COVID Lockdown Reality and MSNBC Banned from Rittenhouse Courtroom, with Dr. Scott Atlas, Robert Barnes, and Dan Abrams | Ep. 206
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 34 minutes
Words per Minute
177.72946
Summary
Day 3 of jury deliberations in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has now reached day three, and the focus turns to the possibility of acquittals for both sides of the case. Megyn and her guest, Robert Barnes, joins the show to discuss the challenges facing the jury, and why they believe a hung jury is more likely than not to acquit Kyle.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Big show planned for you today.
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Very excited to be speaking in just a bit with Dr. Scott Atlas. During the height of the pandemic,
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I think it's safe to say there was no one more maligned in the media than Dr. Atlas. He is here
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to set the record straight. And we'll also discuss the fate of President Biden's vaccine
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mandate now that the agency within the government tasked with carrying it out has suspended enforcement
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of that mandate after losing in court. And I'm going to ask him about this new so-called study
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being touted by left wing media saying that masks overwhelmingly work. And these are the key to
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preventing infection with covid. It was published. There's a big article in The Guardian. What does
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he think of that and the actual science behind it? We'll get into all of that. First, though,
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day three of jury deliberations underway right now in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the now 18-year-old
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young man accused of shooting three men, killing two in August of 2020. In the wake of the Jacob Blake
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shooting by police a few days earlier, the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin was experiencing significant
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unrest. And citizens like Kyle took to the streets of Kenosha to try to help others and prevent violence.
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Chaos ensued. And Kyle found himself on the wrong end of three different men attacking him.
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His defense is not that he didn't shoot them, but that it was in self-defense, something it is the
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prosecution's burden to disprove. The jury of seven women and five men have now deliberated for roughly
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18 hours. Yesterday evening, in the last hour of deliberations, the jury rewatched several videos
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and evidence, including drone footage of the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum, the first man shot,
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and a video involving the second shootings of Anthony Huber and Gage Grosskreutz. I'm now joined by
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Robert Barnes, who's founding attorney of Barnes Law, and Kyle Rittenhouse's formal civil attorney who's
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been following the case very closely. Great to have you back, Robert. So as I gather, I mean,
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it's still kind of surprising to me that now we're in day three and several hours in. No one observing
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the jury said that they seemed tense. No one said they seemed tense, but they did a report that they
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looked fatigued at the end of deliberations yesterday. That's not surprising. Kind of parlays
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with your own theories about this jury. And you revealed to us yesterday, you and your jury
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consultant, when you were representing Kyle, had taken a very hard look at the likely pool of jurors
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and the challenges Kyle would be facing. And so those reports of the fatigue on the faces of the
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jurors and also the ongoing deliberations and the willingness and desire to look at videos over and
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over and over. What does it all tell you? I mean, I think what you have is a split jury. I think it's
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probably eight to four, nine to three in favor of acquittal because that was the normal pattern with
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these kind of facts that were overwhelmingly in Kyle's favor developed in trial. There were several
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jurors in the jury pool that would just not listen to any evidence no matter what. And it seems like
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they're saying, well, you know, either side will say, well, let's look at this. Let's look at this
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to try to persuade the other side of their argument. And it seems that's the way it's going. And people
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that have been in the courtroom and seen who's there, it looks like there are a couple of people that
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are the potential holdouts. But the holdout, one of the holdouts may be the four, four woman herself,
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if the initial information is correct. So what do you mean? Why do you think that?
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Because there was there was a group of three, three women that fit a certain personality and
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psychological and profile that that would have been concerning if we had been involved during jury
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selection because they were the they fit the overlapping demographic of politics and social
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standing and general other affiliations and associations, trust and confidence in mainstream
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media, et cetera, that led them to be likely hostile jurors. And they fit that demographically
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and stylistically. And from what information we have, they've been grouped together ever since jury
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deliberation started. And it appears it's not certain, but it appears that one of them, an older
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professor may actually be the four woman on the jury. And so the people that we would have been
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most concerned about may have a leading role in the jury. And that usually protracts a split jury
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because normally if you have nine to three, eight to four, the three or four usually fold after a day
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or two on the up. But if the three of that three or four, you have some really strong leaders,
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including one who, because they pick the four person before they know what the four person's vote is.
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And so what you may have is the four person may have one view of the case and the majority of
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the jurors, a different view of the case that usually prolongs jury deliberations when you have
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a potential conflict like this within the jury. Yeah, everything's on its head because normally
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this would be great news for the defendant. He normally would love to have a hung jury and this
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would be wonderful. The longer it goes on, the more likely they're hung, the more likely he gets
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another try. I think everyone thought that the case went very well. Most people did for
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Kyle Rittenhouse. And so maybe not this time around, maybe he doesn't, but I'm sure at this
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point they'd rather the defense would maybe mistrials looking better and better to them as
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the days go by. Yeah, I think that Kyle and some people close to Kyle recognize that things could
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have been done better at trial and things could have been done much better in the jury selection stage
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and a retrial affords them the opportunity to remedy both of those. So I think that's why I believe
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Kyle yesterday instructed his defense lawyer to request a mistrial even without prejudice.
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And I think it's because he recognizes, I don't want to gamble on this jury going AWOL.
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The information he received from me and other people prior to trial has turned out true.
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And I think that he would rather go with a new trial with a better jury selection team,
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maybe a new defense team as well, or at least added to it rather than gamble on whether this
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jury does something crazy, like issue a split verdict or any kind of conviction, which would
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seem crazy given the facts of the case. We continue to see unrest outside of the courthouse,
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more reports that the protesters can be heard quite clearly inside the courthouse. And you pointed
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out yesterday, it's a small courthouse. This is not some huge federal courthouse like you'd see in
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New York City. It's small. And indeed, those inside can hear the protesters, no justice, no peace.
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And you know what that means? Like, it's the first time I ever really thought about it.
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You know, if so, if if the protesters don't get their version of justice, the city will not
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remain peaceful. That's basically what they're saying. And that's exactly what you said the jury
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pool was worried about. These are, you know, it's not a huge town, Kenosha, it's about 100,000 people,
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Midwestern in its feel and flavor. They're not used to this kind of rabble rousing and,
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you know, unrest. I will say, you know, Manhattan, it's not that unusual, right? But like in Kenosha,
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maybe so. And even right now, just getting this from the New York Times, they're reporting that the
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local schools around the county courthouse are holding online classes for the rest of the week
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in preparation for the verdict. Five public schools have cited the continuing jury deliberations at
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the courthouse as the reason for the switch. So now if any of these jurors have kids, now they
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understand their kids are not going to school for the rest of the week because the entire city is
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bracing itself for protests in the wake of this verdict. Good gracious. Exactly. And you have to
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wonder a little bit whether some of these public announcements by the governor, by saying he's going
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to send in the National Guard, by the mayor and the local Kenosha Democratic politicians, by shutting
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down the schools near the courthouse, are really trying to send a message to the jury, the same message
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that the protesters who are within both eyeshot every day and then earshot while they're in the
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deliberations room of what the jurors are demanding, which is they're demanding convictions of Kyle,
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or they will commit basically more rioting. And so that's the problem is that shouldn't have
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happened. The court should have excluded your First Amendment rights and at the right to an impartial
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jury trial. So they should have excluded those any protesters to be at least a block or more away from
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the courthouse, not to be right on the courthouse steps, not to be within earshot of the jury during
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deliberations. And I believe some of these Democratic politicians like the governor and some local
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politicians in Kenosha are trying to coerce a conviction where they know the facts don't support
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it for their own political objectives. Okay. So adding to that now law and crime, which is both an
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online property and a cable news network run by our pal Dan Abrams, they are reporting, if you have
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reporter Kathy Russin, that a person was following the jurors claiming to work for NBC slash MSNBC.
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Don't know whether that's in fact true, but the Kenosha County Sheriff's PIO, public information
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officer says, quote, that incident did take place yesterday. He says yesterday in 1118, that's today,
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and was handled by the Kenosha Police Department and is still under investigation.
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So, Robert, you got somebody following the jurors around. You got somebody who videotaped the jurors.
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You got the jurors hearing the protesters out on the courtroom steps. You've got them being told
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their kids can't go to school this week because they're waiting for these guys' verdict. Not to
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mention, if they know about the National Guard, some 500 of them, which is twice what the governor of
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Wisconsin called in in the height of the riots. First, he called in none. Then it was 125. Then he
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finally realized he should call in some more. And it was 250 at the heights. Now he's doubled that
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waiting for this jury's verdict. And what I'm starting to wonder is if this goes the wrong
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way for Kyle Rittenhouse, whether all of this is amounting to a grounds for appeal.
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No doubt. It's grounds for mistrial and grounds for neutral grounds for appeal of any ruling that
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goes against Kyle because of these circumstances. It's becoming more like a circus. And I think the
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court was naive. And I think that defense counsel was naive about the ability to actually do a fair
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impartial jury in Kenosha. What we found when we did the polling was 80 percent of Kenosha's were
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worried about participating in the case because of the impact on potential riots. You cannot get a
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fair jury in this context. And so I think that they needed to take extraordinary steps, both in the jury
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selection process and during the jury deliberation process, to mitigate the risk of this occurring.
