The Megyn Kelly Show - Could Trump Conviction Get Overturned on Appeal？ With Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Fighting Collusion to Make Debate Stage

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.900 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.940 Later today, RFKJ, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is here back on The MK Show.

00:00:22.660 Looking forward to asking him a bunch of questions, including why he's now really, really challenging

00:00:29.080 the fact that he's been excluded from this presidential debate, or these two that have

00:00:32.380 been scheduled. But for now, we are on verdict watch as the jury deliberates in the business

00:00:38.060 records trial of former President Donald Trump. This morning, the jury's back in court. They were

00:00:43.640 in the actual courtroom when we kicked things off this morning as of 9.30, hearing a live

00:00:49.180 reenactment, rereading of some of the testimony they've requested. We'll go over what they wanted,

00:00:55.740 plus a rereading of the jury instructions. Oh, were they a little confusing? That's so weird.

00:01:01.280 I was shocked to hear they didn't understand them the first time around. Joining me today to discuss

00:01:05.320 it all, Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 Project, and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney

00:01:10.100 for Palm Beach County, Florida, and host of True Crime MTN on YouTube. Find Mike only on Fox, Dave only on

00:01:17.200 MSNBC, but only together right here on The Megyn Kelly Show. Guys, welcome back. Thank you for

00:01:25.780 having us. Great to have you both. All right. So the jury wanted to have read back, oh yes, the jury

00:01:31.700 instructions. We all know why. They didn't understand anything because New York State doesn't allow the

00:01:37.100 jurors to take the jury instructions back into the room with them. So it's, my God, this is so

00:01:43.380 confusing. It's not like, did he sell pot or didn't he? Right? It's like, good Lord, they have so many

00:01:49.500 steps to go through. So they did that. And then they wanted to hear read back certain portions of

00:01:54.180 the testimony. And I definitely want to hear your thoughts on what we can glean from what they wanted.

00:02:00.320 They wanted certain sections of David Pecker's testimony, the guy who was running AMI, the National

00:02:06.580 Inquirer. And they wanted a little bit of Michael Cohen's testimony as relates to one meeting he

00:02:12.120 allegedly had with, with David Pecker. They're definitely interested in David Pecker. And my

00:02:18.140 note to myself reads, could the AMI payment to Karen McDougall carry the day? Like that, that was

00:02:26.900 my takeaway, having read the portions that they wanted to hear. And this is where it got me. This

00:02:33.300 jury may not be putting as much weight on Stormy Daniels as the rest of us did. They may be going with

00:02:40.700 the theory that was argued quite a bit by the prosecutor in his closing, which did spend a lot

00:02:46.700 of time on Karen McDougall, the catch and kill scheme. You know, that was the word used. And like

00:02:53.160 the whole thing they try, even though we've all been focused on Stormy, the prosecution did argue

00:02:58.240 that the whole thing with AMI was part of this alleged illegal scheme, even though Pecker's done it for

00:03:04.720 many other politicians, including Democrat Rahm Emanuel. But okay. And, and they wanted to hear

00:03:11.280 Pecker's testimony as follows, that Donald Trump acknowledged, this is David Pecker telling

00:03:20.260 the jurors, this is what they had read back to them in part. Donald Trump acknowledged to me

00:03:28.940 that he had spoken to Michael Cohen and acknowledged to me that he knew Karen McDougall

00:03:35.780 and said, she's a nice girl. All right. So this was Pecker sort of saying, I recognize the story

00:03:42.660 about Karen McDougall allegedly having a year long affair with Trump was probably true because his

00:03:47.700 response when asked was, she's a nice girl. David Pecker, uh, let's say that, uh, he testified that

00:03:55.700 Donald Trump, oh, he recommended that Donald Trump buy Karen McDougall's story and that Michael

00:04:01.460 Cohen called David Pecker back and told Pecker, go ahead and do it, buy it. And that this was on

00:04:09.460 behalf of Donald Trump. This is what David Pecker said. He understood. He testified again that he

00:04:15.460 believed the McDougall story and that he thought it would embarrass Donald Trump and hurt his campaign

00:04:21.340 both. And he recommended, um, that they, that they buy it. And then Cohen called him back and said,

00:04:28.380 do it, go ahead and do it. And that he understood that was Trump's okay. Um, then David Pecker said,

00:04:36.700 uh, the reason, yeah, the reason I bought the negative stories on Trump was to avoid personal

00:04:42.520 embarrassment to him and to help his campaign on cross-examination. They tried to bring out that

00:04:47.860 his memory wasn't perfect, that these events happened a long time ago. And, uh, they got into

00:04:53.520 overall, this is still a direct David Pecker decided that he did not want to be repaid for

00:05:00.280 Karen McDougall's story after he paid her $150,000 for it. And this is something I miss first time

00:05:07.660 around guys. There was a reason he didn't want to be repaid. It's not that David Pecker had unlimited

00:05:14.400 funds to spend for Donald Trump. It's that he started to get scared that he was going to be in

00:05:21.600 trouble for making an illegal campaign donation. And there was testimony to that effect that in

00:05:29.960 David Pecker's mind, he had some worries after consulting with a lawyer about seeking reimbursement.

00:05:35.540 He thought it would be too on the nose and it would underscore that this really was

00:05:39.520 a deal to reimburse him for something, a contribution he made to Trump and that he just decided to eat

00:05:46.720 it. Now that doesn't put that knowledge in Donald Trump's mind that, holy shit, we might be violating

00:05:53.340 election law, you know, which is what they need to do. The prosecution needs to get in Donald Trump's

00:05:58.280 head. We're violating the law right now with this agreement. They haven't done that, but there is

00:06:05.220 testimony by Pecker that he had concerns. And I'll just give you some of it here.

00:06:12.420 Question by the prosecutor, did you come to appreciate the legalities surrounding such an

00:06:16.520 arrangement with a political candidate? Answer, yes. That was the first time I ever came across

00:06:21.520 a political contribution. What a violation was, objection sustained. He asked again, well,

00:06:27.040 what did you in your mind take away from that experience that you had as a result of the Arnold

00:06:30.980 Schwarzenegger situation? Uh, and he said, based on what happened 14 years ago, meaning with

00:06:36.000 Schwarzenegger, I wanted it meaning with Trump to be comfortable that the arrangement we were going,

00:06:41.640 the agreement we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to

00:06:47.140 a campaign contribution. Um, did there come a time when someone at AMI consulted with an election

00:06:53.340 law attorney? Yes. I called Michael Cohen. I told him that we finalized the agreement with

00:06:59.580 Karen McDougal that the contract was bulletproof and we consulted with a campaign attorney question.

00:07:05.640 And to your knowledge, what did the campaign attorney review? Answer the agreement in the

00:07:09.680 contract? Yes. Uh, and then just a little bit more, were you aware that expenditures by corporations

00:07:15.280 made for the purpose of influencing an election made in coordination with, or at the request of a

00:07:19.920 candidate or a campaign or unlawful answer? Yes. Question. Did either you or AMI ever report

00:07:25.900 to the federal election commission in 2016 that AMI had made a $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal?

00:07:32.960 Answer. No, we did not. Why did AMI make this purchase of Karen McDougal's story? We purchased

00:07:37.940 the story so it wouldn't be published by any other organization. And why did you not want it to be

00:07:41.680 published by any other org? I didn't want, we didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or

00:07:45.760 embarrass or hurt the campaign. When you say who, when you say we, who's we? Myself and Mr. Cohen.

00:07:50.740 But for Mr. Cohen's promise to reimburse, uh, no one withdrawn, but for Mr. Cohen's promise that

00:07:58.760 Mr. Trump would reimburse AMI, would you have entered into this agreement? No. Did you have

00:08:04.720 any discussions with anyone in the Trump camp about Donald Trump reimbursing AMI for the money

00:08:08.500 paid to Karen? I did. I had conversations with Michael Cohen. All right. So that's a long lead up

00:08:14.380 to you guys. That seems to be what the jury's interested in this morning. Dave, what's your

00:08:20.440 take on it? Well, good to be back with you, Megan. First time back since your Bill Maher interview,

00:08:25.340 which I thought was riveting by the way. Uh, well done. Thank you. Yeah. I love how you have

00:08:30.000 diverse viewpoints on like mine and a good be back with Mike. Uh, I do think the questions are good for

00:08:36.360 the prosecution because as you set forth, they are framed in the prosecution's narrative, their story of

00:08:42.040 the case, their theory of the case, rather than the defense's. If they had asked questions about

00:08:47.140 Michael Cohen's credibility and about that controversial phone call where the 14 year old

00:08:51.280 was trolling him, then I think that would benefit the defense. But these are questions to buttress

00:08:56.400 the prosecution story. And it looks like they may have a couple of holdouts and these, this is a way

00:09:02.260 of trying to get them to go along. Uh, but yeah, you're, you're right that the phone call with, uh,

00:09:07.320 Pecker while he was at the investor meeting is really important because, uh, that's where the

00:09:13.520 prosecutor said that Trump deputized Cohen right in front of Pecker so that Pecker knows that any

00:09:20.740 go ahead from Cohen is a go ahead from Trump that ties Trump directly to the scheme. So it makes it

00:09:25.880 impossible for the defense to claim that Cohen was acting on his own. And I think it's important

00:09:29.860 that, uh, when Pecker spoke about this, he talked three times about this call while he was on the

00:09:35.100 stand. And he said that he told Trump that I still think you should buy the Karen McDougal story.

00:09:40.720 And then Trump said to me, this is according to Pecker, I'll speak to Michael and he'll get back

00:09:45.700 to you. So I think that's really important. And then you're right about Pecker and the $125,000

00:09:50.940 rather than $150,000. That was a blow up with Michael Cohen that Pecker, uh, decided to back out

00:09:58.140 of the deal where they were going to assign Karen McDougal's life rights back to Michael Cohen and Donald

00:10:03.880 Trump in exchange for $125,000. And when Pecker backed out of the deal, he said that Cohen blew

00:10:10.760 up and said, the boss is going to be really upset about this. So this is all the way to tie Trump

00:10:16.360 directly to the scheme itself. So I think this is good for the prosecution. What do you think,

00:10:21.820 Mike? They're very interested in the catch and kill scheme from the sound of it. Yeah, they're very

00:10:27.480 interested in that, but guess what? That's not a crime. It is not a crime to run a catch and kill

00:10:33.500 scheme. It's not a crime to settle a nuisance claim. It's there's not a crime here. And that's

00:10:39.780 the problem with this entire prosecution. They did not explain to president Trump, the criminal

00:10:44.980 defendants throughout the entirety of his criminal trial, what the legal allegations were against

00:10:51.220 him. They did not explain those legal allegations until the very ends. And then this judge Mershon,

00:10:57.380 this corrupt judge Mershon, who made an illegal campaign contribution to Biden that got him

00:11:02.500 reprimanded from the New York court system. We found out several months ago, this judge,

00:11:07.660 this judge's daughter is raising millions of dollars off of this case. This judge did not

00:11:12.360 explain to the jury what the legal allegations are until the very end. And then these legal

00:11:18.100 allegations are, you can pick one thing, you can pick another thing, or you can pick another thing.

00:11:22.460 You don't have to be unanimous. And that's the problem with this whole trial. It is fundamentally

00:11:27.360 unconstitutional. It's fundamentally unfair against president Trump. And they don't care. I mean,

00:11:33.920 the fact that the jurors are asking this question, it shows you that they're not being guided by the

00:11:39.020 law. This judge has not done his job and instructing the jurors on what the law is and what,

00:11:44.120 what is actually relevant, what facts actually matter.

