The Megyn Kelly Show - Americans' Actual Abortion Views, and Amber Heard's Disturbing Testimony, with Charles C.W. Cooke, Mark Geragos, and More

00:00:00.000 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:02.800 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:05.160 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:07.700 We're fugitives from interval.

00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:12.840 Espionage?

00:00:13.560 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:00:16.540 Better.

00:00:17.400 Is there love language?

00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller

00:00:21.360 and romantic comedy.

00:00:24.180 We make up our own rules.

00:00:25.940 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:30.000 When I found out my friend got a great deal

00:00:32.300 on a wool coat from Winners,

00:00:33.920 I started wondering.

00:00:35.640 Is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

00:00:38.500 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.

00:00:41.400 Are those from Winners?

00:00:42.920 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings.

00:00:45.400 Did she pay full price?

00:00:46.740 Or that leather tote?

00:00:47.760 Or that cashmere sweater?

00:00:48.980 Or those knee-high boots?

00:00:50.440 That dress?

00:00:51.220 That jacket?

00:00:51.880 Those shoes?

00:00:52.900 Is anyone paying full price for anything?

00:00:55.840 Stop wondering.

00:00:56.760 Start winning.

00:00:58.080 Winners.

00:00:58.460 Find fabulous for less.

00:01:00.840 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:02.660 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:01:06.180 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:01:13.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:01:16.160 It has been a huge week for us.

00:01:18.560 Thanks to our audience for tuning in

00:01:19.940 and the amazing guests that we have lined up

00:01:22.060 to discuss the historic leak

00:01:23.740 at the U.S. Supreme Court

00:01:25.260 and the decision that was inside of that leak,

00:01:28.940 the draft opinion on reversing Roe versus Wade.

00:01:32.000 Today, there are new developments in that story,

00:01:34.260 including strong remarks from Chief Justice John Roberts

00:01:37.660 about the leaker and the White House again

00:01:40.960 refusing to condemn the leak itself

00:01:45.660 and the planned protests at the conservative justices' homes.

00:01:49.740 They couldn't care less about what happens to them.

00:01:52.420 They really don't.

00:01:53.200 It's very obvious.

00:01:54.600 We're also going to speak with a coach today,

00:01:56.880 speaking of the Supreme Court,

00:01:58.260 whose personal act of prayer

00:02:00.020 is now a major test of constitutional rights

00:02:02.720 being considered at the court.

00:02:04.420 They just had an oral argument on this case

00:02:06.020 and the court's been doing some very interesting things

00:02:08.360 when it comes to religious liberty.

00:02:10.160 Now that we have six conservatives on the bench,

00:02:13.600 we'll get into what that means.

00:02:15.440 Plus, we're going to discuss some other hot topics,

00:02:17.140 including the New York Times hit piece on Elon Musk.

00:02:19.220 My God, did you see this?

00:02:21.320 And bizarre and disturbing new details

00:02:23.640 from the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial.

00:02:25.440 Big day.

00:02:25.920 Buckle up.

00:02:26.380 Here we go.

00:02:26.800 We start with one of our favorites,

00:02:28.360 Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer at National Review.

00:02:33.260 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:02:35.320 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:02:38.340 Until our names are cleared.

00:02:40.860 We're fugitives from interval.

00:02:42.640 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:02:46.140 Espionage.

00:02:46.720 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:02:50.060 Better.

00:02:50.560 Is there love language?

00:02:52.040 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller

00:02:54.500 and romantic comedy.

00:02:57.340 We make up our own rules.

00:02:59.120 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:03:00.820 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:03:02.600 Charles, welcome back to the show.

00:03:07.480 Great to have you.

00:03:08.360 Thanks for having me.

00:03:10.120 So let's kick it off with the White House's refusal.

00:03:14.560 Refusal to condemn the leak.

00:03:16.480 Not to mention the protests at the Supreme Court justices' homes.

00:03:22.820 Peter Doocy of Fox News grilled Jen Psaki about it on her outgoing day.

00:03:26.820 Here it is.

00:03:27.260 Soundbite one.

00:03:27.820 Do you think the progressive activists that are now planning protests outside some of the

00:03:33.620 justices' houses are extreme?

00:03:37.300 Peaceful protest?

00:03:38.860 No.

00:03:39.580 Peaceful protest is not extreme.

00:03:41.360 Some of these justices have young kids, but their neighbors are not all public figures.

00:03:45.460 Peter, look, I think our view here is that peaceful protest.

00:03:48.800 There's a long history in the United States and the country of that.

00:03:51.820 And we certainly encourage people to keep it peaceful and not resort to any level of violence.

00:03:57.180 These activists posted a map with the home addresses of the Supreme Court justices.

00:04:02.580 Is that the kind of thing this president wants to help your side make their point?

00:04:07.200 Look, I think the president's view is that there's a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness.

00:04:14.320 We obviously want people's privacy to be respected.

00:04:17.260 We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest.

00:04:21.120 That is certainly what the president's view would be.

00:04:23.380 So he doesn't care if they're protesting outside the Supreme Court or outside someone's private residence?

00:04:28.580 I don't have an official U.S. government position on where people protest.

00:04:33.740 She just wouldn't do it.

00:04:35.380 She doesn't care.

00:04:36.340 They can go right up to Amy Coney Barrett's house with her young children, including her 10-year-old,

00:04:41.160 who happens to have Down syndrome.

00:04:43.240 Fine.

00:04:43.760 Fine with the White House.

00:04:44.720 They have no problem with it at all, Charles.

00:04:46.840 It was interesting to me that she reiterated the uncontroversial part of the premise,

00:04:52.500 which is that there are people out there who are unhappy and sad and worried and scared,

00:04:56.620 which is always the case when we're dealing with unacceptable behavior.

00:05:02.580 And that's a given.

00:05:04.200 That was true of the rioters on January 6th.

00:05:08.540 The question is, what should people who are worried and scared and unhappy and passionate do?

00:05:15.380 And there is obviously behavior that crosses the line.

00:05:19.040 And there is an odd facet to this White House when it comes to answering these questions,

00:05:25.820 a facet that actually it shared with the previous White House.

00:05:29.500 This is a floor of Donald Trump's as well.

00:05:32.340 That it's unwilling or reluctant to say what the vast majority of people would think is obvious.

00:05:40.040 The leak was a disgrace, should not have happened, should not happen again.

00:05:45.880 Protesting outside Supreme Court justices' homes, publishing their private addresses, is wrong.

00:05:51.960 And if you remember back a few months ago last year,

00:05:55.620 an activist in Arizona followed Kirsten Sinema into the bathroom,

00:06:00.160 and Joe Biden demurred when asked.

00:06:02.560 He said, well, you know, it's not great, but this is part of the process.

00:06:06.380 No, it's not.

00:06:07.700 That wasn't part of the process.

00:06:09.900 And leaking Supreme Court drafts is not part of the process.

00:06:13.660 And rioting or protesting outside of Supreme Court justices' houses is not part of the process either.

00:06:23.340 And it shouldn't be too difficult for the President of the United States or his Press Secretary to say that.

00:06:29.580 He was also asked, or sorry, she was also asked about the leak itself.

00:06:33.720 Don't have this soundbite cut, but she was asked specifically about that.

00:06:38.280 The question was about the leak itself.

00:06:41.480 Why wouldn't the White House condemn this?

00:06:43.300 Why wouldn't the White House condemn this leak?

00:06:44.860 Are there any concerns about the sort of further politicization of one of the branches of government?

00:06:50.220 Saki, have you ever reported anything that's been leaked to you?

00:06:55.340 Question.

00:06:56.240 You guys have criticized leaks before, as it's been provided.

00:06:59.120 So I'm asking, why not criticize this leak, Saki?

00:07:02.540 Again, because I think what's happening here, and what we think is happening here, is there's an effort to distract from what the actual issue here.

00:07:10.420 Can't both be true?

00:07:11.720 Can't both be true, though?

00:07:12.940 Saki.

00:07:13.680 Which is the fundamental rights.

00:07:15.420 They're not at the same level.

00:07:17.280 Fair enough, says the questioner.

00:07:18.540 I assume this is Ducey.

00:07:19.500 My team will let me know.

00:07:20.860 Saki responds, again, they're not at the same level.

00:07:24.100 Yeah, it's Ducey.

00:07:24.760 So Ducey says, so they're not at the same level, but would you agree it's still worthy of condemnation?

00:07:30.320 Why can't she just say it, Charles, right?

00:07:31.840 That's what he's trying to say.

00:07:32.880 Condemn the leak.

00:07:33.680 She responds, well, look, there's been a call for an investigation by leaders of the Supreme Court.

00:07:38.140 Decisions on that and how it will be pursued will be made by the DOJ and others.

00:07:42.120 And that's certainly their space and right to make decision in government.

00:07:46.480 That's how government is set up.

00:07:47.840 But at the same time, what we've also seen, Peter, is many Republicans who are trying to overturn a woman's fundamental rights, try to make this about the leak.

00:07:56.160 This is not about the leak.

00:07:57.460 This is about women's health care and women having access to health care and making choices with their doctors.

00:08:02.720 And that was it.

00:08:03.680 She wouldn't do it.

00:08:04.640 That's it.

00:08:05.940 Yeah.

00:08:06.440 And she also said that it's unprecedented.

00:08:09.000 That was about as far as she went.

00:08:10.380 But, of course, unprecedented is a value neutral term.

00:08:12.880 A lot of things that are unprecedented that are good.

00:08:14.640 But this was not the problem with this was not that it hadn't been done before.

00:08:18.320 The problem with this is that it's disastrously wrong.

00:08:21.480 And, again, it shouldn't be too difficult for the president or his press secretary to say that.

00:08:27.700 Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that this was leaked by a conservative clerk.

00:08:33.960 Now, I don't think that's what happened.

00:08:35.280 I have no information about this whatsoever.

00:08:37.360 But just arguendo, let's say that it was.

00:08:39.380 It wouldn't be too difficult, would it, for me, who wants to see Roe overturned, to say that was a disgraceful wrong thing to do.

00:08:47.260 I don't have to go into the details of the draft opinion.

00:08:50.920 I don't have to have an opinion of the draft opinion in order to say that it is disastrously wrong to leak private communications between Supreme Court justices.

00:09:01.400 I don't understand why she refuses to separate the two.

00:09:05.100 Well, my feeling is great. She seems to like leaks. Let's do it. Let's go.

00:09:11.260 It's their administration right now.

00:09:13.020 They like this particular one, given the way this is, you know, panning out.

00:09:16.480 But to all those people working in the in the federal government right now, if you've got information on the new disinformation czar and what she's going to be doing, leak it.

00:09:25.400 Let's see it. You're not going to get in trouble.

00:09:27.220 Jen Psaki, President Biden, they have no problem with you leaking.

00:09:31.160 They think it's part of a reporter's duty to actually take the leaks and print the leaks.

00:09:35.600 So let's have at it.

00:09:38.480 Then he was she she was asked about the president's abortion stance.

00:09:42.500 And in particular, there was an interview.

00:09:45.100 I know I heard this mentioned, I think, on the editors the other day.

00:09:47.740 But Tim Ryan, the guy who's going to be running against J.D. Vance now in Ohio for for the Senate race, a Democrat.

00:09:55.140 He was asked by Brett Baer on Fox. So where do you stand on abortion?

00:09:58.760 You know, OK, you're you're upset about the draft opinion.

00:10:02.760 Should there be any limits? And he would not commit to any limits whatsoever in any part of the nine month pregnancy.

00:10:08.720 Just it's up to the woman was how he landed.

00:10:11.340 So Peter Doocy asks Jen Psaki, what about President Biden?

00:10:14.400 Does he support any limits?

00:10:15.780 You know, this is a top guy running for Senate in his party.

00:10:18.840 Does he agree with Tim Ryan?

00:10:20.420 Would he set any limits on abortion?

00:10:22.040 I mean, the weaselly dodging and weaving.

00:10:24.820 He's already spoken to his position.

00:10:26.020 He's spoken to his position.

00:10:27.160 He's already made his position clear.

00:10:28.460 But what is it?

00:10:29.580 Is it is it nine months on demand or isn't it right?

00:10:31.760 Like no one on their side of the aisle wants to be pinned down on where to draw the line, because that's really what they're asking for.

00:10:40.440 And most Americans don't want abortion on demand for nine months of pregnancy.

00:10:44.420 No. And as many other people have pointed out, we're a very long way now from safe, legal and rare.

00:10:52.260 Yeah.

00:10:52.840 So it is true that most Americans support abortion in the first trimester.

00:10:59.140 About 63 percent of Americans do.

00:11:02.080 Right.

00:11:02.360 But after that point, it drops off a cliff.

00:11:06.540 I mean, the second trimester, you drop down to the 30s.

00:11:09.520 The third trimester, you drop down to about 12 or 13 percent.

00:11:13.840 This has been consistent over over 20, 30 years.

00:11:18.180 If anything, Americans have got a little bit more pro-life.

00:11:21.080 But where they have been consistent across the last 20 or 30 years is that they broadly favor some access to abortion in the first trimester.

00:11:31.500 And after that, they strongly oppose it.

00:11:33.260 Now, this is one reason, of course, that the Democratic Party is so invested in Roe v. Wade, because it allows for, in every state, abortions after a point that most Americans find disgusting.

00:11:48.200 And if they were given the chance to vote on this, they would not put in place blanket abortion bans in most states of the sort that many pro-lifers would like.

00:11:57.840 But they would restrict abortion in the way that a lot of other Western nations have.

00:12:03.400 You know, I'm originally from England.

00:12:06.020 England is 20 weeks.