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They didn't. And now the jury is experiencing it. They're being photographed. They're being threatened
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with being doxxed. They're being threatened with adverse outcomes from the protesters on an hourly
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basis, right within their earshot while they're in the deliberations room. Now they're being followed
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by fake press that can intimidate them. They have the governor and the local politicians reinforcing that
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by shutting down schools and sending in National Guard. This is not the way to conduct a criminal trial
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in America. We certainly hope that it was fake, that they didn't, in fact, work for NBC or MSNBC.
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They are saying, for the record, that this person does not work for them, that whoever was following
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the jury does not work for those news organizations. The judge is apparently going to make a statement
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this morning on it and an arrest has been made. But none of that calms the fears of the jury. The
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jury would probably be relieved to find out it was a reporter as opposed to somebody posing as a reporter,
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probably taking pictures of them, trying to get information on them. And let's face it,
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this isn't exactly like going into witness protection. It's not that hard to figure out
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who the jurors are and where they live. And they need to be worried. The judge's own children have
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received death threats now in the wake of this trial. By some, I presume those who want to see
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Kyle convicted who think this judge is now a white supremacist and so on. So all of this is amping up to
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a seriously problematic place for Kyle. I mean, what Kyle's entitled to is a fair trial. And as
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the defense attorney said yesterday, we're talking about a life sentence. They want to take this 18
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year old and put him in jail forever. So we really do need to bend over backward. And I wonder now,
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you've had two motions for a mistrial with prejudice, one for a mistrial without prejudice
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by the defense. And I wonder now, because the judge's rhetoric seems to be amping up about
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you're on, you know, you're on a thin ice to the prosecution. And I've been telling you that I've got
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real qualms about the way you're handling the evidence and they're only getting worse. And to
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me, it almost sounds like he is getting ready to lay the, he's laying the foundation for him to
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enter a verdict, notwithstanding the jury's verdict. If they find, if they mistrial or if they,
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if they find him guilty, I feel like this judge might be getting ready to overrule it.
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Yes. And what I hope he does, he steps in now because he's putting the jury in an untenable
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position and just issue a mistrial with prejudice. The, the, the reason why we're here is because
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the prosecutor took a lot of steps to inflame the local court of public opinion, then convinced the
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court to allow a shortened jury selection, then did a lot of things during trial that were
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completely impermissible, not only commenting on Kyle's fifth amendment rights, but also commenting on
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evidence that had been excluded. Also doing things that in my view, constituted subordinating perjury
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by putting two car source witnesses on there, testifying in a completely incredulous manner.
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And he had to know their testimony wasn't true. And we actually had live testimony from a witness who
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said the prosecution tried to suborn perjury and influence his testimony in prior to trial.
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So you've got extraordinary levels of misconduct. Now you have the fact that they produced one video.
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It turned out not to be the highest quality version, which was critical for the defense to
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be able to meaningfully prepare. When you aggregate these things together, there's no way this can be
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a fair verdict at this point, if it was anything other than acquittals. And, uh, thus I hope the
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court steps up and realizes the jury's in an untenable position dismisses the case. And I think
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he should dismiss it with prejudice because this is the product of the prosecution's own bad faith
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misconduct. That's the thing. It's like, there's never a perfect trial and judges know that they
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do the best they can. It needs to be fair, but it doesn't need to be perfect. So some mistakes,
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even some prosecutorial misconduct or defense lawyer misconduct sometimes happens and it doesn't
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always result in a mistrial. But if there's too much, or if any one incident is too egregious,
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you could be, you could be in trouble. Now, the thing about the video is at first I was like,
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I don't know. So they, what happened was the prosecution gave a video that was much grainier to the
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defense than the version they had, which was much, much clearer. That's not okay. They're supposed
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to turn it over. And originally I was like, well, do we really, does it really matter? Because the
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defense saw what was in the video. They knew it was in the video. They argued what was in the video.
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They had multiple versions of the video. And here on the screen, if you guys want to check it on a
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YouTube, we're putting it up. Um, you can see quite a difference between the grainy video that was given
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to the defense and the much clearer video that was that the prosecution kept for itself. The
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granny's on top and the clear is on bottom and boy, oh boy, it really is like looking through a pair of
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binoculars and focusing them, you know, top versus bottom. So when this came up in court, it was kind
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of a fascinating moment, Robert. I mean, it appeared to me, the prosecution just got caught.
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They got caught red handed by a young defense counsel, uh, named Wisco is a woman who we hadn't
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heard from yet. And yet in the case is probably younger associate who was in charge of, you know,
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the exhibits and so on. And so we're going to play it for you. This is Binger, the assistant district
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attorney, Krause, his co-counsel and the female's voice is Wisco. She's defense. And you'll hear the
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judge weighing in as well. And the defense counsel Richards, they're back and forth. And what's
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happening is Binger's trying to show video and he's not happy that it's not very good quality because
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they were using the defense version. So we're going to play it and we're going to put the words on the
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screen for folks on YouTube. And then I'm going to walk our listeners through it. So the folks just
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Bacon staff, as we're passing out, this is the same quality as our version.
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Our version is much, our version is much clearer.
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I have the enhanced one in play as well, but that is exactly what we got from you.
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Mr. Stutz. So what you're showing me now is, it just doesn't show anything.
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So if your version is clear, that means that you didn't give us your version.
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Okay, so just for the audience listening at home, I know it's hard.
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Binger's complaining that the video they're playing is not, you know, Krause says to him,
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I have the enhanced one because they enhanced their video, but that's exactly what we got
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The judge, so what you're showing me, this doesn't show anything.
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Wisco says, that is what we got from the Dropbox.
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If your version is clear, that means you didn't give us your version.
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Then Krause suddenly goes, oh, it's just plain weird.
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Meanwhile, Krause already said our versions are much clearer.
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The prosecution is not admitting that they gave them only the crappy version.
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They're saying, you know, you must have downloaded it wrong.
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But this young Wisco is saying, uh-uh, because what you gave to the state crime lab has a different
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label and different sort of megabytes on it, I think, than what you gave me.
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I literally just took exactly what you sent me.
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And you tell me whether this is a bigger issue than it first appears.
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It is a substantial issue because the difference in quality was meaningful for evidentiary presentation
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And the defense did not have the opportunity prior to the close of evidence because they
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only found out this after the close of evidence that there was a higher quality version that
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could have provided helpful information to them and help provide expert witness testimony
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that they could have used in a some form of rebuttal or surrebuttal in this context because
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this evidence only came in at the very latest stage by the prosecution.
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In fact, the video itself wasn't even discovered until middle of trial.
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My view is that was grounds for a mistrial right out of the gate to have, you can't have
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new evidence of this kind that was so relied upon.
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This was the primary evidence the prosecution relied upon for their provocation instruction.
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And the provocation instruction was the primary theory of the government's case by the time
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And the defense did not even have any aspect of this evidence until mid-trial.
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And the key aspects, the high quality version, they didn't have until after close of evidence.
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It also kind of came out today, it hasn't yet been presented in court, but it's been discussed
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elsewhere, that it appears this is a cropped video.
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And on top of that, it appears the prosecution lied about what was broadcast on Tucker Carlson.
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They said what was broadcast on Tucker Carlson did not disclose the source of this video,
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but actually Tucker did, had the name of the company and the name of the individual that
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The defense had gone to that person and he claimed he didn't have it and that the defense
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It turns out that was actually accurate all along.
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They claim they didn't get it until mid-trial, but they didn't even turn over what was necessary
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because the digital tracking and tracing of this video evidence and labeling of this video
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evidence, the metadata, as the defense counsel Wisco noted, showed that what they were given
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was a different version, not the same version of what the government had.
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It may sound very technical, but again, as the defense lawyer said, we're talking about
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We're talking about life in prison he's facing.
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And as a prosecution, as a prosecutor, this is a stomach drop moment when you realize you
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haven't given, if it were, if it really was inadvertent that you haven't given the best
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evidence to the defense, which they have a constitutional right to get their hands on.
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I want to talk to you about what the jury has to review.
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The judge, by the way, said to all the reporters, you will clear this courtroom.
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The jury's coming in here to watch it on the big screen.
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Anybody who leaves an electronic device behind can say goodbye to it forever because you know
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there'd be some sort of person who leaves their iPhone on tape trying to hear the jurors.
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You know, so the bailiffs checked out the courtroom thoroughly and made sure nothing was in
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And the jury went in and watched several videos.
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The videos were of the drone videos showing the attacks, a video, FBI footage of the
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Rosenbaum shooting before and after a slow motion video of, again, some of the incidents.
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But interesting to me was a soundbite of Gage Grosskreutz running along Rittenhouse.
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You can barely understand what they're saying, but there was testimony about it at trial.
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My guess is that somebody in the jury bought Binger's misrepresentation about what that
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showed, because the Binger misrepresented that and Grosskreutz misrepresented that at trial
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And so the it may have been a dispute about what was set.
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Uh, and so you may have had somebody that's pro conviction saying, well, he misrepresented
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the fact that he was police, uh, that, you know, this shows a sort of pattern of reckless
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And somebody else said, no, that's not what he said on that.
