Former FBI Director James Comey has been charged with two felony counts of false statements to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Megyn and her guests discuss the charges and why they believe he should go to prison.
00:02:32.360But I would say this, that Jim Comey was indicted because he lied to Congress, so 18 U.S.C. 1001 false statements, and then he obstructed a congressional proceeding or investigation.
00:02:47.140So it's pretty clear cut that he did both of those things.
00:02:52.040There was a grand jury that found probable cause that both of those things happened.
00:02:57.840And so that's why Jim Comey, the former FBI director, is facing indictment.
00:03:02.400I will say that I shouldn't take glee in someone being indicted, but I do.
00:03:42.380To me, it seems like he committed multiple crimes that he got away with because the statute of limitations expired.
00:03:47.680And now our only question today is to figure out whether these are viable and valid and or whether he'll be able to get them dismissed for whatever reason, and we can go through them.
00:03:58.160All right, so I didn't get the answer, the actual answer.
00:04:00.880I'm going to try with John on, okay, I get that those are the legal claims.
00:04:08.740Because I, like you guys, have read the two-page indictment, and it's very thin.
00:04:13.960It does not tell us what is the perjury.
00:04:17.060I mean, it says, okay, he testified during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he had not authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning Person 1.
00:05:00.520I mean, we think it involves an October 2016 leak to the Wall Street Journal about the Hillary Clinton investigation, and there are two people that have come forward.
00:05:22.720He's a guy that was found himself to have lied in an inspector general report, but he was a deputy director in the inner circle of James Comey's team.
00:05:33.040And then the second is James Baker, a highly respected general counsel at the FBI.
00:05:37.740He has not been indicted or accused of any wrongdoing.
00:05:40.840And he said, listen, I'm just going to be straight with you guys.
00:05:44.040When he was interviewed by the Postal Inspection Service, they brought them in as an independent agency when they were looking at leaking during the Comey errors.
00:06:25.000We're going to get more details next week.
00:06:27.020I think there will be some either an FBI affidavit in support of it or when the and then when the arraignment comes, we'll get a little bit more detail.
00:06:38.340Based on the documents we have, we believe it involves that Wall Street Journal article in October 2016.
00:06:43.660OK, before we move on from that point, you said, OK, possibly he leaked to Andy McCabe, who was his deputy at the FBI, and possibly to James Baker, who worked for him at the FBI.
00:06:55.100Ask them to leak while they were all FBI employees.
00:06:58.460Now, the Andy McCabe leak that you're referencing, is that the one that Andy McCabe already got reamed by a DOJ inspector general for?
00:07:08.900Because there was a difference of opinion.
00:07:11.200Andy McCabe leaked to the journal, and then he came out and said, I did it.
00:07:16.040But Comey kind of authorized it after the fact.
00:07:19.560I told Comey about it, and he authorized it, not before the fact.
00:07:23.520But then the inspector general just laid into Comey, and the inspector general certainly seemed to think that, laid into McCabe, seemed to think that McCabe was the liar.
00:07:32.720Because Comey was like, I didn't authorize it.
00:07:34.920McCabe was like, he did, though it was after the fact.
00:07:36.880And it seemed like the inspector general was like, McCabe is the liar.
00:07:40.020And I'm actually thinking he should, he might potentially need to get prosecuted for lying.
00:07:45.940So is that the possible McCabe leak that you and I are talking about right now?
00:07:49.720Yeah, listen, they're all talking about the same story and who leaked when what and who approved what when.
00:07:53.720What's most important in this chain of events, the one clearest direction to leak, one that doesn't have the muddled up analysis of the inspector general or the problems of Andy McCabe's own credibility, is what James Baker said.
00:08:10.460James Baker is unequivocal in his interview with the Postal Inspection Service.
00:08:17.880I think it's a really important document.
00:08:20.520It is a claim by a member of the Comey inner circle that he was instructed in advance to leak something and that what he leaked was classified information and that that instruction came from James Comey through the chief of staff.
00:08:34.600So if you're the United States Justice Department, when you bring this case, you're going to have to bring in James Rebicki, James Baker, and Andy McCabe, and you're going to have to synchronize their stories.
00:08:46.940Rebicki is the chief of staff who allegedly gave the instruction from Comey to there.
00:08:51.740Now, we also know that there are some emails and text messages, and I would not be surprised that in the next version of this indictment or the next affidavit from the FBI agent that we get a little bit more flesh on the bone.
00:09:03.980But there's a lot to still be answered here, and I think that our suspicions are well-founded.
00:09:09.860We need to get more data than we got in the original indictment.
00:09:13.060Is the James Baker leak what you and I discussed that was in the Durham annex that had been kept hidden from us and just got released in the latest tranche?
00:09:23.800The Baker leak is actually in a timeline that Kash Patel found buried in a system in the FBI, and it's a timeline of all the leak investigations that occurred in the Comey-Ray era.
00:09:36.380And in there, there were some remarkable claims.