00:12:07.440 In France, it's 12 weeks.

00:12:09.820 You would see some sort of compromise between those two, I imagine.

00:12:13.540 And if Roe does fall, Florida, where I live, will go to 15 weeks.

00:12:18.980 For the president of the United States to say no restrictions at all, so essentially 40 weeks, is an extreme position.

00:12:26.480 This isn't rhetoric.

00:12:27.380 It is so far out there at 40 weeks that you're looking at about 5, 6 percent of the country, believe that.

00:12:33.460 And I find it remarkable that the press doesn't put that in context for readers and viewers, that 40 weeks, the president's entitled to whatever view he wants.

00:12:45.260 But that is an unfathomably extreme view of abortion.

00:12:50.540 That's right.

00:12:50.880 And instead of acknowledging that, right, this is, of course, the Democrats don't want to talk about that.

00:12:57.020 They want to say that not only is this going to lead to back alley abortions involving coat hangers.

00:13:03.320 Right now, you've got TikTokers running campaigns to send coat hangers to all of the conservative justices.

00:13:09.400 Which, by the way, I didn't know this, but apparently they already did this to Brett Kavanaugh.

00:13:13.160 Their report was that he was sent something like 3,000 coat hangers when he was going through his confirmation.

00:13:19.200 I mean, people are sick, right?

00:13:20.940 Like, I mean, it's absurd because I know you've pointed this out.

00:13:24.220 We talked about it on our show yesterday.

00:13:25.380 Abortion is not about to become illegal in America.

00:13:27.660 It's not.

00:13:28.320 It may be illegal in your particular state, especially if you live in a deep red state as a result of this opinion, if this opinion does what the draft opinion does.

00:13:38.360 But it's not going to be illegal in all 50 states.

00:13:40.880 And the only way to make it illegal in all 50 states, realistically, because we're not going to get a constitutional amendment making it legal in all 50 states or so,

00:13:48.640 or illegal, either way, there's not going to be an amendment.

00:13:51.400 The only way of changing that on a national basis now is a national law.

00:13:55.140 But there's not the power within the Congress to pass a national law.

00:13:57.900 They don't have the power.

00:13:58.960 And even if they tried, it would be going down a very fraught road because as soon as the Democrats did it one way, saying it's legal in all 50 states,

00:14:05.840 the GOP would get control and then it would be illegal in all 50 states.

00:14:08.600 And so the pro-choice side should want it to just stay where, A, it is now.

00:14:15.480 But if Roe gets reversed, let it be a state-by-state issue because you're always going to have New York and California and Vermont and all of Connecticut and all these blue states.

00:14:23.520 OK, so that's my point.

00:14:24.680 But we're not having backroom hangar abortions anymore.

00:14:30.340 So that's nonsense.

00:14:31.560 But the Supreme Court's under enormous pressure right now, under enormous pressure.

00:14:35.540 And to me, it was interesting that, you know, we see the Democrats not wanting to talk about any of that.

00:14:41.480 What they see, what they just do is catastrophize, Charles.

00:14:44.160 They don't acknowledge, you know, the realities that I just outlaid.

00:14:47.240 They say they scare people into thinking it will be illegal and other rights are about to go, right?

00:14:53.880 We heard Joe Biden suggest LGBTQ kids aren't going to be able to sit in class anymore.

00:14:58.580 They're going to get kicked out.

00:15:00.280 That's possible with this crazy MAGA agenda.

00:15:03.220 And then we hear good old Hillary Clinton.

00:15:05.760 And there was speculation this week she's going to run again because of this.

00:15:09.460 Hillary Clinton weighs in and says the following.

00:15:13.560 This opinion is dark.

00:15:15.940 It is incredibly dangerous.

00:15:19.100 And it is not just about a woman's right to choose.

00:15:22.220 It is about much more than that.

00:15:24.120 And I hope people now are fully aware of what we're up against because the only answer is at the ballot box to elect people who will stand up for every American's rights.

00:15:34.300 And any American says, look, I'm not a woman.

00:15:36.020 This doesn't affect me.

00:15:37.000 I'm not black.

00:15:37.600 That doesn't affect me.

00:15:38.520 I'm not gay.

00:15:39.020 That doesn't affect me.

00:15:39.860 Once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold, you have no idea who they will come for next.

00:15:50.060 Who they will come for like they're on a campaign, Charles, to start taking people's rights away.

00:15:55.420 Yeah, there's a lot to say about that.

00:15:59.660 The first thing is that the they in her sentence apparently refers to the Supreme Court.

00:16:06.780 And it's just civic ignorance to propose that the Supreme Court is wielding or exercising power.

00:16:14.160 It is civic ignorance to send coat hangers to Brett Kavanaugh's house, aside from being a bad idea in and of itself.

00:16:23.480 The Supreme Court is not there to make policy.

00:16:26.900 It's not there to determine whether or not abortion is good or bad.

00:16:31.640 The Supreme Court is there to uphold the Constitution, mediate between the Constitution as it's written, and any laws that are passed through legislatures, and interpret statutes that are disputed by two or more parties.

00:16:48.080 The Supreme Court erred in 1973 by getting itself into this realm in the first place.

00:16:56.900 Roe v. Wade is bad law.

00:16:59.220 It was received as bad law at the time, including by many pro-choice legal scholars.

00:17:05.280 It is rarely defended on the merits now.

00:17:07.520 If Hillary Clinton and anyone else wants to be angry with anyone involved in the regulation of abortion, they should be angry with state legislators and governors who take this up in the coming years, as they should have been able to do since 1973.

00:17:27.480 Now, I have strong views on abortion.

00:17:29.660 But those are separate from the fundamental legal question here, which is, is Roe v. Wade, is Casey v. Planned Parenthood good law?

00:17:39.480 And the answer to that is no.

00:17:41.420 And if the Supreme Court overturns the decision, it will be doing so because after 50 years, it's decided to tell the truth.

00:17:48.620 And on the second point, I think there's an awful lot of scaremongering around this.

00:17:54.580 And you heard a little bit of it from Hillary Clinton there.

00:17:58.360 Dark, dangerous.

00:18:00.600 Yeah.

00:18:01.140 Well, whatever you think of Alito's draft opinion, which may not be the final opinion, of course.

00:18:05.200 We don't know where that will go.

00:18:06.940 But suppose that Alito's opinion goes down the line essentially unchanged.

00:18:12.960 It doesn't have any bearing on, say, interracial marriage.

00:18:17.820 The holding in it is to do with substantive due process within the 14th Amendment, not the Equal Protection Clause.

00:18:24.340 It could plausibly have some bearing on Obergefell, the case that legalized gay marriage in all 50 states.

00:18:32.540 But, of course, there are very different reliance interests there.

00:18:35.340 And there also doesn't seem to be any appetite, either jurisprudentially or in state legislatures, to reverse gay marriage.

00:18:42.720 So I think regardless of where people sit on this issue, they ought to be careful not to be taken in by that.

00:18:49.820 And I would note to finish that it is somewhat interesting that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren and others seem quite quickly to talk about other things than abortion.

00:19:02.540 Well, look at all these other things that might be threatened.

00:19:06.280 And I wonder if that speaks to a nervousness on their part, that their positions on abortion, and as we've discussed with Joe Biden, is certainly the case, are extreme.

00:19:17.500 Well, it's a great point because, OK, let's assume the worst, that the U.S. Supreme Court goes on a tear and just starts reversing everything.

00:19:28.240 Let's just get rid of Obergefell.

00:19:29.820 Let's get rid of Griswold versus Connecticut, which is about contraception.

00:19:33.400 Let's get let's get rid of privacy rights recognized writ large.

00:19:37.200 They're all going away.

00:19:38.060 We don't believe in that anymore.

00:19:39.780 Interracial marriage.

00:19:40.760 No, we don't recognize that anymore.

00:19:42.320 We're going to reverse everything, which they would never do.

00:19:45.240 No, never.

00:19:46.400 They're not insane.

00:19:49.720 Would the states actually then pass laws saying no more contraception, no more interracial marriage, no more gay marriage like, oh, sure, sure.

00:20:00.240 The states are going to that would be political suicide, including on gay marriage in every state in the union.

00:20:05.420 I mean, Eric Swalwell, two, three days ago, tweeted out that this was the plan was to end interracial marriage.

00:20:15.180 Now, in order to believe that's true, you not only have to be wholly ignorant of the way that the law works, how the 14th Amendment is written and pretty much everything that the court has decided on 14th Amendment grounds for a century and a half.

00:20:26.700 You have to believe that the great Republican plan, as masterminded by Mitch McConnell, who is married to Elaine Chao, and Clarence Thomas, who is married to Ginny Thomas, who is white, is to overturn abortion in order to end interracial marriages in the United States.

00:20:42.760 It doesn't really make a great deal of sense.

00:20:45.520 And I think it would be better if, as a country, we stayed on topic here, which is, is this decision, if it stands, a good or a bad decision?

00:20:55.060 And then what do we do about it either way?

00:20:58.100 There's going to be a great deal of politics involved in this, very difficult politics.

00:21:01.680 And I say that even as someone who is pro-life.

00:21:04.140 A lot of the questions that are raised here are quite difficult.

00:21:06.700 But that, of course, is why the court should never have got involved in trying to resolve them in the first place.

00:21:10.860 That's the thing. When I keep hearing these folks like Hillary Clinton talk about how the court has taken away your right, they haven't done anything yet, but that they're about to take away your right to an abortion, your reproductive rights.

00:21:24.320 The truth is, legally, what the court is saying is, I'm sorry you were lied to for 50 years about having a constitutional right to an abortion.

00:21:34.760 But that decision had no foundation, no legal foundation.

00:21:39.980 And just because you've been lied to for five decades doesn't mean it's in the country's or the court's best interest to continue that lie.

00:21:48.180 Here's the truth. It doesn't exist.

00:21:50.560 It's up to your state legislature and you should get out there and fight for it if it's what you want.

00:21:55.060 That's the reality, Charles.

00:21:56.340 Yeah, and that lie has not only had all sorts of policy implications and made Americans angry with each other and prevented the democratic process from working and corrupted American law, although it has done all of those things.

00:22:13.300 And that lie has, for 50 years now, put the Supreme Court in a position in American political life that it is not supposed to occupy.

00:22:26.940 Justice Scalia put this really well in his dissent in Casey, where he said the reason that we get all the letters, the reason that we get all the protests,

00:22:37.200 the reason that our nomination and confirmation processes have become so fraught is because we took over an area that is not mentioned in the Constitution, that is not even implied in the Constitution.

00:22:53.180 And as such, we became the targets of the slings and arrows that result from that.

00:22:58.880 And I think if you want a Supreme Court that is less of a lightning rod, it's always going to be political.

00:23:04.040 It's always going to be of interest.

00:23:06.520 But if you want a Supreme Court that is less of a lightning rod, then you want a Supreme Court that limits itself to its constitutional role,

00:23:13.740 which is to superintend only those areas over which it's been given jurisdiction.

00:23:18.620 And this isn't one of them.

00:23:20.060 That's true of your life.

00:23:21.600 It's true of your pro-choice.

00:23:23.140 Republican, Democrat, whatever your politics, that is the truth.

00:23:26.360 And I suspect that if the court does get out of this, then it will actually end up better off in the long run because all of those energies and passions and debates will be aimed at the people they're supposed to be aimed at, governors and state legislatures.

00:23:41.520 I know that there is a push in Congress at the moment to pass a law to so-called codify Roe, and I know some Republicans want to use Congress to ban it.

00:23:49.260 I actually think both of those are unconstitutional.

00:23:51.280 I don't think there is any power in Congress to regulate abortion in either direction.

00:23:56.680 But even if it's not, it's much better that this gets resolved by legislators at the federal level and the president at the federal level than by nine unelected justices who really have no power here at all.

00:24:07.740 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:24:09.300 And so, by the way, my team clarifying, Kavanaugh is getting hangers now, but it was Susan Collins apparently who got the 3,000 hangers during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.

00:24:19.020 So no one's immune.

00:24:19.860 You vote for Brett Kavanaugh, you're responsible for the back alley abortions and so on, rather than this whole 50-year farce being set into place as it was.

00:24:30.480 I mean, I will say it has occurred to me now, if you're in favor of what we think this decision is going to be, right, because the political report said the justices hadn't moved, that there's still five in the majority ready to overturn Roe as of Monday.

00:24:46.240 You know, strategy-wise, as George Bush would say, the McConnell refusal to have a hearing on Merrick Garland turned out to be hugely consequential.

00:25:00.440 I mean, that's why we have Neil Gorsuch on the court.

00:25:04.200 Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, is not with the five from what we've been told.

00:25:08.940 There's not five votes without Gorsuch to strike down Roe, to overturn Roe.

00:25:14.320 There might be five votes to change it to a 15-week limit, which is what Mississippi's limit is, and that's what the court's hearing.

00:25:21.860 But it is, I mean, you've got to admit, hugely consequential to look back at how Gorsuch got in the court and how it could have been Merrick Garland, a liberal.

00:25:32.740 Yeah, and of course, you just said maybe there would be five votes for a 15-week limit.

00:25:36.380 That underscores the silliness of this whole debate.

00:25:39.920 The idea that the Constitution might have changed overnight to move from an undue burden standard to 15 weeks is just silly.

00:25:48.680 I mean, it's either...

00:25:50.040 After it moved from a viability standard, right?

00:25:52.620 At first, it was a viability standard, and then it was an undue burden.

00:25:56.020 These are questions for legislatures.

00:25:58.120 You know, legislatures can move from 20 weeks to 15 weeks or to 40 weeks or to no weeks at all.