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What he said was he was going to the police, which also makes Grosskreutz's actions even
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more irrational and more reasonable for Kyle to interpret Grosskreutz as a threat because
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he had told Grosskreutz, I'm going to the police yet Grosskreutz pulls down a gun and
00:22:05.060
So my guess is videotaping this is so-called victim number three, the guy who got his bicep
00:22:11.560
So that's him talking to Kyle Rittenhouse as Kyle's running away from him, running away.
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And it's significant for Kyle's state of mind because he knows he's told this person he's
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And then later that same individual, uh, so-called victim number three, I consider him attacker
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number four or five, depending on what order you put him in, uh, is the one that of course,
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famously at trial pulled the gun, admitted that Kyle didn't shoot when he had his hands
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up in the air, that Kyle only shot when he pulled his gun and pointed it at Kyle's head.
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And probably one of the most dramatic moments throughout the entire trial.
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So my guess is that's the dispute is they're disputing what was said.
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Let's just play it one more time so we can listen for ourselves.
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To me, it sounds, it sounds like he's saying, I want the police.
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And just on the note of Binger and Grove, uh, Gage Grosskreutz, um, just watch again because
00:23:19.040
people, you know, the, the prosecutor misrepresented his own star witness testimony when he spoke
00:23:25.340
to the jury and the jury seems pretty focused on Gage Grosskreutz.
00:23:33.100
And I really wonder how that one's going to me.
00:23:39.260
I'm kind of surprised they're still debating him.
00:23:41.900
Um, and so here's just to remind the audience, here's how the prosecutor represented what
00:23:47.640
Grosskreutz said happened and then Gage Grosskreutz on the stand with his own firsthand account.
00:23:57.600
The gun goes off at no point in this process is Mr. Grosskreutz pointing his gun at the
00:24:04.780
It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun, now your hands
00:24:18.960
It's so clear, Robert, but there are politics inside that jury deliberation room, same as
00:24:27.680
And because I think what probably happened is somebody actually bought Binger's lie and somebody
00:24:34.720
What the witness admitted to is what actually took place.
00:24:39.000
And that part of that story was that Grosskreutz had heard Kyle misrepresent himself as police.
00:24:49.980
That's partially what Binger implied in opening as well.
00:24:53.620
And it just shows a broader pattern of false statements by the prosecution.
00:24:56.600
But it's sad that you're to the point where you have jurors who don't recognize that after
00:25:02.380
And that's because the strength of bias and prejudice some jurors carried into this case
00:25:06.920
was so strong that they would not even hear or listen to or process evidence that contradicted
00:25:12.820
This is one of the problems of politicizing these cases, you know, from the now president
00:25:20.120
and his vice president, who were candidates when they weighed in on this, you know, and
00:25:25.040
calling Kyle a white supremacist to the governor of Wisconsin and so on.
00:25:31.680
And once you slap politics on a case and telegraph to the nation, if you wear a blue shirt, you
00:25:37.140
If you wear a red shirt, you should be on that side.
00:25:38.920
But you're really endangering the entire judicial system.
00:25:46.580
And historically, with some exceptions, but historically, they haven't played a massive
00:25:54.880
I mean, the problem with this case was that if jury selection wasn't done in a certain
00:26:01.360
That's the fault of a corrupt media, corrupt press and a corrupt prosecution that has politicized
00:26:06.100
everything to the point where an innocent kid's life is in the hands of a jury that may be
00:26:15.900
Reporter for the Kenosha News or Kenosha News, Deneen Smith, saying the judge is back on the
00:26:23.060
Kyle Rittenhouse and all the attorneys are in the courtroom.
00:26:30.040
If we get breaking news, we're going to get Robert back on.
00:26:32.700
We're going to call you back and ask you what what significance it is.
00:26:41.980
Coming up next, we're going to switch over to COVID because there's a lot going on right
00:26:46.340
The Biden administration took a major hit thanks to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
00:26:49.920
and had to revoke, basically had to stand down on that OSHA mandatory vaccine order.
00:26:55.780
That is we get a new study claiming masks work and we should all be in them forever.
00:27:01.160
Dr. Scott Atlas is here to talk about all of that, his time in the White House, his new
00:27:07.800
When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winner's, I started wondering,
00:27:18.160
Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
00:27:39.540
We are joined now by former White House COVID advisor and author of the new book, A Plague
00:27:50.380
Upon Our House, my fight at the Trump White House to stop COVID from destroying America,
00:27:57.900
In the four months that Dr. Atlas served as an advisor to President Trump, he was constantly
00:28:03.440
slammed by the media and even some of his colleagues for having a different scientific
00:28:08.160
perspective on the pandemic than Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.
00:28:13.120
In his new book, he gives new insight into what really happened behind the scenes during
00:28:16.460
those COVID task force meetings and how COVID changed our country and the world.
00:28:26.560
All right, so I remember, you know, reading you prior to you being selected to go into
00:28:31.700
the White House and listening to you and thinking, oh, you know, that sounds right.
00:28:36.580
And it doesn't sound like everybody else out there, which is what makes it even more interesting,
00:28:40.580
And of course, we were quick to learn in COVID.
00:28:43.720
That's exactly why you became so controversial and just became the scourge of the mainstream
00:28:49.380
And then even your colleagues at Stanford started to turn on you, which was disgusting.
00:28:53.660
I was pleased to see people like Victor Davis Hanson back you and so on.
00:28:59.560
They sort of try to tear you down when you say stuff that they don't like, especially
00:29:07.440
You know, the COVID mania has been bizarre for all of us, you know, that March of 2020 to
00:29:12.280
now, when you look back at your your role, March of 2020 versus the way you are now, who
00:29:19.540
you are now and how people think about you and talk about you, how do you think it's
00:29:23.940
changed and how do you personally feel about it?
00:29:27.260
Well, you know, I was a health care policy scholar for 17 years at Hoover Institution
00:29:33.860
at Stanford and before that, 25 years in academic medicine, both doing research, taking care of
00:29:41.260
patients, reviewing papers at some of the best medical centers in the country and medical
00:29:46.920
And then I was working on COVID because the country was off the rails.
00:29:53.440
In March of 2020, there was missing common sense, missing even basic immunology.
00:30:03.420
And I thought, OK, something is seriously wrong.
00:30:06.140
So in the next six months, I worked very hard doing research, speaking with some of the world's
00:30:11.940
best epidemiologists almost every single day and considering health policy, which means
00:30:18.280
the impact of COVID, but the impact of the policy itself and everything that went along
00:30:27.220
In that next six months, I became somewhat visible doing the research and was appalled
00:30:33.320
at the lack of critical thinking that was going on by the task force and the rest, many people
00:30:44.000
And so the president of the United States calls you up as a public health policy expert and
00:30:50.640
says, will you help in the biggest health policy crisis in a century?
00:30:57.320
And for anybody who thinks that wasn't my lane, I mean, that's that's sort of silly.
00:31:01.700
In fact, there were no health policy scholars on the task force, none until I walked in at
00:31:11.020
There were people, three or four doctors that were virology trained, focused on stopping COVID-19
00:31:19.680
And I think this is what people understood about things like you.
00:31:23.900
It wasn't just I was saying something different.
00:31:26.180
It was that I was using logic and common sense because everybody knows that you don't, there's
00:31:32.040
nothing appropriate about stopping one infection at all costs because what was happening in those
00:31:38.720
six months, and this continued, unfortunately, throughout my three and a half months there.
00:31:44.520
And then after I left was the policy was stopping COVID-19 with lockdowns.
00:31:50.520
And what that meant was business closures and restrictions, school closures, curfews, restrictions
00:31:56.920
on personal movement, restrictions on seeing your own family, and stopping non-COVID medical
00:32:03.740
OK, so what the impact of that was, was the following.
00:32:07.640
The lockdown policies failed to stop the spread of the infection.
00:32:11.100
They failed to stop elderly from dying, the high-risk group, and they destroyed millions
00:32:19.020
So if people think that the policies cost unnecessary lives, the policies that were implemented were
00:32:25.540
the Birx-Fauci lockdowns that was the official policy of the White House coronavirus before,
00:32:32.740
during, and at task force, before, during, and after I left.
00:32:37.580
I did my best to do something different, which was called focus protection, which is logically,
00:32:46.980
The high-risk people were a well-defined population of mainly elderly people and people with comorbidities.
00:32:52.980
In fact, two-thirds of people that died from COVID in the United States, two-thirds had more
00:33:02.180
These were not just healthy, marathon-running 75-year-olds, OK?
00:33:06.000
So, you know, this is something, the data, you had to be a critical thinker.
00:33:11.560
The difference between me and the people on the task force was, A, I was a health policy
00:33:19.760
The people on the task force were bureaucrats for 40 years in the government, OK?
00:33:27.940
I would come to the meetings, every single meeting, with the scientific papers.
00:33:32.740
I would have a dozen, 20 different scientific papers.
00:33:36.100
I was asked a question, and when I gave my opinion, I would go through the data in the
00:33:42.800
Not a single person other than me brought a scientific paper into a task force meeting.
00:33:51.620
You're not supposed to, as a scientist or a medical science sort of evaluator, look at the
00:33:58.040
bottom-line blurb of a paper, as the New York Times reports it.
00:34:03.060
You're supposed to look at the paper, evaluate the way the study is designed.
