The Megyn Kelly Show - Cowardly Media, and Trump's 2024 Court Battles, with Bari Weiss, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Phil Houston

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

00:00:11.940 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday. This is our

00:00:17.080 last live show of 2023. Next week, we've got a week of taped episodes that I am very excited

00:00:26.280 about. We've been working around the clock on them and you're going to love them because I take these

00:00:30.560 two weeks with my family for Christmas vacation, but I don't like to leave you guys with two weeks

00:00:34.980 of old shows. I mean, you know, best ofs, but you know, not fresh. So you're going to have a fresh

00:00:40.540 week of program next week. And I'm telling you, I think it's so good. I'm going to be listening to

00:00:45.880 it myself on vacation. So that's as high of an endorsement as I can give to the team that came

00:00:51.480 up with a really great program and I love it. Okay. But for now, as Hanukkah comes to an end

00:00:57.580 tonight, the rise of antisemitism in America has never been more glaring. My gosh, it really does

00:01:03.000 feel like that. I mean, it's around every corner. It's lurking everywhere you go on Twitter or X,

00:01:10.320 go on Facebook, walk down the street. It's everywhere. Today, a menorah destroyed in Oakland,

00:01:16.560 California, and one on the Harvard campus, which has led, which has had to go into hiding each

00:01:22.160 night. I've appreciated my friend, Barry Weiss's work on this topic since the October 7th terror

00:01:26.680 attack in Israel. And I'm happy to welcome her back to the show today. She's the founder, CEO and

00:01:31.720 editor of the free press. She is also host of honestly with Barry Weiss. Barry, so good to see you. How

00:01:41.720 you doing? So happy to see you too, Megan. Thanks for everything you've been covering this show,

00:01:46.280 especially since 10 seven. Oh, of course. I mean, you know, you and I've talked about this for a long

00:01:51.420 time. You know, I remember one of our first episodes you came on and we talked about antisemitism

00:01:56.780 and you, and I've quoted it many times. You, you talked about how, well, the thing is Jews,

00:02:02.200 they don't count. They don't rate on the DEI scale. And we're, you know, noting it. It's not like you were

00:02:09.260 an activist. Everybody must, we have to join the DEI crowd. You know, we belong. You were even back then

00:02:15.640 going a different way, which is DEI is pernicious. This ideology must be combated. And here we are in

00:02:22.820 the wake of this massacre. Now, even the more liberal Jewish community starting to see it.

00:02:28.660 So let me start there as Michelle Goldberg has a piece today, uh, writing about this very thing

00:02:33.920 about how, gee, there are a lot of former liberals who are becoming more conservative.

00:02:38.860 I wonder why, what is it? Do they not realize how awful their ideas are? Cause like,

00:02:44.760 this seems to be a thing. So is this a thing now more than ever? And if so, why?

00:02:50.200 Well, I'll give you a little anecdote, but it really typifies so many conversations that I've

00:02:54.620 had over the past. It's felt like one day, but I guess it's been more than two months.

00:02:59.040 I met a young woman, uh, probably 28 years old, educated at all of the elite schools that are

00:03:04.800 currently in the news. And she said to me, Barry, I went to bed on October 6th as a progressive

00:03:10.140 liberal. And I went to bed on October 7th as a 70 year old Republican. What happened to me?

00:03:16.720 And, you know, and, and so I think that the shift that's been happening in major parts of American

00:03:24.480 life for a long time sort of has happened in a very, very rapid way inside large parts of the

00:03:31.840 American Jewish community, which it should be noted is a pretty small community. It seems bigger

00:03:35.860 than it is, I think to many people, especially these days. Um, but, but I think what she meant

00:03:40.620 by that is that a lot of the assumptions that she had about the Israeli Palestinian conflict,

00:03:46.680 but maybe also in terms of who she believed her allies were, you know, she was talking to me about

00:03:53.560 going and marching alongside so many different movements, so many different groups that are

00:03:59.740 oppressed or that have had terrible experiences historically in this country and thinking,

00:04:04.600 well, of course those people are going to stand up with me. And all of a sudden, a lot of progressive

00:04:08.660 Jews looked around on October 8th, because it was, remember, as soon as October 8th, that people were

00:04:14.300 marching, so-called progressives in favor of a death cult, Hamas. And they were saying, wait,

00:04:20.620 these are my friends? These aren't my friends. These are people who are marching on behalf of a group,

00:04:26.720 maybe in certain cloaked language, but fundamentally marching on behalf of a group

00:04:30.980 that wants me and my family dead. So maybe it's time for me to reassess my own politics. And I think

00:04:36.880 that that experience is just what's happening, sort of began on October 8th. And as people are watching,

00:04:44.360 you know, the lie that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism fall apart as basic Jewish symbols,

00:04:50.960 like the menorah in Oakland, like the menorah in Berkeley, like at Yale, where a group of students,

00:04:58.640 you know, climbed a giant menorah and hung a Palestinian flag there. Sorry, like, convince me

00:05:05.060 that that isn't anti-Semitism. You know, the burden is sort of on the people who are still trying to

00:05:09.620 claim that there's a bright line between those two things, when obviously and very clearly there isn't.

00:05:15.300 Barry, why do you think 64% of the Black community is against Israel in this conflict, according to

00:05:22.160 the latest Gallup poll? Look, that's a much deeper, longer conversation that's hard to contain to it,

00:05:29.060 a short answer. But I'll say one thing, which is that one thing that DEI has very successfully done

00:05:35.920 is to create these extraordinarily crude racial categories, as all of us know, right? It's taken

00:05:43.800 basic ideas of right and wrong and replace them with a new power matrix. If you're powerful, you are

00:05:50.780 necessarily bad. And if you're powerless, you are necessarily good. And everything that you do needs to

00:05:56.740 be judged not by the merits or demerits, whatever that word would be, of your deed, but really just based on

00:06:05.780 the identity of the person carrying them out. And so what this has done is several things. One, Jews do not

00:06:13.780 fit in to a crude racial category of right and wrong, nor do we fit into a crude power category,

00:06:20.680 because in certain ways, our community, at least in America, is very successful if you look at all of

00:06:26.300 the statistics. And yet, why is it that so many people that we know are scared to put their menorah

00:06:32.700 in the window this Hanukkah, including so many progressives and liberals that I know? Why is it that

00:06:37.940 to go into any Jewish place in this country, I don't think most ordinary Americans, most Christians realize

00:06:44.120 this, to go into a Jewish synagogue, you have to go through metal detectors, and there are armed guards. And

00:06:50.520 that has been the case, not just for 10-7, that's been the case for a decade. Why is it that at the Jewish

00:06:56.260 preschool, where my daughter will begin in a few months from now, there is there is more, it is more hardened

00:07:02.560 than LAX. And that is because the Jewish community is both powerful and unbelievably vulnerable.

00:07:10.560 And yet you have this ideology that says, nope, none of that matters. All of your history is washed

00:07:15.700 away. You are now white people, because the vast majority of American Jews, not the vast, but a large

00:07:21.660 number of American Jews are Ashkenazi. They're of Eastern European descent. They look like me. They look

00:07:26.280 white. They're white passing. Therefore, they benefit from white privilege. Therefore, they're white.

00:07:30.520 Therefore, they are part of the oppressed, excuse me, the oppressor category, despite 3,000 years of

00:07:37.360 history that would indicate otherwise. This connects to your question, because if Jews are understood

00:07:43.220 to not just be in the oppressor side of the spectrum, but indeed something like uber white people,

00:07:51.140 then it stands to reason that a lot of people who have bought into this ideology will come to see them

00:07:56.700 as nefarious. There's another part of the ideology that I think is really important to point out,

00:08:01.340 which is that it judges justice, not based on equality of opportunity, but based on equality of

00:08:09.020 outcome. And if you look at Jewish success, let's say in America, and you look at the inordinate number

00:08:15.900 of Jews in, you know, who have won Nobel prizes or have succeeded economically or whatever, choose,

00:08:22.000 choose the category you want to choose. Well, that's a little bit suspicious, right? Because

00:08:27.460 any disparity of outcome has to be the result of systemic discrimination. Any disparity of outcome

00:08:35.700 has to be some kind of conspiracy is what this ideology suggests, which is why, of course, it's not

00:08:41.880 just Jews that have been singled out, but Asian Americans who have had an unbelievable amount of

00:08:46.620 success, at least when it comes to academic life. And so an ideology that suggests that any differences

00:08:53.240 in outcome is somehow suspicious will inevitably lead to a politics that is suspicious and indeed

00:09:01.700 hostile to the Jews. The last thing that I'll say is that this ideology looks at foreign conflicts

00:09:10.000 that are enormously complicated. And indeed, in the question of the Israeli Arab conflict or

00:09:15.480 the Jewish Muslim conflict, there's many ways that we could describe that conflict is very,

00:09:20.440 very deep. And it takes a crude American racial lens and dumps it on something that's happening

00:09:28.040 10,000 miles away. And it says, and this is what it stipulates, and it's really crazy to even say this

00:09:35.200 out loud, but this is genuinely what it stipulates. Palestinians are like Black Americans before the

00:09:42.040 civil rights movement. They are the oppressed and the Jews, the Israelis, nevermind the fact that the

00:09:48.720 majority of them are people of color. They're of North African and Middle Eastern descent. None of that

00:09:54.680 matters. They are like white Americans in the Jim Crow South. And that is what a large number of people

00:10:02.220 who cannot locate Israel on a map that have no idea what sea they're referring to when they chant or they

00:10:08.480 post from the river to the sea belief. Adding to that, and then I'll promise I'll stop talking,

00:10:14.300 is the fact that there are prominent leaders in the Black American community in this country,

00:10:20.660 like Louis Farrakhan, who for a long time have been legitimated and have more massive followings

00:10:28.660 than I think a lot of people are comfortable to acknowledge. And that is also a reality.

00:10:34.840 Yeah. Farrakhan. I remember Chelsea Handler retweeting Farrakhan videos. This is a guy

00:10:40.900 who's referred to Jews as cockroaches. Retweet. He's got a lot of thoughts one might want to think

00:10:45.880 about, one might want to follow, not to mention Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the intellectual mentor

00:10:51.640 of our two-term president, Barack Obama, who was an obvious anti-Semite. And there are plenty of

00:10:57.980 quotes to back that up. In this whole conflict, you've seen Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi,

00:11:03.560 all BLM, Chicago, not to mention the national, all either explicitly supporting Hamas or with a wink

00:11:12.880 and a nod making clear that's the side that they're on. It's been really stunning. And to your last

00:11:17.600 point about how any outcome, any inequality and outcome has to be attributed to the oppressor

00:11:23.520 oppressed narrative. I'm sure you saw today the news that the mayor of Chicago, who happens to be

00:11:29.000 Black, who ran very open about how left he was. They had a chance to elect somebody who was more

00:11:34.240 in the middle and they didn't. I mean, so you get what you vote for. Good luck to you, Chicago.

00:11:39.000 Used to be a great city. This guy said, though, that he wasn't going to get rid of the elevated

00:11:46.140 schools, the they call them the high achieving select enrollment schools, the high schools.

00:11:50.840 But he's doing it. He just announced his name is Brandon Johnson. He's going to axe the high

00:11:57.300 achieving select enrollment high schools in an effort to, quote, boost equity, boost equity,

00:12:02.860 because you cannot have the kids taking the AP classes over here while all students, no matter

00:12:11.060 where they live in Chicago, might not be taking those exams. It doesn't matter if there are two

00:12:15.580 standard deviations in terms of IQ testing ability. You've got to put an upper limit on the kids who

00:12:22.940 have this academic ability and drive and willingness to work hard because it's not fair. In his view,

00:12:28.600 they're going to have a better outcome than the kids who aren't. It is. It is unbelievable to me

00:12:35.700 that an ideology has gained such power and purchase in this country that suggests that the way to fix

00:12:41.260 disparity, the way to elevate poor and minority students who are not performing is simply to get

00:12:47.560 rid of any measure of performance at all. The latest thing, the story I saw it on Twitter,

00:12:54.280 Megan, like you did at this point, I'm not surprised because it's part of a much broader movement that has

00:13:00.580 been gaining traction for a while. At most elite universities in this country, you no longer have to

00:13:06.080 share your SAT score, right? Think about what happened in cities like San Francisco, where Lowell,

00:13:12.700 right, one of these amazing public high schools where you had to test into it, or Stuyvesant in New

00:13:18.760 York. Progressives have been trying to sort of make war against Stuyvesant and other schools like that

00:13:25.620 for a while, claiming that they themselves are emblematic of injustice when instead what they have

00:13:32.540 been historically are engines of the merit of the true meritocracy, right? They have been ways for

00:13:41.140 lower and lower middle class and poor kids, many of them Asian, many of them the children of immigrants

00:13:48.860 to work their way up. A generation or two ago, they were places where, you know, many Jewish immigrants

00:13:55.600 to this country who didn't have two pennies to rub together would send their kids. And the idea that

00:14:00.760 we would sort of try and unravel those things that have actually been the greatest engines of

00:14:08.680 opportunity for the poor is mind-blowing to me. I don't understand how there isn't a mass progressive

00:14:17.860 movement to oppose it. I really don't. Yeah. I think about the schools that my kids are in. We're in

00:14:24.060 private schools in Connecticut. We were in private schools in New York. These are wonderful schools.