00:26:05.180 But the court shouldn't be.

00:26:08.460 Yeah, Mitch McConnell has been extraordinarily influential in American politics.

00:26:14.380 In my view, he's the most significant Republican politician since Ronald Reagan.

00:26:19.140 The courts are a great passion of his.

00:26:23.120 There is nothing wrong whatsoever with the Senate taking its role in this area seriously and determining who will be and who will not be on the Supreme Court.

00:26:34.380 There's nothing written in the stars that says the presidents have to get the nominees that they want.

00:26:40.820 And there is nothing superior about elections for president over elections for senators.

00:26:47.100 And McConnell said, you know, we have this majority.

00:26:49.860 We've been sent here recently.

00:26:51.740 The 2014 elections were the most recent plebiscite, and they used their power.

00:26:57.480 And that is the constitutional process.

00:27:00.380 It's not a violation of it or a circumvention of it.

00:27:02.760 That was the constitutional process, and it's borne fruit.

00:27:06.660 He said in an election year, it's not our duty to provide a hearing for the outgoing president's chosen nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy.

00:27:15.040 By the way, that was all part of his evil plan.

00:27:18.520 He hatched it back then to somehow separate himself from his wife, not by divorce, but by Supreme Court ruling that would start with the overturning of Roe, thanks to Gorsuch, and then evolve eventually into the ban on interracial marriages.

00:27:30.900 Let's talk about the leaker.

00:27:32.640 Chief Justice Roberts speaking out.

00:27:34.680 Alito canceled his appearance at a conference with the lower court of appeals, the Fifth Circuit that he oversees.

00:27:41.560 Each justice oversees a certain area of courts of appeal.

00:27:45.220 But Chief Justice Roberts went to his 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a judicial conference in Atlanta, and spoke out about the leaker in part, saying a leak of this stature is, quote, absolutely appalling.

00:27:56.680 Goes on, quote, if the person behind it thinks it will affect our work, that's just foolish.

00:28:01.180 He praised the Supreme Court's workforce from the clerks serving the nine justices all the way to the employees who empty the wastebaskets at night, saying, I would hate for one bad apple to change the perception of that.

00:28:14.300 And they will have their next closed-door conference on May 12th.

00:28:19.420 But it's interesting.

00:28:20.780 He is speaking out.

00:28:22.000 He doesn't comment on whether they've gotten the person, as some believe they may have already done, but saying how appalling it is.

00:28:28.720 So do you believe that they will catch the leaker?

00:28:32.060 And what do you think should happen to him or her?

00:28:34.200 I don't know if they'll catch the leaker.

00:28:38.240 This is an extraordinary development.

00:28:41.780 And one would imagine that anyone engaged in such an extraordinary act would cover his tracks or her tracks well.

00:28:50.420 And, of course, I have no idea who this is.

00:28:52.740 And I think some of the speculation has been really unfair, especially speculation that's included names.

00:29:00.580 That's not how we should do things in America.

00:29:02.660 I think if they do find who it is, then they should suffer professional consequences forever.

00:29:11.780 It's not as if this was a childish indiscretion, and it's not as if this was a crime committed out of ignorance.

00:29:19.140 This was done deliberately, presumably by someone who just thought that the issue was too important to follow the rules.

00:29:28.100 And whether that person is on the right or on the left or is pro-abortion or anti-abortion or pro or anti-ro, it doesn't matter.

00:29:35.480 This has damaged the court.

00:29:36.900 And it's going to damage the court going forward.

00:29:39.820 It's going to change the court going forward.

00:29:41.760 It's going to make it less trusting.

00:29:43.100 It's probably going to limit, not end, but limit the practice of sharing drafts and briefs and ideas.

00:29:52.820 And it's going to hurt one of the few institutions in American life that still work very well internally and externally.

00:30:01.100 So I think if they catch the person who did it, if that person is a lawyer or a clerk, they need to be disbarred and blacklisted.

00:30:09.860 If that person is a justice, which is extremely unlikely, but I did say a couple of pieces suggesting that, then that justice would need to be impeached.

00:30:18.620 Yes.

00:30:18.940 And if it's anyone else and they need to be fired and probably prosecuted, I'm not an expert in the law around this area.

00:30:24.660 And there are some complexities here.

00:30:27.940 I think what the court should have done is to make everyone sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury and possibly submit to an investigation by the FBI under penalty of perjury.

00:30:41.660 So there would have been serious consequences for the person who did it if they were caught and proven to have done so.

00:30:48.480 This is very serious.

00:30:49.460 It has to be treated as such.

00:30:50.960 It could be happening that they're being forced to sign statements under oath.

00:30:54.560 I mean, the court, the high court of all places understands what a declaration or affirmation is, how you get somebody to sign something under oath, which can be enforced against them under penalties of perjury.

00:31:06.260 And the thing is, like, OK, yes, these are very smart law clerks.

00:31:09.740 I mean, we believe it's a law clerk.

00:31:11.160 If it's a justice, it's an even smarter person.

00:31:14.060 They yes, I'm sure they got into Yale or Harvard or one of these schools, but they're not they're not experienced criminals and they don't know how to maintain a lie on cross exam.

00:31:25.160 And these are not like double agents at the CIA.

00:31:28.640 These are moronic law school students who are like, I am the law.

00:31:33.100 Yeah, you're going to get cross examined with all the really tough questions.

00:31:38.720 I mean, I could do it myself.

00:31:40.160 I bet I could find a leaker.

00:31:41.520 I really do.

00:31:42.000 I think if you let me have access to all the clerks, I could find out who it was.

00:31:45.300 And there are people much more talented than I am in this department who are going to get their hands on these clerks at some point.

00:31:49.980 And I'm telling you, they're going to fold like cheap tents.

00:31:52.620 Somebody's going to fold may not be the leaker, him or herself, but they're probably going to do interviews with people around them.

00:31:57.600 They're going to have all their electronic documents and he or she who won't give it up is going to be chief suspect.

00:32:03.740 But they didn't cover every track because there are phone numbers.

00:32:07.140 And I mean, maybe somebody went so far as to buy a burner phone to call the political reporter.

00:32:13.400 But in all likelihood, they weren't thinking that far ahead.

00:32:15.500 There's going to be a record of phone call.

00:32:17.160 It's just in today's day and age, everything we do is caught.

00:32:21.600 It's caught on camera.

00:32:22.480 It's caught on tape.

00:32:23.400 It's caught on text messaging.

00:32:24.360 It's in the cloud.

00:32:25.620 So my prediction is very strong.

00:32:28.340 They're going to catch the leaker and it's going to be soon.

00:32:30.880 The person should be disbarred.

00:32:32.380 I'm still kicking around the notion of criminal prosecution.

00:32:35.900 I'm not sure I'm on board that.

00:32:37.040 But you sign a statement lying, you're dead.

00:32:39.600 Go for it, especially as a lawyer.

00:32:41.040 You know the consequences of that.

00:32:42.480 That's why Bill Clinton was impeached, by the way.

00:32:44.520 It was because he lied under oath.

00:32:45.980 If it can happen to the president, it can happen to a dumbass Supreme Court law, a Supreme

00:32:50.060 Court law clerk who thought his or her mission was more important than that of the third

00:32:53.920 branch.

00:32:54.560 All right.

00:32:54.720 I stole the last word, Charles.

00:32:55.980 Always a pleasure.

00:32:57.680 No, thank you for having me.

00:32:58.940 Talk soon.

00:33:00.280 Up next, the coach who was fired for praying after the game on his own time on the 50 yard

00:33:06.600 line.

00:33:07.460 This Supreme Court took up that case.

00:33:10.200 How it's looking for him when he joins us live right after this break.

00:33:13.620 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:33:17.300 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:33:19.560 Until our names are cleared.

00:33:22.060 We're fugitives from interval.

00:33:23.860 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:33:27.360 Espionage.

00:33:27.940 You're still as good a shot as you used to be.

00:33:31.080 Better.

00:33:31.780 Is there love language?

00:33:33.240 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller.

00:33:36.560 And romantic comedy.

00:33:38.540 We make up our own rules.

00:33:39.820 NCIS Tony and Ziva now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:33:48.760 Speaking of the U.S. Supreme Court, they have other important matters on their docket right

00:33:53.640 now.

00:33:53.980 Roe versus Wade is not the only major case getting its attention and getting national attention

00:33:59.340 for that matter.

00:33:59.900 This case involves religious rights, religious freedom.

00:34:04.200 And there's a few cases before the Supreme Court right now on this.

00:34:07.060 A seven years ago, coach Joseph Kennedy was terminated from a job he loved out of Washington

00:34:12.840 state.

00:34:14.100 After returning home from military service in 2008, he became the assistant coach for the

00:34:18.660 Bremerton High School varsity football team.

00:34:21.720 After every game, the Marine turned coach took a knee to pray for his team.

00:34:26.500 He did it for every game until 2015.

00:34:29.260 When the school district fired him for doing so, he's been fighting back ever since.

00:34:35.380 He wants his job back and he wants to get back to that 50 yard line.

00:34:39.100 His case was just argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:34:42.580 Coach Kennedy is here with us, along with his attorney, Jeremy Dice.

00:34:46.380 Welcome, Joe.

00:34:47.160 Welcome, Jeremy.

00:34:47.720 Thanks for being here.

00:34:48.700 Hey, it's great to be back with you.

00:34:50.480 Oh, it's a pleasure.

00:34:51.140 Thanks for having us.

00:34:52.220 All right.

00:34:52.520 So I'm fascinated in this whole thing.

00:34:55.060 Coach, let me start with your with your lawyer, because I want to find out just a little bit

00:34:59.860 about about the argument.

00:35:02.080 Jeremy, it was when was the argument and how do you feel it went?

00:35:06.180 It was April 25.

00:35:07.480 So just over a week or two ago now.

00:35:09.500 And I think it went very well.

00:35:11.180 Look, I think the justices did their best to get to the actual facts in this case.

00:35:14.780 The Ninth Circuit had clouded those facts, and I think they bought into the narrative

00:35:19.760 of the other side.

00:35:20.760 But the Supreme Court justices weren't having that.

00:35:23.180 They understood that this is a case about one thing, and that's about whether Coach

00:35:26.980 Kennedy can by himself go to the 50 yard line and engage in 15 to 30 seconds of prayer

00:35:32.940 or what the school district called demonstrative religious activity.

00:35:36.020 And they understood.

00:35:37.100 It was clear from that argument.

00:35:38.820 The justices understood the incredible implications that that decision by the Ninth Circuit is going

00:35:43.800 to have really forcing our public school teachers and coaches around the country to shed their

00:35:48.580 constitutional rights when they walk through the schoolhouse gates, which is something that

00:35:51.480 they've already said the First Amendment prohibits.

00:35:54.380 Yeah, because, well, there's a question, too, about whether he was there on the 50 yard

00:35:58.300 line praying in his official capacity as a coach or as a private citizen having a moment

00:36:03.000 with God, having a moment of prayer.

00:36:05.180 And, you know, it can be the latter, even though you've just finished a football game and you're

00:36:08.840 still the football team's coach.

00:36:11.000 Coach, let me ask you, because you came to this place where you felt you needed to pray

00:36:17.280 through a lot of hard knocks.

00:36:19.340 You had a tough childhood.

00:36:21.580 Life wasn't easy for you.

00:36:23.100 And then you sort of came to this realization that this is something you needed to do to

00:36:26.580 express your relationship with God.

00:36:29.060 Can you give us a little background on you and why this became so important to you?

00:36:34.720 Sure.

00:36:34.940 Well, growing up, I was in and out of foster homes and group homes, also a boys home over

00:36:41.220 in eastern Washington.

00:36:42.560 And I kind of grew up kind of on the streets of Bremerton, Washington.

00:36:47.400 So I know exactly what it's like, what these kids are going through today.

00:36:52.040 And I, you know, after 20 years ago...

00:36:53.780 How did that happen?

00:36:54.220 Let me start to jump in.

00:36:55.120 But how did that happen that you wound up in all the foster homes and so on?

00:36:58.800 Right.

00:36:59.100 So my parents, they were a good Catholic family, and they couldn't have kids.

00:37:03.480 So they adopted a girl.

00:37:05.440 And then a year later, they adopted myself.

00:37:08.220 And they, I don't know, a couple years later, they started popping out kids left and right,

00:37:13.040 a miracle of science or, you know, or by the miracle of God, either one.

00:37:18.000 And they didn't really need us anymore.

00:37:19.940 So we kind of got thrown by the wayside.

00:37:22.240 And to their defense, I was a terrible, terrible kid.

00:37:26.360 So I have no fault with them.

00:37:30.140 I do.

00:37:31.400 That is not a defense to getting rid of a child that you took into your home and agreed

00:37:35.820 to parent and love.

00:37:37.560 So you had a rough time.

00:37:39.100 It was not an easy childhood.

00:37:41.000 And then when did you come?

00:37:42.200 I'll let you complete your first part now.

00:37:43.840 So when did you come to this relationship with God and the promise that you made to him?

00:37:47.860 It wasn't until after I got out of the Marine Corps, I met up with my childhood sweetheart.

00:37:53.240 We got married.

00:37:53.980 Um, we, I proposed, well, we both were nine years old and I proposed to her when we were

00:37:58.960 nine.

00:37:59.400 The first time I met her, first time I laid eyes on her, asked her, she'd marry me, but

00:38:03.340 she thought I was kind of creepy back then.

00:38:05.220 So, uh, I, I pursued her for 31 years.

00:38:09.600 Uh, we kind of went in different directions throughout our life, but, uh, we, we've been

00:38:14.380 in contact the whole entire time.