00:09:39.180And when they first got released by the Trump Justice Department, ironically, the Trump Justice Department redacted the most important piece of information, this story by James Baker.
00:09:48.180We appealed to the Justice Department, and Pam Bonney intervened and got it unredacted, and that's when we got this piece.
00:09:53.820So it's a timeline that someone in the FBI decided to write.
00:09:57.360When you look at it, it looks a little bit like a CYA timeline.
00:10:00.480Like, hey, if anyone ever asks, I want you to let you know what really went on with these leak investigations.
00:10:04.820And in the middle of that timeline is this extraordinary story, which we have corroborated independent of the timeline, that Baker gave this testimony, and he stands by that testimony to this very day.
00:10:16.380That's not good for Comey, but I'm sure it was like finding a pot of gold for the Trump DOJ, which suspected Comey was a bad guy and that there would be proof of some potential crime, and I think may have stumbled upon it.
00:10:28.400So, long story short, Mike, before I go to Dave, don't believe the mainstream media that this is a—and we'll get to the political motivation and all that—but, like, that on the merits, this is a baloney case.
00:10:41.320This actually could have real substance if you have James Baker saying, Jim Comey, through his intermediary, told me to leak, and I did leak on that direction, and Jim Comey, under oath, it's on camera, saying, no, I didn't.
00:10:56.300Yeah, I mean, look, you're looking at the grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is filled with Democrats and government workers right across the Potomac River from the grand jury in D.C. that refuses to indict violent criminals.
00:11:12.320And so, there is definitely probable cause to move forward with these indictments if the grand jury found that there was probable cause.
00:11:20.980This is not some Southern District of Texas grand jury, again, Eastern District of Virginia.
00:11:31.280What? Jim Comey hired Patrick Fitzgerald, a former federal prosecutor, the guy who went after Scooter Libby, among others, and he's sort of known as a Joe Friday kind of lawyer.
00:11:42.880It depends on who you ask, but he knows his way around a federal courthouse, that's for sure.
00:11:46.460He put out a very slim two-line statement saying, we look forward to his complete vindication in court, and then you got the weepy sort of soft-voiced Jim Comey long, like, I'm innocent and don't get down on your knees, and vote like your government and your country depend on, ah, the self-serving, sanctimonious Comey Act.
00:12:09.240I don't know if I have it in me to play it. We did it on AM Update. But let's say you're talking to Pat Fitzgerald, and the two of you are chatting about how you're going to go after this.
00:12:18.900Again, we're talking about legal merits now. We'll get to whether this is politically motivated, unless you think that's relevant to how you'll go after it. What do you say?
00:12:27.400Well, Megan, you asked the right question from the beginning. We don't know what the leak was, and that's crucial here.
00:12:33.720Okay, aside from their strategy, which will be focused on vindictive prosecution and selective prosecution so it never gets to a jury, we still need to know what was the leak?
00:12:43.400What was the article? And for that, I would like to ask John Solomon, because then I have a response to that.
00:12:48.480What was the article that James Baker allegedly leaked?
00:12:52.240It was a consequential story that a lot of people believe, at least Hillary Clinton believes, swung the election.
00:13:00.220There's an irony in this that he's being prosecuted for leaking a story that may have been damaging to Hillary Clinton.
00:13:04.840It was about what was going on in the Hillary Clinton email case and the Anthony Weiner laptop and what went on in that period of time.
00:13:11.940Isn't it an irony that what may ultimately be, if this turns out to be the article, again, the indictment is so thin, we don't know what article they were speaking about.
00:13:20.700Just to clarify, and I'll give it back to you in a second, Dave, but just to clarify, so that article was one, if memory serves, in which the FBI outed that it was having a war with the DOJ about what to do about Hillary and all those emails.
00:13:35.400That's right. That's right. And then there's a piece of classified information that's disclosed.
00:13:40.980If it's about Hillary Clinton and Andrew McCabe, Megan, you're correct.
00:13:47.000The inspector general found that it was Andrew McCabe was the one who could not be trusted, lacked candor, and that he said after the fact that he told Comey that he had leaked this stuff, and Comey shrugged.
00:13:59.780It was not an authorization. Authorization has to be done beforehand, not afterwards, right?
00:14:04.420But then John Solomon correctly brings up James Baker, which is separate, because McCabe has his own issues here.
00:14:12.380Baker did come clean and say there was a leak.
00:14:17.900It looks like, according to the documents that are involved here, which we're all basing it after, the article that James Baker led to, that he leaked for, was not a Hillary Clinton article, but something totally different.
00:14:30.680Because if you look at the documents, it says that this article appeared in October 2016, that it was sourced to two government officials.
00:14:38.980It contained classified information and involved, of course, the FBI.
00:14:43.880There's only one news article that meets that criteria, according to the New York Times, if you do a search, and it's an article about Yahoo aiding the U.S. email surveillance by adapting a spam filter, not the Hillary Clinton stuff, right?
00:14:58.760So if that's the case, right, and if John agrees, if that's the case, then there is no lie.
00:15:04.240That's right, because you remember what the question was by Cruz.