00:14:28.220 The elite of the elite would send their kids here. And you know what they'd be doing if they got rid

00:14:33.040 of the AP or advanced courses at these schools? They'd be hurting a lot of black and brown kids.

00:14:38.200 I mean, you can't just with a magic wand say it's all whites who I will now disadvantage by getting

00:14:44.060 rid of the advanced challenging classes. I mean, that in itself is racist. What he's going to do is

00:14:48.900 deprive the hardest working, brightest and best kids of color, too, of any opportunity to improve

00:14:54.680 their lives beyond what maybe their parents had. It's his own racism. And there's an obvious implicit

00:15:00.780 understanding that he's going to hurt the whites to equal them out to the blacks. And that's just not

00:15:05.540 how life works, especially in today's day and age. But, you know, Barry, you look at our country right

00:15:10.400 now, 2023, America, almost 24. And more and more, we're looking more like 1950, right? Where

00:15:16.240 we just had this Boston mayor. You saw this Boston mayor sent out a Christmas invitation for a holiday

00:15:22.600 party. All no whites need apply. No whites. Thanks. Just quote the coloreds. That's her word.

00:15:29.480 I'm just going to take the colors. I saw it. And then I was just I got drawn into other work. Did she

00:15:35.500 defend it? Yeah. The only thing she was sorry for is that her secretary, when she sent out the email

00:15:43.140 invite and mistakenly sent it to everyone whites, too. So whites got the invitation saying you're not

00:15:50.640 invited. So she was sorry that she called attention to the whites, that they couldn't come. But she's

00:15:54.600 not sorry about having a no whites party. We I guess I'm watching all of this and I'm thinking,

00:16:01.560 don't people understand where this goes? Like this goes nowhere. Good. The idea of

00:16:09.540 you tribalizing Americans, not to be aware of differences, not to be sensitive to historic wrongs

00:16:17.340 or historic. And it was systemic racism in this country, but to be obsessively fixated on our race

00:16:25.760 to retribalize us, to make us suspicious of people who look different from us because of that. I mean,

00:16:33.220 it's just it leads to like what history shows is this leads to just the darkest places imaginable.

00:16:42.440 And I don't think I think most ordinary Americans are absolutely horrified by it. Unfortunately,

00:16:47.740 as you know, Megan, and as I know, this ideology has had just incredible power inside some of the

00:16:54.560 most crucial sense making institutions in American life. And all this ideology knows how to do is to

00:17:01.000 pull us back into the mean of history by tearing things down, tearing things down that have made

00:17:05.860 this country so unbelievably exceptional, so tolerant. So when you look at other countries,

00:17:13.320 not racist, and somehow they want to they're making a choice in their positions of power to to undo all of

00:17:20.800 that. And, you know, it's not good. I know. I mean, I don't have any is that it really is the

00:17:27.960 philosophy coming to life of like, the answer to past discrimination is more discrimination,

00:17:33.100 except right against the against the other group. I mean, he won't be happy until we see

00:17:37.920 like whites only water fountains. That's that's where his vision of America takes us. Sure,

00:17:43.640 he's applauding the Boston mayor and the Chicago mayor. By the way, we have the Boston mayor defending

00:17:49.140 her actions. She's an Asian woman married to a white guy. So I don't know, as she considered

00:17:54.120 colored, can she go because she's people of color? And that the husband, he gets the boot on the

00:17:58.780 forehead. No, it's sorry to too light. Here she is. There is there is no universal truth. There's no

00:18:06.640 principle. There's just power. There's just power. And, you know, and they believe that that as you

00:18:13.140 just said, as Ibram Kendi think, thankfully, he says it very explicitly, that the answer to past

00:18:18.120 discrimination is present discrimination. And I just never believe that. That's why, you know, in,

00:18:23.020 in all of the conversation in the Jewish community since 10-7 and and really not not just to the war

00:18:30.300 going on in Israel, but the very obvious waves of anti-Semitism that are happening all over this

00:18:35.540 country, including on college campuses, a lot of people in the Jewish community are looking around

00:18:40.740 and saying, hey, what about us? Why have we been left out of sort of the DEI victim, you know, the

00:18:48.440 the good side, the victim side of the DEI matrix? Put us on air quotes for the listening audience.

00:18:55.320 Yeah. Put us put us in a better position. That is the wrong answer. That is the always the wrong

00:19:02.860 answer. And that is because the answer to past discrimination is not more discrimination.

00:19:07.460 It's to get rid of discrimination. It's to get rid of an ideology and a bureaucracy that goes by the

00:19:14.340 name DEI that uses these virtuous words like diversity, equity and inclusion, robs them of

00:19:20.800 their actual meaning and uses them as a way to to create, frankly, what we're seeing right now,

00:19:26.980 which is illiberalism and anti-Semitism run amok. And, you know, I've had many, many,

00:19:32.700 many hundreds of conversations over the past while inside the Jewish community with people who

00:19:39.220 are saying, you know, who are who are really trying to come to terms with the fact that

00:19:43.340 the solution is not for our community to beg for a better position in a poisonous,

00:19:50.540 ruinous ideology. It is to fight to uproot that ideology root and branch, because guess what?

00:19:57.720 It's not just dangerous for Jews. It is fundamentally dangerous for every single idea

00:20:04.080 that has made this country exceptional. Yes, for Jews, but for every single one of us.

00:20:10.380 You know, I feel somewhat hopeful that our coalition that you and I have been part of for

00:20:15.060 a long time fighting back against this nonsense is growing. I don't feel good about the means that

00:20:20.400 led to this growth, but I'm glad to see it growing through a couple of things. Obviously,

00:20:25.700 the rise in anti-Semitism in America after 10-7 is the number one thing driving

00:20:31.460 formerly woke or just more left-leaning liberal Jews to reevaluate their thoughts on DEI.

00:20:38.740 But let's not forget the affirmative action case that an Asian student brought and many other Asians

00:20:44.620 were affected by it because of the discrimination going on against them at these Ivy Leaks. These

00:20:49.420 groups who culturally have been raised to work hard to prize academic achievement and then have

00:20:58.580 attained it now get classified as white, no matter whether, as you point out, they're really not

00:21:04.680 Jewish or Asian, but they get classified.

00:21:07.420 Don't forget, Megan. Asians are white adjacent, according to this ideology.

00:21:11.600 That's right. They're white adjacent, just like George Zimmerman was white adjacent as a Hispanic

00:21:15.420 American. If you do anything bad, you're white adjacent if you have any color. Anyway, it's good

00:21:24.640 because as I see it, our little coalition is growing. And I know there are a lot of conservatives

00:21:29.400 who have been anti-woke, who are kind of irritated. Like, where were you when we needed you? A lot of us

00:21:35.760 have been fighting these battles for a long time. I get that. But I also feel like we're on the

00:21:40.880 battlefield. It's Braveheart. Our army's been divided. It's coming back together. Don't say

00:21:45.540 no to the additional troops. Do you want to win or don't you?

00:21:48.720 Right. I have to say, well, there's two things that that reaction relies on. One is the myth,

00:21:55.080 frankly. It's true that this ideology has been is obviously racist. That has been true. But there

00:22:01.480 haven't been, as some have claimed, massive numbers of students on American college campuses

00:22:06.660 calling for white genocide or calling for the genocide of Asian Americans. So it was you can

00:22:13.940 give people somewhat the benefit of the doubt for not being fully awakened to it. The second thing is

00:22:19.080 that, you know, the response to people saying, I'm sorry, I was wrong or I'm sorry, I was wrong and

00:22:26.400 I'm pulling my money even better. Or I'm sorry, I was wrong. I'm pulling my money and I'm using it to

00:22:30.800 build new things. Shouldn't the response to that be excellent? We're so happy to have you. The sort

00:22:38.240 of like rejection of people changing their minds because they didn't wake up earlier enough. It's

00:22:44.840 just it's an impulse that I don't really understand, to be honest. No, I mean that you could say that to

00:22:48.980 me on the trans thing. You know, I've documented publicly that I was very much pro nothing but

00:22:56.480 empathy for anyone who declared themselves trans six years ago, 10 years ago. And for me, it's been

00:23:03.340 an evolution. It's not that I don't have empathy for people who say they're trans. It's that I see

00:23:07.820 their activists as truly a dangerous dark force. And I see what's happening to children in a very

00:23:13.320 different light than I used to. It would be as if, you know, people who are way ahead of me on this,

00:23:17.560 like the Helen Joyce's of the world said, no, get out. You were on the wrong side. No, we need as many

00:23:22.660 helpers on these things as we can get. Right. It's like Abigail Schreier could spend every single

00:23:27.500 day of her life saying I told you so. But instead, what she chooses to do is to say, you know, I'm glad

00:23:33.940 I'm glad you're seeing reality. I'm, you know, I'm glad you're here. Everyone has a choice to sort

00:23:39.720 of be gracious. And it is interesting to me to notice sort of who has who has not extended that

00:23:47.420 kind of graciousness. But I agree. I mean, if there's there's a silver lining to the really

00:23:54.160 the nightmare of of these days that have passed. And I really feel like it's been one extremely long

00:24:01.940 day since October 7th. It's the fact that people are waking up to the reality of what this ideology

00:24:09.320 is really about and the ultimate end of where it can go, which is a very, very dangerous and dark

00:24:16.200 place. And I think the other thing is that those insults that many of us have withstood for many

00:24:23.420 years now, they have really lost their poisonous power. I'm noticing people just call me whatever

00:24:29.160 you want. I'm not going to be I'm not going to stand here and and justify or apologize for

00:24:36.940 terrorism and evil. And if you want to call me an ism or a phobe or whatever insult you can come up

00:24:44.500 with, because I am willing to stand up with a straight spine and say, there is a difference

00:24:50.960 between good and evil and I will condemn evil. Go ahead. And that is a huge change that has happened

00:24:58.160 in the past few months. Well, so one word on Abigail Schreier, who I know does work for the

00:25:03.800 free press, too. And I absolutely love her in her book. Irreversible Damage was a game changer for me,

00:25:09.960 too. She was also one of our first guests. And I've read that thing forward and back a couple of

00:25:14.680 times. And she's just so smart. It really opened my eyes to what was happening. She has been brilliant

00:25:20.960 and write about a lot before others were. But some of you, Barry, you know, you you're of the left and

00:25:26.980 you are fighting back against this stuff early on. And while, you know, your politics may not align with

00:25:32.640 a lot of these anti woke warriors on the right. Your anti work war work is I'd put it up against

00:25:38.500 anybody's. I mean, it's you're leading the charge on that stuff and have been. But you also you also

00:25:44.960 let's not forget, as I put it to you when you came on the show so many years ago, walked out of the New

00:25:50.900 York Times like what Daenerys Targaryen with the fires around you setting the place ablaze.

00:25:58.580 Like you people are disgusting. You're biased. And one thing in particular you really don't like

00:26:05.980 is Israel. You said that. And here we are. I mean, the proof is all around us daily. And I know you

00:26:15.860 know that James Bennett, the guy who OK, the Tom Cotton editorial has now dropped an enormous 17000

00:26:22.380 word piece. Just excoriating the Times for he was on the other side originally. So he was in the

00:26:29.400 Times as a defender. Then he got the boot after he allowed Tom Cotton to say we need troops to contain

00:26:34.660 the BLM George Floyd fallout. Now he's laying it all bare and he's backing up everything, everything

00:26:41.940 you said. Yeah, it's it's a very, very long piece. It's on the cover of The Economist just came out

00:26:48.340 yesterday. It's really worth picking up the magazine or printing it out and reading it.

