings already, Emily.

01:37:06.260 But what he does know from having been briefed in the past is what they know generally, not to do the whole who knows what they know and we know.

01:37:15.040 But that's I mean, he is aware of the kinds of intelligence that people with the highest levels of classification and access to get.

01:37:22.520 He understands drone technology as it's used by the military.

01:37:25.240 So it's interesting, I think, what he just said.

01:37:27.960 And it would be staggering if the government did not know what these were at this point.

01:37:33.420 This has been so sustained and has involved so many different sightings, some of which do seem to be like BS.

01:37:39.700 But either way, there have been so many serious sightings at this point over such a long period of time.

01:37:43.980 If they don't know, it's outrageous.

01:37:46.080 It's a scandal.

01:37:46.740 And I think it would be a much worse option for them to be going to the press and talking about how they don't know if they truly don't know that interview with Martha McCallum.

01:37:56.580 I mean, I don't understand why that even happened.

01:37:58.320 If they don't know, why are you talking?

01:38:01.900 I mean, and if you do know, why are you talking if you're not going to tell us or you're not going to have a better explanation?

01:38:08.440 I mean, seriously, this is so such a disaster for them.

01:38:12.800 Two things can't be true.

01:38:13.780 It cannot be true that they don't know what this is and that there's no threat to the public.

01:38:19.620 They can't know those things.

01:38:21.320 They can't.

01:38:21.940 That is absurd.

01:38:23.180 Anybody can see through it.

01:38:24.560 So it's a disaster for them right now.

01:38:27.160 Here is New Jersey Republican State Senator John Bramnick.

01:38:32.280 Listen.

01:38:33.600 Why would the government allow the public to be so frustrated?

01:38:37.500 That brings to me to the point that whatever these drones are doing, the government really doesn't want us to know.

01:38:45.460 What that must mean is they're more concerned with us getting knowledge and being afraid of that information than having no knowledge and having all these questions.

01:38:56.180 That's why I'm worried about it.

01:38:57.620 It must be something going on that they can't tell us because they are so fearful of what the public's going to do when they hear what the drones are doing.

01:39:08.400 Good point, Eliana.

01:39:09.720 Now.

01:39:11.780 A good point.

01:39:12.780 And I should point out that if they don't know what these drones are doing and can't find out in about 30 minutes, that should frighten every American.

01:39:22.720 So both of the I think both alternatives here that we have or that they know and they're not disclosing it or they don't know are are disturbing.

01:39:34.720 Well, can I just say it's not that we would be afraid.

01:39:37.620 It's that we might also be angry.

01:39:39.560 Maybe it's not something that we should be scared of, but maybe it is a use of resources that would really piss people off.

01:39:45.200 Mm hmm.

01:39:45.880 I just feel like they must know.

01:39:49.660 They they must know because it's been going on for so long.

01:39:54.220 They must be complicit.

01:39:55.920 There's there's no way.

01:39:57.640 Like, how would it be going on this long if they didn't know what it was and hadn't ascertained that they want it or that it's not going to hurt anybody?

01:40:05.120 I just that doesn't that doesn't seem possible to me.

01:40:07.820 The question is, why won't they tell us?

01:40:09.240 That's my question.

01:40:10.440 Ladies, that's for another day.

01:40:11.980 Great to see you both.

01:40:12.860 Thank you.

01:40:13.840 Thanks, Megan.

01:40:14.520 Thanks, Megan.

01:40:15.580 We're back tomorrow with Mark Halpern and crew.

01:40:19.820 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:40:21.940 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 16, 2024

ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About ＂Drone＂ Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson ｜ Ep. 966

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