00:15:10.120Cruz teed it up when he was getting Comey on the record, because just for the audience at home, because I know this is a lot to follow, Comey was under oath in 17, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa asked him, a Republican, have you leaked?
00:15:22.620And have you authorized anybody to leak?
00:15:26.160Well, we can't get him on those charges, because that's a long time ago, and it's only a five-year statute of limitations.
00:15:30.980But in 2020, they had another shot at Comey.
00:15:33.460And Ted Cruz brought up the Grassley testimony and said, do you stand by all that?
00:15:38.400Because, by the way, Andrew McCabe suggests you did tell him to leak.
00:15:42.160But in any event, do you stand by that earlier testimony to Chuck Grassley?
00:15:45.340And Comey said yes, but it was specifically about, did you leak about the Hillary investigation the FBI was doing or the Trump administration?
00:15:54.240Here's the Ted Cruz exchange that, you know, we believe has led to this indictment.
00:16:00.800We're pretty sure the Ted Cruz exchange is the basis of the indictment.
00:16:04.280We're just not sure exactly which leak or article he's talking about here.
00:16:09.920On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you point blank, quote,
00:16:16.980Have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
00:16:24.620You responded under oath, quote, never.
00:16:27.300Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it.
00:16:55.360Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true.
00:17:27.380So just to go back to John Solomon for a second, what's your response to Dave's point that the only thing he thinks James Baker was involved in leaking is about a Yahoo article?
00:17:36.960Yeah, we don't know which one the classified, we still don't know what James Baker leaked.
00:17:41.660We know it's in the same time frame as the article of that.
00:17:44.380We know it's the same time frame where they're asking McCabe.
00:17:47.000What I think is problematic for the prosecution there is that Ted Cruz's question goes two different ways.
00:17:53.580When he starts it, it's did you ever leak about the Trump administration or Trump investigation in Clinton?
00:17:59.540And he ends it asking, did you ever leak at all or authorize anyone to leak at all?
00:18:04.320That's going to be an ambiguous, if they're arresting the case on that second follow-up on Ted Cruz, which we don't know yet because we have so little information,
00:18:14.420a jury's going to say, man, we are really starting to split hairs here on what you're trying to pin Comey down.
00:18:19.660I think one of our problems right now to judge the strength of this indictment is we need to know exactly what the grand jury made the decision on.
00:18:56.680But first, I just want to just say this again for the audience.
00:18:59.640He told Ted Cruz that he never authorized anyone at the FBI to be an anonymous source on news reports about the Trump investigation or the Hillary investigation.
00:19:12.520He did affirm that he said, I'm giving you the same testimony today that I gave in May of 17.
00:19:19.260My testimony is the same today as it was in May of 17.
00:19:24.080Never authorized someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source on news reports about the Trump investigation or the Hillary investigation.
00:19:32.520I just want to take one quick look at the original the original testimony.
00:19:39.340I think we have this to Senator Grassley in 17 that, again, he affirmed in 2020.
00:19:47.940Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
00:20:00.280Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
00:20:50.780He's saying I did not authorize anyone to leak about either of those two subjects.
00:20:54.880What do you make of what John is saying, Mike, about you got Andy McCabe on the one hand, who's already been deemed the liar in that confrontation, you know, between him and Comey by the inspector general.
00:21:07.260And then the second one, Baker, which Dave is arguing the only leak we can we appear at this point to be able to pin on Baker is about something not having to do with a Trump or Hillary investigation.
00:22:53.620Mike, what is the false statement to you?
00:22:55.380Like, what I don't gather here is the false statement because when I parse the words, you can say he's playing word games, but I don't see anything that's specifically false in what he said.
00:23:41.380The Arctic Hayes investigation is the leak that Comey did, and he acknowledged he did this back in 2017.
00:23:48.880Right after he was fired, he told his friend who used to work at the FBI, a guy named Daniel Richman, and he's like a law professor at Confidant.
00:23:58.340He told him to leak one of Comey's memos about Michael Flynn to the New York Times, and he did.
00:24:10.320The reason why it's not covered here, the reason why I say it's not a lie, it's because at the time, Daniel Richman did not work for the FBI, and neither did Comey.
00:24:20.660So that's why I don't think it's a false statement, but that's what I think is the strongest argument for the prosecution here.
00:24:29.240I don't – but there were – John Solomon, you're an expert on this guy, this Columbia law professor who is a friend of Comey's.
00:24:35.720You and I have talked about him before.
00:25:02.340Richmond is very clear that he was leaking on behalf of Comey and trying to craft a narrative for Comey prior to Comey leaving the directorship.
00:25:11.180And then he's unclear – he's unclear as to whether or not he remembers if Comey specifically authorized it or he just did it because he knew that's what Comey wanted.
00:25:21.360But remember, there's some evidence we don't know about.
00:25:23.680As I mentioned earlier, I'm told that there are some text messages and emails that will be dispositive as this case goes forward.
00:25:29.440So I think we have to wait and see what it is.