00:38:16.040 And right when I retired from the Marine Corps, we, we met back and it was, you know, nothing

00:38:21.820 never changed.

00:38:22.960 Everything was still the same.

00:38:24.180 I still had the same love for her.

00:38:25.640 So we got married and she invited me to go to church every Sunday.

00:38:30.200 Just one time said, Hey, you want to go to church with us?

00:38:33.720 Most of the time I, well, every time I said, no.

00:38:35.800 So, but then one of our kids came around and said, well, if he doesn't have to go, do I

00:38:40.520 have to go?

00:38:41.500 So, yeah, that was, that was, uh, you know, kind of, I I'm there.

00:38:46.240 So, uh, we started having problems in our marriage.

00:38:49.440 She went through a lot when she was a kid.

00:38:51.240 She, she dealt with, um, you know, abuse when she was a child and also, um, in her relationship

00:38:57.180 or her marriage.

00:38:59.140 So she, she had a lot of barriers and I knew I couldn't reach her.

00:39:04.060 And it came to the point where I had no other place to turn.

00:39:07.480 And I, you know, ran to the altar, fell on my knees and said, God, I need help.

00:39:11.900 I can't do this myself.

00:39:13.460 And I was like, if you work this out with me and my wife, you know, I'm yours forever.

00:39:18.360 And I completely submitted and, um, been with them ever since.

00:39:23.120 Yeah.

00:39:23.440 And so you decided to start praying and it began initially as just you going to

00:39:28.660 out to the 50 yard line after the games and saying a prayer that, which is, do we agree,

00:39:33.180 Jeremy, like originally, even under the school's argument, that was okay.

00:39:39.260 Yeah.

00:39:39.640 Going out to the prayer by, uh, by himself.

00:39:41.940 Look, this was, this was eight years that he did that.

00:39:44.260 And over time, look, it did evolve into students coming by and saying, what are you doing?

00:39:47.660 He said, I'm praying for you.

00:39:48.580 And can we join you?

00:39:49.520 Sure.

00:39:49.660 It's a free country.

00:39:50.220 He says, but you know, eight years go by and they ask him to stop that practice of

00:39:55.040 praying with the students.

00:39:55.940 And he says, sure, you know, my commitment to God didn't involve anybody else.

00:39:59.480 It just involved me talking to him.

00:40:01.260 And so we thought that a coach thought that was kind of the end of it, that he just go

00:40:04.480 back to his initial practice of taking a knee by himself at the 50 yard line.

00:40:08.400 Uh, and that'd be the end of it.

00:40:09.480 But here we are now, uh, what we thought was going to be a three week case has turned into

00:40:13.220 almost seven years of litigation.

00:40:15.180 So just so the audience understands, Jeremy, the, uh, the teacher showing up in the morning

00:40:19.960 school session and saying, let's all bow our heads and pray together.

00:40:23.300 No, no, not okay.

00:40:25.440 Right.

00:40:25.680 That, that would be a case we would take at all.

00:40:28.140 I mean, look, and then, but let me just finish though.

00:40:30.720 Cause on the opposite side is coach, let's say even better circumstances, just quietly

00:40:35.920 bowing his head on the sidelines.

00:40:37.840 Nobody even sees it and saying a prayer.

00:40:39.740 There's no way they could outlaw that.

00:40:41.480 This is one step above that.

00:40:43.140 Initially it's him going to the 50 yard line and, you know, about taking a knee and saying

00:40:47.000 private prayer.

00:40:47.840 I still think that's okay.

00:40:48.980 I think the school thought it was okay for eight years.

00:40:51.660 Um, and then kids voluntarily joining him is where the school started to get upset because

00:40:58.120 their argument in court is it was coercive to the other players.

00:41:01.940 Like other players started to feel like, and they only, as far as I could tell, had one

00:41:07.000 alleged example of this.

00:41:08.560 Like they had to like it, cause if it's coercive, that's why the teacher's not allowed to do

00:41:14.020 it in the beginning of the school day.

00:41:15.640 If it's coercive, I better do it.

00:41:18.080 Our coach is not going to play me.

00:41:19.980 Then we cross a legal line.

00:41:21.780 Am I correct in my analysis?

00:41:24.340 You're pretty darn close.

00:41:25.520 Look, the problem with the analysis here is that the school district has continued to

00:41:29.720 move the goalposts on the coach.

00:41:31.440 And so, uh, initially they said, look, praying to the kids as a problem said, fine, no problem.

00:41:35.400 I don't need to do that.

00:41:36.300 I just wanted to pray by myself.

00:41:37.540 They said, well, now, no, no, no, it's going to take away from your job responsibilities

00:41:40.400 to take 15 seconds to get on a knee and pray.

00:41:42.780 Like you'd be tying your shoes.

00:41:44.080 It's the same posture.

00:41:45.360 We want you to instead go into the school building, you know, way across the field,

00:41:48.500 across a practice field, into the school building, down the hallway into the janitor's

00:41:52.220 office.

00:41:52.760 I mean, that, that certainly takes more than 15 seconds, but even then that was exposed

00:41:58.320 because they said, look, if you can engage in any demonstrative religious activity in

00:42:02.320 the site of any student, that could be coercive.

00:42:04.680 That could be an establishment of religion, an endorsement of religion, a violation of

00:42:08.160 the constitution.

00:42:09.180 And it was very clear at the argument at, uh, on April 25th, that the school district

00:42:13.200 now maintains that if any student can see an authority figure engaged in religious activity,

00:42:18.780 demonstrative religious activities, what they said in their initial letter back in 2015,

00:42:22.720 that's enough to terminate somebody.

00:42:25.020 So what does that mean?

00:42:25.860 Well, that means if even your analysis analysis of that, that far right side, that, that what

00:42:30.780 you think would be protected of a coach on the sidelines, and maybe the kicker is going

00:42:35.000 to kick the game-winning field goal and he bows his head or crosses himself to hope that

00:42:38.880 that ball goes through the uprights, that demonstrative religious activity could be sufficient

00:42:43.280 to terminate that coach.

00:42:44.460 What about the teacher praying in the cafeteria over her lunch and students happen to see her?

00:42:49.960 Well, that could be demonstrative religious activity that could terminate that student.

00:42:53.180 And most remarkably of all, they actually argued at the Supreme Court that no state activity

00:42:58.380 is necessary for this to happen.

00:43:00.580 And so the coach or the teacher could be wearing the shirt, kind of like what coach is wearing

00:43:04.640 right now, that Bremerton t-shirt at the local pancake house, or even at church engaged

00:43:10.220 in prayer.

00:43:11.420 And that alone could be enough to show endorsement.

00:43:14.680 So this coercion by sight is something that the First Amendment has never countenanced, and

00:43:19.420 it should not countenance it now.

00:43:20.740 And frankly, I don't think it will.

00:43:21.860 I think the Supreme Court's going to recognize that no one should be put to the choice of

00:43:25.720 having to choose between their job that they love and their faith.

00:43:29.720 Coach Kennedy does not have to shed his constitutional rights when he walks through the schoolhouse

00:43:33.500 gates, but that's exactly what the school district is demanding that he do.

00:43:36.940 It's crazy because you think about, you know, how many times, especially watching a sporting

00:43:40.440 game, do you find yourself doing this, you know, with the hands crossed, like, please,

00:43:44.240 God, please, God.

00:43:45.380 And it's a genuine prayer, whether you're a religious person or not.

00:43:48.100 You believe in those moments, like, please, please, please.

00:43:51.000 I see what happened with my kids.

00:43:53.520 I see teachers doing it.

00:43:54.900 It's like a sporting event or even a play.

00:43:58.280 You know, just today, my daughter was in a little talent show, and she's up there, and

00:44:02.120 you're like, please, God, let it go.

00:44:03.720 Okay.

00:44:04.080 And, you know, you can see the teachers feel it's absurd to say that there can never be

00:44:08.300 a connection with prayer or God in the school setting.

00:44:11.520 That's to say humanity needs to change in every setting.

00:44:15.640 So the question is whether you cross some lines.

00:44:17.980 So, Coach, did you ever have somebody come to you and say, hey, Coach, my kid feels coerced?

00:44:23.260 Or did the school come to you and say, this kid went on record with us saying he feels

00:44:27.800 coerced to do it.

00:44:28.840 Otherwise, you're not going to play him in Saturday night's game.

00:44:32.220 Yeah, it's really absurd to me to think that I would use authority like that.

00:44:36.440 You know, I was an assistant coach.

00:44:38.340 There's no way I even make the lineups for the varsity game.

00:44:41.500 So that whole thing is crazy.

00:44:43.940 And it isn't any kids.

00:44:45.780 I challenge everybody in the media and school.

00:44:49.180 They did a complete investigation.

00:44:52.500 I said, find one kid that felt coerced or felt pressured or anything, and they couldn't

00:44:57.120 do it.

00:44:57.580 Even to today, it's just not a thing that we did at our school.

00:45:01.740 Me telling a kid he had to praise is as bad as me telling him that he can't pray.

00:45:05.560 So, and I really went with the school district and said, hey, I, you know, I don't want to

00:45:11.160 cause any problems for the school.

00:45:12.740 I would just want to coach football.

00:45:14.240 So it really only thing it came down to was me praying by myself.

00:45:18.760 And I thought we were good when I agreed with him.

00:45:21.820 I said, hey, you don't want me to pray with the kids?

00:45:24.120 Fine.

00:45:24.920 I'm not going to do it anymore.

00:45:26.120 And I never prayed with them again.

00:45:28.140 So they're talking about a practice that didn't even exist anymore of me praying with kids

00:45:33.140 or kids joining me.

00:45:34.500 It just wasn't happening anymore.

00:45:36.920 At the oral arguments, Jeremy, the liberal justices and even Brett Kavanaugh tried to

00:45:42.940 zero in on this coercion question, trying to figure out whether, you know, because there's

00:45:47.320 the explicit complaint, hey, I feel coerced.

00:45:49.740 And then there's the, well, how do you know?

00:45:51.380 You know, maybe the ones who feel coerced might not say anything because they're, again,

00:45:55.140 they're trying to stay in the good graces.

00:45:56.760 Here's a little soundbite of how that went.

00:45:58.700 What about the player who thinks, uh, Brett Kavanaugh, if I don't participate in this,

00:46:04.860 I won't start next week.

00:46:06.580 Or the player who thinks if I do participate in this, I will start next week.

00:46:11.120 And the players like wants to start.

00:46:14.240 So that's, that's where I think making a clear message that that's inappropriate, that this

00:46:20.520 doesn't matter for those purposes.

00:46:22.760 That's, that's how you deal with those problems.

00:46:24.620 And if there is a coach, how you, how you ferret that out, because every player is trying to

00:46:30.760 get on the good side of the coach and every parent, uh, is worried about the coach exercising

00:46:39.140 favoritism in terms of the starting lineup, playing time, recommendations for colleges,

00:46:45.420 et cetera.

00:46:46.560 But if you look at our prayer cases, the idea of why the school can discipline him is that

00:46:53.040 that puts a kind of undue pressure, a kind of coercion on students to participate in religious

00:47:00.580 activities when they may not wish to, when their religion is different or when they have

00:47:05.940 no religion.

00:47:07.580 All right.

00:47:08.200 So what of that, Jeremy?

00:47:09.820 Well, look, the first amendment still protects coach Kennedy's free exercise rights as well.

00:47:13.720 And that's the tension that we're feeling in the air right now.

00:47:16.080 When we listen to those, those hard questions asked of Paul Clement at the argument here,

00:47:20.500 uh, but the first amendment has already struck that balance for us.

00:47:23.200 I mean, the same thing could be said in reverse, couldn't it?

00:47:25.400 That if a coach, uh, does not engage in religious activity, does that coerce religious students

00:47:30.300 to have to abandon their religious rights?

00:47:32.220 The better aspect of this is to follow what we've followed for 200 plus years in this country,

00:47:36.840 which is to allow people of faith to be, you know, people of faith that they don't have

00:47:41.380 to hide who they are.

00:47:42.440 They don't have to run off into the janitor's closet in order to pray.

00:47:45.480 They don't have to run up to the press box and hide on the floor in order to engage in

00:47:49.140 religious activity.

00:47:50.440 Instead, we welcome them into the public square, including within our public schools.

00:47:55.080 The question of whether or not this is a government speech has just already been answered.

00:47:59.460 This is private speech.

00:48:00.540 It's coach Kennedy's private prayer out there on the 50 yard line that it takes place after

00:48:04.240 the game is really of no incident whatsoever.

00:48:06.600 If the school district can't use this as an opportunity to teach its students that they're

00:48:11.860 going to run into people of faith in the public square, then, you know, I got to wonder

00:48:15.760 if they can teach anything at all ever again.

00:48:18.380 This should be a great opportunity to remind our up and coming students that they live in

00:48:23.220 a pluralistic society with a lot of ideological backgrounds and viewpoints that they should

00:48:27.220 welcome and see throughout the public square rather than force someone into hiding or to

00:48:32.580 censor their speech because someone might somewhere see it and feel coerced.

00:48:38.020 Seeing and feeling things is not the standard that we've upheld under the First Amendment for

00:48:42.100 200 plus years now.

00:48:43.040 You don't have a right to be free from seeing someone express their religious appreciation

00:48:49.540 or their religious views.

00:48:50.660 That's that's not in there.

00:48:52.040 It was great because Justice Thomas asked the question, would your school district be so

00:48:56.460 upset if if you'd seen the coach take a knee in response to like BLM protests?

00:49:02.220 Would you be that upset then?

00:49:03.320 I mean, this is obviously political.

00:49:04.940 It's Seattle.