00:11:47.320 What's interesting to me is that there might be some disagreement at all. Like, you know, you,

00:11:55.300 you could have thought that a New York jury would go back there and say, well, I think he's guilty.

00:12:00.660 Does anyone disagree? And everybody's like, nope, I agree, agree, agree, agree, agree. And they could

00:12:05.820 have come right back out with a guilty. So there's a smidgen of hope in here for Trump in that

00:12:13.400 they, they wanted to hear the instructions back. They wanted to hear testimony read back. They're

00:12:19.080 definitely struggling with, you know, has the prosecution met all the elements and what is

00:12:25.260 the proof that will get us there? It's not at least been a knee jerk. He's guilty, right?

00:12:31.760 Everyone agree. Right. You know, I mean, if you watch Dateline as much as I do, you know that that does

00:12:36.480 happen in the most persuasive cases. It doesn't take the jury very long. I'm sure you guys have had

00:12:41.160 trials like that where it's really not too tough and the jury comes right back. This at least is

00:12:45.500 not that Dave. And, um, and yet when you hear the actual substance of what they want to hear back,

00:12:51.900 it does sound more pro prosecution than pro defense, but there's also the possibility that

00:12:58.340 they wanted all this focus on Pecker's testimony because he was witness number one. Maybe there's

00:13:03.200 going through it chronologically. Very true. And reading the tea leaves is often a fool's errand.

00:13:09.100 And so we're doing the best we can, but yes, you're absolutely right. That could be the case.

00:13:13.060 There are reports that there is at least one juror who is very sympathetic to Trump,

00:13:16.980 who was smiling when J.D. Vance walked in the room, the Senator from Ohio, and was very pleased

00:13:22.620 when other Republicans entered the courtroom. So that could be a holdout juror. And we just don't

00:13:29.100 know. Now, one thing that New York needs to change aside from allowing cameras in the courtroom,

00:13:33.400 please, is also to allow the jury instructions to go into the liberation room with the jurors.

00:13:38.540 Why make it so much harder? Why slow things down? Why play hide the ball? So New York has some

00:13:43.280 changes that they're going to have to make as a result of this trial.

00:13:47.200 Haven't we been on this show for a year now trying to figure out what the hell this case is about?

00:13:53.500 And these 12 lay people, Mike, are supposed to go in there like after hearing the jury instructions

00:13:59.120 now twice magically have a complete run of it. You know, I know. Oh yeah, exactly. No. Yeah.

00:14:04.060 Well, we don't have to be unanimous on the underlying crime that he allegedly committed

00:14:08.080 or tried to conceal, but we do have to be unanimous on the final verdict. So is everybody clear? Okay.

00:14:12.560 And raise your hand if you think he violated federal election laws, the underlying crime,

00:14:15.720 raise your hand if you think it was more document falsification. You over there, who did you vote

00:14:19.840 for tax fraud? Yeah, that was a tax fraud, right? So we've got three, we got four, we got another three,

00:14:24.320 but how are we unanimous on the ultimate? I mean, can you imagine what's going on in there?

00:14:30.260 And that is a clearly unconstitutional legal instruction that Judge Mershon gave to the jury

00:14:37.580 where he instructed the jury that they don't have to be unanimous on whatever the second crime or

00:14:43.180 second bad act that Trump supposedly committed in furtherance of this underlying bookkeeping

00:14:48.780 misdemeanor that transformed this underlying bookkeeping misdemeanor. It's not a bookkeeping

00:14:54.400 misdemeanor because a legal expense is a legal expense and it's in his private books. So how

00:14:59.620 can this be a business bookkeeping misdemeanor? But let's play along. They don't even have,

00:15:04.340 this juror was, these jurors were told by Judge Mershon, they don't even have to be unanimous on what

00:15:10.960 the second crime was to make these, this bookkeeping misdemeanor, 34 felonies. That is a

00:15:18.200 direct violation of a Supreme Court case that my former boss, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in 2020,

00:15:27.100 Ramos versus Louisiana. You have to have a unanimous jury verdict on all essential elements. And that

00:15:33.880 applies to federal cases and state cases like this case in New York. This is clearly unconstitutional.

00:15:40.460 And if New York statute says otherwise, that New York statute is unconstitutional.

00:15:45.740 And if this judge were actually doing his job, he would have read that New York statute. So it was

00:15:52.880 in line with the U.S. Constitution. So it was in line with Ramos versus Louisiana from 2020. But he

00:16:00.080 didn't do that because he is a corrupt partisan judge who is railroading President Trump because his

00:16:05.780 daughter is raising millions of dollars off of this case.

00:16:08.880 Megan, can I jump in on that? Yeah. Thank you. I know there's been a lot of talk about how you don't

00:16:15.900 have to be unanimous, but I reread the jury instructions and you do. Number one, you have

00:16:20.880 to be unanimous on the falsification of business records. Second, this according to the jury

00:16:25.220 instructions, it says the jury must find unanimously that Trump intended to defraud by concealing a

00:16:31.020 conspiracy to promote his election as president by unlawful means. That's that second statute that when we

00:16:36.420 discussed in New York state law, you have to be unanimous on that on what the what not on what

00:16:41.380 he was trying to cover up the crime he was trying to cover up. Well, it was it's on the unlawful

00:16:45.980 means. What is unlawful means right within that state statute? What is unlawful means? And you could

00:16:51.740 have different interpretations of what unlawful means, meaning it could be the campaign finance.

00:16:56.560 It could be tax issues. It could be the subsequent falsification of records by Cohen when he

00:17:02.340 applied for the loan from the bank. Those would be unlawful means unfair to be like it's I said

00:17:08.940 yesterday, it's like, let's make a deal. And door number one, you have federal election violations.

00:17:13.920 Who would like to choose that as your underlying crime? And door number two, you've got additional

00:17:17.940 business records falsification. Who would like to sign on to that? And door number three, the little

00:17:22.460 known and beloved tax fraud in which absolutely no one was hurt. And New York state got paid more than

00:17:28.740 it otherwise would have. Can I see a show of hands? You know, I mean, that what kind of

00:17:33.740 due process is that to a defendant? Well, the initial statute member, the underlying

00:17:39.420 statute is falsification has to be unanimous. Then it has to lead to concealing another statute

00:17:43.840 that too has to be unanimous. And that's why, to me, it satisfies due process. The part that doesn't

00:17:48.580 have to be unanimous is not an element of the crime. It's the what are the unlawful means within

00:17:53.980 the second statute. Unlawful means is an element of the crime. You don't have unlawful means unless

00:17:58.140 they find that he he was either committing or concealing one of those three things.

00:18:05.780 Well, it's that's going to be on appeal, whether it's interpreted as an element of the crime or

00:18:10.220 a manner in which the crime was accomplished. And that's why, to me, it seems to do to satisfy

00:18:15.980 due process. I think the bigger challenge, let me ask you, let me ask you a follow up on that.

00:18:19.220 OK, a follow up is Andy McCarthy's been writing for a couple of months now about something he

00:18:23.420 broke on this show, which is that the that that it's so confusing to my audience members. I know

00:18:29.800 you're hanging on by your fingernails. We all are. But just go with me. The first crime is

00:18:35.400 falsification of business records. That's the misdemeanor that got elevated because he allegedly

00:18:39.540 did it for unlawful means. And that unlawful means part is a New York state law that says

00:18:48.460 you can't conspire to win an election by unlawful means. And we use the example yesterday, like, OK,

00:18:55.920 if you steal ballots out of somebody's box, you know, mailbox. Yeah, I got it. That that could

00:19:02.460 potentially violate that New York state statute. But what Andy's been pointing out is that there's a

00:19:07.100 New York state constitutional provision that requires that says you cannot incorporate by

00:19:13.960 reference when making something unlawful. You have to say specifically what law they're not allowed

00:19:21.300 to violate. In other words, that law that's right on layer two there. Right. Falsification of business

00:19:27.080 records was a misdemeanor, but it goes up to a felony if you do if it's to, you know, campaign by

00:19:32.380 unlawful means. And that law right there is not going to be upheld on appeal, Dave, because you

00:19:38.100 can't just say a lawful means. Let's make a deal. That's what led to the let's make a deal. And Andy's

00:19:44.720 been making the point that that law is going to be struck down under New York's constitution. Forget

00:19:48.860 due process in our federal constitution, which is also at play. It is a real possibility. My friend,

00:19:54.980 Eric Columbus, who is a progressive legal expert, said that he expects there to be a conviction,

00:20:00.980 no jail time, and the conviction would be overturned on appeal. And I think if it is overturned on

00:20:06.360 appeal, it would be because of that. But it is a legitimate debate whether that unlawful means

00:20:12.160 is a manner in which the crime is accomplished or an element of the crime. Because remember,

00:20:17.820 it's the two words within that secondary statute. And that statute still has to be proven beyond a

00:20:22.660 reasonable doubt by a unanimous jury. It's just up to the jury to determine what are the unlawful

00:20:27.580 means. Is it the tax issue? Is it the campaign finance issue under federal law? Or is it the

00:20:32.660 falsification of business documents that Michael Cohen did to get the loan from the bank?

00:20:38.260 So where was the legal expert, Mike Davis, on New York state or federal tax law? Where did I miss

00:20:49.400 that testimony? Where was the election law expert, Brad Smith, to actually help illuminate this is what

00:21:00.360 would be illegal? Where was that? Because I'm going to venture to guess these jurors don't understand

00:21:06.520 what rises to the level of illegality under the tax laws, under the election laws,

00:21:12.480 or the business records laws, the three possibilities in front of those doors,

00:21:16.540 any more than any other layperson walking around out there in New York does.

00:21:21.980 That's a very good question, because this corrupt, biased Democrat Biden donor judge,

00:21:28.540 Juan Mershon, refused to allow President Trump to call Brad Smith, the former chairman of the Federal

00:21:34.480 Election Commission, as an expert in federal election law. And this judge is saying, it's my job

00:21:40.340 as the judge to instruct the jurors on what the law is. Well, he didn't do that. And he actually let

00:21:45.940 Michael Cohen and even David Pecker testify as to what this election law is, which is,

00:21:53.720 you know, I don't know how that's not reversible air in itself. But this jury is left utterly confused

00:22:00.460 as laypeople. I guess there are two lawyers on this jury, but we have this jury that's utterly

00:22:08.500 confused as to what election law is. This judge will not give them the jury instructions on paper

00:22:14.540 so they can look at this and try to make sense of it. And here we are, three lawyers on your show

00:22:20.560 right now. I mean, I think that you two are much smarter than I am, but we have reasonable intelligence

00:22:25.460 between the three of us. And we don't know what the hell the legal allegations are in this case

00:22:30.040 after the trial's over. I know that's, what's so scary. Think about it, Dave, you prosecute cases

00:22:34.940 for a living and we're still like, well, this part may or may not be constitutional. Well, this seems

00:22:39.860 to be making a reference over here and federal election law. I mean, for the record, this is what

00:22:44.120 happened. The defense wanted to call Brad Smith to offer testimony on federal election law, which is,

00:22:49.440 which the feds have specifically said needs to be handled by the Federal Election Commission,

00:22:55.100 because it's so complex. It should not be a law that's enforced by any rope-a-dope prosecutor

00:23:02.300 like Alvin Bragg. That's why they gave them the exclusive jurisdiction over these claims.