00:25:30.680Because I think I'd like to go back – Megan, if you could do it – when Ted Cruz goes back the second time and reaffirms what he just heard from Comey, he broadens the claim.
00:25:41.960And I think that's something I just want to hear again.
00:25:55.240On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you point blank, quote,
00:26:03.760have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
00:26:10.920You responded under oath, quote, never.
00:26:14.600He then asked you, quote, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?
00:27:08.220Again, I'm not going to characterize Andy's testimony, but mine is the same today.
00:27:13.740That's the piece you're talking about.
00:27:15.440Yeah, he drops out Clinton and Trump at that point.
00:27:17.520Now, again, listen, I think we're splitting hairs when we're getting this, and I'm not sure a grand jury would have tolerated that level of splitting hairs.
00:27:23.120But I did notice that in the follow-up question.
00:27:25.500And it's very interesting that the indictment makes no reference to 2017 testimony.
00:27:33.540So it'll be very interesting to see if that change of words, that flip from Cruz, is part of it.
00:27:39.500I suspect there's some evidence we don't know about.
00:27:41.800When we got that timeline that I told you about, Megan, there are massive amounts of that timeline that are still blacked out.
00:27:47.680They're redacted because they're covered by grand jury information.
00:27:50.360I suspect there's some additional evidence we don't know yet, not yet know about.
00:27:54.840And that's why I'm eager to see the next version of the indictment, because it needs a little bit more meat on the bones for us to have a really informed debate.
00:28:02.220So the way things stand now are he's been indicted by this new acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, clearly brought there because the federal district in Washington, D.C. would be a complete waste of time.
00:28:19.200There's no way they're going to do anything fair for any Trump administration.
00:28:22.440There's another reason, though, Megan.
00:31:12.180You had two Democrat senators in Virginia.
00:31:15.960So you're not going to have a blue slip problem where the home state senators, there wasn't a Republican home state senator that would have made them pick a more moderate pick.
00:31:25.300There are a lot of potential picks for the Eastern District of Virginia.
00:31:31.660And I seriously doubt that the Biden White House put someone who's just going to call balls and strikes in the Eastern District of Virginia because they didn't do it anywhere else where they where they could have put in a radical.
00:31:47.200So, Dave, this argument and to be honest with you, I don't totally understand the difference between malicious prosecution and selective prosecution.
00:31:55.160And are those both defenses that can be raised?
00:31:57.240And also, can you please talk about how they're going to argue that?
00:32:02.040Yes, they're going to use the president's words against him.
00:32:04.680And that's where the social media posts will hurt him.
00:32:06.720And I don't know if that was meant to be a direct message directly to Attorney General Bondi or broadcast to everyone, but he then deleted it.
00:32:14.660And the fact that he fired Eric Siebert, who was a respected conservative acting U.S. attorney in that district because he refused to prosecute James Comey and replaced him with someone who had never prosecuted a case before and had to go in herself to do it.
00:32:29.380Was it Comey or was it Letitia James that he was he was dragging his feet on?
00:32:34.500But by the way, I assume that our friend Mike Davis would be friends with him because Mike is friends with every conservative lawyer in the country.
00:32:49.600He seems like a very typical Washington, D.C. Republican.
00:32:54.340I would say maybe the Democrats in Virginia, the two Democrats senators in Virginia who agreed to his nomination would be very pleased with a Republican like Siebert.
00:33:09.220It is tricky. It is tricky. And what's Mike saying?
00:33:13.240And I get it is, as you know, Dave, within the Republican Party, you've got the ones who are MAGA and then you've got the more old school, more establishment types.
00:33:25.500Attorney approved by the two Democrat senators from Virginia, you'd probably do better if you were the more establishment type and not a MAGA acolyte.
00:33:35.700So that's I mean what he seems to be saying.
00:33:37.640Can I just can I just can I just say this very fast, Dave?
00:33:41.360I I would not get a blue slip from any Democrat in America.
00:33:45.200I probably wouldn't get a blue slip from any Republican in America.
00:33:49.100But Siebert Siebert would get a blue Siebert would probably get a blue slip from any Democrat in America.
00:33:55.300So I thought a blue slip is when you're rejected.
00:33:57.640I thought that's like a black ball is a blue slip.
01:01:55.340By the way, you know, when I went to look at the latest on this, on Kamala being interrupted by pro-Palestinian activists, everything that came up was from the election.
01:02:06.780Like in my Google search, like I wasn't getting anything current, like on her book tour.
01:02:14.660I think I saw one article that was like, she was, she was speaking in Times Square.
01:02:48.860I didn't know this Maureen until my producers brought this to us that believes Kamala Harris won the election.
01:02:54.840And, you know, as much as the left criticized Trump and, you know, his core faithful for saying he won 2020, they're out there saying, I'm quoting here, she's the president.
01:32:51.760Insights from the latest work on resilience and deeply personal stories from celebrities and generally inspirational people in our own communities.
01:33:03.200And the headline is, it will shed new light on the moment she realized her engagement to Joel Schiffman was over in 2022.