00:49:05.860 It's ideological.

00:49:07.080 And I think you guys are in a great position right now.

00:49:09.440 You and the other religious rights cases that are going before the Supreme Court are in

00:49:12.880 a better position than you've been in for years.

00:49:15.140 So, Coach, got only about 20 seconds left.

00:49:18.560 But what's your final message to the folks who are still skeptical?

00:49:23.320 You know, I just hope they actually look at the facts of the case and, you know, just really.

00:49:30.700 Yeah, look at the facts.

00:49:32.180 I mean, they speak for themselves.

00:49:33.960 If you don't like religion, you don't have to participate in it, but you don't want to

00:49:37.520 take it away from everybody else.

00:49:39.640 Amen.

00:49:40.380 Great to see you.

00:49:41.320 Thanks for coming on.

00:49:42.400 Appreciate seeing you again as well, Jeremy.

00:49:44.000 All the best to you guys.

00:49:45.280 And we should have an answer within the next 30 days or so.

00:49:49.160 OK, we're going to be right back with the latest on Amber Heard and Johnny Depp.

00:49:51.860 Boy, did that trial take a turn this week.

00:49:53.240 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:49:56.660 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:49:59.680 Until our names are cleared.

00:50:02.200 We're fugitives from interval.

00:50:03.980 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:50:07.440 Espionage.

00:50:08.060 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:50:11.160 Better.

00:50:11.880 Is there love language?

00:50:13.360 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller

00:50:15.860 and romantic comedy.

00:50:18.700 We make up our own rules.

00:50:19.920 Now it's time for Kelly's Court.

00:50:29.140 This week, Amber Heard took to the stand and, as expected,

00:50:33.660 accused Johnny Depp of repeatedly assaulting her,

00:50:37.720 including violent sexual assaults, multiple assaults.

00:50:42.140 Legendary attorney Mark Garagos has been watching the trial closely.

00:50:44.980 He's the managing partner of Garagos and Garagos,

00:50:47.360 and he co-hosts his own podcast called Reasonable Doubt with our pal Adam Carolla.

00:50:53.160 He joins me now.

00:50:54.460 Mark, wow.

00:50:56.080 So we talked on Monday about what to expect this week.

00:51:00.060 Seems like it was a week ago, doesn't it?

00:51:01.900 Right?

00:51:03.720 It'll be a week before they go back to trial, so.

00:51:07.100 I have been thinking about you every day this week because you made the point on Monday,

00:51:11.860 this case should never have been brought by him.

00:51:16.000 He should not have filed this case.

00:51:17.560 And I said, well, I can see why he did it,

00:51:19.680 because she painted him as an abuser in the British court,

00:51:23.480 and it wasn't directly those two in that court.

00:51:26.680 He was claiming that a British tabloid had defamed him by suggesting he abused her,

00:51:31.000 and the British court found in favor of the magazine saying there was enough evidence to

00:51:36.360 support our claim.

00:51:37.440 I mean, our report, that report.

00:51:39.820 So I was saying it was a good move because people were just left with this impression he

00:51:43.660 was an abuser.

00:51:44.780 And she writes in the Washington Post, I'm an abused woman.

00:51:48.300 And she didn't offer all the other stuff that we heard in his case in chief about how she abused

00:51:54.680 him, too, and how he was turning the public sentiment, you know, showing people that he

00:51:59.640 was an abused guy and claiming he never laid a hand on her.

00:52:02.920 So it was sort of his side of the story, getting more airtime.

00:52:06.200 I feel differently.

00:52:08.180 I am starting to feel differently, Mark.

00:52:10.740 Have you come around?

00:52:12.540 Well, I have to say, I understand she was very dramatic in her testimony,

00:52:17.700 and people thought she offered too much detail such that maybe she seemed like she was lying.

00:52:21.940 I mean, I've interviewed so many abuse victims.

00:52:25.540 Like, to me, her testimony seemed very credible and very disturbing.

00:52:31.640 Well, this is what I, as you mentioned already, and thank you for, you know, people tend to

00:52:37.540 forget in 96 hours, which tends to be kind of the public's lasting memory.

00:52:43.900 But those who actually had paid any attention to what had transpired in the UK knew that this

00:52:52.820 was coming, number one.

00:52:53.880 Number two, this idea, which we often have, and you've been around it, Megan, now for almost

00:52:58.880 20 years, in these cases where you get either the prosecution or the plaintiff's case first,

00:53:05.020 depending on if it's criminal or civil, and you hear that, and that's the prison through

00:53:10.520 which you kind of digest this.

00:53:13.740 The problem is, there's always going to be another side of the story.

00:53:17.880 And in this case, the other side of the story, as you just said, is not pretty, number one.

00:53:23.040 And number two, you can, you know, I've seen a meme in another video about an actress who's

00:53:28.200 critiquing her acting abilities.

00:53:30.500 Trust me, I've been in enough courtrooms, both representing victims and cross-examining,

00:53:36.220 to know that there is an explanation for any reaction that any victim has when they're on

00:53:43.480 the witness stand.

00:53:44.240 And this has got to be the dumbest move by him, even if you get a judgment, at what cost?

00:53:52.880 And by the way, the fact remains, as you and I discussed on Monday, there's seven young

00:53:59.800 males on this jury.

00:54:01.140 And I just think you can't ignore that fact.

00:54:04.280 That's a salient feature of this trial.

00:54:06.840 You think seven women on the jury would be bad for Amber?

00:54:12.420 Seven men on the jury, especially young men, would be bad for Johnny Depp?

00:54:17.320 As a general rule, any trial lawyer will tell you that women, and I know I'm going out on

00:54:24.440 a limb because I'm just making binary gender statements, but the women are hardest on women.

00:54:32.480 I've talked to anybody who has ever tried a jury trial, and you will see, I at one point

00:54:39.260 had four women, I was defending four separate women on murder charges, and I learned after

00:54:44.160 the first case, the last thing you want is, are women on your jury, or at least women who

00:54:51.100 are going to drive the verdict?

00:54:52.640 And I'm telling you, seven young males here makes this a heavier lift for Johnny Depp, number

00:54:57.920 one.

00:54:58.460 Number two, why?

00:55:00.060 Why does he want all of this out here?

00:55:02.260 How does this vindicate him?

00:55:03.880 And who in their right mind, I don't care if you're Team Depp, I don't care if you're

00:55:08.000 completely bedazzled by Johnny Depp, his kids and his family are going to be able to Google

00:55:15.360 these things.

00:55:16.300 And there's nobody who can convince me that this is not exponentially worse than the Washington

00:55:23.840 Post editorial.

00:55:25.100 No, right.

00:55:25.840 Because my feeling when we last talked and during the first two weeks or a few weeks of

00:55:30.120 the trial was, he's going to lose, I said that repeatedly, he's not going to win his

00:55:33.640 defamation case because there's going to be enough evidence to sustain her statement in

00:55:38.800 the Washington Post, I am an abuse victim.

00:55:41.820 And we talked about maybe you could argue defamation by omission because the full story is under

00:55:47.040 his version.

00:55:47.880 Um, well, his, he says I never abused her and she abused me.

00:55:51.980 Then there's option two, which is mutual abuse.

00:55:55.800 And certainly there's a record of that, but even under mutual abuse, I think he loses because

00:56:01.400 her saying I've been abused would be true.

00:56:03.840 And then there's option three, which is she was the abuse victim and she didn't abuse him

00:56:09.640 back.

00:56:10.100 That's her version.

00:56:11.300 So, but I felt PR wise, it was worthwhile to bring the case to get her abuse, her alleged

00:56:15.800 abuse of him into the record because she was sort of smelling like a rose.

00:56:19.900 She was still having her movie career.

00:56:21.780 She's starring in Aquaman three.

00:56:23.240 Now there's a position petition by 3 million people to make that stop.

00:56:26.280 He'd been canceled from pirates of the Caribbean and his position is like, look, there's a lot

00:56:30.620 more to this story.

00:56:31.580 You know, she was terrible.

00:56:33.440 She cut off my finger.

00:56:34.640 She, you know, and I've been abused in a way that men don't normally come forward and

00:56:38.380 talk about.

00:56:39.260 Well, she's talking this week.

00:56:41.500 It's her chance to present her defense.

00:56:44.180 And as you said, you also predicted this, that the psychological experts pretty much

00:56:49.860 cancel each other out.

00:56:50.920 He had one come on and say, she's a lunatic, histrionic personality disorder, borderline

00:56:55.120 personality disorder.

00:56:56.160 That woman only examined her for 12 hours.

00:56:58.240 Now she puts somebody on the air on the stand.

00:57:01.340 Well, that one's got 18 hours, whatever.

00:57:03.360 It's still de minimis.

00:57:04.860 They don't really know her.

00:57:06.140 And that expert says all the opposite things.

00:57:07.940 So it's like, okay, canceled.

00:57:09.320 The jury's going to do it.

00:57:09.740 Injustice convincingly.

00:57:12.320 I mean, you could watch one and you could go, yeah, I'm there.

00:57:15.180 And then you watch the other and you go, hey, maybe.

00:57:17.240 And then what is a jury?

00:57:18.800 What are, what is human nature?

00:57:20.120 Human nature is you cancel each other out.

00:57:22.600 It's a, it, it was, it's predictable.

00:57:25.540 It happens all the time.

00:57:27.680 And what I, you know, I understand I, I, and I will go back to what I said before.

00:57:33.680 I would be shocked if the lawyers representing him are working on a contingency.

00:57:39.240 And if they're working on an hourly basis, they are then part of what they should have

00:57:44.180 done.

00:57:44.980 Maybe they did.

00:57:45.640 And they just decided to stay on is tell them, look, this may seem cathartic for you.

00:57:49.840 This may seem like this is therapy.

00:57:52.100 You may, you may have that urge because you've gone through a divorce and you paid the money.

00:57:56.540 I understand all of that, but this is not going to end well.

00:58:00.040 And so far it has, we're not in front of the jury yet, but remember, here's another

00:58:06.340 point.

00:58:07.260 The, they ended with her direct testimony and now they've got a week off.

00:58:12.320 That's when the jurors are going to come back.

00:58:14.700 That's bad.

00:58:15.220 And they just, no cross.

00:58:16.900 There's been nothing to undercut her.

00:58:18.880 And you've got what?

00:58:20.220 10 days off, eight days off.

00:58:22.040 Why are they taking next week off?

00:58:24.180 They've got some pre-arranged week off.

00:58:27.960 And yeah, I give for all of the grief her lawyers have been getting.

00:58:32.720 They perfectly time this to have her be the last moment.

00:58:37.480 And the last thing that those jurors heard going into a long break.

00:58:41.620 Yeah.

00:58:41.940 Primacy and recency.

00:58:43.020 That's what they teach us.

00:58:43.860 Primacy and recency.

00:58:45.040 That's what the jury will remember.

00:58:46.060 The first thing you say and the last thing you say, and she got that last thing said.

00:58:50.540 So let's get into it and show the audience what we're talking about, what, what she's looked

00:58:54.920 like and sounded like on, on the stand.

00:58:57.420 She outlined, we talked about on a Monday, what happened in the UK court.

00:59:00.660 She outlined some, uh, 15 incidents of abuse.

00:59:04.720 The alleged, the court found at least 13 of them, I think it was, were credible and that

00:59:09.960 they were backed up by eyewitnesses, friends, contemporaneous text messages, and so on.

00:59:15.920 I will say one thing in the bad column for her this week has been testimony by, I think

00:59:21.620 it was his driver.

00:59:23.140 It's either his driver or security guard in pretty much every instance who said they saw

00:59:26.720 her punch him in the face.

00:59:27.920 They saw her punch Johnny Depp in the face.

00:59:30.400 And then that tape that says, I didn't punch you in the face.

00:59:32.860 I hit you and kind of trying to put a fine distinction on it.

00:59:36.520 So the fact remains though, anybody who has ever seen or tried a domestic violence case,

00:59:43.100 what we'll call a DV case knows that there's always issues.

00:59:46.520 There's always issues surrounding the accusation.

00:59:49.600 There's always going to be people who don't present perfectly well.

00:59:53.500 And there are experts who will testify to that.

00:59:57.300 I can't tell you the number of times that I've sat in a courtroom with an expert who said,

01:00:01.400 you can't believe this.

01:00:02.660 You can't discount because of this.

01:00:04.700 There's the, there's a psychological reason for this and just explain away any of this.

01:00:10.440 And I can't, I don't understand why somebody didn't explain to him.

01:00:14.440 This is what's going to happen.

01:00:15.640 This is the coming attraction.

01:00:17.680 And by the way, even if she's not telling the truth, all right.

01:00:21.000 And I, I believed her testimony, I have to say, but even if she's not telling the truth,

01:00:24.640 his disadvantages, he's up against a, you know, a Hollywood actress who's good enough

01:00:29.320 to make it on the huge screen and all these multimillion dollar, like she's not some

01:00:33.300 community theater star.

01:00:34.560 Like she knows how to spin a tail and you can tell that on the stand.

01:00:38.940 I will say, having interviewed so many DV victims myself, what she says, and this could

01:00:44.000 have been coached.

01:00:44.580 It could have been, but what she says about, I fell madly in love with him.

01:00:47.840 He swept me off my feet.

01:00:49.360 This is Johnny Depp.

01:00:50.280 There's a 30 year age difference almost.

01:00:53.620 He made me feel beautiful.

01:00:55.500 He made me feel special.

01:00:56.660 He showered me and my family members with gifts.

01:00:59.020 And then I started to see this other side, this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde piece of him.