00:23:07.480 But Bragg backdoored it into the case. And then when Trump said, well, somebody should hear from

00:23:12.060 an expert on what that statute actually requires and doesn't, the judge said, no. Finally, he said,

00:23:17.640 you could put Brad Smith on the stage, on the stand to answer, to define like a couple of terms.

00:23:23.680 And that's it. And Trump's like, oh, forget that. And Brad Smith tweeted on X.

00:23:28.760 He limit, he's so limited what I could say that it became pointless. And the defense decided not

00:23:32.980 to call me. So for those saying like Trump decided not to call him, that's not what happened.

00:23:37.600 He got limited such that Brad Smith's testimony would have been irrelevant. But you guys and I

00:23:41.920 have been rounding around on Brad Smith, Dave. We just played that famous soundbite that we had

00:23:46.720 yesterday when you were on with Arthur. And Arthur was here yesterday. And Brad Smith was here.

00:23:52.380 And he was explaining federal election law. And you asked him about the John Edwards case. And he had

00:23:58.460 a good answer for you on it. And I actually, in my spare time, because I have no real life,

00:24:03.420 was watching old C-SPAN clips of Brad Smith. I need help. I hope sometime I get the help I so

00:24:10.920 desperately need. Anyway, he was even more interesting, believe it or not, on C-SPAN,

00:24:17.480 right after Michael Cohen got arrested. And even then he was like, I don't think they've got him

00:24:24.900 on federal election claims. And he went on there about why. So we cut a decent soundbite of that.

00:24:32.160 Let's take a listen. I think it's Kelly. I think it's soundbite nine. Yeah. Yeah. It's not nine.

00:24:39.420 I'm skeptical, though. I will tell you, John, that this is a violation of campaign finance laws for

00:24:45.700 a couple of reasons. First, the law has long wrestled with this idea of anything that's for

00:24:50.880 the purpose of influencing a campaign. That could be anything. That could be hosting a Fourth of

00:24:54.520 July party in your backyard, right? And so the law has always said we need to narrow that down. And

00:25:00.480 there are a number of exceptions. Some are in the statute and some have been created by courts as a

00:25:04.540 constitutional matter. But the one that's of interest to me here is there is an exception for

00:25:10.600 what is called personal use. That is, you can't use campaign funds for personal use,

00:25:16.680 even if it might be being done to benefit your campaign. Let me give a couple examples.

00:25:22.220 If you were to say as a candidate, boy, I'd look great in that debate next week if I had that nice

00:25:27.180 new suit, right? Can you use your campaign funds to buy that suit? No. Even if you're honestly

00:25:33.040 thinking that'll make you look better in the campaign debate the following week. Can you say,

00:25:38.300 you know, at the end of a hard day of campaigning and to be ready for the next day, I need a good

00:25:42.700 massage. Can you use campaign funds? No. And then I'll just continue it. Here he goes on in Sock 10.

00:25:50.600 I think it's a common sense matter. You know, if I were to ask people three years ago before there

00:25:55.020 was Donald Trump, I said, look, do you think paying hush money to quiet charges of sexual harassment or

00:26:01.820 somebody who's trying to get hush money for a fair you had? Do you think that's a legitimate

00:26:07.080 campaign expense? I think almost everyone would say, no, you can't use campaign funds for that.

00:26:11.400 That's not what campaign funds are for. And I think that's the way the law is, in fact,

00:26:16.280 written. The law says very clearly that it has to, the obligation has to have been created by the

00:26:21.660 campaign. Again, a dalliance you had years before created the obligation. That's not a campaign

00:26:26.840 expenditure. The obligation has to be created by the campaign. And he said to us, it's not a

00:26:33.320 subjective evaluation. It's an objective evaluation on what is the nature of this payment. And is it one

00:26:38.580 that could ever be used outside of the campaign context? So polling, yes, the campaign expenditure,

00:26:46.100 you know, get out the vote materials. Yes, campaign expenditure. But hush money to pay off

00:26:53.440 somebody threatening to embarrass you in the media. Definitely not. People do that all the time,

00:26:59.360 as David Pecker testified. But this jury definitely does not understand that, Dave.

00:27:05.540 Well, I point to John Edwards again, and there was a prosecution, not a successful one, but the feds

00:27:11.360 brought it because donors paid his mistress to keep her quiet. Now, his case was stronger than Trump's

00:27:18.060 because they paid her well in advance and they kept paying her well after the election. Here,

00:27:22.600 there's plenty of evidence that Trump wanted to pay off Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet before the

00:27:27.840 election and didn't even want to pay her, wanted to delay the payment until after the election so he

00:27:32.060 wouldn't have to pay her at all. So I think that's where- You're getting an emotive. You're getting

00:27:35.720 an emotive, which I get. You're right in line with the judge's instructions in doing so. I mean,

00:27:40.120 I get it. And that this is what the jury is going to be debating right now behind closed doors.

00:27:43.680 But that, and I, and you raised John Edwards with him and he shot that down saying that they got it

00:27:51.920 wrong. That was not an appropriate reference to the campaign laws back then. And sometimes judges

00:27:57.580 and juries and even prosecutors, they get it wrong too. And, and, you know, he, two wrongs don't make

00:28:03.460 it right is basically what he's saying. And here, here we have, you know, it's, it's like the underlying

00:28:10.420 basis for the cry. It's like, they've think about the norms they've crossed. You know, Mike, I'll give

00:28:14.700 this one to you. It's not even like, Oh my God, this is such an egregious violation of the election

00:28:19.420 laws. We've got to do it. And it's the feds, the feds who have the jurisdiction. This is a state

00:28:24.340 prosecutor without jurisdiction. Who's gotten this in, in front of this jury, backdoor, backdoor,

00:28:29.380 because first thing is falsification of business records. Then you add the unlawful means to make

00:28:34.180 it into a felony. Then you got to ask what unlawful means are. And he's got the three doors,

00:28:39.240 right? Federal election law, tax law, and additional business record falsification.

00:28:44.020 And it's only down there that he tries to resurrect this claim in a way that they did in the John

00:28:48.940 Edwards case, which wasn't one. And which has been criticized by people who understand the law,

00:28:54.520 like Brad Smith, who got the boot on the forehead when he tried to get in front of this judge and jury.

00:29:00.280 Well, first of all, we have to clarify this. Did John Edwards use campaign funds to pay his

00:29:04.340 mistress or did he use personal funds? I just don't know that. And that makes a big difference.

00:29:09.440 It was Bunny Mellon paying off Riel Hunter. My God, where's that? Look at those names. They're

00:29:13.840 still in there. The hamster's still running on the wheel. Well, anyway, so I would say this,

00:29:18.740 there is a reason that the prior Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, a Democrat, the Manhattan U.S. attorney,

00:29:27.320 the Federal Election Commission, and Alvin Bragg himself, even though he campaigned on getting

00:29:32.580 Trump, there is a reason they passed over this bogus, partisan, corrupt legal theory. And it's

00:29:39.140 because as we are seeing right now, after the end of this multi-week trial, it is a bogus legal theory

00:29:46.180 that three lawyers on your show right now can't figure out. So how the hell can this Manhattan jury

00:29:51.760 of laypeople figure this out? And it just shows that this is a partisan, corrupt, legally flawed,

00:30:01.480 rigged process against President Trump by this corrupt Manhattan judge, Juan Mershon,

00:30:09.480 whose daughter is raising millions off of this case, Matthew Colangelo, who got deployed from the

00:30:15.660 Biden Justice Department, and Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded DA who campaigned on getting Trump.

00:30:21.680 This is an alleged crime seven years ago. They brought this case to interfere perfectly in the

00:30:29.800 2024 presidential election. It sounds like if there's an election interference crime,

00:30:36.880 it seems that the prosecutors are the ones who are perpetuating it.

00:30:40.120 It's being committed right now. Wait, Dave, let me ask you about a Jonathan Turley

00:30:43.560 post on X, a lawyer and constitutional law professor at GW Law School in DC and also a Fox News

00:30:51.080 contributor. He wrote as follows, the request for instructions is particularly interesting,

00:30:57.580 meaning reread us the jury instructions. I cannot imagine a need for the instruction unless there was

00:31:03.240 an early disagreement in that room on the evidence and the standards. That could indicate at least one

00:31:09.360 juror who is not convinced by either Steinglass, the assistant district attorney, or Todd Blanche,

00:31:13.920 Trump's lawyer, saying that this is all a no-brainer. Another intriguing possibility,

00:31:19.200 one threshold issue is whether any of Michael Cohen's testimony should be considered.

00:31:23.340 What if a juror invoked Judge Mershon's instruction that if Cohen lied on any material point,

00:31:29.800 the jury should feel free to disregard the entirety of his testimony? That would raise whether there is

00:31:36.440 corroboration, as in the Trump Tower meeting, I think he means, as well as the instruction.

00:31:43.560 Obviously, this is all speculation, but it gives us something to do. That is interesting.

00:31:47.860 They didn't really go to... Michael Cohen, they did want some of Cohen's testimony about that meeting,

00:31:52.280 but the three main requests were all about Pecker. And so what of that? Because they were told not only,

00:31:58.380 you know, if you lied on one thing, you can disregard him and everything, but they were also told that

00:32:02.580 since Michael Cohen is a co-conspirator here, you can't convict Trump based on his word alone.

00:32:10.820 You would need corroboration.

00:32:14.800 Correct. And that's why reading the tea leaves are so, so difficult. But I would agree with

00:32:19.560 Professor Turley's first point that I do think perhaps there were a couple holdouts at the

00:32:23.800 beginning. Just like you said, they went around the room and there were people like, eh, and that's

00:32:27.460 why they went and got this additional information. I disagree with them on the second point, because

00:32:32.160 I think if Michael Cohen's credibility were the issue, they would have focused on the gotcha moment

00:32:37.020 of the trial. And they did not. They didn't ask about that. That's that call involving the 14-year-old

00:32:41.480 troll and whether the 96-second phone call was enough to talk to Trump about the hush money payment.

00:32:46.860 So I would disagree on that second point. And just to go back to what my friend Mike Davis said,

00:32:51.880 he said the three of us can't understand what the charges are. I don't want to put myself in that group.

00:32:56.080 I actually understand the charges, falsification of business records leading to that second crime,

00:33:00.940 that state crime. The only question I have is, is on appeal, will the court say that unlawful means

00:33:07.420 is an element of the crime as opposed to just the means to commit the crime? Because it does need to

00:33:12.400 be unanimous what the unlawful means that they exist. It just doesn't need to be unanimous on what

00:33:17.740 specifically the unlawful means were. And that leads me back to the Andy McCarthy argument that that

00:33:23.100 law, speaking of the unlawful means, is too vague as to be upheld under the New York State

00:33:28.300 Constitution, which says you can't just incorporate all laws by reference. You have to give defendants

00:33:32.640 fair notice of what they might do that would be illegal, that would get them in trouble with the

00:33:39.880 criminal law. And that statute, just like, eh, doing this stuff by illegal means, by unlawful means,

00:33:45.320 isn't good enough. All right, stand by. We're going to take a quick break. And there's a lot

00:33:49.360 more to get to. So just, you know, it's going to be good. Stand by. Mike and Dave, stay with us.