01:33:12.160She went to the Hoffman Institute and realized she was totally ready to dump him, even though they have two daughters together.
01:34:02.860Wait, I got to look back at these quotes that are in here.
01:34:04.800She said, she said, because she went to this thing called the Hoffman Institute where people go to like work on their issues.
01:34:09.600And she felt like everything had shifted after she attended a one-week retreat there, explaining that she had an epiphany during the retreat and began to feel like she was a total phony on her relationship.
01:34:59.080I think when you have kids, a six and eight-year-old, maybe ideally in a perfect world, it would take time for you to end the relationship.
01:35:05.600Again, they weren't married for something more than it's not deepening.
01:35:20.200She either had to go to the Hoffman Institute to do deep work for a week or she had a 10-second epiphany.
01:35:26.980Well, it's perfect that she was at the Hoffman Institute because we've talked about this many times, how the people who are constantly focused on this bullshit are the least happy people.
01:35:36.660You say this all the time and it's like every time you say it's like it's another epiphany.
01:35:40.780It's like, yeah, it's like if you're perseverating on, first of all, if your world is that myopic, that it's about you, you, you, you, you, you are a bore.
01:35:50.440You are a limited, non-intellectual, non-interesting person.
01:37:51.980But like now we found joy, which again, tell me how, like give me one concrete thing that you're selling this book on.
01:37:58.120We found joy, but really we are talking to experts in change.
01:38:00.800That's what you're going to find in this book.
01:38:02.220You know, this, that for me was such a, like a trigger, but not actually, um, it's the many, many times I sat on the show, like the, the set of the today show and just, I had nothing like in the face of that false enthusiasm.
01:39:53.420Maybe I'll consult the Bible on change so that I can just get used to the fact that something big is going to change for me when I read and read this book and watch her segment about Hoda Copy.
01:40:03.900Hoda and Jenna and Maria and Maria Shriver, all the, all the great minds of all the, you know, Socratic.
01:40:10.160Honestly, I think I was temporarily insane when I agreed to go to NBC.
01:40:40.140Trump's Department of Justice sued three major Medicare brokers for pretending to be unbiased while allegedly pushing people into the plans that got the brokers the biggest kickbacks.
01:44:42.440To this day, because, I guess, generational trauma, as the kids call it.
01:44:47.960She can't walk by a cotton plant in a luxury hotel to go promote Kim Kardashian's skims line without feeling trauma that she has to videotape and post on Insta.
01:45:15.120I bet she's getting a really sweetheart deal staying there, if not comped.
01:45:18.100So she's probably staying in a $25,000 a night presidential suite, but she doesn't want to upset the powers that be by saying this is the whatever.
01:45:27.200And by the way, first of all, Meghan Markle's like, what happened to me?
01:46:11.880She is so lucky she was born in the United States of America and was raised here and was given all the opportunities that she got, made the most out of them by sheer grit, determination, and talent.
01:46:23.920Absolutely nobody would take that away from her.
01:46:26.140Why does she want to associate herself with some sort of trigger by walking by cotton?
01:46:32.840That because it just reminds you of slavery?
01:46:35.600Like, who, honestly, like, we all know about slavery, and by the way, that's like me being like, I can't walk by the potatoes in the Whole Foods because I'm triggered my people, my Irish people, the potato famine, and what was done to the Irish when they came to America.
02:03:48.800And as so often in families where you have a ne'er-do-well or a problem child who's always causing grief, it's always those ones who get, like, chance after chance.
02:09:20.900It releases you from harboring resentment and anger and these things that can be corrosive.
02:09:27.540Like, what a gift she gave to him, which obviously wasn't the intention, but, like, it has the effect of, you know, helping others when you do an extraordinary act of kindness.
02:09:36.100I had no idea that his father was killed, uh, and that he carried that around.
02:09:43.420There's so many people who have these, you know, Kelsey Grammer's another who had family members who were murdered.
02:10:07.580And I believe there's, you can make your peace with something that happened that is tragic, senseless, unfair, unjust, a targeted, deliberate act that was thought through.
02:10:21.920I personally would not feel the need to forgive.
02:10:26.120I would feel the need to make my peace with what happened.
02:10:29.340But as for what became of that person, not my, you know, in fact, I'd probably make it my business to make sure that when we were talking about Brian Koberger last time.
02:11:48.400My editor called and told me and, uh, said that he had seen it and that it was very clear that he was not going to come back from it, that he was, it clearly had been killed instantly.
02:11:59.340And, and then, you know, what I did was I, I was out, I came home and I immediately turned you on because I was like, this is the only person that I'm going to get the real story from the real thing.
02:12:13.300And to see you and Mark and Rich talking about it and holding out the hope and you find yourself in that moment wanting to believe there is hope when you know there probably is no hope.
02:12:26.040And all of it just seeming so surreal and so, um, truly senseless and, and, and just, uh, uh, a hideous act of violence that took the life of above and beyond anything, a young husband and father.