00:34:07.240
If the study is not designed correctly, the conclusion is not valid, period.
00:34:14.660
You don't have to be a scientist to be a critical thinker, but you have to be a critical thinker
00:34:20.180
And this was really missing from the task force.
00:34:23.080
And so as you sort of alluded to here, what happened was I did my best to increase the
00:34:33.040
That means increased testing in nursing homes, increased testing of the nursing home staff
00:34:38.180
who are bringing in the cases, increased testing in senior centers, more resources, more protective
00:34:45.320
equipment in high-risk places, sending more tests to historically black colleges and universities
00:34:53.080
But in addition, opening schools safely, opening low-risk settings where children, where we're
00:35:01.420
proven to have healthy children have extremely low risk from COVID, period.
00:35:09.360
Healthy children are not significant spreaders of COVID.
00:35:13.080
That was proven back in the spring of 2020 from all over the world.
00:35:17.260
But you have to know the data and be able to evaluate it.
00:35:19.780
And so the idea of closing schools was extraordinarily harmful.
00:35:26.140
And I can go through some of that because I could talk all day about the data.
00:35:29.620
But the fact is that when you close schools, and America was unique, the Western European
00:35:35.660
peer nations opened the schools in the fall of 2020.
00:35:38.920
Only the United States kept the schools closed, with almost no exception, with a couple of states
00:35:45.800
And so when we look at the harms of the policy, okay, I wanted to increase the protection of the
00:35:55.220
And I wanted to remove the destruction of the lockdowns and the school closures, which were
00:36:03.880
And the problem here is that the lockdowns were a luxury of the rich, okay?
00:36:11.140
People like, okay, let's face it, you and me, and the people that work in government, the
00:36:16.960
people in journalism, what you would call the university elites, okay?
00:36:22.460
They don't have a problem, except for inconvenience, to use Zoom calls and to do their meetings from
00:36:31.360
But, okay, but the people who are low-income people, they are destroyed.
00:36:36.600
The people that work in the restaurant, in the bus station, that clean the toilets in
00:36:42.860
the hospitals or whatever, when they are told in the restaurants, in stores, when they lose
00:36:51.480
And so not only were they economically devastated, but that translates into life years lost.
00:36:57.400
That was known, I wrote about it with some economists back in May, there was a false dichotomy
00:37:03.280
set up by people who said, if you're against the lockdowns, then you must be, you're dangerous,
00:37:11.160
and you're sort of letting things go without any, you know, mitigation.
00:37:16.780
And that's absolutely false, because what was happening was the lockdowns were killing people,
00:37:21.920
the lockdowns destroyed people, and there are enormous harms to children from closing the
00:37:27.380
This was a heinous abuse of, and a social class sort of abuse, of taking these lower-income
00:37:39.980
And not only that, some of them were the essential workers that were forced to be exposed to COVID,
00:37:45.900
I mean, if you think about this, this was really an incredible lack of a moral compass
00:37:52.560
in the public health leadership, and a complete abrogation of what a public health leader is
00:37:59.440
Because when you use a policy, you don't just sit there and try to stop one disease.
00:38:05.080
What you do is you look at the impact of all health, you look at the impact on everyone.
00:38:10.340
And so what we see, if I can go on, with closing schools, it wasn't just that the school closures
00:38:17.280
were a failure because online education's not adequate, and people were failing, and they
00:38:25.840
But I was for opening schools because what happens was, just in the spring closures of 2020,
00:38:32.840
300,000 cases of child abuse went unreported in the United States because schools are the
00:38:39.100
Okay, we had one out of four college students thinking of killing themselves in June of 2020
00:38:51.420
That's where we pick up visual problems, hearing problems.
00:38:59.500
And so when you're doing this, you're not only losing the education and losing those things,
00:39:04.680
you're creating, and we know the data now, created a massive psychological harm on our children.
00:39:11.840
We had tripling three times the visits of teenagers to doctors for self-harm because of the isolation.
00:39:18.060
That means putting cigarettes out on their skin, cutting their wrists.
00:39:21.900
We have an explosion of mental illness in teenagers in the United States.
00:39:28.060
Drug abuse, overdoses, a skyrocketing of suicide in teenage girls specifically.
00:39:38.180
Any sane policy when it comes to public health looks at all of public health and not just
00:39:48.160
I'm going to squeeze in a quick ad here, but I do want to echo your point about the children
00:39:51.920
because to me it seems like the children have had the lowest risk of being hospitalized
00:39:57.640
or dying from COVID, the lowest risk of transmitting COVID to another, and have paid the highest price
00:40:04.720
in fighting this virus and continue to, continue to.
00:40:09.140
We've moved on with leaving all these kids masked all day long, and all we really want from them
00:40:16.580
as a matter of public health is for them to give over their arm so we can stick an experimental
00:40:22.100
And really, it's in the name of sort of public health as well.
00:40:25.420
It's not really to protect them, which we'll get to in a minute.
00:40:31.120
Remember, folks, I want you to know you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM
00:40:35.280
Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east, and the full video show and clips by
00:40:40.640
subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.
00:40:46.800
You could see the comparison of that high resolution video versus the low resolution, which the defense
00:40:53.960
By the way, getting an update from the Rittenhouse trial right now, which is fascinating about
00:40:59.920
By the way, if you prefer an audio podcast, go ahead and subscribe and download on Apple,
00:41:03.720
Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:06.700
And there you'll find all of our archives, more than 200 shows, including our COVID shows with
00:41:11.040
Josh Rogan, my very lively discussion with Scott Gottlieb, and much, much more.
00:41:15.720
When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering,
00:41:25.940
Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
00:41:51.660
It's funny because you talk about the cost to the lower socioeconomic groups in the country
00:41:56.600
and having these schools closed and being forced to go remote, and that's obviously true.
00:42:01.780
I'll tell you, in our case, we were in New York City in the fall of 2020, and we were in private
00:42:08.820
And while the public schools were closed the whole year, except for a couple of days, the
00:42:16.140
private schools were opening, except for ours, and we didn't understand why.
00:42:20.240
And we got a letter about adding an abundance of caution, and we got to make sure everybody's
00:42:25.100
And then the parents were mad and did some digging.
00:42:29.560
They weren't going to, at least this is what we found out, the parents who'd been in the
00:42:34.420
Hamptons for the whole quarantine and the summer wanted to stay there.
00:42:39.300
These rich, sort of hedge fund people didn't have to go into their jobs on Wall Street,
00:42:44.460
and they were loving their time in the Hamptons as opposed to their Manhattan apartments.
00:42:55.380
I don't join in a lot of letter-writing campaigns, especially as a journalist.
00:43:00.120
But I joined in that one, and the school did open.
00:43:06.800
It's the poor who've really taken the brunt of all these lockdowns, which, you know, now
00:43:13.680
And even in places like D.C., now the mayor down there under political pressure has said
00:43:17.640
she's going to lift the mask mandate, the indoor mask mandate, which is pretty, has been
00:43:26.440
I mean, the kids are never getting on masks, Doc.
00:43:32.760
Yeah, you know, I want to point out something before I answer that, which is that the bizarre
00:43:40.240
part of the whole thing here is that the United States and many, many places have doubled down
00:43:45.560
on things like mask mandates and all these requirements in the lowest risk environments.
00:43:52.180
And now I'm talking about two specific examples.
00:43:54.920
One are the schools, which you have pointed out.
00:43:57.160
And this has been known all over the world for a year and a half now, that schools are
00:44:02.920
a very low risk environment, that children don't have a, healthy children have extremely
00:44:08.740
And also teachers do not have a high risk in schools.
00:44:13.720
The studies have been done in Europe that showed that there's not a higher risk.
00:44:17.460
In fact, children have less chance of transmitting to adults.
00:44:23.560
And if there are high risk teachers, they have the option of either using extreme mitigation
00:44:28.820
themselves, now getting a vaccine or staying home and teaching a distance.
00:44:32.700
But there's no reason to have all these restrictions inside schools.
00:44:39.280
OK, when you look at the data on airplanes, there's never been outbreaks on airplanes.
00:44:46.340
Because of they have this incredible air purification system, there's been no outbreaks on airplanes.
00:45:02.100
If you've ever, you've probably flown, as I have.
00:45:05.140
And depending on the airline, there's an obsession and constant announcements.
00:45:10.440
And the sort of very oppressive sort of atmosphere when there is no high risk on airplanes.
00:45:16.780
If they see you chewing your food, you know, it used to be you could have your mask off when
00:45:27.940
But when swallowing or chewing, the mask is supposed to go back up.
00:45:32.040
And I can attest to having been a target of a flight attendant who's like, pull it up when
00:45:39.900
And you really, really want to get into a fight, right?
00:45:46.980
How did I not spread it during the height of the pandemic when I had the mask off while
00:45:50.900
But now I'm a death threat while I take two chews of my pudding or whatever it is, my
00:45:57.380
So but you can't because you don't want to wind up in YouTube.
00:46:02.820
And Pete Buttigieg is now in charge of our airplane experience.
00:46:06.280
Well, you know, and I also also I'll answer the question, what will it take to end things?
00:46:11.700
And I think we're in a we're in a time now where I think we've learned people have to
00:46:16.660
take responsibility for being critical thinkers themselves.