00:33:55.160 With respect to Judge Marchand, I mean, I am, I am like now, you know, I have to look a man crush on

00:34:00.420 him. He is such a great judge that it's hard to see that the jurors wouldn't have the same

00:34:06.760 impression. And he's just, you just keep on thinking, if you looked in a dictionary for

00:34:11.060 like judicial temperament, that's what you get. Okay, Mike Davis, that's your favorite judge,

00:34:16.880 judge. That's, he's talking about your favorite judge. That's Andrew Weisman,

00:34:21.060 former general counsel at the FBI. With the man crush, what's wrong with his man crush, Mike?

00:34:27.020 Well, this is Andrew Weisman, who was Bob Mueller's lead prosecutor for the, for the Russian collusion

00:34:35.440 hoax against president Trump, the crossfire hurricane bogus investigation made up with the

00:34:41.960 Obama, president Obama, Biden, Hillary, the DNC. So it's, it's, it's actually quite amusing to watch

00:34:49.800 Andrew Weisman go on MSNBC, puts down the wine glass, it goes on MSNBC and says these most outrageous

00:34:57.740 partisan things that just proves that this Democrat lawfare and election interference against president

00:35:05.220 Trump for the last seven years has actually, eight years has actually been, uh, not a conspiracy

00:35:10.680 theory. It's pretty amazing to hear him talking. That wasn't what Alan Dershowitz said on the show

00:35:15.700 yesterday, having been in the courtroom for his excoriation of Robert Costello, the witness,

00:35:23.000 as Alan put it, it was a, you, you, you looking at me. He was mad. He was getting the side eye,

00:35:29.020 whatever. Um, it's kind of beside the point at this point, the jury's got the case and we continue to

00:35:34.100 wait. They deliberated for about four hours yesterday. They're back in there. They had all

00:35:37.620 the readbacks. I would, I think they went probably back into deliberations around, I don't know,

00:35:41.520 was it about 11? Um, so now they're another hour, 40 minutes into it. It's doesn't seem all that easy,

00:35:49.340 whichever way they go. It seems like they are struggling with something. All right, let me shift

00:35:54.760 gears because I've got to talk to you guys about the Alito story. It's, it's been everywhere. And, um,

00:36:00.760 I want to know what you think about it. So the, the story is for the audience members who haven't

00:36:06.280 been paying attention, justice Samuel Alito has a home down in the DC area. And then he has a

00:36:12.620 vacation home on the Jersey shore. Yes. Same go Jersey. And, uh, he, I didn't, I'm going to look

00:36:19.700 for him. I didn't know he's down there. I'm going to be annoying anyway. So then what happened was

00:36:24.280 outside of his DC area home. His wife, we now know was flying an upside down American flag

00:36:30.900 right after January 6th, because Alito said, after this was reported by the New York times

00:36:37.280 breathlessly, she'd gotten into a dispute with a neighbor who was very nasty and very hardcore

00:36:41.900 political. And this person wound up calling Mrs. Alito, the C word and had signs on their lawn

00:36:47.840 that read F Trump, but more explicitly. And she didn't like that. There were kids at a bus stop.

00:36:53.160 You know, she, she objected to the language anyway, it did. It went from bad to worse.

00:36:58.880 And this was her little protest. You know, she, she turned the flag upside down and the New York

00:37:03.780 times thinks he should recuse himself as do a lot of lefties from the J six case. That's now pending

00:37:10.080 before the Supreme court, the immunity case that is going to come out any day now on Trump. I mean,

00:37:16.040 to me, that's just absurd. And then they were like, Oh, it's not just that black at the Jersey shore.

00:37:22.820 House. They were flying an appeal to heaven flag, which was a checks notes on George Washington's

00:37:32.540 ships during the revolutionary war. So F Mrs. Alito and her alliance with GW. And now he needs to

00:37:43.500 recuse himself because of that. So it led to something I've never seen from a justice before

00:37:49.340 because the New York times is all over this. They've made this Jody Cantor's full beat for a

00:37:53.700 while. She did me two cases. And now she's on the Samuel Alito beat. He writes, it's basically

00:37:59.600 F you. I'm not recusing myself from anything. He says, I understand you want me to go because you

00:38:05.660 claim these two incidents created an appearance of impropriety that requires my recusal. Uh, he

00:38:10.940 says, I'm going to read you excerpts. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of the flag.

00:38:16.520 He's talking about the upside down one in Virginia. I was not even aware of the upside down flag until

00:38:21.320 it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several

00:38:25.280 days she refused. Okay. It is getting interesting. My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly. She

00:38:32.440 therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit. And there were no additional steps

00:38:38.120 that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly. All right. I'm starting to have

00:38:44.680 questions that I didn't have before my wife's reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for

00:38:50.800 present purposes, but I know that she was greatly distressed at the time due in large part to a very

00:38:54.900 nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement. A house on the street displayed a

00:38:58.640 sign attacking her personally. And a man who was living in the house trailed her all the way down the

00:39:03.880 street, berated her in my presence using foul language, including what I regard as the vilest epithet

00:39:09.800 that can be addressed to a woman. My wife's a private citizen and she possesses the same first

00:39:14.340 amendment right rights as every other American. She makes her own decisions and I have always

00:39:19.360 respected her right to do so. She has made many sacrifices to accommodate my service on the Supreme

00:39:24.160 Court, including the insult of having to endure numerous loud, obscene, and personally insulting protests

00:39:29.200 in front of our home that continue to this day and now threaten to escalate. As for the appeal to

00:39:35.360 heaven flag, I had no involvement in the decision to fly that flag either. He says, my wife is fond of

00:39:40.980 flying flags. I'm not. She was solely responsible for having the flagpoles put up at our residences

00:39:47.180 and has flown a wide variety of them over the years. College flags, sports flags, religious flags,

00:39:52.840 seasonal flags, and on. I was not familiar with the appeal to heaven flag when my wife flew it.

00:39:57.780 She may have mentioned that it dates back to the American Revolution and I assumed she was flying it to

00:40:01.680 express a patriotic and religious message. I was not aware of any connection between the

00:40:05.280 historic flag and the Stop the Steal movement, as is now alleged, FYI. And neither was my wife.

00:40:10.940 She did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group. And the use of an old historic

00:40:15.240 flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings. She makes her own

00:40:18.980 decisions. I honor her right to do so. Our vacation home was purchased with money she inherited from her

00:40:23.680 parents and is titled in her name. It's a place away from Washington where she should be able to relax.

00:40:29.360 This is so interesting. I'm so interested. Like he went deep. He went to the legalities of

00:40:35.100 ownership and control over one's wife. Like I, I would have expected him to be like,

00:40:41.340 bye, I'm not doing it. So what does it tell us? I'll start with you on it, Dave, that he went this far.

00:40:49.520 Me doth protest too much, right? Or he doth protest too much. I, I, I'm troubled by it,

00:40:55.420 Megan, because he's got a rap sheet. He was the one at Obama's state of the union speech who broke

00:41:01.000 custom and shook his head. And so that's not true. When Obama was talking about the system of the United

00:41:05.560 group. Obama broke custom by attacking the justices personally, as they did him the courtesy of showing

00:41:10.280 up to his state of the union. Right. But you gotta sit, you gotta sit there and you gotta be stone

00:41:15.980 faced because you're supposed to be above politics and he's there fighting back. And then what does he do

00:41:20.700 to respond to these charges, these allegations? He goes on Fox news and gives an interview.

00:41:27.020 And so you see while up here, like, man, this guy, uh, should be above politics. And the fact that

00:41:33.260 he is throwing his wife under the bus for flying these flags that have been co-opted by the January

00:41:37.780 six rioters is troubling. And look, the Supreme court makes its own rules. They interpret their own

00:41:42.300 rules. They can get away with anything. And I think that's one reason why so many people

00:41:46.280 have had a loss of faith in the John Roberts Supreme court. And John Roberts is bemoaning

00:41:51.780 that fact, but look at the mirror because it's your own justice taking these trips,

00:41:55.840 not reporting them. Clarence Thomas's wife being involved with January six and they do nothing

00:42:00.920 about it. So that's the frustration that a lot of people on my side of the aisle are feeling.

00:42:05.020 Oh my God, Mike, there is. I love date, but there was a lot wrong in what he just said there a lot.

00:42:10.640 Yeah, I would say this, that these Supreme court justices don't own their wives. And if anyone's

00:42:19.500 ever met Martha Ann Alito or Jenny Thomas or Louise Gorsuch, I don't think that their husbands are

00:42:27.180 going to be able to tell them to keep their mouth shut. They're very strong, independent women. And

00:42:33.040 by the way, it's, there's no ethical issue here requiring anyone's recusal. And if there were,

00:42:40.080 why hasn't the Biden justice department filed a motion with the Supreme court requesting any

00:42:46.340 justices recusal? And the reason they haven't done that is they know any such motion to recuse a

00:42:51.980 justice would be legally frivolous, right? They're trying to say that the, the appeal to heaven flag

00:42:59.080 that George Washington has flown, that Americans have flown clear across this country for centuries,

00:43:05.920 including in San Francisco, the city of San Francisco flew it until, you know, until Alito

00:43:12.440 flew this flag. And then somehow it became a January 6th flag. Somehow that was a January 6th flag that

00:43:18.280 requires justice Alito's recusal. And somehow an American distress flag after this crazy neighbor

00:43:26.200 called Martha Ann Alito, the C word, and had an F Trump sign in front of a school bus stop. Somehow that

00:43:33.640 was a January 6th solidarity flag for Mrs. Alito. That is utter nonsense. Remember when Ruth Bader

00:43:39.960 Ginsburg wore her dissent collar after president Trump was elected? I mean, there's no other

00:43:46.360 explanation because they didn't even issue opinions that day from which she could have dissented. She

00:43:52.300 wore her dissent collar because president Trump was elected. I don't remember seeing anyone calling for

00:43:58.520 Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recusal from Trump cases. This is political garbage.

00:44:04.840 So Dave, Alito did not go on Fox news and give an interview. Shannon Breen, who is for years,

00:44:10.120 the Supreme court correspondent called him up and he gave her a statement about the wife having been

00:44:15.680 harassed, which was totally appropriate. I mean, he spoke to Fox. He didn't speak to the New York

00:44:19.860 times right on. I would do the same thing. I wouldn't speak to the New York times. They've tried to get me

00:44:24.000 many times that I don't consider them honest brokers. Um, so I get where he was coming from

00:44:28.120 and he just issued, and then he issued a widely distributed paper statement. And then he wrote

00:44:31.840 this in response to the partisans in the house and the Senate breathing down his neck. So what,

00:44:37.640 while the left is making this up into a big thing, what they're really mad about is he had two flags

00:44:42.200 outside of his houses where another person lives. Who's allowed to be a partisan, by the way,

00:44:45.800 she's 100% allowed to be a rabid partisan. If that's what she wants, there's absolutely no prohibition

00:44:51.760 against her being political or acting politically. And he points out she has the right to live here.