02:12:41.560I, you know, I, um, I, I, I don't, I don't, I don't know.
02:12:48.120I, you know, I, it's, it's something I wrestle with, you know, I was raised Catholic and I'm, I'm not practicing.
02:12:53.760Um, but I, I really wrestle with issues like what is moral?
02:13:21.600You mean like death penalty versus a terrible life in a super max prison where he has to linger and.
02:13:28.700Both, both are satisfactory to me, though.
02:13:31.220I believe a person like Erica would say, well, no, the true, the true highest level would be to forgive.
02:13:38.900Well, she wants, I mean, I don't know, actually, I shouldn't say, cause she specifically said, she said to me personally, and she said in an interview with the New York times, she said, let just leave that up to law enforcement.
02:13:53.900She's, she's worried that if she endorses the death penalty for him, it could, it could come back to haunt her when she tries to get into heaven.
02:14:02.660She pictures Charlie there with Jesus.
02:14:04.820And if this is not moral to call for a man's death, she doesn't want it to count against her.
02:14:11.260You know, she feels like it could keep her divided from Charlie forever.
02:14:13.700That's, that's how observant she is and how thoughtful she is.
02:14:17.420Meanwhile, I was like, you do whatever you have to do.
02:14:21.200Like you actually don't, you you're handling it perfectly because there's plenty of us out there who are calling for the death penalty and whose role that is.
02:14:29.680You know, Charlie used to say that Charlie used to say, like, there's some people who are called to be like evangelists for the faith.
02:14:36.020And there are some people who are called to go on missions and spread the faith.
02:14:38.940And then there are other people who are called to be more rhetorical warriors where, you know, we have to make points and we have to make arguments and we have to make sure that we argue for justice and make sure that there are clear facts around why we need it and so on.
02:14:50.680And I definitely see myself in that latter camp.
02:14:52.620But Erica's role is, I actually see her right now as a very consequential figure.
02:14:58.920You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about faith and God and God's plan and why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, if you would live the life Charlie led, would this happen to you?
02:15:08.080And I know that many people believe, my fellow Christians believe that this too was part of God's plan, you know, that, and, and also you can argue it's free will, basically, that the master plan of Charlie coming home was God's plan, but that there's free will and that Charlie's decision to go that day and so on, that was his decision.
02:15:27.400I still can't like quite get my arms around it, but I do see Erica as like this hugely consequential figure because millions of people have been inspired by what she did at that funeral and feel extra connected to their faith because of her, the Tim Allen thing.
02:15:42.920And it got me thinking, like, what if Erica was always meant, if you believe in a master plan, to be the one who would have the biggest impact on the world, on America, on young people?
02:16:16.180But what if her skillset and what she's about to bring to the world turns out to be equally extraordinary, you know, to what we got from Charlie?
02:16:27.600It's not to justify anything that happened to Charlie.
02:16:29.400I'm just saying, like, maybe we've been given this extremely gifted person because that's exactly what we need for the next 36, you know?
02:16:37.920It's funny you say that because I've been thinking about that a lot.
02:16:40.480You know, before this tragedy, her role, as they both saw it and agreed and enjoyed, was that she was his helper.
02:18:27.400And then you get to the other side where you can really begin to see after the dust settles what the larger point of it may be that is so beyond our own understanding.
02:18:53.420You know, people ask me about the show all the time that this is my therapy.
02:18:55.640This is my catharsis to sit on this set and be able to say what's real, what, what I think about the news to help other people who are trying to navigate a very difficult news landscape.
02:19:05.340If I don't do this, I don't know what I'd be doing.
02:19:08.280I'd be, I'd be, if I have a day off, Maureen, you should see me kicking around the house.
02:19:11.640Like, I don't, I'm like, I accomplished nothing.
02:32:35.500It feels very Red Table Talk adjacent, you know, where Jada would have the kids come on and talk and Will and talk about how she was having a sexual relationship with their young son's friend in front of Will, who is cuckolded.
02:32:50.260And like, this all feels so like, I think this is a form of child abuse.
02:36:32.640Why is Violet Affleck at the United Nations where the biggest problems are Israel, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, and she's at the United Nations, by the way, making a nonsensical argument saying that this technology, which is a physical barrier, it's not Elon Musk's SpaceX.
02:36:52.940Okay, sister, that our ancestors would have killed for.
02:36:56.360I mean, we got here through immunology and virology.
02:36:59.360Like that's the propagation of the human species.
02:37:18.200I can't believe somebody didn't show her Greta Thunberg beforehand and said, do the opposite of that.
02:37:22.720So I just read that the latest attempt at thwarting Greta's like third flotilla attempt was to play ABBA as like a sort of like, this is the biggest cultural thing you got, like is ABBA.
02:37:44.320And I, you know, the other, my favorite, my other favorite story was, you know, she'll be photographed in LA rolling around in like $2,000 Chloe handbags with her N95 on.
02:37:54.800And she reportedly, I mean, the Daily Mail had this story that during the LA wildfires, Jennifer Garner, remember Ben scooped them up.