00:26:53.500 It's it's not something that's a quick it's not it cannot be contained in a quick tweet.

00:26:58.940 But really what he shows and it's it's such a tragic story because this was a person and this

00:27:04.900 was my old boss, I should add, and a friend hired me and Brett Stevens from The Wall Street Journal to

00:27:10.940 the Times was genuinely committed to bringing some measure of of political and and ideological diversity

00:27:19.000 into the pages. It's a really a story of of ideological capture. It's a story of how

00:27:26.060 trust can be destroyed in so short a time. And it's really in the end, a story about cowardice.

00:27:35.440 And in this case, the cowardice of the publisher of The New York Times and people who saw the way

00:27:42.500 that the institution was being transformed, who disagreed with it in private and yet who never

00:27:48.140 had the courage to condemn it, to root it out. And now I think the piece would suggest it's sort of

00:27:55.760 too late because once you lose trust with the public and trust with the reader, once you've made

00:28:01.400 the fact that, you know, the paper is no longer about all the news that's fit to print, but all

00:28:06.820 the news that fits the narrative, how do you recover from that? And it's in addition, like so

00:28:13.480 many stories of our moment, it's a story about scapegoating. I'm really happy that James in

00:28:19.960 particular points out the way that a 25 year old at the time editor, an extraordinary talent named Adam

00:28:28.360 Rubenstein, who was one of several editors on that piece who had a hand in it, was hung out to dry by

00:28:34.360 the New York Times and how profoundly wrong that was and the way that it ultimately drove him out as

00:28:41.840 well. So it's I mean, it's it's an astonishing piece. There's there's two things that I think will

00:28:46.900 shock, especially your viewers. One is a conversation that James relays in which another colleague

00:28:53.900 suggests not glibly, sincerely, that trigger warnings should be put in front of op ed pieces

00:29:01.300 of conservatives and heterodox thinkers, as if trigger warnings would solve their problem.

00:29:07.520 And the other thing is where he has a conversation with the publisher of the New York Times,

00:29:12.120 A.G. Solzberger, in which James is relaying the complaints of one of the few conservatives on staff

00:29:18.920 claiming what was so obviously true and the thing that sort of really, really wore you down.

00:29:25.780 And I say this again as someone who was conservative with air quotes in the context of the New York

00:29:31.200 Times. But, you know, you guys I mean, you have a sense of where I stand in general. I'd say I've

00:29:36.200 sort of always been like a pretty down the line liberal centrist, I guess you could say. I don't

00:29:43.020 even know what I am now, given how far things have moved. But James is relaying this to the publisher,

00:29:47.640 this sort of like grind of the fact that if if you have the right views, your piece sails into the

00:29:53.580 paper. But if you don't have the right views, everything is caveated, edited, triple, quadruple

00:30:00.020 the amount of times. And it makes you ultimately shy away from publishing anything that doesn't

00:30:06.020 comport because it's just such a grinding process. And the publisher of the New York Times says to

00:30:10.540 James, you have to tell him that that's just the way it is here, that the double standard is the norm

00:30:15.320 here and he has to get used to it. And James talks about, you know, how of all the things that

00:30:20.380 happened to him, especially in the three days before he was pushed out of the paper after publishing Tom

00:30:25.440 Cotton. That's the only moment that he was actually felt shame about. Yeah, for obvious reasons. It's

00:30:32.620 an extraordinarily powerful piece. I am so thrilled that that is now part of what I hope will be the

00:30:38.880 historic record about in sort of the history of the most important newspaper in the country and how

00:30:44.820 it was lost. Yeah, it was lost. And he lays it bare. I mean, he goes on about here's just one

00:30:51.560 example. He talks about how a year into Trump's presidency, he published a slate of letters from

00:30:57.420 Trump voters reflecting on the presidency. And his colleagues at the New York Times were so outraged,

00:31:03.100 he got grilled by them at an internal town hall in which they demanded to know when he intended on

00:31:09.800 publishing a page of full letters written by supporters of former President Barack Obama.

00:31:16.480 Like, wait, why? We're trying to get a finger on the pulse of the Trump presidency and how the Trump

00:31:22.300 voters are experiencing it. Why then do we need a full slate of letters about someone who's no longer

00:31:28.960 president? I mean, there are just so many powerful examples in here. But what that one speaks to is

00:31:37.740 how the New York Times went from being a place that claimed to want to reflect the world as it actually

00:31:45.640 is, right? Great journalism gives its readers information, even if that information is uncomfortable,

00:31:53.700 about the world that they live in, so that they can make informed choices for their families,

00:31:59.960 for their businesses, for their communities and for their lives. And instead, and this was like the

00:32:06.320 core part of the change, it came to be that actually showing the views of half of the country

00:32:14.100 came to be seen as somehow endorsing them, platforming them. And if you want to know how it is that

00:32:22.880 the New York Times sort of increasingly reflects the the micro bubble of an elite group of Americans

00:32:30.820 speaking to each other, rather than being the paper of record, that is how and James Bennett's piece

00:32:37.940 really, really will leave anyone who reads it walking away, understanding how that happened. And,

00:32:45.020 you know, the preconditions for allowing that, right? It's he talks about A.G. Salzburger recently wrote,

00:32:51.420 the publisher, a very long piece in the Columbia Journalism Review, sort of about the importance of

00:32:55.900 journalism, et cetera, et cetera. And he talks about all of these virtues that are important

00:33:00.020 for journalists in America today. And James points out in his piece in The Economist that

00:33:04.600 the virtue that is missing is maybe the most important virtue of all. And that is the virtue of

00:33:09.920 courage. It's a virtue of courage. And, you know, that is not just true of The New York Times.

00:33:16.980 It's true of everywhere we're looking in American life. It's like this epidemic of cowardice and,

00:33:22.240 you know, what it requires, especially of journalists in a moment where to write about

00:33:27.800 a topic makes you can make you suspicious. What's required in that is not total fearlessness,

00:33:36.680 because that's impossible, but courage in the face of fear. And that's what The New York Times and so

00:33:42.040 many other institutions right now are missing.

00:33:43.660 And you just shrink your organization. You know, when Roger was running Fox News,

00:33:48.720 I was back then more, you know, I would say center. I had some center left positions. I had

00:33:55.240 some center right positions. And, you know, I've said openly, I have voted for both Democrats and

00:34:00.740 Republicans in my eight presidential elections alive. And so I would come at some issues from the

00:34:07.820 left, especially back then. He never, never said, don't do that. He said, it's good. Keep going

00:34:14.480 like surprise people. It's I'm fine with that. He he understood it. It was to Fox's benefit to have

00:34:21.000 these ideas fleshed out, to have challenges come from the left and the right, to not just go with

00:34:25.500 Republican talking points all the time. And the Times, they're just too ideologically committed to

00:34:30.680 those ideas, to have them challenged in any way. The Republicans ideas in and of themselves are

00:34:36.420 considered harmful. And this is what Bennett writes. The Times's problem has metastasized from

00:34:42.300 liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favor one side of the national debate to an impulse

00:34:49.140 to shut debate down altogether. That really is a worse sin than just ganging up on Republican ideas

00:34:58.180 to to not allow them to be spoken or printed is a bigger sin. Yes. And the biggest thing of all is

00:35:06.220 like we're heading into 2024. And like, doesn't the New York Times want to avoid the thing that so

00:35:14.940 shamed the newspaper in 2016? You know, like, do they want to their readers if Trump wins that election

00:35:22.780 to wake up and say, we're absolutely shocked. We thought it was going to be Biden with 100 percent

00:35:27.920 certainty. Like, it's actually in an ultimate way, very bad. You would think bad for business.

00:35:34.940 But unfortunately, we're living in this moment in which the economic incentives are such that

00:35:41.120 every paper, every station, everything largely other than independent podcasting and newsletter

00:35:49.000 writing, although we can fall prey to it, too, is is captured by the audience and wants to feed it

00:35:55.120 the brand of sort of partisan heroin that they seek. And so, you know, but but ultimately,

00:36:03.680 you know, I guess I'm an optimist. My bet is that, you know, integrity and trust and telling the truth

00:36:09.680 and being honest in the end, that is the better journalistic strategy. I know you agree with that.

00:36:16.540 Yeah, 100 percent. All right. Quick break. We're going to come right back. And there's much more to

00:36:20.740 discuss, including this news today out of Germany that four senior members of Hamas were arrested

00:36:27.540 preparing to attack Jews in Europe. My God, it's chilling.

00:36:36.640 So, Barry, this thing is not over, as you know. The conflict continues, of course, in Gaza, but

00:36:43.680 it's spreading. And, you know, we're seeing sort of piecemeal attacks here in the United States

00:36:49.220 and now over in Europe, which is especially sensitive for obvious reasons, given the history

00:36:53.680 there. We wrote a news breaking this morning that four senior members of Hamas were arrested

00:36:57.760 in Germany Thursday, preparing to attack Jews, Jewish institutions in Europe. They were ordered by

00:37:05.980 Hamas leaders in Lebanon to bring weapons into Berlin, where they could be used to attack Jews

00:37:12.040 in Europe. The authorities say these men were tracked in October as they searched for weapons

00:37:19.060 that Hamas operatives had stored in an underground cache in Europe some time ago. Not immediately clear

00:37:25.680 if the men ever found that underground stash of weapons. So, I mean, this this is exactly the kind

00:37:31.980 of thing that could be potentially devastating. It's like the after, you know, shock to the original

00:37:37.420 earthquake. Not to be completely cynical, but I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened already

00:37:42.080 on a larger scale. I am. I have to say that this telegraph story, I don't know why it's why it's not

00:37:50.120 the biggest story of the morning. I was I was looking sort of all over. I saw it there. I was reading

00:37:55.200 the details. And it's really horrifying. I mean, it seems like it was a pretty developed plot.

00:38:01.980 And I guess the first thought that came to mind, Megan, was like, this is what globalized the

00:38:07.500 Intifada is. Like when people are sort of mindlessly shouting that slogan, what do they what do they

00:38:15.040 think it means? This is what it means. It means not just war on the Jews and the non-Jews of Israel,

00:38:23.840 but global war against the Jews. You know, and and there was an incredible appearance by Douglas

00:38:30.280 Murray, who's just been so superlative in every way the past few months. I know we both love him.

00:38:37.560 He was on piers with a guy who was just dissembling and trying to convince people,

00:38:41.960 trying to convince viewers that Intifada actually means a sort of spiritual struggle. Like,

00:38:48.000 sure, maybe that's the textbook definition of it. But when people are out there screaming for

00:38:53.560 Intifada, they are talking about an armed uprising against the Jewish people. And when you see people,

00:39:02.020 civilized people, progressive, so-called progressive people posting about globalizing

00:39:07.560 the Intifada or shouting it in cities and campuses around the world, like this story from this morning

00:39:14.100 is is what they're talking about. That's exactly what Hamas wants to do. They have said again and again,

00:39:20.860 they want to do 10-7 over and over and over and over again. It's not about just making war against

00:39:28.320 Israel. It's not just about making life in Israel untenable. It is about what is in their original

00:39:34.440 charter, genociding the Jewish people. There was another story that that kind of took my breath away.

00:39:41.840 It's not a good thing to look at Twitter first thing in the morning. I don't know if this one is not

00:39:45.720 It's a very bad thing because I mean, many great things about uncensored Twitter, but also

00:39:51.600 many, many disturbing things. And there was a story that took place. There was a nursery director

00:39:57.020 targeted in a suburb of Paris, in which someone came in with a knife, a man armed with a knife,

00:40:04.180 broke into the nursery and said to her, you're Jewish. You're a Zionist. Five of us will come to rape

00:40:10.540 you, cut you up like they do in Gaza. That's in Europe this week. And that's to say nothing of

00:40:20.260 the kind of quiet erasure that's been happening during Hanukkah, in which, and I'm sure you saw

00:40:25.360 there was a story, a London council said they don't want to light the menorah in public for fears of

00:40:30.580 inflaming local tensions. It's unbelievable. Since when does lighting a menorah, bringing light in a

00:40:39.120 dark time, how does that inflame local tensions? Shouldn't the normal response of a government or

00:40:46.420 a police force be, we will punish the people who see that as a sign of hate? Instead, it's something

00:40:54.520 about it. Right. And do something about it. Instead, the response is, you know, Jewish community

00:40:59.740 quietly, you know, do this in private. I'm sure you saw there was that. I mean, like if Christians were

00:41:04.860 targeted or if Christians found themselves in this kind of a battle and the response was, we're not

00:41:09.320 going to allow the lighting of Christmas trees, the rock center tree, it's not going up. And we

00:41:13.700 strongly advise you against putting a lit Christmas tree in your window. There would be outrage.