01:01:05.520 And she talked about the first time he allegedly hit her and how she couldn't believe it and

01:01:10.340 how she went through the bargaining that every abuse victim goes through of like, I can, you

01:01:16.460 know, it was a one-time thing.

01:01:18.200 I can change him this.

01:01:19.600 He didn't mean it.

01:01:20.400 You know, it's like, it always starts the same way.

01:01:22.500 Here's her describing the first alleged attack.

01:01:28.580 And this is the one that our audience may have heard reference to where he had a tattoo

01:01:33.620 on him that used to say Winona forever when he was with Winona Ryder.

01:01:38.980 And then on breaking up, he changed it to Wino forever.

01:01:43.580 And here's Amber Heard talking about that sound by five.

01:01:46.920 And I just, you know, he's drinking and we're talking and it's, there's music playing and

01:01:51.160 he's smoking cigarettes and we're sitting next to each other on the couch.

01:01:55.820 And I asked him about the tattoo he has on his arm.

01:02:01.560 And to me, it just looked like, um, black marks.

01:02:06.640 Like, I didn't know, I didn't know what it said.

01:02:09.060 It just looked like muddled faded tattoo that was hard to read.

01:02:13.080 And I said, what does it, what does it say?

01:02:14.980 And he, um, said, it says, why no, it says, why no.

01:02:19.500 And I, um, I didn't see that.

01:02:23.480 I thought he was joking, uh, because it didn't look like it said that at all.

01:02:27.380 And I laughed.

01:02:29.260 It was that simple.

01:02:31.160 Um, I, I just laughed cause I thought he was joking and slapped me across the face and

01:02:38.760 he slaps me one more time hard.

01:02:41.580 I lose my balance.

01:02:46.460 Um, I wish so much.

01:02:48.240 He had said he was joking because it didn't hurt.

01:02:52.540 Didn't physically hurt me.

01:02:54.460 And before I know it, he starts crying and he's crying tears.

01:03:01.460 Uh, tears, I mean, just falling out of his eyes, it gets down on his knees and he grabs

01:03:06.180 my hands and he's touching my hands and he's saying to me, I will never do that again.

01:03:12.080 I'm so sorry, baby.

01:03:13.600 I, I put the fucker away.

01:03:15.440 I thought I killed it and it's, it's done.

01:03:17.940 I, I, I, I thought I put the monster away.

01:03:22.100 Do you know why that's so compelling?

01:03:24.320 Cause that jury has also heard from one of his witnesses about the fact that he had put

01:03:30.100 away some of these things or had been, had dealt with it for decades.

01:03:35.220 And that fits right into that testimony.

01:03:38.560 Also, another thing that you can take a look at, it looks phony if you will, because of

01:03:43.960 the camera angle.

01:03:45.240 But if you see what she's doing, somebody has either coached her or she understands intuitively

01:03:50.280 she's talking to the jury.

01:03:52.160 She knows audiences.

01:03:54.020 You can see when she turns.

01:03:55.600 And I know I've seen a lot of people say, oh, that's so fake.

01:03:58.400 They're this or that.

01:03:59.120 No, I, every witness I've ever talked to, I tell them you've only got one audience.

01:04:03.240 It isn't me who's asking questions.

01:04:04.640 It's not the person who's cross-examining you.

01:04:06.880 It's that jury.

01:04:07.980 Talk to that jury.

01:04:08.960 And she's doing it masterfully.

01:04:11.520 She is.

01:04:12.260 And, and he didn't, he looked mostly straight ahead at his lawyer.

01:04:16.320 Exactly.

01:04:16.720 And a little bit mugging for the cameras.

01:04:18.760 And, you know, I understand that part of this is a public relations ploy, but at the

01:04:24.420 same time, well, how's that public relations going to do if you don't win and if you, and

01:04:30.360 if she wins, so.

01:04:31.800 Well, that's the thing.

01:04:32.340 So it's like, I know people who love Johnny Depp and who are just in love with celebrity

01:04:35.520 and he's, we talked about this, a much bigger star than she is, are just like, Johnny, Johnny,

01:04:40.200 Johnny.

01:04:40.680 But when I listened to the testimonial offered during his case in chief about how, remember

01:04:46.500 there was the scene where they were in a hotel room and the maid came in and they were like

01:04:49.760 housekeeping or something like that.

01:04:51.200 And they were like, not right now.

01:04:53.420 And he's like, there's sperm on the pillow.

01:04:55.140 There's sperm on the pillow.

01:04:56.160 Like, I think this is an asshole.

01:04:58.240 Like, this guy is disgusting.

01:04:59.920 He's gross.

01:05:00.660 Who would speak like that to the housekeeping staff?

01:05:03.580 Like it just, there's been a lot of moments like that, apart from the abuse allegations

01:05:07.740 that reveal his character in a very unflattering way.

01:05:11.180 And of course, same on her side.

01:05:13.020 Don't let's not go back into poop gate, though.

01:05:15.200 There's sort of a poop gate developing against him as well, which we will get to.

01:05:19.200 Right.

01:05:19.600 So here's part two.

01:05:22.140 This is the I don't know.

01:05:24.380 I can't do them all sequentially, but this is the next big attack she spoke of where she's

01:05:29.000 claiming now she was sexually assaulted in Australia by him with a vodka bottle.

01:05:36.060 And this is the same trip on which he lost part of his finger.

01:05:41.000 He claims she attacked him with a broken vodka bottle.

01:05:45.680 She's got a much different story about what happened with broken vodka bottles on the trip

01:05:49.560 to Australia.

01:05:50.840 Here it is in part.

01:05:52.380 It's about two minutes and 30 seconds.

01:05:54.280 So stand by and listen.

01:05:56.600 I'm looking in his eyes.

01:05:59.760 And I don't see him anymore.

01:06:02.380 I don't see him anymore.

01:06:03.920 It wasn't him.

01:06:05.480 It was black.

01:06:07.360 I've never been so scared in my life.

01:06:11.320 My head was bashing against the back of the bar and I couldn't breathe.

01:06:15.660 And I remember trying to get up and I was slipping on the glass.

01:06:18.800 My feet were slipping.

01:06:19.680 My arms were slipping on the countertop.

01:06:21.400 And I remember just trying to get up so I could breathe, so I could tell him that he

01:06:25.000 was really hurting me.

01:06:25.980 I didn't think he knew what he was doing.

01:06:28.500 I don't want to do this.

01:06:31.020 I don't want to do this.

01:06:33.920 But the next thing I remember, I always bent over backwards on the bar, meaning my chest

01:06:46.260 was up.

01:06:46.760 I was staring at the blue lights and my chest, my back was on the countertops.

01:06:57.360 And I thought he was punching me.

01:07:04.080 I thought he was punching me.

01:07:07.000 I'm sorry.

01:07:08.580 I felt this pressure.

01:07:09.780 I felt this pressure.

01:07:10.860 I felt this pressure on my pubic bone, and I thought he was punching me.

01:07:19.540 And I remember just not wanting to move because I didn't know if it was broken.

01:07:27.420 I didn't know if the bottle that he had inside me was broken.

01:07:32.720 I couldn't feel it.

01:07:34.060 I couldn't feel it.

01:07:34.440 I couldn't feel it.

01:07:35.480 I didn't feel pain.

01:07:37.400 I didn't feel pain.

01:07:38.680 I didn't feel anything.

01:07:39.560 I just didn't want it.

01:07:43.860 I didn't.

01:07:44.700 I looked around, and I saw so much broken glass that I didn't know if he would know.

01:07:51.320 if he would know, I didn't know if he would know if it was broken or not.

01:08:00.780 And I just remember thinking, please, God, please, I hope it's not broken.

01:08:08.160 And I just remember it being in the bathroom.

01:08:11.600 I remember retching.

01:08:16.260 I remember the sound my voice was making.

01:08:22.060 I remember I lost control of my bladder.

01:08:28.760 I remember just retching.

01:08:33.440 I remember there was blood on the floor.

01:08:38.000 Forgive me to the audience members because I know that can be traumatizing,

01:08:41.160 especially for people who have been through it.

01:08:42.800 I should have given you a warning.

01:08:46.060 People are going to say she's a world-class actress.

01:08:50.420 She knows what she's doing, this or that.

01:08:53.200 It's really hard in a case where it's clear and convincing or preponderance where you're

01:08:59.720 basically just 51%.

01:09:01.440 This is civil, not criminal.

01:09:04.160 It's really hard to just discount that.

01:09:07.000 And it's really hard to say, oh, I think she's faked all of that.

01:09:10.860 I mean, there is something that resonates there that is compelling.

01:09:17.100 And for people who think otherwise or want to diminish it, shame on you.

01:09:22.880 I feel like if she's making all of this up, because let's keep in mind, to be, quote, a victim of abuse,

01:09:30.420 she'd only have to come up with one or two, right?

01:09:32.860 I mean, if she's a liar who needs to not pay $50 million in a defamation judgment,

01:09:39.100 all you needed to come up with is like one or two.

01:09:41.500 And she's been telling this story for a long time, right?

01:09:43.260 Because they already went through this in England.

01:09:44.600 And she listed, as I said, 13 alleged incidents with text messages and friends and so on.

01:09:49.380 And we'll get to all of that in this trial.

01:09:50.600 We'll analyze it fairly to see whether they're persuasive or they just got a friend's back.

01:09:54.460 Um, but she really went into detail and she's got a lot of incidents and it seems to me,

01:10:01.060 you know, she, she didn't have to go that far.

01:10:04.480 She didn't have to, like, if she's a lunatic making up 13 instances that are this detailed

01:10:10.820 and this traumatic, how could she have been functioning at so high a level?

01:10:15.060 And why aren't we seeing witness after witness in his case in chief, other than the one lady

01:10:19.940 who was paid for the 12 hours with her, come in and say, she's a lunatic.

01:10:24.460 This woman's insane.

01:10:26.580 I will tell you one of the things that I think those jurors were, are probably thinking is,

01:10:33.180 and I assume they're going to do this in the closing summation, is they're going to talk

01:10:38.560 about his witness, his expert, and they're going to say, yeah, that expert was right to

01:10:45.440 a point, but look how his expert supported many of the things she said.

01:10:51.980 Now, mind you, I'm the first one to say, let's wait for cross-examination.

01:10:55.900 Yes, that's important.

01:10:56.980 The last, yeah, wait for cross-examination because it could be devastating and she could

01:11:01.600 come off.

01:11:02.280 I've seen people who, and I'm sitting in Santa Clara.

01:11:05.740 I've actually done a trial here where somebody came off spectacularly on direct and then unfolded

01:11:13.240 on cross.

01:11:14.200 But remember, going by tying back to our previous point, they saw that, they being the jury,

01:11:22.720 and then that's the last thing they heard and they digested for eight days.

01:11:27.800 But the cross-examination will be closer to the verdict than the direct was.

01:11:34.520 And yeah, you're right.

01:11:35.260 It's not like he's got a bunch of losers representing him.

01:11:37.760 He's got very skilled lawyers who knew this was coming.

01:11:41.080 This is maybe new to us in a way of like, we've never seen her sit and testify to this

01:11:45.400 ever.

01:11:46.760 But they knew what was coming and it's going, they're going to, they're going to, they are

01:11:52.420 going to try to dismantle her.

01:11:53.640 I mean, they're not going to just let this go by.

01:11:55.460 I could, there's another argument.

01:11:57.800 I mean, if I'm representing him, if you're the lawyer, Megan, for him, you're saying,

01:12:02.740 okay, that's the last thing that they heard for eight days.

01:12:05.960 But guess what?

01:12:06.520 I've got eight days to come at her loaded for bear.

01:12:09.120 And, and that's, that's what I'm going to do.

01:12:11.360 But be careful because the last thing you want to do is bully her.

01:12:16.340 You, I think what you want to do is kind of bring this back to center and then start

01:12:22.380 picking away or chipping away, if you can, at the story and where it doesn't make sense

01:12:27.260 and where it doesn't hang together.

01:12:28.520 The problem you've got, the big challenge, if you're a Johnny Depp lawyer is, hey, she,

01:12:35.300 she, so many of the things she says, exactly what you pinpointed, Megan, is there is, it

01:12:41.420 resonates because it adopts some of the things that her, his own expert said.

01:12:47.880 And it comes on the heels of her own expert and it all fits together fairly nicely.

01:12:54.220 Well, the monster, and I'll get to that and the drugs and so on in one second, because

01:12:57.540 if nothing else, we've established that Johnny Depp has severe substance abuse problems and

01:13:03.520 has for the majority of his professional life.

01:13:06.200 It's incredibly dark and it's multifaceted.

01:13:09.700 It's not just alcohol.

01:13:11.060 It's not just pills.

01:13:11.820 It's just, it's everything, which I have to say on a personal level dovetails with what

01:13:16.200 I've been told by people who have dealt with him professionally, who I know and trust,

01:13:20.400 that he can't function.

01:13:21.400 He can't make it through the day without getting increasingly intoxic, intoxified in a way that's

01:13:27.260 alarming.

01:13:28.460 Okay.

01:13:29.120 Facts outside of the presence of the jury.

01:13:31.000 Here is another disturbing soundbite where she talks about how he, he believed that she may

01:13:40.360 have smuggled drugs in, or I can't remember what the exact setup was on this, but it was

01:13:45.880 about an alleged cavity search that she says he performed on her.

01:13:51.000 This is soundbite seven.

01:13:52.080 And, um, he's like grabbing my, my, my breasts.

01:13:57.720 He's touching my thighs.

01:13:59.920 Um, he rips my underwear off.

01:14:03.160 Um, and then he proceeds to do a cavity search.

01:14:18.000 He was looking, he said he was looking for his drugs, his cocaine, his Coke.