02:38:03.600He would J-Lo, he was in the, and they went to the Beverly Hills Hotel reportedly and Violet threw a fit because she was like, this is some 1% shit.
02:40:02.860Like I think her mother's a failed rock star and her father's a failed actor or vice versa.
02:40:06.040And they sort of, this was their way of like vicariously getting that, like that kind of level of fame.
02:40:11.340And with Violet Affleck, you know, what's fascinating to me is, and I think I would be alarmed as if I were her parent, that like the way this is manifesting is through masking oneself.
02:40:21.160Which if you want to unlayer the metaphors of that, you know, it's deep.
02:40:26.980And she's coming at the world from a very fearful place.
02:40:30.340Like you should be spreading your wings at college, especially like you're a kid who can fly home private.
02:40:49.140They turned her into a Taylor Lorenz who's like, put on your masks.
02:40:54.100It's, this is inhumane what you're all doing to me, walking around out there, breathing freely.
02:40:58.880Like, how is she going to function in the world?
02:41:00.940How is she ever going to get a job in a workplace?
02:41:03.020I realize she never has to work if she doesn't want to, but like, who doesn't want their child to get a job and work and be a contributing member of society?
02:41:09.120She's already crossed over to the far left lecturing us phase of progressivism.
02:41:14.360Yeah, it's like, it's, it's almost like it's, this is the kind of thing where you feel like you just take the child and at 19, I mean, she's, you know, she's on the cusp of adulthood, but you get her to the best of the best in psychiatry and psychology.
02:41:26.920You get her to the best and you work on what to me seems like, you know, and I say that, you know, I've talked to you about like being a kid who had real OCD.
02:41:34.300Like this feels like a kind of obsessive, compulsive manifestation of like what really is like deep anxiety and maybe some anger because a lot of depression is actually self-directed anger because it's too scary to unleash it.
02:41:49.680Like at the places and people you really have it for, you know?
02:41:53.460Mm-hmm. I just think if this were my child, this wouldn't be my child. I would not raise my child to be like this, but if this were for some reason, I, I would not be going to the therapist.
02:42:05.100I would be taking off my work for a year and she and I would be traveling. We'd be going coast to coast in America in our car. We'd be going over to Europe, maybe go back to Provence. That was pretty damn good.
02:42:17.360Um, we'd be together all the time. We'd drive each other crazy. I'm sure if that were my kid for the beginning and then there'd come a period where we'd settle down into a rhythm and we'd get closer and closer and closer.
02:42:28.800And I'd be giving her all the attention and love that she needed that I clearly failed to give her before this point.
02:42:35.560And we would get super tight and she would be reminded of what matters and who she is and that she doesn't need to do this crap in order to feel of value.
02:42:43.000But I will say, I think that Dr. Leonard Sachs, who comes on the show sometimes and talks about parenting advice, you do get to a point beyond which you can't fix what you did, you know?
02:42:54.580And 19 is probably pretty close to that point. Like this needed to be addressed a lot earlier. And she's, it's been five years since COVID. She has been in a mask for five years.
02:43:07.320It's, you know, it's, it makes you wonder too about like her peer group and who her friends are. Because, you know, of course, even before that age, they have a lot more influence than your parents as you're breaking away and as you're healthy.
02:43:20.980And you would think that her peer group would encourage her. Like, Violet, let's go out one night on the quad. It's like, it's fresh air. Let's go to a party.
02:43:31.660Don't you think it's probably like, Violet's got her special thing. You know, Violet wants to talk to the class about her special thing, her weird mask obsession. I'll bet you, in Hollywood, they're all leaning into this. And by the way, there's no way every single one of her friends is not masked.
02:43:47.460You think? Yes. She's pissed off you and I aren't masked. Can you imagine her hanging out with people who are free faced?
02:43:54.400But she does it. She walks with her mother. She walks with her father. Oh, this is the best part. The Daily Mail pointed this out. So smart. She talked about like smoking being a difficult thing. Like Ben is a chain smoker. We see the pictures of him all the time. Like, it can't be both, right? Your parents can't be out in the world bringing in whatever they're bringing in from the community. Your father can't be a chain smoker.
02:44:15.540And you are in like, and like, I find the N95 mask, the metaphor of all metaphors for like growing up in that house. Like I am, I am, I am uncontaminating myself from the pollutants in the Garner Affleck household.
02:44:33.260Yes. It is just a reminder. I would say this all the time, but you look from the outside at these like very wealthy, very famous families. And there tends to be a, you know, knee jerk of like, oh, they have it all. They've got these multimillion dollar mansions in the Hollywood Hills, these amazing swimming pools and all this staff, the fancy airplane and cars. No, no, I'm sorry.
02:44:53.220But like, and I hope that Violet Affleck gets past this. I really hope the trans kid and the non-binary kid, which is not a thing, get pulled out of that dangerous, dangerous delusion.
02:45:07.000But I don't have a ton of like optimism about it because it would require stronger parents than they apparently have.