00:41:18.820 That's effectively what's happening here. Yes, exactly. I mean, at Harvard University,

00:41:25.240 one of the rabbis at Harvard University, there was a video that went viral, at least in the Jewish

00:41:29.980 community. And he talked about how, you know, Harvard has to put away the menorah at night

00:41:35.640 because it can be, you know, because it's a, I don't, you know, because, because I assume it's

00:41:41.660 some kind of provocative symbol at Harvard rather than saying, no, we're going to protect that symbol

00:41:46.640 as a major symbol of religious liberty to say, this is what we at Harvard stand for. Instead,

00:41:53.260 it's, we need to make this private. We need to make it quieter. We need to make it go away.

00:41:59.180 And we actually have that. We have that soundbite from Wednesday night.

00:42:02.000 I never spoke about this publicly, but this bothers me till this very day.

00:42:09.620 You know what happens to the menorah? After everyone leaves the yard, we're going to pack it up.

00:42:14.980 We have to hide it somewhere. The university, since the first Hanukkah, would not allow us to keep

00:42:21.760 this menorah here overnight because there's fear that it'll be vandalized. Think about that. We in

00:42:28.560 the Jewish community are instructed, we'll let you have the menorah. You made your point. Okay. Pack it

00:42:34.440 up. Don't leave it out overnight because there will be criminal activity we fear and it won't look

00:42:40.680 good. You know when, you know when change is going to happen on this campus, but we don't have to pack

00:42:46.920 up the menorah. We in the Jewish community are longing for a day that we could refer to the

00:42:51.460 president and all of Harvard as ours too. Harvard has indeed, not only has our back

00:42:57.800 and not only allows us to finally put up a menorah, but doesn't force us to hide it at night.

00:43:04.540 That's unbelievable. They have $50 billion endowment. They can't get a guard to stand up

00:43:10.700 there. But even more fundamental than that, it's like, don't people understand that religious

00:43:18.960 liberty and religious freedom is one of the most radical and transformative ideas that this country

00:43:26.240 was built on. It's just such a betrayal, not just, yeah, of course, of the Jewish community and

00:43:34.200 yes, of Harvard's values. And of course, they have a $50 billion endowment. They can get a guard.

00:43:39.620 But it's just the most fundamental level. It is a betrayal of one of the most core ideas that makes

00:43:46.700 America so different from so many other places in the world. And there seems to be just a total

00:43:52.080 like unmooring from those foundational values. And, you know, if one thing that I hope does come

00:44:00.440 from this horrible moment is just a reattachment to what those values are, that comes from looking at

00:44:07.120 how far we have strayed from them and how far so many of the people that are supposed to be our moral

00:44:12.340 and intellectual betters have utterly, utterly turned their backs on that.

00:44:16.860 Hmm. So well said. Now, one of the other things that's unique to America for better or worse is

00:44:23.240 the huge population of obese people. And we're going to end this on a lighter note, kind of it's a pun.

00:44:29.280 It's not really a lighter note. Well, it kind of actually is a lighter note. Oprah, Oprah is admitting

00:44:35.260 she's on Ozempic. And I know this is our team asked you what was interesting to you today. This is on

00:44:40.120 your list and mine. Because of course, you've done a lot of shows on Ozempic. I've listened to some of

00:44:46.160 them. We've talked about this or any they're all there's a bunch of drugs. That's just one of the

00:44:50.420 name brands. And now she said she originally wouldn't go on it because she thought it would

00:44:54.840 be, quote, cheating. But now she's admitted that her recent weight loss is due to Ozempic. So what

00:45:02.720 do you make of it? Or she hasn't named the brand, but that this kind of drug. Good for Oprah. I've

00:45:07.580 talked about it on my podcast with Peter Atiyah. I talk about it to anyone who will listen. I used

00:45:13.360 Ozempic. I lost 15 pounds on it. I was on the lowest dose. And it was incredibly effective.

00:45:20.340 And, you know, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. No one should follow my medical advice.

00:45:25.720 But there are horribly, horribly deleterious effects from being massively overweight. And

00:45:33.460 now the fact that people who have struggled for an extremely long time is Oprah's talked about

00:45:39.580 struggling. I mean, that's been a huge part of her public persona can take a drug that is so

00:45:45.080 unbelievably effective. Good for her. And I don't know if you agree or not, but I think that it's a

00:45:50.280 good thing to take the stigma away from this. I think it's fabulous. It was very, very obvious that

00:45:57.040 she was using it. We all knew that. Yeah, we all I mean, you turn I'm in L.A., right? You turn

00:46:03.080 around and like anyone that had an extra 20 pounds, including me. It's it's it's immediately

00:46:08.180 gone. It's like, OK, like, let's be at least she finally admitted it. It's like all these housewives

00:46:12.980 who deny that they're on it or like we know you're on it. Just admit it. They're the ones who are

00:46:17.760 attaching the shame to it. Oprah didn't help by sort of saying it's cheating. What do you mean?

00:46:23.200 It's cheating. It's a drug that helps people control their appetite. How is that cheating?

00:46:27.280 So she was probably on the wrong side of things when she was saying that. And now I think she was

00:46:32.920 sort of forced to admit, because as you say, it's obvious somebody like Oprah, who's constantly

00:46:37.400 up and down with the weight and hasn't been on the skinnier side for a long time. And then suddenly

00:46:42.680 after this miracle drug comes like we know, but she's still a spokesperson for Weight Watchers.

00:46:48.560 And I guess she's going to still tell us that the point system is really what's behind the weight loss.

00:46:52.960 Well, first of all, as as a person who has done Weight Watchers many times before,

00:46:57.780 the point system does work. It's just those empty way easier. The other thing is that Weight Watchers

00:47:03.480 now, I think I don't want to be misspeaking, but I'm pretty sure that they have some kind of

00:47:08.540 partnership with somebody because they're so unbelievably effective. Now, you know, are we all

00:47:16.200 going to wake up a little while from now and have grown like some strange additional appendage

00:47:21.360 because of the semi-glutides? I don't know, but I fit back into my skinny pants. So I'm happy.

00:47:26.440 I'm guessing it's too. All right. So a rare win for Oprah Winfrey here on the MK show.

00:47:34.600 I mean, I'm an Oprah head. I mean, I used to be, but I'm I'm against her now for all sorts of

00:47:41.820 reasons. But I but I'm also against obesity because I've told my audience before my doctor,

00:47:46.760 my primary care doctor, is a fattest. He is very against gaining weight. And there's a whole chart

00:47:52.900 in his office showing you all the terrible things that will happen to you if you become obese.

00:47:56.940 Doesn't take that much to cross over into obese. And so you're like, I'm sure he'd be in favor of

00:48:02.720 this or most of these other weight loss methods that could get you back in normal range because

00:48:06.620 like all the diseases that kill you come from obesity. And then some like dementia can be leaked.

00:48:12.440 It's like it's it's bad. Try not to become obese. And if you are, you can look into one of these

00:48:16.740 medications or the points ornament and fasting or whatever works for you. Barry Weiss, it's a

00:48:21.760 pleasure to see you, my friend. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. I'm so glad we ended on

00:48:28.140 the note of Ozepic. May this be a skinny, may this be a skinny and healthy year for all.

00:48:34.520 Amen. That's a good resolution. Bye. See you soon. Don't forget to check out the free press. It's

00:48:39.740 the fp.com. Up next, Kelly's court with two of the OGs, Arthur and Mark coming up. And boy,

00:48:47.620 do we have the gamut for you. Don't go away. And now we turn to Kelly's court with two of my

00:48:57.220 favorite legal eagles. Can I tell you something? Kelly's court is appreciated worldwide. If I could

00:49:03.880 tell you how many people, not just from the United States, but from other countries has told me that

00:49:09.460 this is the segment they live for on the MK show. I'm not kidding. And these two guys are two of the

00:49:16.560 OGs who made it possible back when I was still Megan Kendall, married to a different man and with

00:49:23.680 different hair. Arthur Idala, who's trial attorney and managing partner at Idala, Bertuna and Cayman's

00:49:30.220 PC and criminal defense attorney, Mark Iglarsh. We got the latest on Trump, satanic statues,

00:49:36.420 Mariah Carey, and much, much more guys. Great to have you back. You're our last live guest of 2023.

00:49:43.660 Yeah. Well, you know, Megan, back in the good old days, you're talking about, you used to have

00:49:46.820 these wild Christmas parties. I was jumping on stage and singing Mr. Brightside of the killer.

00:49:51.480 Right. I remember that, Megan Kelly. What happened to the parties?

00:49:56.520 Right. I'm promising we're going to renew that next year. It's done. It's happening. Just because I need

00:50:01.340 to see that again, by the way, not for nothing, but Arthur is going to be jumping on a different

00:50:05.680 kind of stage on February 14th of this year. Do you want to tell everybody what you're doing? It's

00:50:09.740 like one of the biggest legal things to happen in America. Yeah, I got the, I got the letter.

00:50:16.080 I think I got the letter last Monday. It's weird. You know, you get a letter from the court of appeals,

00:50:20.060 which in New York state, that's our highest court. And on February 14th at 2 PM, I told my wife,

00:50:26.680 honey, we're not going to be going out for a fancy lunch with a dozen roses because I'm going to be

00:50:31.500 before the seven judges of the court of appeals, arguing the case of the people of the state of

00:50:36.580 New York versus Harvey Weinstein. And there are definitely some legal issues there. You know,

00:50:42.820 sometimes as Mark knows, you know, you kind of go into something and you do the best you can,

00:50:47.740 but you know, the likelihood of success is not great here. I mean, there are real legal issues.

00:50:53.240 You don't automatically get to go to the court of appeals. A judge has to read a letter that you

00:50:58.560 submit and decide that the issues are so grave and would affect a lot of citizens of the state of

00:51:05.260 New York. Therefore, it should be heard. And this is going to be that case.

00:51:10.260 They're going to do great. Does it matter? What'd you say, Mark?

00:51:13.500 He'll kill it. No, I'm being serious. I think he's going to do great.

00:51:16.400 I'm already a nervous wreck.

00:51:17.380 It's not about Harvey Weinstein. It's about the other defendants who have the same legal issue

00:51:23.800 and let them argue it. Let's see what happens. Yeah. But here's my question for you. Does it

00:51:28.760 matter? I mean, one of the issues you're raising is this parade of other gals who came forward in

00:51:34.100 the trial against him, not just the ones who were the actual accusers. But really, can you allow that?

00:51:39.020 You know, we used to not allow that, you know, sort of prior bad act evidence wouldn't be allowed.

00:51:43.340 It was against him. New York's got this law in any event. That's one of the things.

00:51:48.600 But once he got convicted in L.A., I wondered whether this New York state appeal matters other than like in

00:51:55.100 principle. Well, you know, what Mark just said, there's two real main issues here that would affect

00:52:03.340 defendants throughout the whole state. One is what you just said, Megan, prior bad acts.

00:52:08.440 They're only supposed to be allowed in for very specific purposes.

00:52:11.720 And one of them is like to prove identification. Like, is this the guy who did it?

00:52:15.680 And the silly example I use is in the movie Home Alone, when the two burglars used to burglarize

00:52:20.880 a house, they used to leave the water running and they wanted to be called as the wet bandits.

00:52:25.440 Well, that's how you that's something you could utilize in a trial if there was an identification

00:52:29.840 was an issue here in the Harvey Weinstein case. He was accused of assaulting two women, but the judge

00:52:36.100 basically allowed five, six, seven other witnesses to talk about similar circumstances.

00:52:41.900 And that's just so much more than any other judge has ever allowed.

00:52:45.500 So it doesn't just apply to sex crime cases. It can apply to any case, a robbery case, a burglary case.

00:52:51.360 And the other issue is this was a he said, she said case.