00:44:56.840 She has the right to fly the flag. Yes. It's a little weird that he's like, she's an independent

00:45:00.660 woman. And I could have done without the weird language, but fine. I'm on his side, totally on

00:45:06.280 his side. And what this really seems to me to be about is the left is upset that for the first time

00:45:12.100 in our lifetimes, we have a conservative majority on the high court. So they do everything within their

00:45:16.600 power to delegitimize them. Well, there are also reports that this flag was flown. The upside down

00:45:22.760 American flag was flown well before this incident where she was spitting on her neighbor who was

00:45:28.320 calling her this ugly word. So it's a mess and it doesn't look good. And so even it, no, no, no. But

00:45:34.100 even if, even if she was, even if she had to stop the steal, if she had a banner that read stop the

00:45:38.660 steal, that he's coming out and saying, I represent to you as a sitting Supreme court justice.

00:45:44.380 That was my wife's flag. I was not behind it. And I did ask her to take it down. That's enough.

00:45:51.540 It's over. Even if justice Alito has those thoughts privately, you can't prove it. First of all,

00:45:57.080 and he has no obligation to recuse himself from a case in which he may have private feelings. The

00:46:02.400 question is, can he separate himself? You don't think Ruth Bader Ginsburg had private feelings when

00:46:06.360 abortion cases went up to the U S Supreme court, having come from Planned Parenthood. I mean,

00:46:10.260 or whatever it was, she was, it was ACLU. Um, my point is he's done nothing wrong.

00:46:18.220 Well, because the Supreme court gets to establish his own rules and interpret their own rules,

00:46:22.160 he can do what he wants. It's ironic though. He did write an opinion where he said a homeowner

00:46:26.520 who flew a flag, it represents that homeowner's views. If there's, it's like right on point.

00:46:31.220 And obviously it's not going to mean he has to recuse himself from this case. But I do think when you

00:46:35.220 have an appearance of impropriety and yes, if his wife did fly the stop the steel flag, I would

00:46:40.260 think that he should recuse himself. I do think this is one level below that, but it's enough

00:46:44.760 where so many people have lost their confidence in the Supreme court that perhaps they shouldn't

00:46:48.980 get aside. The left, the left has lost its confidence in the Supreme court. Mike,

00:46:53.220 you used to clerk there. The left has lost its confidence because they've lost their majority.

00:46:57.160 That's exactly what happened. Yeah. And I was the chief counsel for nominations on the

00:47:01.160 Senate judiciary committee with oversight over the federal judiciary, including ethics for the

00:47:06.480 Supreme court. Remember with the Supreme court, they're not interchangeable like the lower federal

00:47:11.240 court judges. You can't substitute them out. There is a presumption, a strong presumption that

00:47:17.180 Supreme court justices do not recuse on cases based upon the appearance of impropriety because they

00:47:24.040 don't want people playing games to try to target conservative or liberal justices to get them to recuse

00:47:30.960 on key cases like presidential immunity to flip the outcome in a case. That's exactly what the

00:47:37.400 Democrats are doing here. But Dick Durbin, Senate judiciary chairman is actually, he's got the

00:47:43.100 nerve to try to summon Alito and Thomas to come into the Senate to answer to, I guess, chief justice,

00:47:51.380 Dick Durbin on their alleged ethical lapses. This really does require a middle finger. I mean,

00:47:57.000 like they might actually want to send a middle finger, like a printout of one to Dick Durbin.

00:48:00.780 Am I wrong? No, you're absolutely right. Dick Durbin, the Senate judiciary chairman knows better than

00:48:06.000 this. I worked with him when I was there. He is being dragged around by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,

00:48:13.400 his deranged colleague who is a partisan hack. And it is a shame that Dick Durbin is allowing this

00:48:19.860 to happen. Get, get White House under control, Dick Durbin, you coward.

00:48:24.860 Let me tell you something, Dick Durbin, you don't control the U.S. Supreme Court. You don't control

00:48:30.300 Justice Alito or Justice Thomas. And that was a hack move that was disrespectful to the separation

00:48:35.860 of powers. And he knows it. You guys are great. You're respectful and not hacks. Mike Davis,

00:48:40.880 Dave Ehrenberg, always so fun. Always so fun. Wait, before I let you go, jiffy quick. Do you think

00:48:44.940 we'll get a verdict today? Dave? I think he'll come tomorrow.

00:48:48.540 Mike? I think there's going to be a guilty verdict because this is so partisan, corrupt.

00:48:55.300 Okay, bye.

00:48:59.880 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission,

00:49:05.120 accusing President Biden, former President Trump and CNN of colluding to keep him out of CNN's

00:49:10.520 upcoming presidential debate. It has been over 30 years since an independent presidential candidate

00:49:16.040 appeared in a general election debate. And RFKJ is vowing to make this stage. This is RFKJ's

00:49:23.480 fifth time, fifth on our show. Back in March of 2022, we did a two-part in-depth series with Bobby

00:49:29.400 that is a must listen. We did two hours on vaccines, and then we did a full two hours on his amazing

00:49:35.220 background, tackled it all. A lot on Anthony Fauci. It was just so good. Everybody loved these episodes.

00:49:41.520 You will, too, if you want to check them out. They're numbers, 282 and 283. Bobby Kennedy,

00:49:47.660 welcome back to the show.

00:49:48.960 Thank you, Megan. And yeah, thanks for putting me on back in, what was it? Was it March of 2022?

00:49:56.680 Yeah, that's right.

00:49:57.880 Yeah, because you were one of the first people to let me on at a time when it was, you know,

00:50:02.120 very dangerous for other outlets to give me a platform. And I've always been very grateful to

00:50:10.660 you for that.

00:50:11.560 Oh, that was all so silly. And I'm thrilled to see you out there with your message and doing so well

00:50:17.140 as you should be. That whole thing was so nonsensical. Okay, let me jump right back right

00:50:22.600 into some of the issues. So this is interesting that you want into this debate. I would love to see

00:50:27.240 you in this debate personally, but they're doing their level best to keep you out. Both Trump,

00:50:32.160 Biden have said, the terms are the terms. It's a two-man debate. That's it. And so what can the

00:50:38.200 FEC do? You want them to bar CNN from holding it if they don't let you in?

00:50:44.160 Well, the FEC rules say that candidates can't collude, particularly with the network,

00:50:54.020 to exclude other candidates. Otherwise, it becomes an illegal campaign contribution.

00:51:02.440 So what we know from the accounts, both from our conversations with CNN and also from the

00:51:09.380 accounts in the Washington Post and other press outlets, and just to back up for a second,

00:51:16.140 what the FEC rules require is that the rules for the debate be pre-existing. In other words,

00:51:25.420 the candidates have no input in them, and also that they be objective. So they can't be designed

00:51:33.460 to exclude somebody. But in the conversations that were reported by the Washington Post between

00:51:39.620 the Biden administration, between the Biden White House, President Trump's staff, and CNN,

00:51:48.780 that President Biden's staff was adamant that the rules needed to be designed to keep me off

00:51:55.440 the platform. They said, if he's going to be on, we're not going to be on. He has to be off.

00:52:01.340 President Biden said the same thing. Now, when we asked CNN, after hearing that, did you then

00:52:10.780 create the rules? And CNN said, that's privileged, which, of course, it's not privileged.

00:52:18.020 No, it's not privileged.

00:52:19.580 Right? It's the opposite of privilege. It should be very transparent and available to the public.

00:52:26.860 Right. So, you know, if you do collude with them, it becomes, as I said, an illegal campaign

00:52:33.320 contribution. And, you know, we filed a complaint with the FEC to address that and to, you know,

00:52:44.660 make rules that allow me into the debate. The other thing is, Megan, at the rules that they came up

00:52:51.640 with is ironic. There's two rules that are designed to exclude other candidates. One of those rules is

00:52:59.220 that each candidate has to have polls from four separate firms that are on a list of 12 polling

00:53:10.320 firms, an approved list of 12 polling firms, that four of those polls need to show me at 15% or more

00:53:20.640 of the public. And I think CNN assumed that I did not have the polls, but we submitted five polls,

00:53:28.740 including their own poll from last month, which shows me at 16%. And the other polls are all from

00:53:36.460 the list. And since then, yet another poll has come out from that list. It has me at 15%. The final rule

00:53:46.500 that they use to try to exclude me is a rule that says that you have to be on the ballot in enough

00:53:54.420 states to get 270 electoral votes by June 20th. So we are now, we have enough to say that we're on the

00:54:04.340 ballot in seven states. We have enough signatures now, as of today, for 17 states. June 20th, we will

00:54:13.660 have enough signatures for 343 electoral votes. Today, we have, I think, 225. But ironically, we are the

00:54:23.920 only one who's on a ballot anywhere, because President Trump and President Biden are not on any ballots

00:54:30.160 anywhere. They are, you know, people presume they're going to be the nominees for the Democratic

00:54:34.680 Republican Party, but that is not locked in yet. So I'm the only one who will qualify for that,

00:54:43.200 with that requirement. And so CNN is kind of in a jam. And, you know, we think that if FEC acts,

00:54:53.700 that we will win this. They don't want you. ABC doesn't want you. Trump and Biden don't want you.

00:54:59.960 And right now, given the bypassing of the Commission on Presidential Debates,

00:55:03.480 they're calling the shots. So this will be interesting to watch unfold. I think you'd be

00:55:07.860 a great addition up there. I think it'd be fascinating to watch them respond to you

00:55:10.980 and some of your issues, which are important. That's why you're polling well with a certain

00:55:15.360 segment of the population. Let me ask you, Donald Trump quickly is on trial. The jury is deliberating

00:55:20.720 the charges against him right now. We have read this week in Politico that President Biden

00:55:26.240 intends to address the verdict when it comes down, we presume, assuming it's guilty. I don't know if

00:55:33.120 he's going to do anything if it's not guilty. From the White House, that he's going to comment

00:55:37.760 on a criminal case from the White House. Do you think that's appropriate?

00:55:41.720 You know, I try to stay away from commenting on these cases, because I think it feeds into this,

00:55:51.320 you know, national polarization. And I don't comment on President Trump's personal issues,

00:55:57.640 on Hunter Biden or, you know, any of the Biden administration's personal interviews. I try to

00:56:03.760 really talk about the economy, about the fact that we've got a $34 trillion debt that nobody's

00:56:10.040 talking about, the fact that 60% of our kids are sick with chronic disease, the fact that 57% of

00:56:17.580 Americans can't put their hands on $1,000 if they have an emergency, on the forever wars that both

00:56:25.120 President Trump and President Biden support, and on this polarization that they both feed into,

00:56:31.640 which is toxic and is more dangerous, I think, to our country than any time since the American Civil War.

00:56:37.580 What I've tried to do, what I said when I declared a year ago, is I'm going to stay away from the,

00:56:45.120 you know, these little cultural war issues that are designed, are orchestrated to keep us all at

00:56:51.880 each other's throats, and to focus instead on the values that keep us together, and the issues that

00:57:00.160 are critical to us, healing our country, both economically, spiritually, culturally, and healing the

00:57:06.160 rift. Oh, I've been pretty disciplined about not commenting on the legal case. I don't.

00:57:12.120 Well, this isn't an ask for that. This is a question about whether you think it's appropriate,

00:57:16.400 you're running for president, for the President of the United States to comment on an individual

00:57:20.400 criminal matter, even one that involves a former president, and not for nothing, his chief political

00:57:26.880 rival. I don't think that I would comment. If I were president, I don't think I would comment on

00:57:33.920 this particular case. I think this is the weakest of the case against President Trump, and it's not

00:57:42.500 kind of an existential case. I mean, you know, maybe it's appropriate to comment if the case about the,

00:57:52.200 you know, January 6 election, if that came down, it may be appropriate to make a comment about it.