02:45:14.320I hope, you know, sometimes it's like a kid can get there on their own. And if this is, let's just say, this is some sort of her version of rebellion. It's not sex. It's not drugs. It's not rock and roll. It's an N95.
02:45:28.580Like, let's hope that like she can get herself to the other side of this. And this, this is just a, you know, it's a very difficult time. 19 really. It's really hard. I had a really hard time. I had an eating disorder at 19. It was not easy, but you know, I got myself out of it. It wasn't my parents who got me out of it. I got myself out of it. You know, with the help.
02:45:49.680Yeah. Well, I actually had a mentor who was also a very close friend of mine and she worked, we worked together and she took me out. She'll know who she is if she's listening. She took me out to lunch one day and she said, we are sitting here until you eat.
02:46:05.040What's on your plate and we're not leaving until you do. And I actually had like, I, I had to confess and break down and have this like sort of come to Jesus that I hadn't really had with myself. And I, I was, I was so weak.
02:46:19.460And depleted. And I said, I don't know if I physically can because my stomach has shrunk so much and my brain has rewired so much that it doesn't want food and I'm going to get sick. And she said, just do what you can do it. You know, it was like one of the most loving things anybody has ever done for me. And she pulled me back by the scruff of my neck because I was this close to needing professional help, like that close.
02:46:42.840So, you know, sometimes it's the kid does find their way or they find the people they need to like influence them in the right way. So maybe she has that down the line for her. We have to end it on a positive note. All right. We're hoping that a, she gets out of like that Hollywood circle and finds people who can be a good, genuinely good influence on her.
02:47:03.680Um, the best thing that happened to me this week was my daughter's playing soccer in her high school and it's nothing extraordinary, but it's the games come right after the show goes off the air. So I, I have time, you know, if Abby knows that we have a home game, she blocks my afternoon and I go.
02:47:22.820And I'm telling you, Maureen, it is so wonderful over there. It's just a high school soccer game where this is not the Olympics or the world cup or what have you just, just yesterday we went, we were playing our rival. We got there. It was one, one. Cause we got there like 20 minutes late. And, uh, so it was tense. It was like tight. Finally, we went up one goal and it was two, one. And then all you can do is watch your watch. Like, please make time go faster. You know, you're praying and the other team's praying for exactly the opposite.
02:47:52.100Right. We can still do it. We've been there too. And you know, you're watching your kid out there doing her thing. You're like, Oh, please God, you know, make it go well for her and make everybody have a good time. And all the parents who we don't know, you know, cause we're new, she's a freshman. So this is, these are a bunch of people who've been on this team for a while. Now, suddenly we're high-fiving people. We have no idea who they are, you know, but these are going to be our, our fellow parents on this team for a while. You, you come together. It was like the ending seconds when they had the ball down by our goal. And the other team was almost scoring.
02:48:22.100Over and over and over. They had the ball right in front of our goal for too long. And the parents on our team started yelling, blow the whistle, you know, blow the whistle, like end the game. Like we were over. It seemed like we were way over. It was just such a dumb chant. It was like the ref is going to blow the whistle when the time is over, but you just, you feel so powerless. Like, yes, please blow the, blow the whistle.
02:48:39.280And we did win. And it was disproportionately joyful to what was actually happening in front of us. But that is the stuff. Yes. That's it. That's it. That's what you need. You know, like you need moments with your friends or your family or like sitting here together talking and laughing. This is the good stuff that gets us through.
02:48:58.660That's it. That's it. You can, again, you can, I think about this all the time. You can have the trappings, you can have the whatever. And it doesn't, it doesn't fill anything the way that like meaningful relationships with people you love and want the best for.
02:49:13.140Yeah. And that's a rare thing too. You know, not everybody wants the best for everybody else. True. But when you find those people and they're like rare birds and I consider you one of them, you know, not to have an Oprah Gail thing, you know, but like, you know, we're at least Gilbert's over there and Oprah and Gail are like, you're my river person. But you know, you know what I'm saying? It's like, those are, those are like, you, those are like the, that's, that's like the stuff where it's like, you feel like there's a bit of like what Matthew McConaughey would probably say stardust at work.
02:49:43.140You know, where it's like, yes, things line up and we need it. It's like, it's been such a hard two weeks. It's when those little moments come just sitting here with you laughing that the soccer game, we have to take them. We have to recognize like, it's not the extraordinary thing. Like you win an Oscar or whatever the equivalent is, you know, it's that it's this. So I'm so glad we gave it to the audience too, because I know they're at home feeling it too. They know you, they, they know me and I know they love when we get together because we're saying all the things they're
02:50:13.120I think so too. And I think, um, I'm really, I'm just happy to see you in person. As you know, I've been thinking about you a lot these past two weeks and I'm just so happy to see you looking good and doing well. Thank you. I am doing well. Great to see you. All right. And thanks to all of you for sticking with us. This is a long one. You know, we knew we were going to have to do a good chunk on the indictment of Jim's, of James Comey around like there's no way we're shortening Maureen. So we did a long show today.