00:46:23.180
The expert people, the public health agencies, the faces you see on TV, they've been erratic
00:46:32.020
They've denied decades, even centuries of basic immunology about recovery from infection,
00:46:40.960
Well, first, you should trust people who are consistent, who know the data and cite the
00:46:50.140
This is a year and a half now, almost two years into this thing.
00:46:53.620
And I think at some point you have to take charge of your life and figure out what's appropriate
00:46:59.800
I do want to make one point, which is that, you know, one of the differences I said between
00:47:11.820
Secondly, my approach was using the data, the world's research studies and really going
00:47:18.500
through in a critical way and citing that data.
00:47:20.940
But third, you know, these people really, as opposed to me, their policies were doing
00:47:30.860
My policies were opening schools and considering all health of people and their policies were
00:47:43.800
Mask mandates and this new study and your thoughts on it.
00:48:24.260
We have some breaking news for you on Kyle Rittenhouse.
00:48:28.480
But want to bring you up to speed on what's happened.
00:48:31.180
It actually was someone working for NBC who followed MSNBC, who followed the jury.
00:48:37.740
This is more from, let's see, the courthouse, the jury.
00:48:42.140
OK, first of all, the jury in this case is transported from a location where they meet in
00:48:45.940
the morning to the courthouse in a bus with the windows blocked.
00:48:50.360
They don't want them to see demonstrators and they don't want anyone to see them.
00:48:54.820
Yesterday, someone claiming to be a producer for MSNBC was following the bus closely, ran
00:49:04.060
He said he was instructed to follow the jury bus and he was ticketed for a traffic violation,
00:49:12.580
Now we learn again, this is from Long Crimes, Kathy Roussan.
00:49:27.800
So it's public already working as a freelancer for MSNBC.
00:49:31.980
And he says his supervisor and the person who told him to do this was apparently a woman
00:49:40.640
Irene Bayan is a booking producer at NBC and she's let's see.
00:49:53.100
He confirmed that it was the guy who did work for MSNBC.
00:50:01.720
No one from MSNBC news will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial.
00:50:11.020
And I don't know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely it would go without
00:50:17.120
much thinking that someone who is following the jury bus, that is a very extremely serious matter.
00:50:28.740
This is a disgusting, egregious, ethical lapse by this young reporter.
00:50:40.380
And by the booking producer who told him to do this, there are things to do as a booker
00:50:44.300
and there are ethical lines, you know, you may not cross.
00:50:47.140
And following the jurors who are already being threatened, who, you know, have been videotaped
00:50:54.800
to the consternation of the judge who made a big deal out of that, who are already dealing
00:51:00.340
with protesters outside of the courthouse and threats in a city that's already on the
00:51:05.660
edge and a powder keg is disgustingly irresponsible and someone ought to get fired.
00:51:12.960
I don't know anything about this freelancer, but whoever gave the order, if it's the booking
00:51:17.540
And I predict there will be consequences because this is absolutely egregious.
00:51:21.940
One thing I can tell you about NBC is they do have a very strict ethics department that
00:51:27.440
reviews one's reporting before it goes to the air and cable.
00:51:33.720
And I'm sure once they get wind of this, they're going to be displeased.
00:51:38.800
That judge was 100 percent right to ban MSNBC, all of them from entering the courthouse as
00:51:44.040
a result, though they still get all their reporting from NBC anyway.
00:51:47.920
And it's just yet another ethical lapse by an organization that is riddled with them day
00:51:53.980
We'll continue to follow it as we get more breaking news from the courthouse.
00:51:59.180
Scott Atlas, who's got a new book out called A Plague Upon Our House.
00:52:04.760
Man, it really has been my fight at the Trump White House to stop COVID from destroying America.
00:52:10.700
Atlas, let's before we get to this new mask study, I want to just talk about because you're
00:52:14.720
pretty open in your book about your conflicts with, in particular, Dr.
00:52:19.460
Birx, who was on the White House coronavirus task force.
00:52:24.520
And you and she butted heads because she was much more team Fauci and she didn't really
00:52:29.260
like, I guess, what you were saying and wanted she wanted more restrictions.
00:52:36.540
I mean, I could just read it, but I would love for you to just tell us a story about what
00:52:39.160
happened in the Oval Office when Trump, who didn't want tons of testing of healthy
00:52:44.360
people, put the question directly to you about whether we needed more testing and directly
00:52:48.760
to her about whether we needed more testing of people who didn't have symptoms.
00:52:57.440
Birx was the official head of the medical side of the task force.
00:53:00.820
She was the task force coordinator for six months before I even walked in Washington.
00:53:06.100
For the entire time I was there, she wrote all of the official advice on policy to the
00:53:12.840
She visited dozens of states as the official White House policy.
00:53:19.760
I sat in on task force meetings from middle of August to middle of October.
00:53:26.700
But in any event, we had a meeting briefly in the Oval Office, as I outlined in the book.
00:53:33.400
And there was a policy that was written about by the CDC about testing.
00:53:41.900
And that policy was to increase testing and getting doctors or people who are knowledgeable
00:53:53.940
Girard, the head of the testing on the task force, and Dr.
00:54:00.140
And that discussion about testing, my view was we should increase the testing where it really
00:54:07.540
counted because there was a massive testing apparatus that the White House finally generated.
00:54:16.960
So I said, the cases are coming into the nursing homes by the staff.
00:54:27.380
That's where the cases are coming in and people are dying.
00:54:29.960
And I wanted more testing in these high-risk environments.
00:54:34.100
And so we went through and the president asked if Dr.
00:54:40.520
And I had heard the discussions in the task force from her.
00:54:48.240
And so then and she sort of nervously looked over toward me.
00:54:54.880
And he probably asked that because he saw that she was uncomfortable saying, yes, she agrees.
00:55:01.500
I said, Dr. Birx wants to be testing people who are asymptomatic and confining them if they're
00:55:09.460
testing positive or confining them waiting for days, which is what was happening at the time,
00:55:20.000
And that would stop healthy people from being out in society who were asymptomatic and even
00:55:26.280
negative on tests because there was a five-day wait at that time or something like that.
00:55:33.460
And I went through what she didn't, what she was really not telling the truth to the president.
00:55:37.660
OK, because if the president of the United States asked me a question, as I did the entire time I
00:55:42.440
was there and as I am doing right now, I'm telling the truth.
00:55:45.700
And I had no reason to lie about what she was thinking.
00:55:52.800
The president didn't really respond at the end of the meeting.
00:55:56.040
We walked out and she started screaming at me as I outlined in the book.
00:55:59.900
Don't ever do that, especially in the Oval, yelling at me in the periphery of the Oval
00:56:08.500
OK, so, you know, what's the illustration there?
00:56:10.240
Well, the illustration number one is that I'm going to tell the truth, period.
00:56:18.040
And if the president of the United States asked me a question, I'm telling the truth.
00:56:21.740
I'm not like one of these people, government bureaucrats who are interested or have a secondary
00:56:26.480
motive, their own image to the president, their own standing in their agency.
00:56:34.640
I didn't go there for a second, secondary reason.
00:56:37.920
I went there because the country was off the rails and these people were doing the wrong
00:56:41.640
policies that were failing to stop people from dying.
00:56:44.720
You know, the second part is, you know, when I went to to even interview or not interview,
00:56:51.300
they asked me to come and talk to the president before I decided that I would help.
00:56:57.200
And he said I had a conversation with Jared Kushner and this is in the book.
00:57:01.580
And I said to Jared when he said, OK, well, we want you to help at the end of this first
00:57:08.440
But I just want to tell you something very clearly.
00:57:10.640
No matter what anybody tells me to say, if I don't agree with it, I'm not going to say
00:57:16.160
I said, I'm not going to sign on to some group statement or task force statement or any other
00:57:23.700
And I'm not going to do or change my opinion no matter who tells me to.
00:57:29.980
And I because, you know, that's my only reason for going to help.
00:57:39.020
Birx lied and said she supported their position, would have just taken the yeah, OK, yeah, I
00:57:49.940
Well, because, you know, the point is, listen, Megan, this is a very important thing that was
00:57:56.300
And I'm not interested in being sort of I'll use the word political.
00:58:00.800
When I'm talking to the president, he asked me a question.
00:58:03.640
You know, there is no other way to answer other than completely truthfully.
00:58:08.640
When I said to Jared Kushner, this is what you're getting with me.
00:58:13.600
He he, to his credit, turned to me and said, that's exactly why we want you.
00:58:18.260
And that's actually I was shocked, actually, pleasantly so.
00:58:24.180
And then if I want to finish that conversation, I said, OK, you know, then I'll then I'll help.
00:58:30.040
And he then said to me, I just want to say something to you.
00:58:33.460
If this becomes public, they're going to destroy you, which is another thing that shocked me
00:58:38.540
because I never thought that anyone, you know, really cared about that.
00:58:42.660
And so my reaction to that was, well, you know, maybe I'll help from home first.
00:58:48.900
And I actually flew back home to California for a few days because I don't want to be destroyed.
00:58:57.460
I mean, the president asked you to help in the biggest health care crisis in the century.
00:59:10.260
And trust me, I have been there, so I understand what it's like.