00:52:55.060 And there's a rule, a ruling in New York called the Sandoval ruling, which is before the trial

00:52:59.360 starts, the judge makes a ruling is the defendant testifies. What is the prosecution allowed to

00:53:05.160 cross-examine them on about their acts? The most judges ever done is three or four, and they're

00:53:11.240 usually arrests or convictions. Here, the judge was going to allow in 28 prior bad acts, like

00:53:18.240 he had a fight with his brother. He had a fight with his general manager. He got mad at a cocktail

00:53:25.260 party and flipped over a table. But you know, Megan, when you go into a courtroom and you put your client

00:53:30.040 on the stand, and you have to spend the whole day going through 28 acts before you talk about the ones

00:53:35.240 that he's on trial on, it's a tremendous prejudice. So these are issues that affect every defendant in the

00:53:42.200 state of New York, and that one who has a prior, because it wasn't just crimes, it was prior bad acts.

00:53:47.380 So they can say, oh, I was with Mark Eiglash, and he got mad and he broke a mug. And the judge goes, okay,

00:53:52.520 if he testifies, we can bring that up. It's not a crime. It's not an arrest. So these are two major New York

00:53:57.760 state issues. And I think that's why the court wants to hear it, not because it's Harvey Weinstein. I think they

00:54:03.040 would prefer to dodge it. But let me just add one more thing, the LA piece of it, because yes, if they overruled

00:54:10.540 the New York case, Harvey Weinstein's not going anywhere. And Megan, I'd like to think, take some pressure off of

00:54:17.200 these judges from the personal point of view, to really just examine, you know, you always hope

00:54:21.980 they're just going to look at the law. But hopefully, that'll take the pressure off, like, look, if we

00:54:26.560 overturn this, it's not like the guy's going anywhere, he's still going to be in jail, and he just has to

00:54:30.540 do a retrial. On the flip side, his LA appeals lawyers are very optimistic with the issue that he's

00:54:37.180 facing out there. It is complicated, and I will be spending Christmas break reading our appeals to the

00:54:43.280 lower court, and then to this court, and going over the transcript. You know, it's a nerve wracking

00:54:48.020 process. So I'm, I'm excited, but terrified. The amount of prep that a lawyer has to do before an

00:54:53.760 argument like this is all consuming. This is one of the reasons why I left the law. But I can only

00:54:59.020 imagine, you're not kidding when you say you're going to be spending the holidays reading over

00:55:01.920 everything, because you never know what you're going to get asked. It's somebody's life on the line,

00:55:06.940 really. And as you point out, really, not just Harvey Weinstein's. A lot of defendants,

00:55:11.740 and in some cases, guys who are wrongly convicted, I don't believe Harvey was, but okay,

00:55:17.200 a lot of guys who were, their future is kind of depending on you. So it's, this is serious

00:55:22.720 pressure. It's not like, like, I just had a presidential debate. That's a lot of work,

00:55:26.140 and there's some pressure there. No one's going to die or lose their freedom. If I don't perform

00:55:31.380 well, they are like you, not to raise the stakes on you, Arthur, but I get it.

00:55:35.840 I was going to say, Mark, is she trying to help me out or just give me more like pressure on my

00:55:39.740 shoulders? Or anxiety, Arthur, but you perform well under those circumstances.

00:55:43.020 The funny part, though, Megan, is you're talking about the prep time. Usually in these cases,

00:55:46.820 they only give you, like, the maximum is 30 minutes to, like, and it's not really an argument,

00:55:53.220 as you know. You go up there, you say, hello, my name is Arthur Idala, represent Harvey Weinstein.

00:55:57.360 Let me just tell you this, boom, the judges just start asking you questions, but if they let me go 25

00:56:02.560 minutes, that'll be a lot, I'll probably study 100 plus hours to be prepared for 25 minutes. That's

00:56:09.320 kind of crazy.

00:56:10.640 Because you don't know the questions in advance. They could go anywhere, and they could choose

00:56:14.200 one of those questions and burrow down on it for the entire 30 minutes. So you have to be 30 minutes

00:56:20.760 prepared on every possible issue in the case. It's incredible to me, in my experience, how well

00:56:26.680 prepared these judges are when you go in there, because not only have they read all the briefs, and their

00:56:30.280 clerks have read the briefs and prepped them, but they have a lifetime of experience in the law and

00:56:34.260 on the bench and all these other cases that you and I aren't necessarily sitting there for every

00:56:38.360 day. So the wealth of knowledge they bring to it, again, I'm scaring him, Mark. This is not right,

00:56:42.760 but I'm just saying it's a big deal.

00:56:44.840 He's a big deal.

00:56:46.200 Arthur has been to the Super Bowl metaphorically. He knows how to handle himself.

00:56:50.120 But let me just tell you, Megan, just since you brought that up, it's a little inside baseball,

00:56:53.160 because I remember discussing this with Justice Scalia. A lot of what the judges are doing up there

00:56:58.500 is they're trying to make the points to their colleagues, and they're using the advocates

00:57:03.760 to make those points, whether it's a point in their favor or a point to, you know, push down

00:57:10.000 one of their fellow judges' opinions. So it is like a whole show that's going on there. And I kind of

00:57:16.520 already know there's seven judges. I kind of know like three are kind of with us, and two are definitely

00:57:22.480 against us. And there's going to be that little undecided vote in there. And what you said also is

00:57:27.920 they try to maybe railroad you down one issue. So let's just say that Molyneux issue, like can

00:57:32.500 other people testify to similar things? But I definitely need to get out the other issue about

00:57:37.320 all the prior bad acts the judge was going to allow in. So it's yeah, it's going to be I'm

00:57:41.820 going to have a good night's sleep the night before. And I know Megyn Kelly will be rooting

00:57:45.300 for me. So that'll be I'll be watching it, too. We have plans. We're going to tape the whole thing.

00:57:49.560 We're going to put it on the air in part, like we'll pull the highlights. No lowlights. Don't worry,

00:57:53.260 there won't be any. And maybe we'll have Mark back on because Arthur will be drunk undoubtedly

00:57:58.040 after this is over. And we'll deconstruct the whole thing. I'm excited for you. This is a big

00:58:02.820 deal. And it's gonna make a lot of news. So God bless. You know, we're all rooting for you. All

00:58:07.840 right. So another person who's got a very big appellate argument coming up are the Trump lawyers.

00:58:12.480 This let's start with him and his push to get the J6 charges against him entirely dropped because he

00:58:19.000 says that federal case in D.C., it can't be brought. All those charges have to be dropped

00:58:23.640 because you're saying that I committed crimes while the sitting president of the United States.

00:58:27.960 That's not allowed. The courts already ruled that in many cases, civil lawsuits can't be filed against

00:58:33.860 a sitting president, and that should be expanded to criminal cases. So your whole case fails, Jack

00:58:39.480 Smith, as a matter of law. The D.C. judge, Tanya Chutkin, who doesn't like Trump, she ruled against him

00:58:46.440 saying wrong just because there's that prohibition on some civil lawsuits doesn't mean if you commit

00:58:51.540 a crime, you have immunity as president. And instead of then Trump appealing this to the

00:58:56.780 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is above Judge Chutkin, the prosecutor, Jack Smith, skipped

00:59:02.580 that court, went right up to SCOTUS, the Supreme Court, and said, please take an expedited briefing

00:59:08.520 on whether you'll take this case because I need you to take it. I need you to take it right away.

00:59:12.840 And then please, if you take it, hear it on an expedited basis. Like, do it all. Do it quick

00:59:18.080 because I really need Trump to get tried and this to get settled well in advance of the election,

00:59:23.440 which is, in my view, very close to partisan hackery. I mean, that's the closest he's done

00:59:28.380 to actually just showing his cards like he wants this guy out and a convicted felon before election

00:59:32.960 day. But in any event, how do you like his chances, Mark, when he goes up to the Supreme Court?

00:59:38.480 How do you like Jack Smith versus Trump on the question of immunity? Well, I don't know what

00:59:43.640 the Supremes are going to do on this. I do think it's a major issue of public importance, and I

00:59:48.160 think that they should deal with it. But if they don't, listen, he's a prosecutor, whether he's

00:59:55.160 leaning to the right or left. Yes, of course, he wants Trump convicted. That's his job, right?

01:00:00.420 But so that's the fact that he wants it before Election Day is what makes him a hack.

01:00:04.540 Well, that's your opinion. I mean, you know, prosecutors' cases don't get better with age

01:00:11.000 like wine. Any prosecutor would want a case brought as soon as possible and will use-

01:00:16.100 Then why did he file this earlier? He had three years. I mean, January 6, 2001 was, what,

01:00:22.320 two and a half years ago. He could have filed it long before now.

01:00:25.360 I make the same argument, too. But a lot of prosecutors have to get all their ducks in a row.

01:00:30.220 They're investigating the case that long. You'll argue, well, it was politically motivated.

01:00:34.720 Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But prosecutors do take a long time before they indict people,

01:00:39.460 and that could easily be his argument. I don't know. He knows what's in his heart and his mind

01:00:43.620 why he did it. But hold on a minute. I believe one of the Supremes is his way to get this case

01:00:50.940 to trial as fast as possible, and the defense clearly wants to delay it.

01:00:54.640 I agree with all that. But I think it's hackery that he's peddled to the metal. And I also really

01:01:01.800 want to know what you guys think about this immunity claim, because it's, as I understand it,

01:01:05.380 as yet undecided. Go ahead, Arthur.

01:01:07.800 Okay. So there's three things about getting, skipping over the Court of Appeals for the D.C.

01:01:13.920 Circuit, which is the most prestigious circuit, just jumping, leapfrogging over them and going to the

01:01:18.760 Supreme Court. Number one, it's got to be a matter of grave issue to the public, which this definitely

01:01:24.820 is. Number two, it would wind up there regardless, which this would. So Trump is appealing there,

01:01:32.560 but, and if he won or whoever we want to lose, either way would go to the Supreme Court.

01:01:37.200 And the third one is the timeliness issue. And that's where you and Mark are battling it out.

01:01:42.960 Is there really a rush from a legal point of view? Is there such a rush? Now, if you look at Bush v.

01:01:47.620 Gore, which skipped over the circuit court, there was a rush. We needed to know who's the next president

01:01:52.600 of the United States who's going to lead the free world. So that was clearly a rush. Here, it really

01:01:57.720 is a matter of opinion, whether there is a rush and they, and that the special prosecutors should

01:02:02.880 be able to jump over the Court of Appeals. Megan, to your point, though, he could not have brought

01:02:08.060 this earlier because it wasn't ripe. You have to have a ripe issue to go to the court. You can't ask

01:02:14.100 them for an advisory decision. No, no, I'm not talking about the Supreme Court appeal. I'm talking

01:02:19.020 about the charges in chief against Trump. They could have been filed any day after January 6th, 2021.

01:02:25.940 You're talking about the whole case. The case. You're talking about the whole case.

01:02:30.280 Because Mark's like, you know, he needs time is of the essence. I'm like, well,

01:02:34.280 why didn't he bring the case sooner then? So you're suggesting, not suggesting, you are saying

01:02:39.400 to America and internationally, your big audience, that this prosecutor could have brought these

01:02:44.560 charges earlier, but he sat back, he waited, and then timed it out for political reasons.

01:02:51.000 Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. It seems pretty clear.

01:02:54.620 He watched the criminal landscape unfold around Trump, and he's got the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

01:03:01.620 And then when that started to get gummed up and everybody knew it would be dogged down by

01:03:05.620 document review and who's going to have access to classified documents and who's not,

01:03:10.040 magically under pressure from the left that really this is their, this is like the golden cow,

01:03:14.720 the J6, hold them responsible. They couldn't do it via impeachment conviction,

01:03:18.240 so they want to do it via criminal conviction. He did it. He folded. He brought this bullshit case.

01:03:23.000 Is that what you're saying? Are you saying it's meritless, that there's absolutely no

01:03:27.540 evidence to support any criminal wrongdoing?

01:03:31.000 Yes. I believe this case is made up and bullshit.

01:03:34.780 Is that a legal term?

01:03:36.740 Yes, it is. You should use that on February 14th.

01:03:39.920 So nobody's going to take me on. I don't, I don't think that Trump is going to win on the

01:03:44.780 immunity argument, but I don't know because this, this high court, they, I, I'm not sure

01:03:50.580 they're going to love, um, criminal prosecution against, uh, president for acts he did while in

01:03:57.700 office. You know, there's a good argument.