00:57:58.480 I, if it were me, I would try to focus on making healing comments, rather than comments that demonize,

00:58:06.960 you know, the President Trump, who's, you know, likely to be the nominee in the Republican Party,

00:58:13.480 or that demonize people who vote for him and support him. I would really try to do something

00:58:19.180 that was that was going to heal our country rather than increase the division.

00:58:23.140 Hmm. It looks like it's going another way. But we'll see. First, we have to see what this jury

00:58:28.000 does. And as I say, I'd be surprised to be said as anything. If Trump gets acquitted and hung jury,

00:58:33.480 we'll find out. I guess we'll find out. All right. So I've got to ask you a couple questions.

00:58:37.580 Last time we spoke, I asked you about your stance on legislation banning puberty blockers,

00:58:43.940 cross-sex hormones, and these gender reassignment procedures for minors. And you said that you would

00:58:51.980 support a ban if the minor didn't have parental permission, but you weren't sure about an outright

00:58:58.300 ban, even where there's parental permission. Have you given any more thought to this issue?

00:59:05.380 Yeah, I have. My stance now is that I'm against them altogether for people under 18. And a lot of

00:59:12.820 that is, you know, a lot of the- Against the bans or against the procedures?

00:59:16.360 Against the procedure? I would ban them in kids under 18. You know, and I would say this. I think

00:59:24.580 people who have gender confusion, that they need to be treated with compassion, with kindness, with

00:59:34.800 utmost respect, and that any kind of bullying or, you know, vilification of people who are struggling

00:59:45.100 with those issues should be, you know, is itself contemptible. But there are a lot of, there's,

00:59:55.540 you know, there's this recent study in Europe, particularly from the UK, that throws water on a lot of the

01:00:05.640 claims that were being made by the pharmaceutical industry and by the proponents of these gender

01:00:10.780 blockers. Yeah. And, um, and I, you know, having looked at that report, the results of that report,

01:00:17.940 um, with some horror, I became convinced that this is, you know, it's something that shouldn't

01:00:26.600 happen. You know, we, we stop kids from driving. We stop, you know, we don't, don't allow children

01:00:33.440 to drink until they're 18. Um, and these decisions are 18 or 21. My kids used to drive up to Montreal

01:00:43.520 and I grew up in, you know, when it was legal. Way back when we were little. Yeah, that's right.

01:00:49.760 So, oh yeah, the 21. So, and the decision to do this, you know, these puberty blockers is,

01:00:57.020 uh, is consequential and it has lifetime consequences. And a lot of people are remorseful

01:01:04.220 about the result who make those decisions when they're young are later on remorseful about the

01:01:09.860 results. So I, you know, my, my, uh, position is that we shouldn't allow them at all for kids under

01:01:17.040 18. Well, this makes perfect sense to me much more sense, uh, than before, because you, one of the

01:01:23.080 things people love about you is how you are totally unafraid to call out the medical industrial

01:01:29.300 complex. And that's why you were so vocal during the COVID lockdowns and about the vaccines and how

01:01:34.940 we were being misled. And this to me seems like yet another area in which we could really use

01:01:40.040 your honest voice. You touched on it in your answer there about how that same complex is making money

01:01:46.080 hand over fist off of hurting children, off of chopping off the body parts of 14 year old kids.

01:01:55.480 It's nuts. And it's completely backwards to what the Hippocratic oath requires of them. And yet

01:02:01.800 we're seeing for ourselves now in this one example, some of the things you've been saying for years,

01:02:06.440 which is they, they don't care about you. They care about themselves and their bottom line.

01:02:12.260 Yeah. I mean, I would agree with that. I, you know, the last, what I always say to people is you

01:02:19.880 can't convince me of anything by, you know, by defaming me or calling me names, but if you show

01:02:25.720 me facts, I'm going to, you know, that I will change my policies or my worldview. If I see facts that are

01:02:32.860 not consistent with it. And, you know, since the last time I've talked to you, I've done more research

01:02:39.520 and I, you know, that, that report, um, had a, I would say transformative effect on me. And I just,

01:02:48.300 you know, the revulsion of just reading a couple of pages of it. Um, I think anybody who reads that

01:02:55.560 is going to be, is going to, you know, come to the same conclusion that I did.

01:03:00.460 All right. Um, what do you make of president Biden's changes to title nine?

01:03:04.040 Um, I don't really understand exactly what the implications are. Why don't you tell me,

01:03:13.280 you know, I know that they have, um, that he's giving, uh, uh, more, he's opening it up to people

01:03:23.880 who are transgender. I, you know, my position on that has been very, very clear that my uncle wrote

01:03:30.720 title nine, uh, Senator Ted Kennedy, he wrote it because women, um, women's sports were not being

01:03:40.380 recognized or funded by the colleges and they're, you know, women had been fighting for years and

01:03:46.120 years to get those rights. And he was very, very proud of that. We were all proud of, of that

01:03:52.260 accomplishment. I have right now, Megan, uh, a niece, um, Zoe Hines, who is one of the star

01:04:00.100 softball players on the BC college team. She's on a full scholarship. When she was growing up,

01:04:08.140 Cheryl and I would invite her and her twin brother, who's also an athlete, to come skiing every year

01:04:14.920 and to come to us at the Cape in the summer. And she really wanted to do it, but she would never do

01:04:19.480 it because she was devoting her life to trying to get these scholarships so she could go to college.

01:04:24.940 It would be really ironic and tragic in my view, if she could lose her place on that team

01:04:34.100 to a boy who walks off of a, a boy softball, uh, field and just says, well, I'm a girl now

01:04:43.120 and, uh, and knocks her out of competitive play. So I don't think that's a good result

01:04:49.400 to the extent that President Biden's changes to Title IX would allow a result like that. I would

01:04:57.400 oppose it. I, you know, but I don't really know exactly how those, what those changes are. I'd

01:05:03.760 love to hear from you if you have, if you have better knowledge than I. Well, I mean, this is a

01:05:09.800 big issue for me and I think a lot of my audience. Um, he's changed Title IX with the, you know, the

01:05:15.220 stroke of his pen with his administrative agency to redefine who's protected by it. It's no longer

01:05:20.560 just girls and women. It's now trans girls and women who, which means men, men are now protected

01:05:27.200 by Title IX when Title IX was a response to what had already been men's rights in the school setting,

01:05:33.900 right? To create at the time, equal sports and equal facilities and that kind of thing.

01:05:37.760 But now because of his changes, men have the right to use women's locker rooms and women's

01:05:44.340 bathrooms, girls, bathrooms, K through college, K through college. And they can't say no. So if you

01:05:51.300 have some hulking 275 pound man who last week ran as a male runner and he decides he's a girl now

01:05:58.960 and he wants to run against the female runners, he can do it and he can use their restroom and he can

01:06:03.020 do it, you know, full man, full, full genitalia, no hormone therapy, no dress, nothing. He can parade

01:06:09.180 around. You know, I went to college when I was 17, a 17 year old girl's locker room in college

01:06:13.340 or, or beneath that with impunity. And on top of that, at the college level of young man who gets

01:06:20.680 accused. And I know you are related to Michael Skakel. And that's a case I have a lot of interest

01:06:26.520 in because I am a true crime lover. Anyway, he isn't Kennedy who was accused of killing a young

01:06:33.440 girl in a Connecticut neighborhood and anybody, and you had another family member who was accused

01:06:39.540 down in Florida of a sexual sort of me too situation. In any event, my point in raising

01:06:44.040 this is not to bring up the family tragedies, but these young men in college campuses, thanks to his

01:06:48.340 changes are no longer going to be afforded due process. Now they no longer have the right to

01:06:52.280 counsel, the right to cross-examine. They now have the hearings held, their, their trials, their kangaroo

01:06:58.680 courts by the same person who investigated them. So the prosecutor winds up being their judge.

01:07:04.680 They have no right to demand evidence. So if this girl's been texting her roommates,

01:07:09.240 uh, it was, I was totally into it. It was consensual. These guys will never know that

01:07:13.300 all because of president Biden's stroke of the pen.

01:07:17.020 Yeah. Um, just, uh, in defense of my cousin, Michael Skakel, I did do a book on that.

01:07:23.900 Yeah. On that. And I, and, uh, I was able to track down the people who actually were responsible

01:07:32.460 for the murder, which was not my cousin. And he was then released from, from prison, um, because

01:07:40.760 of that investigation. So I just want to say a word, word about questions linger to be fair. Go ahead.

01:07:46.940 Um, yeah. Um, uh, so, um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I agree. I agree that, you know, what you're saying,

01:07:59.660 if those are the results, they're not, they're not good results. And I, um, and I'm very, you know,

01:08:05.740 like I said, I'm against, I'm against allowing males, biologically born males to participate

01:08:14.160 in consequential female sports. Right. But this goes beyond that. We're talking about

01:08:19.640 locker rooms and bathrooms now in the, in the school setting. Yeah, that probably doesn't make

01:08:24.100 any sense either. Okay. Um, while we're on the topic of women's rights, let's talk about abortion.

01:08:31.540 Um, that's another issue that you've sent some miss mixed signals on. And I want to ask you

01:08:36.880 about your position last August, you were speaking to reporters at the Iowa state fair,

01:08:41.980 and you said you'd sign a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks or 21 weeks. If you were elected

01:08:49.440 and your campaign came out and said, you misunderstood the question and that your position on abortion is

01:08:55.060 that quote, it is always the woman's right to choose. He does not support legislation banning

01:09:01.120 abortion period. Then this month you sat down with our pal Sage Steele, who has her own podcast.

01:09:07.020 She just launched. And you said that women should have the right to an abortion, even if full term,

01:09:12.200 which is, which lines up with your campaign's statement after your own spoken words at the

01:09:16.980 Iowa state fair saying 15 or 21 week ban. They said, no, when you spoke to stage, you seem to be saying

01:09:22.300 no bands. Women should have the right to choose even if full term quote, we shouldn't have government

01:09:27.340 involved. Even if it's full term, then there was outcry and you reversed yourself there saying in

01:09:33.620 a tweet, once the baby's viable outside the womb, it should have rights. It deserves society's

01:09:37.380 protection. So at this point in your campaign, isn't it fair to say you should have a firm position

01:09:41.900 on this and be able to espouse it clearly and uniformly?

01:09:44.460 I suppose I should. I'll tell you what my own evolution was on this. I've been a medical freedom

01:09:53.820 activist for my entire life. So my inclination is that government should stay out of medical procedures

01:10:00.840 and that with abortions, that we should trust women. We should just trust the judgment of a mother.