00:59:14.000
But we did tee up not to make you relive it, but just so the audience gets a flavor of how
00:59:18.500
the media portrayed you, who you are truly a national health care policy expert.
00:59:25.520
In addition to all of your other wonderful credentials.
00:59:28.120
I mean, we could go on and on about your your resume.
00:59:30.460
I guess I'll just take off a few just so in case people don't know.
00:59:34.260
Got your Bachelor of Science from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
00:59:39.260
Your chief resident at Northwestern Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, expert
00:59:44.280
in neuroradiology, leading clinician and researcher in novel applications of advanced MRI and disorders
00:59:51.200
But even Victor, in his piece talking about you, said this is not only one of the world's
00:59:56.320
world's top neuroradiologists, but you are the national expert on public health policy,
01:00:00.960
especially in the cost benefit analysis of government programs, which is what's directly
01:00:13.520
And what's the best decision for overall public health?
01:00:15.720
Keeping in mind some of the things you mentioned about, you know, teenage suicide and anxiety and
01:00:21.760
So the media not not cognizant or not willing to acknowledge all the rest of that decided
01:00:28.120
to portray you as basically some sort of a destructive nutcase.
01:00:31.720
And here's a here's a little flavor of their best hits.
01:00:40.900
He literally would know more if he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
01:00:45.220
For Scott Atlas, his main covid advisor, his covid Rasputin, if you will.
01:00:49.680
Atlas, of course, is a neuroradiologist with no expertise in epidemiology, but increasingly
01:00:55.960
has the president's ear when it comes to the coronavirus.
01:00:58.800
But now he's got this new advisor, not an expert, not somebody who is steeped in the
01:01:06.620
OK, first off, Dr. Atlas clearly wouldn't know science if it kicked him in the Atlas.
01:01:20.520
So how is that for you experiencing that, you know, sitting at home or in the White House?
01:01:24.140
Well, you know, I mean, I have to say I was naive.
01:01:34.620
I actually thought that, you know, truth mattered, that facts mattered.
01:01:39.420
And my role was to provide the best possible advice in a big crisis.
01:01:45.760
Now, you have to realize that what was implemented was what what I call the Birx Fauci lockdowns.
01:01:52.160
The Birx Fauci lockdowns were implemented for the entire year, including during my time there.
01:01:57.400
Nothing was really changed except in a few states.
01:02:02.680
So if you think that the policies failed, you better ask doctors Birx and Fauci and the people
01:02:08.220
that impose those man, those mandated behaviors and lockdowns, because that's what was implemented,
01:02:17.780
OK, I mean, the problem with what happened to me.
01:02:20.340
OK, I have to say, I thought I was sort of a tough guy and I'm probably not as tough as
01:02:26.660
I thought, but I have a supportive family and I knew I was right.
01:02:31.160
I mean, what with the irony of the whole thing is that every single thing I said was correct.
01:02:37.300
But I also had something much bigger going on, which is I had millions of people, it turned
01:02:44.020
I had thousands of emails a week from all over the country, from mothers and fathers and seniors
01:02:50.460
and students and priests praying for me to keep going.
01:02:55.900
And scientists from all over the country saying, Scott, you're right.
01:03:04.280
So it's very important that good people have the courage to step forward and do what's right.
01:03:13.600
It has absolutely nothing to do with the political party.
01:03:17.020
And yet, unfortunately, right now, the media is super destructive, as you know.
01:03:21.860
Uh, there, you know, the American media, particularly 90 plus percent of stories about COVID were
01:03:27.960
negative, yet only half the stories in English speaking media outside the U.S. were negative.
01:03:33.960
90 plus percent of stories on the schools opening were negative in the U.S., only half in other
01:03:42.640
And even when the cases were going down in the U.S., the stories about cases going up outnumbered
01:03:52.740
This is data from Brown and Dartmouth University.
01:03:56.540
So the English speaking media outside the U.S. was sane.
01:04:01.160
American media was, in my view, very destructive and harmful.
01:04:05.260
And that also happened by the university faculty here, who are extraordinarily politicized and
01:04:14.820
And this is very dangerous for these people, teach our youth, and these people have a lot
01:04:20.360
And now we're in the situation where science has become politicized.
01:04:23.500
So it's not really about me, but we need to really get a handle on this.
01:04:27.560
And I and others who have a lot of care about the country, without science and trust in science,
01:04:39.700
I mean, we really need to get a handle on this and get this politics out of this fact
01:04:46.160
finding, because if we suppress the freedom of ideas and exchange of ideas freely, we will
01:04:53.840
never arrive at the truths and solutions we need to solve other crises.
01:05:07.060
But we're also going to be joined in just a bit by Dan Abrams, not only in Sirius XM,
01:05:11.960
a host, but also a guy who used to be in the primetime of MSNBC.
01:05:16.940
In fact, he used to run MSNBC way back in the day.
01:05:20.160
He's going to join us on MSNBC now getting banned from the Rittenhouse trial courtroom
01:05:50.160
That jacket, those shoes, is anyone paying full price for anything?
01:06:03.740
And we're talking all things COVID from his time in the White House working for President
01:06:07.920
Trump on the COVID task force to what's happening in the news today.
01:06:14.000
Apparently, it was done by researchers across the pond at the University of Edinburgh and
01:06:20.200
Monash University, published in the British Medical Journal.
01:06:23.880
And the headline with The Guardian, the very first line of the piece, is that, quote, mask
01:06:28.320
wearing is the single most effective public health measure at tackling COVID, reducing incidence
01:06:37.900
The first global study of its kind shows they they love, love, love masks, the single most
01:06:50.120
OK, so, I mean, first of all, I think we have to take a step back here and realize that a
01:06:54.940
year and nine months into this pandemic, after people were insisting that masks work, there's
01:07:01.380
still this desperate attempt to find some study that shows that masks work.
01:07:09.100
To me, you know, at some point, the earth is round and the burden is not on me or anybody
01:07:15.680
else to convince people who believe the earth is flat, that the earth is round.
01:07:24.680
In May 2020, the CDC published a review of all the papers, including something like 10
01:07:32.240
randomized controlled trials, which are the best types of studies, on masks in influenza.
01:07:37.300
Influenza is relevant because influenza is the same size, roughly, as this virus.
01:07:42.980
And there was no significant impact of widespread mask usage on either the transmission or the
01:07:55.620
This was repeated, of course, in analysis by University of Oxford, the World Health Organization
01:08:02.360
We saw the evidence during this pandemic all over the world with mask mandates and mask
01:08:07.420
usage that there was an explosion of cases through populations wearing masks and including
01:08:13.060
in the United States where 80 to 90 percent of people were wearing masks.
01:08:17.720
We see the evidence on three studies after that.
01:08:21.140
The Denmark randomized controlled study published in November 2020, 6,000 people, a randomized
01:08:27.240
population of groups that were wearing masks and people that were not wearing masks.
01:08:32.440
There was no statistically significant difference between the people getting infections with
01:08:39.840
That's the best study on mask wearing for protecting yourself.
01:08:43.340
The University of Louisville published a study finally published in May 2021 that analyzed all
01:08:51.120
the mask mandates in the United States and all the mask usage in the United States.
01:08:57.180
And their conclusions were mask mandates do not reduce the spread of the virus and mask usage
01:09:03.380
does not reduce the spread of the virus for healthy and for widespread mask usage.
01:09:09.640
Then we see a study that was highlighted in the late newspapers on Bangladesh villages.
01:09:17.060
And what they did was they had certain villages were instructed to wear masks and other villages
01:09:22.300
And they didn't test the people who were wearing masks or not.
01:09:24.940
But what they found was that there was an 11 percent reduction in people and only people
01:09:35.100
It has nothing to do with who was wearing the mask.
01:09:36.800
So in villages instructed to wear masks, the older people suppose a minority of older people
01:09:47.320
What that outlines, by the way, cloth masks in that study did not work at all statistically.
01:09:52.840
So what that study showed was that there was possibly a small effect on symptomatic COVID,
01:10:00.580
For instance, if you were 40 to 50, there was no reduction.
01:10:04.460
Just people 50 to 60, which to me, any critical thinker should say, hey, maybe those older
01:10:09.680
people did other things, too, to avoid getting infected.
01:10:12.640
But be that as it may, there may be a small reduction from that study.
01:10:20.440
And so, you know, I don't know why masks are somehow the obsession.
01:10:30.380
We had an obsession that everyone's at risk, including, and that there's massive asymptomatic
01:10:42.940
The studies came out saying that six feet really wasn't any different from three feet.
01:10:47.980
We know many countries in the world have been using three feet, by the way, the whole time.
01:10:52.980
Well, I mean, there's not good evidence that six feet works.
01:10:56.840
And so, yet, we cling to that, even though the studies disproved it.
01:11:00.260
The studies disproved that COVID was transmitted on countertops and tables.
01:11:04.600
Yet, we go onto an airplane, and my God, people are grasping for the alcohol swabs for the
01:11:11.840
When you get on the plane, they hand you the little swab.
01:11:19.180
I'm for letting people wear masks, just like I'm for letting people wear copper bracelets
01:11:26.740
But I prefer to use scientific data and critical thinking.