01:14:31.300 I was wondering how I, somebody who didn't do cocaine and was against it, that was in

01:14:38.820 and of itself causing problems in our relationship.

01:14:40.880 How could I hide, why would I hide his drugs from like, like he was insinuating that I was

01:14:47.640 doing it or something?

01:14:48.720 It made no sense.

01:14:50.300 He was telling me we're doing, we're going to, we're going to conduct a cavity search,

01:14:55.140 shall we?

01:14:59.840 Like just shoved his fingers inside me.

01:15:03.260 I just, I just, I just stood there staring at the stupid light.

01:15:19.540 You know what, you know, I didn't know what to do.

01:15:21.640 I just stood, I just stood there while he did that.

01:15:26.120 He twisted his fingers around.

01:15:27.800 Um, I didn't see like stop or anything.

01:15:39.920 So that's interesting, Mark, right?

01:15:41.440 Even that she would add, I didn't say stop.

01:15:44.020 Now, if I were making this up, if I wanted just to convince a jury, I think I would embellish

01:15:48.960 the other way.

01:15:49.540 I think I'd say I told him stop and he wouldn't stop, right?

01:15:52.320 Like there's, there's a lot in the, like these little remarks that I think lead to the

01:15:56.980 overall impression that I'm having.

01:15:58.180 And I think you're having, which is she, she's telling the truth.

01:16:01.080 Now we could be dissuaded on cross, but right now feels like a truth teller.

01:16:05.240 And you, you, once again, hit some of the things that I think are important that her people

01:16:12.080 should and probably will argue.

01:16:14.660 Look, if this was a script, she certainly wasn't reading off of one.

01:16:20.800 It didn't appear to be kind of a rote recitation.

01:16:23.820 There was stuttering, there were, there were pauses, there were, there was emotion that

01:16:30.200 permeated the thing.

01:16:31.620 I, I, it, like I said, I, I don't want to keep repeating it, but there is a detail here

01:16:39.240 that does not help yet.

01:16:42.840 Also, as you mentioned, tends to make you feel like it is a varnish truth.

01:16:49.040 And that's important.

01:16:50.920 I mean, that's one of the things you get as a juror is an instruction that tells you to

01:16:56.820 focus on the witnesses and their demeanor and their testimony and their, the way that

01:17:04.380 they approach testifying.

01:17:06.740 And all of those factors are things that the, I think somebody is going to argue in summation,

01:17:12.220 you saw her, you saw the kind of pain and the, um, the quality of the testimony.

01:17:18.140 When I say quality, the way it tended to hang together and it fits in with the other experts

01:17:24.000 and what they've said.

01:17:25.300 And all together, you can put a very reasonable, plausible explanation for what really happened

01:17:33.160 here.

01:17:33.420 And by the way, that's all you have to do for her to prevail in this case.

01:17:37.340 That's right.

01:17:38.240 I mean, the thing is people are ripping on her for giving too much detail, you know,

01:17:42.100 and I just looked at the blue light and then, and other testimonies, she goes on, like I

01:17:45.440 sat in the car and I just looked at the window.

01:17:47.240 And in my experience, women or men who have been through massive traumas often remember

01:17:54.240 those details.

01:17:54.960 In fact, they often remember the details like that, the extraneous ones better than the actual

01:18:00.200 trauma that was happening to them.

01:18:02.860 I, I, who knows how the mind protects itself in those severe danger moments.

01:18:09.320 Again, it's not to say it's true.

01:18:10.880 It's just another way of looking at some of the things that are catching attention against

01:18:15.420 her online before we bring in Harmeet, cause she's here to Harmeet Dillon.

01:18:19.380 We're looking forward to a little bit more legal analysis on some other cases.

01:18:22.800 I got to ask you about to your point about like, she's kind of tapping into some, some stuff

01:18:28.460 the jury's already heard his anchor, his extreme anchor, like we saw with banging in the cabinets.

01:18:33.340 Oh, I assaulted the cabinets on a couch and some furniture, but I didn't assault her.

01:18:37.320 Um, and she talks about the monster and so on and the constant drugs and all of that rings

01:18:43.780 very true.

01:18:45.200 Here's a little bit about it and how bad it was.

01:18:49.200 And you think about this person, this messed up this often, and one wonders whether it's

01:18:56.380 such a stretch to think maybe he doesn't quite remember all of his behavior.

01:19:01.900 This is sound by eight.

01:19:04.300 Pass out in his own vomit.

01:19:07.040 He'd lose control of his body.

01:19:10.340 His, you know, he'd lose control and everyone clean up after him.

01:19:14.820 I cleaned up after him.

01:19:16.800 I mean, this man lost control of his bowels and I cleaned up after him.

01:19:20.960 His, his security cleaned up after him, changed his pants in front of me.

01:19:24.980 He would pass out in his own sick.

01:19:28.100 Uh, Johnny on speed is very different from Johnny on opiates.

01:19:32.940 Uh, Johnny on opiates, very different from Adderall and, and, and, and cocaine Johnny,

01:19:40.540 which is very different from Quaaludes Johnny.

01:19:42.320 But I, I had to get good at paying attention to the different versions of him.

01:19:48.560 Mark, Johnny is a severe drug abuser and addict is not going to be tough for the jury to buy.

01:19:54.000 And it will factor in to some extent.

01:19:56.020 And by the way, uh, you gave the coming attractions with your poop gate, but

01:20:00.280 you know, there is, there is something that makes, you know, people kept talking about Amber's

01:20:07.060 crazy.

01:20:07.920 She defecated on the bed.

01:20:09.140 Remember all of that.

01:20:10.260 There was a chorus on the internet.

01:20:12.960 Well, you know, if you're somebody who has had to clean up after him in a drug induced

01:20:20.900 kind of, uh, release of bodily fluids, I boy, that starts to make some sense.

01:20:27.260 Doesn't it?

01:20:27.900 There starts to be.

01:20:28.840 Especially when you factor in that she didn't admit to the driver that she did it.

01:20:36.280 Apparently she admitted to the driver that it was a terrible practical joke and they're

01:20:41.220 still hanging in the air.

01:20:42.380 The question of whether it was Amber or her friend.

01:20:44.900 And I have to say, I like, it's not something I could ever count in, but I could see a best

01:20:51.160 friend being told the stories that Amber's telling here and saying, you know, after a

01:20:55.980 few drinks, you know what?

01:20:57.340 This is what I'm going to do.

01:20:59.680 I could see a friend doing it for an abuse victim, even more than the victim herself.

01:21:03.960 If she is a victim, again, make room for cross-examination and the openness of minds in a case like

01:21:10.040 this.

01:21:10.580 Mark staying with us.

01:21:11.460 Next up, Harmeet Dillon joins us as well for some other crazy cases in Kelly's court, including

01:21:17.280 that computer guy who had the Hunter Biden laptop filing lawsuits against CNN and many others.

01:21:24.020 now streaming on Paramount plus someone is trying to frame us until our names are cleared.

01:21:32.420 We're fugitives from interval like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

01:21:37.840 Espionage.

01:21:38.480 You still as good a shot as you used to be better is their love language.

01:21:43.700 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller and romantic comedy.

01:21:49.120 We make up our own rules.

01:21:50.400 NCIS, Tony and Ziva now streaming on Paramount plus.

01:21:56.860 Mark Garagos is back with us and we're also joined now by Harmeet Dillon, attorney and managing

01:22:02.020 partner of Dillon Law Group.

01:22:04.080 Great to have you, Harmeet.

01:22:04.980 Great to see you again.

01:22:06.260 Thanks for having me.

01:22:07.640 Okay.

01:22:07.920 So there's a few interesting cases going on right now.

01:22:10.080 I, we find them in the news and we text them to each other when we're not, you know,

01:22:13.860 on the air saying, this is a good one.

01:22:15.820 This is a good one.

01:22:16.400 And I have to say of the three we're going to get into, the lottery one is my favorite,

01:22:19.740 but we'll get to that in just a minute.

01:22:21.640 Let's, let's start on a more serious note.

01:22:23.260 The guy who had the Hunter Biden laptop, the guy, the legally blind guy who owns a computer

01:22:31.420 repair shop, which again, it remains a mystery to me.

01:22:34.300 Um, he's fighting back against the media and against Adam Schiff for the Russian disinformation

01:22:43.520 lie.

01:22:44.640 It's very interesting to me.

01:22:46.340 This is like the only guy to really fight back and finally say like, this was a bunch

01:22:50.380 of nonsense.

01:22:50.920 And you swept me up in your nonsense because you were basically telling all the world that

01:22:57.140 I was peddling Russian disinformation and it ruined my life and my business.

01:23:03.880 We're going to get to exactly how it ruined his life and his business in a minute, but

01:23:09.080 first let's listen to, he sued Adam Schiff, CNN, Politico, and the Daily Beast in Montgomery

01:23:15.920 County, Maryland.

01:23:17.140 And here's interview number one.

01:23:20.440 This is his example of how Adam Schiff went on CNN and defamed him, uh, from, I don't know

01:23:29.300 if I have the date in front of me, but it was right after the laptop came out, uh, in October

01:23:32.620 of 2020.

01:23:33.800 Listen, does it surprise you at all that this information Rudy Giuliani is peddling, uh,

01:23:38.820 very well could be connected to some sort of Russian government disinformation campaign?

01:23:44.240 Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden, uh, comes from the Kremlin, that the

01:23:51.580 president, um, that the white house council and others were made aware that Giuliani was

01:23:58.360 being used by Russian intelligence, uh, and using Russian intelligence in the sense of

01:24:03.520 meeting with an agent of the Kremlin and pushing out this Kremlin false narrative.

01:24:07.740 Uh, but clearly the origins of this whole, uh, smear, uh, are from the Kremlin.

01:24:13.600 Have you been formally briefed on what the Russians are up to right now in trying to, uh, peddle

01:24:19.100 this kind of information?

01:24:20.040 We haven't gotten much from the intelligence community, but we do know this, uh, the Russians

01:24:25.320 are once again, actively involved in trying to denigrate, denigrate the vice president.

01:24:30.700 Harmeet, uh, the proprietor of that short, that store, John Paul Mac Isaac goes by Mac,

01:24:36.280 uh, says this ruined his life.

01:24:38.340 People started throwing eggs at his store, vegetables, dog feces hit his door.

01:24:41.880 He had to shut down his store, uh, and that he had to go into exile in Colorado for a year.

01:24:48.520 So does he have any case?

01:24:51.120 I think he does.

01:24:51.960 And so this is difficult because defamation is a practice area of my firm and we handle

01:24:56.080 a lot of it.

01:24:56.740 And it's very hard to make out a case of defamation in many jurisdictions because of anti-slap

01:25:02.000 law.

01:25:02.500 A lot of members of Congress hide behind the legislative privilege that allows them to say

01:25:08.240 the most vicious and horrible things about people within the building of the Capitol and

01:25:12.180 they can get away with it, but that's not what happened here.

01:25:14.760 And so Adam Schiff, who is privy to all of the intelligence at issue here, and he's not

01:25:21.160 being candid on that interview.

01:25:22.600 He's not only has he had it, but I would say confidently that he is a good suspect for

01:25:28.280 having leaked it to the press.

01:25:29.360 So he knows exactly what it is.

01:25:30.780 And he very confidently stated without cavil or exception that this definitely was a smear

01:25:37.120 meaning false against the president's family.

01:25:40.400 And it was Russian propaganda and that he knows it and that Rudy Giuliani was peddling

01:25:46.000 it.

01:25:46.300 So I think all of those things are false.

01:25:48.820 And the malice aspect that you have to prove in defamation is proven by the fact that Adam

01:25:53.740 Schiff is in the best position of anybody in Congress to know the actual facts.

01:25:57.780 And today we know that even the New York Times and other major publications have acknowledged

01:26:02.600 that this is an actual thing.

01:26:04.480 It is not Russian propaganda.

01:26:05.600 It is Hunter Biden's laptop.

01:26:08.260 And there's also an investigation of the DOJ.

01:26:11.260 So if ever there were a case and if ever there were a person who deserved to be sued for

01:26:15.560 vicious lies, it would be Adam Schiff in the situation.

01:26:18.300 Well, that's separate from whether this lawsuit...

01:26:22.440 I've known Adam since he was a U.S.

01:26:24.460 attorney and he made his career actually on convicting a FBI agent who had turned as was

01:26:31.940 turned by a Russian spy.

01:26:33.900 And I never got it out of his head.

01:26:36.740 Yeah.

01:26:37.300 So the interesting thing about this and on Harmeet's comment, and Harmeet and I did not

01:26:43.740 talk about this, but she's absolutely spot on.

01:26:46.680 The legislative privilege is where they are going to go in this case.

01:26:50.980 And the interesting thing is, I don't know if I were him and if he had to redo it, I probably

01:26:57.320 would not have said we haven't gotten much from the intelligence community because you

01:27:03.300 also, besides having the legislative privilege, can also say, well, I wish I could tell you

01:27:08.780 what I know, but it's top secret is classified and invoke a national security privilege on

01:27:14.960 top of it.

01:27:15.740 The problem with all of this, though, is that, as Harmeet also mentioned, it's a heavy, heavy

01:27:22.340 lift.

01:27:22.940 And it's a heavy lift when it's core political speech and kind of the denigration of the opposite

01:27:30.020 side.

01:27:30.620 So I think he's got a tough, tough kind of a nut to crack here.

01:27:37.980 But who knows?

01:27:39.080 CNN ended up writing a check to Nicholas Sandman.

01:27:43.040 So weirder things have happened.

01:27:45.240 OK, but as much as I would like to see that.