01:03:58.760 What about the Nixon? What about the Nixon solution for that?

01:04:01.740 What about the Nixon press?

01:04:04.980 But it's not directly on point. It's not directly on point. Like this is a,

01:04:09.040 I know this is a case of first impression and the court is very conservative, you know,

01:04:13.640 right now. So I look, he's got a chance, but I still think he's going to lose. I think he's

01:04:16.840 going to lose on that one. Yeah, go ahead. Trump aside a second, just like, again, let's,

01:04:21.700 let's be intellectually honest here. So if we say that he gets immunity, that means any future

01:04:29.160 president, Republican, Democrat, or whatever can do whatever they want in the office.

01:04:35.320 If it involves some criminal activity. And I'm not saying that Trump did anything. I'm saying

01:04:40.340 that the legal opinion in Trump's favor would be that any future president can do any act that is

01:04:46.920 criminal in nature, but avoid any type of prosecution and conviction.

01:04:52.560 I don't think so. I don't think so. But this one he's going to argue was so closely tied to the issue

01:04:57.840 of the presidency and official duties overseeing free and fair elections and so on that it should fall

01:05:04.480 within a scope of protected behavior. That's not the same as saying I can literally shoot somebody

01:05:08.880 on Fifth Avenue and this court should say that I could never be held accountable. But I think in

01:05:13.640 general, there's a preference to let the political process hold politicians for their account to

01:05:18.300 account for their bad behavior and not Jack Smith, not a jury. That's part of why this whole thing is an

01:05:24.480 abusive process. Let me switch over because we got a lot to get to. Now we talked about this yesterday

01:05:29.620 with the guys from Ruthless. Separately, there is there are a few J6 defendants who have been charged

01:05:37.100 with the same crime Trump is charged with, with corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an

01:05:45.960 official proceeding, namely the certification of the the electors votes when it came to the presidency

01:05:52.520 and the rioting and so on was considered this alleged corrupt obstruction of that certification.

01:05:59.700 That's why the J6 defendants got charged with it. That's why Trump got charged with it, too.

01:06:03.780 Well, helpful to Trump is this appeal that is going up to SCOTUS. They've accepted the case,

01:06:10.420 deciding whether that is even a crime that can be prosecuted under circumstances like this.

01:06:17.300 Apparently, this this crime, Arthur, originally was meant to deal more with like Enron type stuff like

01:06:23.520 document fraud, you know, misrepresentations in papers or in testimony, that kind of thing.

01:06:30.820 Not necessarily rioting out in front of a Capitol. That would be a distraction. Right. So they do have

01:06:37.000 quite a decision to make. And if they throw this out, not only will it help a bunch of J6 defendants who

01:06:42.480 have already pleaded guilty to this under pressure from the prosecutors, but it will be extremely

01:06:47.160 helpful to Donald Trump. Well, it'll be helpful to him because that's one of I want to say four,

01:06:53.440 but it could be wrong. Four. Two of the four are this this charge and then conspiracy to commit this

01:07:00.580 charge. So if the court finds for these J6 defendants, two of the Trump charges go away and

01:07:04.920 the last two are not compelling. But go ahead. So there's a lot of legal chess playing going on with

01:07:11.540 this particular issue because this is not going to be on a fast track because this is not Donald

01:07:16.660 Trump centric. So this case would not be decided until June. So if the special prosecutor wants to

01:07:25.040 keep this going, if he wants to short circuit and make sure there's no delays, he can dismiss those

01:07:30.360 charges. But it really depends on what the district court judge says, what the trial judge says.

01:07:35.000 She may say, no, as of now, that's the law of the land. There's nothing dismissing it.

01:07:38.780 We're going to go forward with that. Or she has the option of saying, I'm not going to waste the

01:07:44.060 government's money doing this big, crazy trial with this extraordinary costs because you got

01:07:50.160 Secret Service involved with Trump. I mean, it's going to cost millions and millions of our money.

01:07:55.180 And the economic right thing to do is to say, we're not going to have a trial where the main

01:08:00.320 charges are going to get dismissed in June. We're not going to do that. But if she does say,

01:08:04.820 we're going to go forward with it, then they're going to go forward with it. He gets found guilty.

01:08:09.700 The court reverses it in June and they get those charges thrown out. So a lot remains to be seen.

01:08:15.500 I don't think a federal judge is going to sit by and wait for an appellate court to interpret it.

01:08:21.100 I think they're going to go forward. And it's not uncommon for criminal statutes that had a specific,

01:08:27.740 you know, target crime area to be used by prosecutors a little bit past that.

01:08:34.920 RICO statutes, what they started as and what they are being used for today,

01:08:40.080 completely different ballpark. And, you know, it doesn't make it unlawful.

01:08:45.560 You know, it's withheld, you know, scrutiny and challenges.

01:08:50.100 What Mark is saying, what just makes me smile about the RICO thing, Megan, is,

01:08:54.400 you know, my firm is representing Rudy Giuliani in the case in Georgia where they're being charged

01:08:59.240 under the RICO statue. And the guy who really brought RICO into our vocabulary was prosecutor

01:09:06.080 Giuliani against organized crime. And I just watched some documentary called Get Gotti,

01:09:12.100 which I normally wouldn't, but with a lot of people in there who I knew and the organized crime guys are

01:09:16.920 saying in the documentary that Rudy and RICO really, you know, just watered them down to almost

01:09:23.060 nothing at this point. And now here's Rudy Giuliani almost 40 years later being prosecuted

01:09:28.160 under that statute. To Mark's point, it really got turned on its head from being an organized

01:09:32.480 crime statute to now they're going after politicians for it.

01:09:35.780 That reminds me of Ernesto Miranda, you know, Miranda rights. After he was let go because they

01:09:42.020 violated his Miranda rights and went up to the Supreme court, he was later stabbed in a bar

01:09:45.980 and that guy got off because he invoked his Miranda rights.

01:09:49.760 Oh my gosh, no way. All right. So you don't like the chances of the court throwing out the January 6th

01:09:57.240 charge. You think that this corrupt instruction or corruptly obstructing an official proceeding is

01:10:02.920 likely to survive the Supreme court review?

01:10:05.320 I don't know. I don't know, Megan. I think it's going to be very fact-based. In other words,

01:10:10.600 if someone ran, because there were different individuals here, if someone ran into the chambers

01:10:15.520 and grabbed, hypothetically, grabbed Pelosi's gavel and stopped her from actually doing her job,

01:10:22.240 yeah, that person is guilty of that crime. If some other schmuck just like wandered in,

01:10:27.260 like in the heat of the whole battle and like looking around, excuse me?

01:10:31.220 That is mostly what happened. Somebody grabbed Pelosi's gavel from her office,

01:10:35.500 not from the middle of the proceeding, but in any event.

01:10:37.380 The facts are for the jury to decide whether it meets the elements of the statute. Question is

01:10:42.740 whether the appellate court is going to say, this could never apply to this type of fact scenario,

01:10:47.900 no matter what you have. And I think they're going to let it go and let jurors decide.

01:10:52.340 But the judge, the trial judge at this point has frozen everything. The trial judge right now,

01:10:57.420 the district court trial judge has said, the only thing that's in place is the gag order,

01:11:02.000 where you can't rag on the prosecutor or his witnesses. You can rag on me, the judge,

01:11:05.760 but you can't rag on Jack or his witnesses. But everything else, because the special prosecutor

01:11:10.360 asked, can we continue with our motion practice? Can we continue with the eliminating motions?

01:11:15.060 Can we continue to prepare for the trial in March? And the judge said, no,

01:11:18.540 we're going to wait to see what SCOTUS says. But I believe she's referring to the first one

01:11:23.140 about the presidential. Yeah, well, I mean, look, I was saying this yesterday. Delay works to Trump's

01:11:29.180 favor. Delay is a-okay by Donald Trump. If he can get this whole thing pushed to, you know,

01:11:36.320 as close to the election as possible, that's good because there's a lowered likelihood of

01:11:40.160 any judge, even this one, throwing him in jail. I mean, if it's, what, two weeks before the election,

01:11:45.540 even this judge is not going to throw Donald Trump in jail pending appeal. I mean, she's just,

01:11:49.140 she's not a lunatic. So it's a benefit, much less pushing it to the trial to after November

01:11:56.840 when he's, if he wins in charge of the DOJ and he takes the attack dog right off of the case.

01:12:03.380 And that's the end of that. So that's really what he's hoping to do.

01:12:07.080 I think the real issue would be, I think the real issue would be if the trial got delayed to like

01:12:13.200 July. And this is when this guy is supposed to be out there, you know,

01:12:17.420 shaking hands and kissing babies and all of that. Does this district court judge say, no,

01:12:21.900 I'm not going to allow you to campaign for president. You're a criminal defendant. You

01:12:25.680 need to sit here for this three week, one month, six week trial. And I'm going to take you off the

01:12:30.100 campaign trail. That's going to be a very huge decision if it played out that way.

01:12:35.280 It really could happen. This is actually interesting because normally the way it's supposed to work

01:12:39.280 is, hold on, I'll give you the floor in one second, but the way it's supposed to work is

01:12:41.680 the party that is out of power gets to go first with its convention, gets to, I mean,

01:12:46.600 it's an advantage to go second because you can, you know, you have the final word and

01:12:49.280 you can do cleanup. Um, so, so the Republicans would go in July and then the Dems would go

01:12:54.400 in August. And this case was supposed to take place in March. The speculation was it shouldn't

01:12:59.340 be that long a case. You could have a jury verdict by May if it's a conviction, which,

01:13:04.620 you know, I'm flippantly saying he's going to be convicted because of the jury pool,

01:13:08.600 but one never knows. Okay. But let's just assume for purposes of right now,

01:13:13.140 he gets convicted under the best case scenario for Jack Smith that happens in, let's say, May.

01:13:18.620 And my criminal lawyer friends were saying that means you won't have a sentencing until like

01:13:22.500 August in a, in a federal case. I don't know. Do you agree with that? You guys are trying these

01:13:27.440 usually 120 days. It's usually 120 days, Megan, give or take. Okay. So if the jury goes into 12,

01:13:34.520 four times, okay. See, it's four months. Four months. Yeah. So it was May, June, July,

01:13:39.100 August, September, somewhere in there. So that's, I mean, that's a nightmare for the country.

01:13:45.040 Donald Trump has now officially been chosen as a Republican nominee, potentially. Now we are

01:13:50.620 two months from election day. Those last 60 days are always crazed. And this judge may be sentencing

01:13:58.720 him to jail because he's got to come up with a sentence from the conviction and having to decide

01:14:04.500 whether he gets his freedom while he, while he pursues an appeal. And there's a, there's a chance

01:14:10.220 she won't, there's a chance she'll say, you're going to jail. She's, she is going to say you're

01:14:14.860 going to jail if he's convicted. Is she not? I mean, these charges against him there, he's going to

01:14:19.340 jail if he gets convicted on these and it doesn't get reversed. He would go to jail like any other

01:14:23.580 defendant. That's the big issue here. You know, do, do we want a judge to treat Donald Trump

01:14:30.760 differently than almost every other defendant? These federal judges don't play. I put in for

01:14:36.020 continuances constantly. They say, no, we're going to trial. I say, I've got a, a gigabyte of, of

01:14:41.160 evidence. I haven't even looked at yet. Well, we're going, we're going. So the question is, should

01:14:47.140 Donald Trump be treated differently than other defendants in federal court? And many say yes. And

01:14:52.820 I would say generally that just doesn't happen. People, people are brought to trial. You get maybe a

01:14:58.960 delay once, but you're going. So extraordinary. He's running for president, which is why many

01:15:07.400 people believe he's been charged in the first place, though. Judge Shutkin's not going to accept

01:15:12.200 that or factor that in when deciding this. Go ahead, Arthur. So you're just because you brought up a very

01:15:19.000 logistical, valid point is even when you get convicted and you get sentenced, there is something

01:15:23.660 called bail pending appeal. And so whether that judge or the circuit judge, the court of appeals

01:15:30.500 can say, okay, there are legitimate legal issues here. And I think no matter how you slice it,

01:15:35.640 there will be legitimate legal issues here where the defendant has a likelihood of success. So

01:15:40.560 therefore, as opposed to having him sit and wait in jail, we're going to let him stay at liberty. And

01:15:46.440 usually the fear is they're going to flee. Well, you've got a guy who's surrounded with the

01:15:50.600 Secret Service 24-7. He's not going anywhere. So, I mean, he should get bail pending appeal.