01:11:30.980
And by the way, 97% of people, roughly, who are over 65 in the United States, have been
01:11:39.240
I want to ask you about that, because the numbers are in.
01:11:42.380
I just want to put a period on the end of this discussion.
01:11:48.280
And he said, first of all, he points out that even the authors of this study that say,
01:11:53.840
you know, the masks are great, 53% reduction, say, and I quote, risk of bias across the six
01:11:59.780
studies that they chose to look at ranged from moderate to serious or critical.
01:12:06.380
He said, I never thought I'd be wishing for just mild bias again.
01:12:09.680
So basically, they took studies in which they admit those who were self-reporting may have
01:12:14.860
considered themselves seriously biased in favor of masks and said and they conclude masks work.
01:12:21.260
And he went on to say, I think it's fairly clear that cloth masking has at best weak,
01:12:26.740
inconclusive data and no clear evidence of efficacy.
01:12:30.580
At the same time, he says, given the massive number of mask devotees, I have no doubt that
01:12:35.500
non-randomized studies will find 53, 80 or even 90% efficacy.
01:12:40.620
With enough analyses, we may even get to 95%, but that won't make any of them true.
01:12:46.680
Yet, I will point out that Guardian article touting this.
01:12:51.260
It doesn't have a little Twitter warning on it.
01:12:53.920
It doesn't have the little thing saying, go to the CDC's website for the best information.
01:12:59.620
As long as you're touting masks or vaccines or mandates, you're good with everyone in big tech.
01:13:04.840
It's only when you push back against that that you get banned.
01:13:07.640
All right, let's talk vaccines because I did look at the latest numbers.
01:13:11.080
It's now 80% of Americans age 12 and older have received at least one dose.
01:13:15.720
98.5% of adults 65 and older have gotten at least one dose, and 85.8% are fully vaccinated.
01:13:26.720
Even as you go a little younger, you've got 85.9% of people between the ages of 50 and 64
01:13:33.680
who have gotten at least one shot, 78% ages 40 to 49, and even the young, young folks, 12
01:13:39.820
to 16 or 12 to 15, I think it is, 57% were vaccinated.
01:13:44.700
They're never going to, and now they're moving the goalposts saying you're not considered
01:13:48.320
fully vaccinated anymore, lest you get the booster shots.
01:13:51.660
You've got to get the, Boris Johnson over in the UK just came out and said, that's what
01:13:58.260
The goalposts are never going to be in front of us or achievable.
01:14:04.300
And so here's the several points that I think are important.
01:14:07.300
Number one, if you're high risk for dying from COVID, you know, the vaccines, to my reading
01:14:15.600
of the data, prevent people from dying, and that's very good and very important.
01:14:21.340
Vaccines after three to six months do not stop you from getting infection.
01:14:27.260
In fact, people that, okay, so that's the second point.
01:14:30.980
And the third point is, therefore, after three to six months, vaccines do not stop you from
01:14:35.740
preventing, I mean, from spreading the infection.
01:14:39.720
And so it's a personal protection, particularly for people who have high risk, because you're
01:14:45.620
not going to die, almost certainly, if you get the vaccine.
01:14:49.680
And it's not a public health really effective thing, because you're not prevented from spreading
01:15:01.340
This is proven in the Qatar study, where 98% of the population is vaccinated.
01:15:08.500
And frankly, by the way, I like to look at the other countries' data, because I'm at the
01:15:12.500
point now where I'm a little bit worried about even looking at our own data, which is very
01:15:17.900
You know, so that's the other thing about the immunity that has been really ignored with
01:15:22.240
these vaccine mandates in the United States in particular, and not in the other countries,
01:15:26.600
is natural immunity of people who have had the infection.
01:15:30.080
Okay, we know that almost half the country has had the infection.
01:15:33.760
That means half the country has not only protection immunologically, but better protection than those
01:15:44.060
People who have been vaccinated but not infected have 27-fold increased cases of symptomatic COVID
01:15:51.060
than people who've been infected and recovered.
01:15:59.900
It's other countries also show the durable and long-term impact of protection from getting
01:16:06.960
So to say to somebody who has better protection because they've recovered from COVID that you
01:16:11.740
must get vaccinated, you know, that doesn't make sense.
01:16:15.240
The second part, I want to mention something about the boosters.
01:16:17.900
There's no significant safety data on a third dose.
01:16:20.660
Okay, this is an experimental vaccine to begin with.
01:16:26.120
We don't have long-term safety data on the vaccine.
01:16:29.420
I'm not against the vaccine for people who need it.
01:16:32.880
You know, it's a cost-benefit, you know, benefit-risk kind of calculation.
01:16:38.540
But we don't have long-term safety data because after the emergency use was granted, they broke
01:16:46.200
In other words, all the placebo people, almost all of them got the vaccine.
01:16:52.080
We don't have a long-term, what's called a phase three trial.
01:16:55.360
But more than that, the boosters, there's no safety data to speak of on a third dose.
01:17:00.620
There's a few thousand people in Israel after one month who, you know, there's a safety
01:17:06.980
It takes normally five to 10 years for a vaccine to have enough safety data to be formally approved
01:17:14.400
So this is, you know, to say that it's safe to get a booster, I'm not sure.
01:17:27.660
If you have a doctor who is also a critical thinker, which is in short supply, even among
01:17:32.720
But, you know, you sort of have to figure this out.
01:17:45.740
This is a disease that is exceptionally risky for high risk, older people, particularly with
01:17:52.020
a lot of comorbidities or kids with serious underlying diseases like leukemia.
01:17:58.020
OK, but, you know, typical people that are healthy, you do not have a high risk from COVID,
01:18:06.320
Can I just add that Austria now is putting its unvaccinated into lockdowns, into mandatory
01:18:12.880
lockdowns that are being enforced by the police?
01:18:16.060
And the one exception that they'll make is if you had COVID, the Austria, which is doing
01:18:22.220
something crazy that we've never done, mandatory lockdowns of the unvaccinated enforced with
01:18:32.360
And I mean, it's not the reason that President Biden's vaccine mandate got shot down by the
01:18:38.880
And now OSHA has admitted it's got to it's got to hold.
01:18:47.540
It's not going to be upheld by the Supreme Court.
01:18:49.700
As other appellate courts weigh in on it, it's going to go down time and time again.
01:18:53.520
There are multiple lawsuits working their ways up to the court.
01:18:59.220
I mean, the vaccine numbers are already so good.
01:19:03.740
If you have this much natural immunity in the country, we know we have tons of natural
01:19:07.140
immunity and you have these kinds of vaccine numbers, then why do we still see cases rising?
01:19:13.540
The New York Times puts that on the front cover every day.
01:19:15.660
I don't know why we're still looking at the cases, but the case is rising and the deaths
01:19:21.020
numbers are down 14 percent over the last two weeks.
01:19:24.100
Cases are up 14 percent over the two weeks, but deaths are down.
01:19:26.500
So why do we keep seeing those numbers rise at all?
01:19:32.620
OK, so your question sort of has multiple parts, I think.
01:19:37.180
Number one, cases, again, the vaccines do not protect in a durable way, a long term way,
01:19:45.080
more than three to six months against getting infected.
01:19:48.300
I mean, in Qatar, after five months, only 20 percent effective in preventing an infection.
01:19:57.600
So just because you're vaccinated does not mean you will you will not get the infection
01:20:05.100
Point number two, we don't know who got the vaccine versus who actually had immunity.
01:20:09.500
Many, many people took the vaccine also already had immunity.
01:20:13.140
So it's not true that you add up 50 percent of people had the infection and then you add
01:20:22.500
And then third is that we've never done such testing for a virus.
01:20:28.240
If you look at the influenza data, by the way, most people that die from influenza, at
01:20:35.480
least half the people who die already were vaccinated.
01:20:38.480
OK, so people don't don't realize that they didn't look at the data.
01:20:41.460
Seventy five percent of people with influenza were asymptomatic.
01:20:44.600
If we tested everybody for all of these viruses, we would see a lot of them.
01:20:49.080
And that's why, you know, the focus on number of cases, you have to realize the focus should
01:20:56.520
be on number of serious illnesses, number of people.
01:20:58.920
If you're if you have a fever for a day or if you're asymptomatic and positive for SARS
01:21:04.600
2 testing, that doesn't mean you're you're really sick.
01:21:07.760
And this is actually very important when you quantify the things like hospitalizations and
01:21:13.660
deaths from covid, which we didn't talk about hospitalizations from covid.
01:21:17.840
There's a couple of studies in the literature that show once from Stanford in the past and
01:21:21.540
the Children's Hospital, half of people who were called covid hospitalizations were had
01:21:28.900
They had a positive virus test, but they ended up being hospitalized because they were sick with
01:21:34.240
Yet in the final telling, they were called covid.
01:21:38.800
The CDC itself said a third of people under 18 who supposedly died from covid.
01:21:46.420
A third of them were not even feasible, was their word, to have had covid on chart review.
01:21:53.920
So people that were categorized as covid, whether for hospitalizations or deaths, a lot of them,
01:21:59.340
we don't know how many, but a lot of them were only SARS 2 positive.
01:22:06.880
Testing a person and having a positive virus test is not an illness.
01:22:13.580
There's something very important about this, which is in my book.