01:27:47.620 Well, let me ask you, Harmeet, because as much as I would love to see CNN and the Daily Beast

01:27:52.360 and all these others have to pay for what happened to this man.

01:27:55.520 To me, it seems like they were saying stuff that wasn't true, but I'm not sure they were

01:28:01.520 defaming him like they're not.

01:28:04.120 I don't hear anybody accusing him of putting Russian disinformation on the laptop.

01:28:09.120 Right.

01:28:09.620 They're just wrong about how it got there or like whether we should believe in the information

01:28:15.540 from the get go.

01:28:17.240 Like maybe the Russians put the disinformation on there before it ever got into the hands

01:28:20.900 of the repairman.

01:28:22.300 No, I disagree with that.

01:28:24.480 So I think that the whole context here is if you look at the larger context, I'm sure

01:28:29.920 other comments Adam Schiff has made and certainly those publications have made would include

01:28:33.260 that this guy wasn't really a bona fide holder of this piece of equipment.

01:28:39.720 And so I think the implication is that at a minimum, he's a dupe.

01:28:43.760 At worst, he's an active participant in a foreign conspiracy to subvert the United States.

01:28:50.580 That is per quad, defamation per quad by implication.

01:28:54.480 And he isn't a public figure.

01:28:55.920 I mean, certainly one could argue, and I'm sure that these publications and Adam Schiff

01:28:59.280 will argue in defense of this if it gets to that, that he is a, at a minimum, he's a

01:29:04.520 limited purpose public figure for purposes of this.

01:29:07.320 But I think that's a real stretch.

01:29:09.580 And so absolutely, if I were he, I would definitely feel like I had been defamed by these statements.

01:29:13.640 And it's interesting too, Harvey, what about the, what about this idea with him that the

01:29:21.480 Rudy Giuliani factor, because I remember at the time, one of the reasons that I had kind

01:29:27.140 of my doubts about all of this is be of all the people in the world, he's going to give

01:29:31.900 it either Rudy or Rudy's lawyer.

01:29:34.460 I think that's something that they're going to bring up.

01:29:37.040 I think that's something that they're going to say is what gave them the, or negates the

01:29:42.320 malice element.

01:29:43.820 Yeah, but that, but that's kind of silly though.

01:29:45.680 It's, it's, it's like saying that somehow evidence that is otherwise sound is tainted by

01:29:52.260 having Rudy Giuliani hold it for five minutes.

01:29:54.760 That's, that's really silly.

01:29:56.120 Adam Schiff knows that's not the case, having been a former federal prosecutor like Rudy

01:30:00.960 Giuliani.

01:30:01.720 So you may agree or disagree with some things that Rudy Giuliani has said or not, but today

01:30:06.360 we know, and back then Adam had no reason to say this was Russian propaganda for sure,

01:30:12.380 because Rudy Giuliani received it.

01:30:15.540 It doesn't even follow logically.

01:30:17.660 And not only that, he also, he may have known Giuliani, whatever, but he also knew Hunter Biden

01:30:22.080 was a hot mess and that this was all totally believable.

01:30:26.220 Right?

01:30:26.440 So it's like, on the other hand, well, this is going to be an interesting one to watch.

01:30:30.400 You guys are, are giving it, well, you Harmeet are giving it more legitimacy than I, I expected,

01:30:35.520 which has piqued my curiosity.

01:30:37.820 All right.

01:30:38.120 So I will continue to follow it and see where it goes.

01:30:41.140 All right.

01:30:41.520 Next up, we're going to discuss somebody I try never to discuss in this program.

01:30:45.020 There's certain people who I try not to discuss.

01:30:47.340 I try to stay away from Madison Cawthorne.

01:30:49.760 I try to stay away from Eric Swalwell.

01:30:52.580 There, I just, there's certain people I'm like, they're going to run their time in the

01:30:57.080 U.S. Congress or wherever they are.

01:30:59.000 And then hopefully we won't have to deal with them anymore.

01:31:02.540 This guy's just, he's, he's been a mess from the beginning, this Cawthorne.

01:31:06.040 And in the beginning, in the very beginning, we were excited.

01:31:08.660 We were like, oh, you know, it's like disabled guy, you know, proven you can have this great

01:31:12.560 life and run for Congress and like more diversity in that way.

01:31:15.380 That's nice.

01:31:16.540 Okay.

01:31:16.840 And he's like, since he got there, he's been causing trouble.

01:31:20.060 Every story is about him.

01:31:21.260 To me, he seems like kind of like AOC.

01:31:23.140 He wants to be a star as opposed to be a legislator.

01:31:25.900 Whatever.

01:31:26.440 That's my own opinion.

01:31:27.700 But now I feel for him a little because he's being blackmailed, I guess, by some group that's

01:31:34.300 gotten a picture, all these pictures of him behaving like a moron, or one could argue

01:31:37.840 behaving like a normal 20 year old, 20 something year old.

01:31:40.960 He's young, he's 26, represents for FYI, Congressman North Carolina's 11th district, was raised in

01:31:49.600 conservative Baptist community in Henderson, North Carolina, paralyzed from the waist down

01:31:52.900 as a passenger in a car accident in Florida in 2014.

01:31:56.300 And he's running for reelection.

01:31:57.440 So day by day, we get another picture of him in a compromised position, another video of him in a

01:32:03.400 compromising position.

01:32:04.560 And the latest is of him, I don't know, like a nude, appearing to fool around with somebody

01:32:10.900 that may or may not have been his cousin.

01:32:13.500 It wasn't.

01:32:14.400 I don't know if it was.

01:32:16.120 He says we were just having fun.

01:32:17.760 I don't know what's happening here, Harmeet, and I don't want to defame the guy.

01:32:20.640 But this is an extended blackmail campaign by somebody that wants to see him defeated.

01:32:26.880 I guess we know who's putting it out.

01:32:29.340 It's a video, a video release this week was from the American Muckrackers PAC, an opposition

01:32:34.260 group that does not want him to win.

01:32:37.140 So you tell me whether he's got any legal recourse to all this stuff coming out.

01:32:42.100 Well, first of all, it's very interesting and amusing at one level.

01:32:48.380 But of course, there's a human being's life.

01:32:49.840 But look, from my perspective, what I see here is probably some of this oppo maybe coming

01:32:55.620 from what we call inside the building.

01:32:57.440 I think that Madison Cawthorne has said some things about Republican leadership, you know,

01:33:03.480 the cocaine-fueled orgies, et cetera.

01:33:06.240 Yeah, which they did not like.

01:33:08.040 Calling leadership rhinos, you know, is a common phrase in our party right now.

01:33:11.880 And I wouldn't be surprised if this oppo is coming from Republican sources.

01:33:17.060 I do not disagree at all.

01:33:19.660 You can almost draw a straight line to when this is getting.

01:33:23.520 I mean, they're trying to take him out.

01:33:25.160 They're trying to take him out because he's embarrassing for the party.

01:33:27.760 I would put Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I've represented in court, as in that same bucket

01:33:34.380 of people who are new in Congress.

01:33:36.840 They're not beholden to the regime, old establishment of the party.

01:33:40.480 And they don't like him.

01:33:41.440 So he's embarrassing.

01:33:42.040 There's a difference between the two of them, though, I think you may agree with it.

01:33:46.060 She is a prolific fundraiser.

01:33:49.200 Yeah.

01:33:49.720 They're very different in many ways.

01:33:51.880 But on the defamation, you can't defame somebody by showing their own stuff.

01:33:57.260 I mean, unless it's doctored.

01:33:58.960 If it's doctored, then you would have a defamation thing.

01:34:00.760 If it's doctored, it's a problem.

01:34:02.100 But, you know, part of what-

01:34:03.180 Otherwise, it's just like young guy fooling around being an idiot.

01:34:05.400 That's the perspective.

01:34:06.180 If I see him wearing drag on a cruise, I mean, so what?

01:34:09.940 It doesn't, like, offend me, whatever.

01:34:11.800 But what about, who released the tapes of him with the sexual acts?

01:34:15.320 Like, that's, you know, I'm sure none of our audience members has ever done that.

01:34:20.080 But if you've ever, you know, decided to engage in some fun on camera, and then you break up,

01:34:26.040 you know, they call it revenge porn if your ex releases that on you.

01:34:29.080 But let's say it wasn't revenge porn.

01:34:30.840 Let's say, because clearly in one of them, he's having this relationship or whatever on the bed,

01:34:34.680 and somebody seems to be actively filming it because the camera follows them around.

01:34:38.940 I mean, it's not just, like, stationary camera that they set.

01:34:41.620 So my question was, whose tape is that, and who released it, and is there any recourse

01:34:45.960 if somebody gets their hands on your sex tape?

01:34:48.360 But that's not defamation, and it's only revenge porn under the laws of certain states,

01:34:53.440 California being one, and that's a fairly new statute, too, which I've litigated in the

01:34:57.660 case of Katie Hill and her thruple picture.

01:35:00.700 So, you know, we litigated that.

01:35:02.460 Katie Hill sued for revenge porn.

01:35:04.520 She was a journalist for that.

01:35:05.720 I represented them, and we won an anti-slap verdict, and she owes me over 100 grand right

01:35:09.080 now.

01:35:09.600 Oh, so.

01:35:10.380 You know, yeah, and so, which I haven't been able to collect yet, because she's hard to

01:35:14.340 find, a little bit hard to serve.

01:35:16.380 Check MSNBC.

01:35:17.300 Whoever she is, call me.

01:35:18.380 But anyway.

01:35:19.880 Harmeet might cut you in on that, so.

01:35:22.700 Yeah, we have a finder's fee, you know, within the bounds of ethical rules.

01:35:26.020 But seriously.

01:35:27.460 But with respect to who filmed it and all of that, I mean, certainly he could bring a

01:35:30.880 claim.

01:35:31.300 The way he's been handling it so far is toughing it out in the vein that I just said, hey,

01:35:35.700 I'm a young dude, and, you know, like, you're just jealous that I've got so many hot chicks

01:35:40.260 around me.

01:35:41.160 I mean, that's a way to go, and I don't know what else he can do.

01:35:43.840 He has to brazen it through unless he can claim that it's fake.

01:35:46.040 Enough about him.

01:35:47.200 Let's get on to the fun one.

01:35:48.880 Lottery.

01:35:49.660 This, I love lottery cases.

01:35:51.000 They're so interesting.

01:35:52.340 There's a guy, Mark, named Philip Sotsas up in Canada.

01:35:56.740 He's suing his, quote, friends, claiming they betrayed him after they hit a multi-million

01:36:01.040 dollar lottery win, and they didn't cut him in.

01:36:05.200 Sixteen members of a group won a $1 million prize, not bad, on a Lotto Max ticket up in

01:36:11.400 Ontario.

01:36:12.180 And this guy says, he's a pizza delivery driver.

01:36:15.280 He's like, every week, I'm in.

01:36:17.680 And now this week, you say, I'm not in, the one week you won, and they're claiming, well,

01:36:23.720 you didn't pay the $10 that you owed us, you know, and so therefore you're out.

01:36:31.020 You know, he's, I don't know, I'll be the first to confess the Canadian ins and outs of

01:36:37.960 the legal system.

01:36:38.940 I will tell you, I've had cases, and I've had associates who've handled cases in California,

01:36:44.240 and have prevailed.

01:36:46.020 And if there is a common practice where we're always in, we're in every week, I pay you

01:36:52.440 either before or whatever, or there's a round robin of who pays, somebody at some point is

01:36:58.660 going to write a check in this case.

01:37:01.080 That's what I think, too, Harmi.

01:37:02.980 He says he knew he was behind, but he texted that he would pay this Friday, and the guy

01:37:08.020 running it said, haha, okay, yeah, no problem.

01:37:11.280 I charge interest, though, a high interest rate, I have kids to feed, and that they had

01:37:15.100 this fun exchange.

01:37:15.840 It was very understood that he was behind, but he was still.

01:37:19.240 Absolutely.

01:37:19.900 So he's got promissory estoppel, he's got implied contract, he's got, you know, course of dealing

01:37:26.760 between the parties.

01:37:27.920 And so I think that what should have happened here, the amount of money we're talking about

01:37:31.900 is relatively marginal from the share of each of the winners.

01:37:34.820 This is a case that should definitely settle.

01:37:36.520 Yes, each guy got about 62,000 bucks, they excluded him, even though on the day of the

01:37:42.400 win, without knowing that they had won, he bought them free pizza, he brought them free

01:37:47.540 pizza, and then he found out later that they won and didn't tell him.

01:37:52.160 These guys better pray it never goes in front of a jury.

01:37:54.840 Even a Canadian jury would know what to do.

01:37:57.620 Yes, I agree.

01:37:59.980 Guys, thank you both so much.

01:38:01.380 Really appreciate the discussion.

01:38:02.460 Always fun talking to you both.

01:38:03.980 Thanks, Megan.

01:38:04.600 Well, it's been a huge week for us here at The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:38:07.860 I want to thank all of you for being with us and for all the nice comments that you left

01:38:10.780 on our social media, on Apple, and so on.

01:38:13.100 We read them, we really do, and we appreciate them.

01:38:15.660 Don't miss Monday, where we have Piers Morgan and Dennis Prager.

01:38:18.640 And in the meantime, happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

01:38:24.460 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:38:26.300 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:38:34.600 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller and romantic comedy.

01:39:00.760 We make up our own rules.

01:39:03.020 NCIS Tony and Ziva, now streaming on Paramount+.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 06, 2022

Americans' Actual Abortion Views, and Amber Heard's Disturbing Testimony, with Charles C.W. Cooke, Mark Geragos, and More ｜ Ep. 316

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