01:15:56.940 Trump was joking after they talked about a bail after one of those criminal indictments, like,

01:16:03.500 oh, maybe they're worried I'm going to fly my big, my big Trump plane. Oh, and they're not going to be

01:16:08.440 able to find me as I try to flee to another country. There he is. I see the big Trump, Trump,

01:16:13.440 Trump, Trump, Trump. He's got a good point. So wait, so that's interesting to me.

01:16:17.360 So you like his chances of staying free pending appeal, even if he gets convicted. And let's go

01:16:26.560 down that lane for a second, because you guys try these cases. I didn't say that, by the way,

01:16:31.180 Megan. Hold on. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I said it. I'll take responsibility.

01:16:34.680 And you disagree?

01:16:35.700 And I'm saying that he's not necessarily a risk of flight. And if the judge does think that there's

01:16:39.740 legitimate appellate issues, she could grant one. But then the question again, I go back to,

01:16:45.240 would a judge take another person similarly situated?

01:16:50.080 What's the answer to that, Mark? Do they normally let them stay free pending appeal

01:16:53.580 after a conviction?

01:16:55.700 Oh, you're in custody. That's it.

01:16:57.960 No, no. But that's, Megan's correct. They don't normally do it, but it happens. It happens

01:17:02.700 regularly where it's not like so rare. It's not like Haley's comment.

01:17:07.180 No, I agree. When I watched the practice, it was often the case. So you're saying,

01:17:13.860 like, give me a percentage. In the cases that you've tried in federal court with criminal

01:17:18.220 defendants, what percentage go right to jail pending appeal?

01:17:23.620 I'd go at 90 percent, Arthur.

01:17:26.020 I would say 80. 80, 85.

01:17:28.300 Wow. So right. So it really depends on the legal issue. But how strong is the legal issue

01:17:33.660 that the court of appeals is going to hear?

01:17:35.940 How many former presidents have ever been in that predicament? Like, that's the X factor.

01:17:40.040 And the question is, does that matter? Should the judge treat him differently when every other

01:17:44.000 defendant, you're going right in with the same legal issues that Trump has?

01:17:47.820 But what, Mark, does it factor in as on a human level or any other level, if this judge has got

01:17:54.360 a conviction of Trump in her hands, they've chosen the jury, the jury's done its job, the jury finds

01:17:59.520 him guilty, that if he gets elected in November, the whole case goes away. It all gets flushed down

01:18:11.660 the toilet because now Trump's in charge of the DOJ. I think our friend Mike Davis is going to be the

01:18:16.920 next attorney general. And there's zero chance he would challenge a Trump appeal. He would stand

01:18:21.960 down on the conviction. Yes. I don't know if this works post-conviction.

01:18:26.780 You're asking me whether a federal judge who has a lifetime appointment, who tries to uphold the law,

01:18:33.060 is somehow going to think down the road that Trump is going to do something about his conviction,

01:18:39.440 you know, politically based, and thus will not take action right away? I mean, anything's possible.

01:18:45.980 I would bet my kid's college fund that that will not happen.

01:18:49.600 Well, what about Mark? And this is not a yes, no question. What about a judge taking the totality

01:18:58.000 of the circumstances into the situation? So Donald Trump has now been elected president of the United

01:19:03.240 States, and the sentencing hypothetically is right thereafter. Do you think it's in the best

01:19:09.360 interest of the country to say, I am directing you right now on November 12th to go to prison,

01:19:14.960 and he'll be in prison until January 20th when he gets sworn in?

01:19:18.660 No, that can't happen.

01:19:20.280 But for you, Mark, right, it can happen.

01:19:23.560 It can happen.

01:19:25.000 It can happen.

01:19:25.540 I want to tell this judge what to do. It's one judge in one black polyester robe who gets to make

01:19:31.640 his or her own decision about what happens to him. And it is in that judge's thorough discretion to do so.

01:19:37.920 Okay, but then it goes to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and they get to overrule that judge.

01:19:44.340 They could, but how is that an abuse of discretion to take someone into custody after conviction?

01:19:49.540 Well, because they could say there are legal issues here that this court, this D.C. Circuit,

01:19:55.040 thinks are really right, and the defendant has a likelihood of success, and we don't see any risk of

01:19:59.720 flight.

01:20:00.000 They could, but tell Megan the odds on that now. Again, how often does the appellate court

01:20:05.360 reverse a lower court's decision on the discretionary decision as to whether somebody

01:20:10.120 should remain free or whether they should be stripped of their liberties?

01:20:13.600 That happens very low.

01:20:14.960 Let's talk to reality. Do you think they really want to cause a civil war? Because in my opinion,

01:20:21.040 that's what would happen. If Donald Trump was only the president,

01:20:23.560 and they were going to put him in jail, I think it would start a civil war in the United States of

01:20:28.800 America.

01:20:29.940 This is terrifying. Like, this shit could happen.

01:20:31.620 It is terrifying.

01:20:32.980 That's the reality.

01:20:34.760 We're not in fantasy land. This actually could happen less than a year from right now.

01:20:41.920 Correct. It can.

01:20:43.720 Now, I think, you know, they talk about the deep state. I don't know about the deep state,

01:20:47.900 but I think, because I've been down in DC and I go to that, been to those lunchrooms. Mark,

01:20:53.840 if that was the case, if this scenario actually played out where he's the president elect and

01:20:59.460 there's a jail sentence hanging over his head, because I don't think the Supreme Court has power

01:21:04.360 to look at the bail pending appeal, but the circuit court does. I'm thinking Donald Trump never sees a

01:21:10.480 second in prison and they let him stay out until January 20th. And then he's got to win.

01:21:17.220 That's what this boils down to. Donald Trump, in order to avoid jail, unless he gets a favorable

01:21:24.400 ruling on the law from an appellate court, that could be a way out of bad jury verdicts.

01:21:29.280 He's got to win. He's must become the president next time around, or a Republican who will pardon

01:21:35.760 him on the federal charges, at least must win.

01:21:38.960 As an aside, I keep having daydreams like, okay, if he is sitting in jail, he's got to be protected.

01:21:45.940 So what, his secret service guys are sitting there with him in the pokey?

01:21:49.660 Yeah. Yes. They would probably sit right outside. Yes. They would probably sit right

01:21:53.360 outside the jail cell and make sure nobody stabs him. No one attacks him. No one chokes him.

01:21:58.020 Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, he would be, maybe I'm crazy. I feel like he would be like a folk hero in

01:22:04.600 there. Nobody would try to stab him. They'd be celebrating him. He couldn't be in the general

01:22:09.940 population. So he's completely isolated. Like, I don't even know how that works. I don't know.

01:22:14.860 That's not fun. Maybe a house arrest. Maybe it'd have to be a house arrest. I don't know.

01:22:18.660 There would have to be extraordinary circumstances because it's an extraordinary prosecution,

01:22:23.480 extraordinary man. All this is so deeply wrong. It's so wrong. Just let the electorate decide.

01:22:28.000 The judges, the court system should not be involved in this case. It's, it's so alarming.

01:22:32.840 All right. Let's move on. Let me throw a crazy curve ball in it because it's the case I'm dealing

01:22:37.620 with in Georgia. If somehow or another, by all of these circumstances, that case goes to trial

01:22:43.280 for election day or whatever. Even if he wins, he does not have the power to commuting sentence or

01:22:51.480 pardon himself. He could only handle federal cases. This is a state case. And unlike the federal case,

01:22:57.420 Rico charge in the Georgia case against him and Rudy Giuliani, there is a mandatory minimum jail

01:23:04.520 sentence. What people need to know is if the judge was his father, by the law, he cannot sentence him

01:23:11.160 to anything less than five years in jail. And once again, the president of the United States can't help

01:23:17.300 you, only the governor of the state can help you. This is insane. This is insane. Well, right now,

01:23:25.960 I mean, there is a Republican governor, but they don't like each other, but boy, he'd be under

01:23:31.500 pressure to, to help him out anyway. Clemency or whatever. I, this is so insane. You guys. Um,

01:23:36.860 all right, enough of Trump. We got to get onto the kid accused of blackface who didn't really do it.

01:23:40.540 That's next. This is parents are threatening a lawsuit against the deadspin writer who slimed

01:23:45.200 their kid, Arthur and Mark. Stay with us. Don't go away. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly

01:23:51.280 show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the

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01:24:51.160 All right, we got a good lot to get to. Arthur Idal is here along with Mark Eiglarsh. There's the kid

01:24:56.580 who's nine years old who attended a Kansas City Chiefs game wearing a Native American headdress.

01:25:03.320 Half his face was painted black. Half his face was painted red to honor the team's colors and some

01:25:09.260 loser over a deadspin dot com who has spent his entire career writing about he sees racism everywhere.

01:25:16.860 This is one of those guys everywhere, everywhere. The kid's racist. The NFL is racist. Look back on all of

01:25:21.760 his other articles. Everyone's racist. He may be in a lot of trouble, this writer, because he called

01:25:28.580 this kid racist. He posted, among other disparaging comments, his name is Karen Phillips. He posted,

01:25:37.640 it takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas,

01:25:43.900 a Kansas City Chiefs fan, he means the nine-year-old, found a way to hate black people and the Native

01:25:50.720 Americans at the same time. He posted a picture of the boy, only the black side of his face,

01:25:58.800 suggesting wrongly that the kid was wearing blackface and wearing, here's the picture,

01:26:04.540 a Native American headdress. And then users posted the real photo that shows he was wearing team colors.

01:26:11.500 He was not in full blackface, blah, blah, blah. He wronged this kid. And now, interestingly,

01:26:16.240 the parents, Mark, are threatening to sue Deadspin. They've hired this big law firm

01:26:22.060 for defamation, saying you defamed our kid. You called our nine-year-old a racist. And when it was

01:26:28.820 called to your attention, you didn't file a retraction. You didn't issue an apology. You just

01:26:33.980 quietly scrubbed the website. Yeah, I think it was very irresponsible. I put my kids in that position

01:26:40.760 and I say, how dare you, powerful media, do that to my precious offspring. It was misleading. It was

01:26:48.020 dishonest. It wasn't right. Now, that said, I don't know if they're going to prevail in a lawsuit. I

01:26:54.880 think it's better to pound the chest and threaten and try to get retractions and apologies. I don't

01:27:00.560 know. I'm analyzing it and it sounds more like an opinion. You know, his opinion is you shouldn't

01:27:06.820 paint your face black at all. And yes, this kid is of Native American descent. So that would be

01:27:12.980 his defense. But the guy didn't know that. And apparently, you know, you're not supposed to wear

01:27:18.340 that kind of garb even at a game. So he has a right to criticize the NFL. I just I think it takes a lot.

01:27:26.460 I'm a tremendous advocate for free speech, even if it's offensive and outrageous. I don't know that

01:27:31.420 this crosses the line to something that would be actionable. I think it's reprehensible.

01:27:37.420 Unfortunately, I agree with you. What do you think, Arthur?

01:27:40.560 Let's put it in front of a jury. Put Mike, Mark Eiglash in front of those jurors in a civil case

01:27:45.460 and talk about the irreparable harm done to this nine-year-old kid and the negligence and

01:27:52.580 irresponsibility of the guy who wrote the article, not to look at the full picture, not to see how old

01:27:58.300 the kid was, to do any kind of background check whatsoever about this kid before you put him a

01:28:03.780 nine-year-old. We're not even talking about like 14, 15, 16, a little boy. It's a little boy. My son

01:28:09.200 is seven. He's a little boy, nine years old. So even though you guys may legally be right, I'll take

01:28:14.880 this case any day of the week. The thing, the reason why I would settle is I don't think Deadspin

01:28:19.460 is Fox News and they're going to give up about $787 million. They probably don't have that much money.

01:28:25.580 So I would rather have the bird in the hand and get something out of them. But this family should

01:28:31.740 get something for putting this kid through that. Absolutely.

01:28:34.900 I know. I mean, listen, I want him to win, but I just don't think he will, because I think Mark

01:28:38.580 is right. It's going to come down to it was this guy's opinion, as awful as that opinion was.