01:22:17.880
I distributed the data on PCR testing because PCR testing, the way it's done, 97 percent of
01:22:26.100
positive PCR tests, if you're doing it the way the FDA recommended during this whole pandemic
01:22:32.320
of 2020, 97 percent were positive, but they were not contagious people.
01:22:37.420
But they were being confined and curfewed and contact tracing and all this stuff because
01:22:42.760
97 percent of positive PCR tests with a cycle threshold of 35 or more, 97 percent were showing
01:22:52.360
So this kind of information, I was the only one that brought this up in the task force.
01:23:01.600
There were refractory to the facts that were very important when you're designing the policies
01:23:08.420
So the PCR testing data was very flawed and misleading, and it's still being used all over the world
01:23:17.220
The data on hospitalizations from COVID is misleading, and the deaths from COVID is misleading.
01:23:29.360
But the problem is the policies that were implemented throughout the pandemic didn't protect people
01:23:35.400
from dying and instead locked down the low-risk people.
01:23:39.020
And those policies were recommended by Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci.
01:23:45.380
And at least one of those is still calling the shots.
01:23:49.140
I mean, Fauci's, he's still, he's been, you know, he's a demigod now, and we have a president
01:23:55.240
in the White House that will do whatever he says.
01:23:59.320
I really do wonder whether it's just going to take the political threat of another Virginia,
01:24:04.780
but this time a 50 statewide type Virginia in November of 2022, to make them stop, just
01:24:12.440
stop with the mandatory masks and the mandatory vaccines and firing people who have natural
01:24:19.320
It's, I just don't, I personally believe nothing other than their political fortunes being at
01:24:29.820
Yeah, well, I just want to say we're in an era now, I'll repeat this, where individuals
01:24:39.460
You have to look through the studies if you want, but you also have to find people who
01:24:43.880
are speaking credibly, consistently, and showing the facts in a very concise way.
01:24:49.340
And you will arrive at the best decisions for yourself and your family.
01:24:55.440
Want to tell everybody again, you got to check out Dr. Atlas's book.
01:25:04.420
My fight at the Trump White House to stop COVID from destroying America.
01:25:13.100
And want to tell our audience that we are also continuing to follow the breaking news at
01:25:16.800
the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial just a short time ago, the judge banned MSNBC reporters
01:25:23.440
The ban came after a producer, a freelance producer for MSNBC was caught following the
01:25:37.560
A person who identified himself as James G. Morrison and who claimed that he was a producer with
01:25:44.980
NBC News, employed for MSNBC under the supervision of someone named Irene Bayon in New York.
01:25:56.840
The police, when they stopped him because he was following at a distance of about a block
01:26:03.180
and went through a red light and stated that he had been instructed by Ms. Bayon in New York
01:26:10.860
to follow the jury bus, I have instructed that no one from MSNBC News will be permitted in this
01:26:24.220
Turning me now by phone, my pal and ABC News chief legal analyst, not to mention host of the Dan
01:26:31.260
Abrams show on Sirius XM and the founder of Long Crime Network, which actually is reporting some of
01:26:37.800
Dan, you heard it right from the judge that they caught this guy, James J. Morrison, freelance
01:26:43.960
producer for MSNBC, that he was instructed by this booker, Irene Bayon in New York to follow the jury.
01:26:57.120
Yeah, I mean, look, it's still sort of unfolding.
01:26:59.480
I'm still getting notes in real time from people at the courthouse about what we know and what we
01:27:09.300
It seems that it wasn't a reporter for it wasn't connected to MSNBC.
01:27:18.580
So, look, bottom line is, if it's true that someone at MSNBC instructed a freelancer to
01:27:28.200
follow the jury, you know, it's not only moronic and despicable, it's illegal.
01:27:35.740
So, you know, you're not just talking about the possibility of MSNBC not being allowed back in
01:27:43.920
the courtroom if it turns out that this is true.
01:27:47.220
But, you know, the person involved could be facing charges for trying to, you know, for
01:27:54.860
refusing to adhere to a judicial order, et cetera.
01:28:02.880
And not only that, but I agree with you 100 percent on the ethical violation.
01:28:06.700
But this guy and now MSNBC are going to wind up in a motion for a mistrial and possibly appellate
01:28:13.060
court papers if if this kid, if this guy, Kyle Rittenhouse, gets convicted, because it'll
01:28:19.220
be cited as one of the many things that intimidated this jury into coming up with what the defense
01:28:23.480
will argue was the wrong verdict if it doesn't go their way.
01:28:25.680
Yeah, I don't think that this will be the best argument.
01:28:28.880
I think that I think that the defense's argument about this video is actually a much stronger
01:28:35.060
argument than some guy who didn't actually, you know, get in touch with the jurors, et
01:28:40.220
You know, I think that this question about the quality of the video, you would think people
01:28:44.480
are going to say, oh, come on, what's the big deal about so that the defense is saying,
01:28:49.660
well, you know, they got a version of the video which was of lesser quality.
01:28:53.720
Well, part of their defense has been that you can't really tell from the video what
01:29:00.360
So if they didn't have that video and if it's true that the prosecutors did this on, you
01:29:07.340
We'll see if the prosecutors did this intentionally.
01:29:12.200
But that's a big issue, because there you're talking about literally the defense making
01:29:18.460
arguments in court that now they can totally they can say we would never would have argued.
01:29:25.580
You can't see the video if we'd had the original version of it.
01:29:31.100
And the court in that particular instance has said he's not sure he believes the prosecution,
01:29:37.200
that he's actually going to put them on the stand under oath and potentially and wants
01:29:42.780
to hear directly directly from them, as well as from expert witnesses on which he said from
01:29:47.320
the beginning on whether this tape should have been admitted at all.
01:29:49.880
So it's certainly going to be potential grounds for an appeal if this doesn't go the defense's
01:29:54.040
I want to tell you that NBC just issued a statement.
01:29:58.800
Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation.
01:30:01.980
While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or
01:30:06.300
intended to contact the jurors during deliberations and never photographed or intended to photograph
01:30:12.320
We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.
01:30:16.900
NBC News spokesperson, I will say that's good enough.
01:30:22.740
So so we started this conversation by me saying you let's see whether NBC is admitting.
01:30:29.480
So they are they're admitting that this person worked for them.
01:30:40.220
And they're not denying that someone in, you know, an executive there was instructing him
01:30:51.440
So, you know, while some people are going to read that and say, oh, you know, NBC is sort
01:31:01.320
That, to me, actually makes this now a bigger story.
01:31:08.720
So he must have been following the jury van, I'm assuming, on their way back to, you know,
01:31:16.120
But there's only one reason a producer follows a jury van.
01:31:19.980
They either want to contact the jurors or they want to see where the jurors live so that they
01:31:25.640
Either way, totally impermissible, way out of line.
01:31:28.740
And any journalist knows you're not supposed to do that.
01:31:31.640
The jurors in particular are supposed to be held inviolate.
01:31:38.880
You can contact them after the trial and ask them if they want to speak.
01:31:42.800
You really are messing with something very high stakes.
01:31:46.800
Because, you know what, I was thinking as we were talking about this, well, maybe someone
01:31:51.000
said, you know, go so you can get a sense of what they look like for later.
01:31:58.860
You know, it's not like so there's no I was trying to think of like, what could their
01:32:05.180
Well, I just wanted to get a visual on them for later, because the visual you can get in
01:32:11.300
So, yeah, there is you're exactly right that that following the jurors back, the
01:32:15.980
only reason that you would do that is to see where they're going.
01:32:20.120
And that period is unacceptable and impermissible.
01:32:23.760
I mean, this is these bookers for the big networks are famous or infamous, depending on your view,
01:32:29.800
for their aggressive measures in trying to book guests.
01:32:32.620
And the jurors in the Rittenhouse trial will be a major booking if they decide to do it.
01:32:42.000
And NBC is not going to get away with this statement, because if it really was this Irene,
01:32:46.240
as the freelancer identifies by name, Irene Bayan in New York, who told him to do it.
01:32:57.840
And this is this is seriously one on one, meaning like, you know, you hire a producer to go to
01:33:03.700
a trial, it's probably the three things you tell them are, you know, follow what's happening in
01:33:08.960
court and take notes, see if you can get any interviews in the hallway and stay away from
01:33:16.960
It's like it's one of the very basic things that you tell people who are covering a trial.
01:33:22.640
And now they're going to need to add follow what happens in court and do not follow the jury.
01:33:28.140
By the way, that that booking producer has now deleted her LinkedIn.
01:33:35.600
So, I mean, look, and MSNBC is banned from the courthouse.
01:33:44.180
I'm sure you can, too, from your time at MSNBC.
01:33:47.040
So, you know, the the punishment isn't all that punitive, but the judge is doing the right
01:33:57.440
Let's see if this goes further than just the traffic violation.
01:34:01.680
It really is going to depend on the intent here.
01:34:05.420
I mean, if it was truly just a traffic violation from someone who was happened to be in the
01:34:14.420
OK, but that's not the way the judge is interpreting it as of right now.
01:34:26.220
I want to tell you tomorrow, we'll we'll have all the latest on the Rittenhouse trial
01:34:33.480
And go ahead and download our show, Megan Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify and Stitcher