01:10:08.280 My understanding was that, well, you know, my initial understanding when I gave that interview

01:10:20.020 in Iowa was that was the same as Roe v. Wade, which protects mothers and the women's choice during

01:10:30.080 the early pregnancy. But then later on in pregnancy after viability, that the state has an increasing

01:10:37.440 interest in regulating and protecting that unborn child. And that interest would increase up to the

01:10:45.960 day of pregnancy, of birth. I, you know, I got blowback on that position and particularly from my wife and

01:10:57.180 her sisters are very close advisors to me. And one of the points that they made is that there's no woman

01:11:06.360 who is, who wants to get pregnant and then carry that pregnancy till for nine months and then at the

01:11:15.600 last minute abort it. That just doesn't happen. And indeed, there's a lot of advocacy groups

01:11:21.260 that say that that literally never happens, that the choices that are made at the end of pregnancy

01:11:29.040 to abort are usually on dire medical emergencies that involve either the health of the child or the

01:11:42.520 health of the mother. And that's, to me, it seemed like that's the last place that we want to bring

01:11:50.000 in bureaucrats or government officials to make decisions. That's when you really want to leave the

01:11:55.100 decision to a mother. When I gave that decision on Sage Steele, when I gave that, I talked about that

01:12:03.400 position on Sage Steele's program. I got a lot of blowback from people and some data then indicated that

01:12:14.260 actually there are a lot of, not a, not a dramatic number, but in the thousands of births each year that

01:12:23.260 are elective abortions during the final month of pregnancy. And in my view, those, those should not

01:12:36.620 happen. And, and, you know, I've seen the pictures that are very gruesome, as I'm sure you have.

01:12:44.000 So I changed my position again, you know, I'll change my position always based upon if I was wrong on the

01:12:52.000 facts. I'm not going to dig in and defend a position where factually, I believe that I would,

01:13:00.440 my initial position was wrong. So that's my, you know, my position now is basically the same position

01:13:05.760 as a Roe v. Wade that the government does have at the end of pregnancy after viability,

01:13:13.260 that the government does have an interest in protecting the unborn child.

01:13:18.580 So you say the final month of pregnancy, you saw gruesome photos about abortions there, which would

01:13:26.040 be 36 weeks to 40 weeks, a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. You're, are you saying that you would allow

01:13:33.300 abortions all the way up to 36 weeks? Because viability happens a lot earlier, happens in the

01:13:38.980 low twenties, depends on who you ask, but between the low twenties to 28 weeks.

01:13:42.420 Yeah. I would, I wouldn't pick a week, Megan. I would say that my policy would be the same as

01:13:50.880 under Roe v. Wade, that the state after viability, the state has an interest in protecting the baby.

01:14:00.200 Okay. So, cause under Roe v. Wade, that's where we did have a third term abortions happening in some

01:14:05.160 places because they, they would leave it in various States up to the woman. And there, while it's true

01:14:11.100 that it's rare for babies to be aborted in the third trimester in that final month, it does happen.

01:14:16.840 That's how we wound up with Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania. I mean, there are some brutal

01:14:20.060 butchers out there and there are some negligent women who don't pay attention to their menstrual cycle

01:14:25.120 and who will find themselves pregnant and who abort a perfectly healthy baby under the auspices of

01:14:29.540 mental health, mental health, mental health. Should that be banned?

01:14:34.960 Well, as I said, I would get, I would leave it to the States during the, to make their determination

01:14:42.240 about when viability happens and, and what kind of regulation. I'm not going to dictate to the States

01:14:48.220 where, you know, exactly what kind of regulation. I think that should, um, that should be up to the

01:14:54.460 people in that state. That position you just espoused is currently Trump's position that it

01:15:01.460 should be left to the States. It's a States issue and it's the default constitutional provision post

01:15:07.200 Dobbs, which got rid of Roe versus Wade. So I think, I think president, I think president Trump

01:15:14.460 would give no protection to, as I understand his position, to the woman's right to choose even

01:15:22.900 early on in pregnancy. And that's not my position.

01:15:25.660 He says it's a States rights issue. He says it's a States rights issue.

01:15:27.920 Yeah. It's States rights issue. And I would say that the women should have federal protection

01:15:32.860 up until viability that it's a woman's right to choose up to that.

01:15:37.040 So, because president Biden wants to codify Roe and Roe, I mean, you know, Roe is kind of loose,

01:15:44.960 right? Like you could use Roe to say a woman has the right to choose all the way through the ninth

01:15:49.080 month. If her health depends on it is how they use it. And when you think about, okay, the mother's

01:15:54.440 life, that's one thing, of course, the life that's here and existing always gets precedence over the

01:15:59.180 unborn life. But what they do is they create health exceptions. And then a mother, an irresponsible

01:16:05.580 one, a person who doesn't care about her unborn fetus says it's my mental health. And there are some

01:16:10.800 ethical doctors who will perform abortion on a totally viable, healthy baby as late as 38 weeks

01:16:17.040 because of that. Like that doesn't seem to me like it should be a lot. All right. I think we've,

01:16:21.740 we've beaten that one. We got it. Um, let's talk about immigration. Cause that's another one that's

01:16:25.520 very important to, I know, right leaning and now even left leaning audiences and voters. Um,

01:16:32.240 more and more, this is the number one issue for Democrats, which is really telling that I've never

01:16:37.020 seen that so high up on the issue ranking for Democrat voters, but it's there now. Um, in October,

01:16:43.780 you went to a rally and admitted that in the past you believed in an open border and that you felt

01:16:49.720 that if a person was for sealing the border, it meant you were probably a xenophobe or a racist.

01:16:55.080 You admitted that that's how you used to feel. Then you said you went to the border in Arizona and

01:16:59.440 Yuma, and you called that border crisis. You saw unsustainable and said a person's not bigoted

01:17:04.620 for wanting a secure border. But then this month at a rally in Austin, you said the border issue

01:17:09.080 is not an existential issue. Use that term in our interview today. It's not an existential issue.

01:17:15.440 So how can you say that when we're looking at over 8 million illegal immigrants coming into this

01:17:20.120 country under Joe Biden's presidency alone? How is that not existential for life? Yeah. I don't think,

01:17:28.240 yeah, I don't think that I, um, that that was my characterization. If it was, then it, you know,

01:17:35.980 I would not make that characterization. I think what I was doing was talking about a number of

01:17:42.180 cultural issues that generally are, like, you know, I said, very important issues.

01:17:47.200 That's right. Here, I'll play it. We have, we have this down, but I'll play it. So, uh,

01:17:50.560 the audience knows what you're talking about. It's top 22.

01:17:53.120 We have two presidents who are running today. Two ex-presidents. One is the current president.

01:17:59.500 They both had four years in office. They couldn't be more different than each other.

01:18:04.820 But the issues that they're actually disputing on are a very narrow Overton window. It's what

01:18:12.280 Nicole was saying. It's guns. It's abortion. It's the border. It's trans rights. These issues

01:18:20.760 that are all important, but none of them are existential. None of them are the issues that

01:18:26.240 really matter to you, to me, to our children. The border.

01:18:31.980 Yeah, well, if I, you know, I was talking about another class of issues that are actually

01:18:40.060 existential. I, I would, I think arguably the border is existential and, um, maybe more than

01:18:48.240 arguably, it just may be, you know, what I saw on the border was, uh, was cataclysmic.

01:18:55.020 And I, I never thought that people who oppose, and I never thought we should have an open border,

01:19:01.480 by the way, Megan. I thought that, um, I, I opposed for a time, President Trump's wall.

01:19:08.260 And I said, I was wrong about that. We do need a wall. We don't need a wall.

01:19:13.120 2,200 miles all the way from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego. But we do need a wall in the populated

01:19:19.060 places, um, that where immigrants can, undocumented immigrants can, can disappear very, very quickly.

01:19:28.440 I think it was a huge, not just a mistake, but a catastrophe that President Biden suspended

01:19:36.580 the construction on the wall when he first came into office, and then also began tearing down a lot

01:19:42.800 of the infrastructure for making sure that didn't happen and essentially implemented an open border

01:19:50.000 policy. Although the President Biden's administration denies that everybody at the border knows that

01:19:56.160 to be true. And, but I, you know, I watched 300 immigrants come across the border at between

01:20:03.040 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. The first time I was there, you know, I'd been back, et cetera, but, um, they were

01:20:08.720 coming from all over the world. They were coming on buses that were owned by the Sinaloa drug cartel,

01:20:14.140 um, that was, uh, uh, uh, bringing them from the airport in Mexicali to, uh, to the border at,

01:20:23.740 in Yuma, and, uh, and then allowing them a hundred, 110 or 105 people on each bus. The first two buses

01:20:32.580 that came were West Africans. There were only the whole, that whole evening, I only saw two Latin American,

01:20:38.060 uh, families, one from Colombia, one from Peru. The rest of the immigrants were coming from Asia,

01:20:45.520 from Ukraine, from China, from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Tibet, India, Bangladesh.

01:20:53.880 And they were responding to advertisements that the drug cartels put on TikTok and YouTube,

01:20:59.480 where they offer immigrant, immigration to the United States for $10,000 to $15,000 per person.

01:21:08.880 And they all knew exactly what was going to happen to them when they crossed the border.

01:21:13.840 The border patrol had been reduced instead of defending the border to processing all these new

01:21:18.900 immigrants coming across. They give them a, uh, fingerprint check to see if they have a criminal

01:21:24.580 record. If they don't have a criminal record, they bring them to the Yuma airport and put them

01:21:28.820 on an airplane to any destination in the United States with no, uh, uh, with a, with a, a court date

01:21:37.920 in the asylum court, seven years in the future. And, uh, nine million, up to nine million people

01:21:45.400 have come across that way in the past three and a half years. And yeah, I would say that is

01:21:51.460 existential. There's no nation that can survive if it doesn't protect its borders. So, uh, you know,

01:21:58.380 my, my bad. Um, okay. Let's talk about an issue that's somewhat obscure, but, um, I think our

01:22:06.760 audience is going to remember this. So way back in where we just celebrated our 800th episode,

01:22:11.780 but way back in episode one 25 of the show before we'd even added video, uh, we had on a rancher,

01:22:19.800 uh, she was from Wyoming and she was objecting at the time to this, this bill, this law that

01:22:27.040 president Biden had pushed through, which sought to give black farmers, federal financial assistance

01:22:32.700 based solely on their race, not on their financial condition, not on any suffering they may have had

01:22:40.980 economically based totally on their melanin. And the farmers didn't wind up getting the financial

01:22:47.980 relief because several lawsuits were filed claiming that's race discrimination. That's illegal under

01:22:52.240 the constitution. And so the program was frozen after an injunction. So I want to play you the

01:22:56.900 soundbite of this rancher who we interviewed. Take a listen. It's basically a slap in the face saying,

01:23:02.800 Hey, just because you're white, you can't apply. And you know, it's wrong. And you've been talking

01:23:09.060 about the USDA's past discrimination. Well, a big part of it is women like me have been

01:23:15.420 discriminated against, um, not me specifically, but women in the past. And they're completely

01:23:21.700 overlooking that aspect of it. And so being a white woman who's recognized as being socially

01:23:27.840 disadvantaged, it does humiliate me because I should be a part of that group. And then, you know,

01:23:34.360 I look down at my neighbors who are struggling, who are barely getting by, and I don't know if

01:23:39.680 they're going to make it another year. And it's humiliating to them because they don't feel like

01:23:44.220 they deserve it enough either. And, you know, it's just completely wrong.

01:23:51.360 Okay. Now you were recently on a podcast with a black farmer and vowed to give black farmers this

01:23:57.700 money. Now I've just outlaid for you why it's so controversial. Do you stand by that pledge?

01:24:02.600 Yeah. And I think, um, the woman that you, uh, talk to does not have the whole story. Um,

01:24:12.100 here, here's what happened, Megan. There was a, you know, there's a, uh, there's a, uh,

01:24:17.240 program within the USDA and the Department of Agriculture that is designed to help small farmers

01:24:24.500 across this country, which was the reason that the USDA was launched in the first place. USDA

01:24:32.360 now does the opposite of that. It protects big, you know, agricultural, industrial agriculture

01:24:38.140 production, and basically enables a war against small farmers. But there is a program that still

01:24:46.120 exists within USDA that's designed to make, to give, uh, low interest loans and grants to small farmers.

01:24:54.220 As it turns out, the, the man who was running that program for many men for decades was a man who

01:25:02.540 was intensely racist. And there is a racist history within the group conceded, but I want to get to

01:25:10.220 present day because I will, I will, I will, I will. I've been letting you finish, but I just want to

01:25:15.800 make sure that we were on point here because under our U S constitution, it's unconstitutional to

01:25:20.480 discriminate on the basis of race. You can't do it to whites, just like you can't do it to blacks.

01:25:24.940 Yeah. And if you let me finish what I'm saying, um, and I agree with you that you can't have,

01:25:32.260 you know, under the, uh, um, particularly under the Harvard decision that the Supreme court,

01:25:36.940 uh, judge Roberts just issued, there is no, you know, affirmative action or race based affirmative action

01:25:43.920 legal in this country, but that's not what this is. The black farmers association, this individual

01:25:51.280 within USDA simply cut off all grants to black people because of their skin color, but he gave

01:26:00.080 the money to whites and to white farmers. And I think most Americans would agree that that was wrong,

01:26:07.220 that you can't, of course you can't have race based benefits, but you also shouldn't suffer race

01:26:13.100 race based deprivations of, of grants to which you're entitled to. And this, this association,

01:26:21.420 the association of black farmers sued the USDA and they won in court. And the, the court quantified

01:26:30.640 exactly how much money that, that black farmers had been deprived of during that period, since this guy

01:26:39.900 started, uh, it running the program. So it was a specific amount of money at a court and a jury

01:26:49.340 had decided on, and they awarded it to the black farmers. It was just a class action suit. Well,

01:26:55.420 because the suit is against the government, Congress has to appropriate that money. And although the money

01:27:03.580 was put in the presidential budget, Congress refused to appropriate it. So that's the issue. Would you,

01:27:11.180 you know, should that money be paid out to people to whom it is owed or should it not be? This is not a

01:27:18.220 race based benefit. Yes. Well, that's what you say. You know what I would say is we looked,

01:27:25.980 we took a hard look at this bill at the time and you could get it irrespective of your financial

01:27:31.660 condition. You, Megan Markle could go out there and say, I, I just bought a ranch. Oprah,

01:27:37.580 she has a ranch in California. She could say, I am black and I want the assistance and she could get

01:27:42.460 it. It was irrespective of financial condition. Yeah. Well, then you're talking about a different

01:27:48.700 instance than I was talking about because the instance I was talking about was specifically related

01:27:53.660 to this case. I know this case that happened 30 years ago. Uh, and typically the remedy would be,

01:27:59.420 you know, you, you sue for damages and then you try to get your damages and then you don't take the

01:28:03.340 money out of the taxpayers while it's 30 years later, who had nothing to do with what happened.

01:28:07.420 Well, except it was litig, it was litigation that they won 30 years ago. And that simply was not,

01:28:14.140 I don't know if it was 30 years ago. Like there, there's a reason we have those caps on what the

01:28:18.940 federal government can pay because it's the taxpayer who winds up having to pay these judgments.

01:28:22.300 There's no, I don't have empathy for the black farmers. I'm just saying the, the,

01:28:26.220 the program that was shut down, what was not remedy for a judgment the government never paid.

01:28:32.940 It was a giveaway to black farmers and ranchers. And when whites wanted to apply, they were told no.

01:28:40.060 And Megan, then you're talking about a different issue than I was talking about when I said that I

01:28:45.900 would make sure that that money was paid. The money I was talking about was the money that was

01:28:52.220 owed to black farmers and a court had said it was owed to black farmers and there is no cap on federal

01:29:01.340 recoveries. There's a, there was just a refusal because Congress has to approve any appropriation,

01:29:07.500 including an appropriation or lawsuits that the federal government lost, um, engaging in negligent

01:29:17.020 or reckless or, you know, or malicious behavior. Congress still has to appropriate it. Oh. And

01:29:24.140 the person who, who bought that lawsuit at the outset, who was a farmer, who was continually denied,

01:29:32.700 um, at grants and loans, that other farmer, he was, he was sitting in the office

01:29:40.060 for sometimes for days at a time and white farmers were walking past him,

01:29:44.780 picking up their loans and leaving after six or eight minutes. No one's defending that. I understand.

01:29:51.740 No one's defending what we're talking about. You seem to be defending it.

01:29:56.860 I'm not defending it at all. I'm objecting to race based relief for farmers and ranchers in 2024.

01:30:07.500 It's illegal. Period. Okay. I got to take a break. We'll be right back. I know I got it. You're

01:30:15.100 suggesting I am defending no relief to any farmers who have been aggrieved by the U S government that

01:30:20.700 the way you handle that as you file a lawsuit, the way they did, I understand they didn't get the

01:30:24.460 relief they wanted. It's unfortunate, but that doesn't necessarily mean 30 years later, you create

01:30:29.660 an unfair program to remedy these past wrongs to that in which white economically disadvantaged

01:30:35.100 ranchers get screwed. We've gone through it. We've spent far too much time on it. I've got to take

01:30:39.100 a break. I'll be right back. Stand by. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM.

01:30:45.180 It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and

01:30:49.900 important political, legal and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly show on Triumph,

01:30:55.180 a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts. You may know and probably love great people like Dr.

01:31:01.740 Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelly. You can stream the Megan

01:31:08.460 Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love

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01:31:25.100 Go to Sirius XM dot com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's Sirius XM dot com

01:31:33.980 slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply.

01:31:42.940 On the topic of Trump and Biden and where you fit in is, you know, you got to take votes from both of

01:31:49.580 those guys in order to make this happen. You're starting to get the attention of the Trump campaign,

01:31:53.900 which is probably a good sign for you. And the Trump spokesperson, Steve Chung,

01:31:58.940 came out and said the voter should not be deceived by you, suggesting that this is a,

01:32:03.900 quote, vanity project for you for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family's name. Now,

01:32:10.700 it is true, according to you, that you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and you voted for Hillary Clinton

01:32:16.940 in 2016 and you voted for President Biden in 2020. So why shouldn't Republican voters have

01:32:27.180 some doubts about you? Well, you know, I, I, I mean, I would say, um, first of all, that, you know, if you're,

01:32:38.940 if you're, um, you know, my, my promise when I announced this was that I was going to

01:32:50.700 try to persuade Americans that they weren't Republicans or Democrats anymore and that they

01:32:57.340 were Americans and that they're Americans first. But what I would say to you is, you know, I'm not

01:33:04.140 going to characterize, characterize, characterize myself as a conservative or liberal. I'm neither

01:33:11.900 a Democrat or Republican. Um, listen to the issues. And if you don't agree with my issues, then you

01:33:19.820 should vote for somebody else, the way that I handle the issues. If you, if you have a candidate who agrees

01:33:26.540 with you more, who, who thinks it's okay to be at war in the Ukraine, um, who is okay with the 34 trillion

01:33:36.300 dollar debt, who's okay with having 60% of American kids have chronic disease, um, and who's okay with, uh,

01:33:47.580 the, the, the regulatory agencies in our country being run by the, by the, uh, industries they're supposed

01:33:56.300 to regulate, uh, and this, this corrupt merger of state and corporate power that President Biden,

01:34:02.300 President Trump have presided over, then if you're okay with all that, then you should vote for one

01:34:07.660 of them. If you, if you're tired of those things and want to do something different, if you want to

01:34:12.460 change, if I get elected president, all that's going to change. The government's going to stop lying to

01:34:18.860 you. Why? Because on my first day in office, I'm going to issue an executive order saying that any

01:34:25.740 federal employee who lies to the American public in conjunction with his job will be fired. Um,

01:34:33.260 I'm going to stop the CIA from propagandizing Americans and, and from censoring Americans.

01:34:39.580 I'm going to fire any federal employee who participates with the mainstream media or the

01:34:45.180 social media in censorship. I'm going to stop the chronic disease epidemic and save this country 4.3

01:34:52.780 trillion dollars. We're now spending on chronic disease. When my uncle was present, 6% of Americans

01:34:58.460 had chronic disease. Today it's 60% diabetes in this country. When I was a kid, a typical pediatrician

01:35:06.380 would see one diabetes case in his lifetime. Today, one out of every three kids who walks through his

01:35:12.780 office door is either pre-diabetic or diabetic. And it's costing us more than the defense budget to deal

01:35:19.580 with diabetes. President Biden and President Trump have never mentioned that issue. They're never

01:35:25.100 going to. They're never going to fix the budget deficit. Why? Because they ran it up. President

01:35:30.860 Trump in his four short years ran up $8 trillion in debt, more than all the presidents combined from

01:35:37.420 George Washington to George W. Bush. And President Biden is trying to beat them on that. And neither of

01:35:44.620 them are going to deal with the existential issues that are actually threatening our country. So if you

01:35:50.620 want to label me as a conservative or as a liberal, I don't think it's accurate. I think I'm trying to

01:35:57.420 have a common sense solution to what's happening in this country. I promise to listen to people,

01:36:03.900 to change my mind when I'm wrong on the facts, to not demonize and marginalize and vilify other Americans,

01:36:11.420 but to try to find that the common ground that we all share in common, rather than, you know,

01:36:17.900 focusing on the trials and the culture war issue and the race issues that, you know, Republicans

01:36:25.820 and Democrats are all trying to get us to focus on. And it's like jangling the keys.

01:36:31.260 Even the issues that you focus on today, Megan, are all culture war issues. It's like,

01:36:36.060 these are important. These are important. I have a huge audience, Bobby, as you know,

01:36:40.460 I have a huge audience and these, but listen, no, no, no, that's not fair. Don't go there.

01:36:45.020 I know the issues that interest my audience. And there's a reason this is one of the top shows

01:36:50.220 in the nation. So don't disparage what, what matters to them. Okay. The, the issue about young

01:36:56.140 women and young girls and our rights and due process on college campuses and the right of the

01:37:00.940 unborn and the immigration issue and race baiting by our highest officials. Those matter. Those

01:37:09.100 matter. Your issues matter too. I love what you just said. It was the best answer you gave the

01:37:12.300 whole interview, but don't diminish what matters to my audience because that's also important.

01:37:17.260 I'll give you the last word. I blew my last commercial break for you. I'll give you the

01:37:19.900 last 40 seconds. Yeah. I say, you know, focusing on,

01:37:23.260 on, on it's, there's certain issues that are allowed in the political dialogue. And I, I didn't

01:37:29.580 mean to disparage your, your issues. I'm just saying, those are the issues that everybody talks

01:37:35.980 about. And then you look around and you say, but you know, there's all these other issues,

01:37:41.580 like the, the continual wars and nobody's talking about, and those are the ones that I'm trying to

01:37:48.780 focus on. I got to cut you off because the computer's going to, it's going to end us in 10 seconds.

01:37:52.460 Those are important. And we've discussed those on some of your earlier appearances,

01:37:55.500 and I hope there'll be another one. You know, I admire you. Thank you so much for being here.

01:37:59.420 Bobby Kennedy back tomorrow.

01:38:03.660 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 30, 2024

Could Trump Conviction Get Overturned on Appeal？ With Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Fighting Collusion to Make Debate Stage ｜ Ep. 806

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