01:28:43.600 How many nine-year-olds are really reading Deadspin, you know?

01:28:47.720 No, but his name is out there, Mark. In other words, this kid's name is out there,

01:28:52.300 Holden, whatever his name is. So when he goes in and applies for a job anywhere at Home Depot,

01:28:57.840 they're going to Google it, and this is going to come up.

01:29:01.500 If somehow he can prove those damages, then you got the damages. I still go back to

01:29:06.920 the liability. As reprehensible as it is, what specific-

01:29:10.640 If it's opinion, it's not actionable. People should just generally know that as a matter of

01:29:14.280 defamation law. Opinion is not suable. False statements of fact that are made

01:29:18.260 knowingly, in particular, can be problematic legally.

01:29:22.060 I'll take the case. I'll take the case.

01:29:23.680 The guy sitting there saying, I think that kid's a racist. It's disgusting, but it would be legal.

01:29:28.360 Now, if the court finds that this was written in a way where it was presented as fact,

01:29:32.600 he may be in more trouble. Okay, let's keep going.

01:29:34.680 Mariah Carey's sued. She's been sued for many people's favorite Christmas song,

01:29:40.900 All I Want for Christmas is You.

01:29:42.260 All these years after the song came out, a guy named Andy Stone, a country singer of the New

01:29:50.620 Orleans-based band Vince Vance and the Valiants, has filed a copyright lawsuit in California Federal

01:29:56.600 Court claiming she and her co-writer on the smash hit, Walter Afonsiev, ripped off the song from them,

01:30:05.220 saying they wrote it, this guy Stone, in 1988 with Troy Powers.

01:30:10.420 It actually hit the billboard top 10, so she knew, she presumably knew about the song,

01:30:16.760 and then she came out with her own version within a matter of months without paying him,

01:30:21.320 without giving him credit, and now she reportedly makes $3 million a year in royalties off that song

01:30:27.400 alone. Think of how much dough this woman has. That's not her only song.

01:30:31.680 Okay, so we put the two songs together, his version and hers, so the audience can have a listen

01:30:37.980 on just how similar the versions are. Let's go.

01:30:41.120 I don't need to end my stocking, live upon the fireplace. Santa Claus will make me happy,

01:30:51.800 with a toy I don't miss the day. I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know.

01:31:01.020 Let my wish come true. All I want for Christmas is you.

01:31:09.020 I don't want a Christmas that's blue.

01:31:17.020 Take back the 10 years old stockings and bows.

01:31:22.200 All right. A little bit there at the end.

01:31:32.580 Right. No, at the end, you lost me at first, and then at the end, wait a second, those words,

01:31:38.560 were there any other similar words throughout, or it's just the literal thing?

01:31:42.200 The general theme of I am downtrodden, like I have things I could complain about in my life,

01:31:47.980 but the material stuff doesn't make me feel better. You, like being with another person,

01:31:52.320 that's what makes it, that is the same.

01:31:55.640 But no, but that's not what, but Megan, we have one of these cases right now. It's a guy,

01:31:59.700 a musician from Ghana, who, and we're suing a very well-known, like household name,

01:32:05.980 R&B star. And it doesn't have to be, it's not about the words or the ideas,

01:32:12.760 but if there are certain notes that are precise and clearly just lifted, like it, and like right

01:32:20.840 there, it's kind of the chorus. All I want for Christmas is you, not the words, but the melody

01:32:25.520 and the words together, there could be liability. Put it this way. We did not lose on someone judging.

01:32:30.980 I didn't hear the melody either.

01:32:32.700 I just, well, if you play it again, you know, I have a musical year. I'm in a band.

01:32:35.980 I sang at Megan Kelly's Christmas party. I know these things.

01:32:38.960 That's true. Yeah. You're an expert.

01:32:41.120 This is what we're relying on. They're in a lot of trouble. Okay, let's move on because

01:32:45.240 there's no better time to discuss the satanic temple than Christmas and Hanukkah.

01:32:51.020 So the satanic temple was founded by this guy, Lucian Greaves. He's been on my show before when

01:32:57.260 I was at Fox. He envisioned it as a poison pill in the church state debate. He says the temple's

01:33:03.220 name is not to insult religious people, but it's more of a commentary of personal independence

01:33:06.700 from, quote, superstition. He doesn't actually worship Satan nor to followers of the satanic

01:33:12.200 temple, but they focus on personal sovereignty and independence. So he, okay. In Iowa, what

01:33:21.460 happened was the satanic temple was allowed to put up a display at the state capitol building.

01:33:24.960 They kind of have to do it because they had a Christian nativity scene out. And since it's

01:33:29.880 a public venue, they believe they couldn't say yes to one religious group, Christians,

01:33:34.940 and no to another, quote, religious group. That's how they got in. This happens all the time.

01:33:42.600 And now there is a legal question about whether this actually does belong there. Did Iowa have

01:33:49.820 to allow it there? There are all sorts of objections. Last night, somebody got arrested for beheading

01:33:54.920 the satanic statue. I don't know if we can say beheading when it's a statue. But in any event,

01:34:02.120 does Iowa have to allow this, Arthur?

01:34:06.920 You know, it seems so. It seems so. You know, the tax trick here, at least in New York,

01:34:14.960 is this guy's, they say they're priests or whatever. There's like a same type of a religion

01:34:19.620 and they buy a building and they become tax-free and that they're dodging hundreds of thousands

01:34:25.380 of dollars in taxes because of it. It's kind of a scam. So I don't think that they could just say,

01:34:31.580 well, you can do Jesus and you could do a menorah, but you can't do this guy's religion.

01:34:37.680 Ron DeSantis, Mark says, this is not a genuine religious expression and therefore it should be

01:34:43.060 removed. They originally wanted to use an actual goat head on it. At least they managed to say no

01:34:48.720 to that. Yeah. Ron DeSantis is not the expert on what qualifies as a religion. Somewhere there's

01:34:54.240 an objective test. And if they meet it, even if we find them outrageous and we don't want to see

01:34:59.380 their images because they're disturbing, they have that constitutional right.

01:35:03.180 Yeah. And once again, unfortunately, I agree with you. I mean, it's one of the things that makes

01:35:06.920 America great is that, you know, we don't favor one religion over another. And weird as it may be,

01:35:12.600 the only way we get our Christmas trees is by allowing this weirdness. So you walk past it,

01:35:18.220 you make fun of it with your kids, you move on. It's a teachable moment. Hopefully that's where

01:35:22.180 it goes. Guys, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year. Love you both.

01:35:26.780 Happy everything.

01:35:27.760 Ho, ho, ho. To you and Doug and the family, Meg.

01:35:30.940 Yeah, to you guys too. Okay. Don't go away because up next, we're bringing on Phil Houston for a

01:35:36.340 jiffy quick session. We're going to do seven minutes together. And he is going to tell you

01:35:41.700 why every line of Hunter Biden's press conference the other day was a lie. Remember Phil Houston,

01:35:47.340 the human lie detector, CIA, 25 years. Every word he said was dishonest in Phil's expert opinion.

01:35:54.860 You're not going to want to miss this.

01:35:55.880 When Hunter Biden gave his news conference on Capitol Hill this week, my next guest noticed

01:36:04.960 some deceptive phrases. He is literally a human lie detector. And I wanted to bring you his analysis.

01:36:14.300 Phil Houston is a nationally recognized authority on deception. His program that he developed,

01:36:20.120 deception detection, which they use to this day inside the CIA, has spread. He was there for 25

01:36:27.240 years to several other agencies, the Secret Service, the FBI. I mean, basically all of our

01:36:33.100 federal investigators are using Phil Houston's methods for detecting deception. During Phil's 25

01:36:39.960 years at the CIA, he performed thousands of interviews and interrogations, both as an investigator

01:36:44.440 and as a polygraph examiner. He is author of the hit book, Spy the Lie, where he teaches you some of

01:36:51.040 these techniques and is a founding partner of Q Verity. And he's got some thoughts on Mr. Biden

01:36:58.340 Younger. Phil, welcome back to the show. All right, let's get right to it because we got a lot we're

01:37:03.100 going to go through. I'm going to play the first statement because we got a bunch. Let's listen.

01:37:07.180 Number one. I'm here today to answer at a public hearing any legitimate questions Chairman Comer

01:37:14.100 and the House Oversight Committee may have for me. Already there was a lie? Right off the bat,

01:37:21.780 Megan, there was deception. And the deception actually reveals what his goal is. And his goal

01:37:28.300 is to give the impression that he is legitimately appearing before the body that's going to address

01:37:37.020 these allegations with him. But he doesn't want to address those questions. In other words,

01:37:43.380 he's immediately attacking or implying an attack on the body that's going to pose these allegations

01:37:52.080 and questions to him. And he doesn't want to answer them because the facts are not his ally.

01:37:58.100 He clearly has information regarding the allegations that he doesn't wish to disclose.

01:38:07.020 And that's why he's saying, I'll answer the legitimate questions, whereas a truth teller

01:38:12.060 would have said, I'll go in there and ask her whatever they want me to answer.

01:38:15.340 Yeah. When he uses the word legitimate, he's teeing up a situation where he can pick and choose

01:38:20.220 which questions he wants to answer. And he gets to determine in his mind which ones are legitimate

01:38:25.760 and which ones are not.

01:38:28.060 See, the audience needs to remember, Phil has a lifetime of seeing these qualifiers

01:38:31.720 being used on sentences by liars. So they're like red flags to him. He can see them glaring

01:38:37.280 in red lights where you and I are just like, OK, whatever. All right. Let's listen to thought number

01:38:41.740 two.

01:38:43.880 I'm here today to make sure that the House committee's illegitimate investigations of my family

01:38:49.440 do not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence and lies.

01:38:55.360 Yes, indeed. What he's doing here is he's using aggression behavior in the form of attacks to tee up

01:39:08.600 that he's the good guy in this scenario and they're the bad guy. And he's using, you know,

01:39:16.620 the attacks that he's using specifically are the illegitimate investigations. In other words,

01:39:22.900 he's saying that he's not giving you any data or any real denials that he didn't do anything.

01:39:31.740 He's just attacking them because if he can't rehabilitate his own image, he has to bring their

01:39:40.220 image down. Right. It's not a denial of the underlying conduct. It's just an attack of the

01:39:46.720 investigation into it. Good distinction. Let's keep going. Number three.

01:39:52.900 All right. So he wants us to believe he's taking responsibility there. This is the new grownup

01:40:18.360 hunter. Not it. Yeah. No, not at all. What he is doing here. These are nonspecific allegations.

01:40:26.280 OK. And they're used by people who are afraid to, you know, put the bald face lie out there

01:40:36.280 because they're afraid that everyone will see immediately that that is a lie. And so they

01:40:41.120 broaden the statement or the denial and say things like, I didn't do anything. And in this case,

01:40:48.320 he was he was saying, you know, he's being contrite, if you will. He said, I've made mistakes.

01:40:57.200 I've, you know, wasted opportunities and privileges and so forth. These are things that apply to all of

01:41:03.660 us. So if to the untrained eyes and ears, a person who hears that they're saying to themselves,

01:41:10.720 geez, that that's really what he's saying is he's just a normal guy. And in reality,

01:41:16.360 what they're asking for is answers to questions or they want him to appear before the body to answer

01:41:23.620 questions. And he's not prepared to do that.

01:41:27.460 Right. So you're saying if I'm saying you stole my wallet, I'm angry that you stole my wallet and

01:41:33.540 you say I've made mistakes. I've I'm not perfect. I've taken advantage of my privileges. And for that,

01:41:41.000 I hold myself accountable. It's a non answer. Exactly. He's he's he is saying I've done a lot

01:41:48.300 of things in my life, but I but I you know, but where he falls short is he doesn't say I didn't do this

01:41:55.280 or I didn't do the things that they're accusing me of. And and you'll see in a minute, there's

01:42:01.440 another example of that, that non denial, non answer. All right, let's do next. The next one,

01:42:08.140 number four. But I'm also here today to correct how the MAGA right has portrayed me for their

01:42:15.740 political purposes. Well, that's in virtually every answer ever given by a Biden. So what was wrong

01:42:23.640 with that one? Yeah, he's tiptoeing around the allegations here by saying he wants to correct

01:42:32.640 things. And so what does correct mean? It's a very ambiguous statement and a broad statement. Again,

01:42:41.840 it's he's trying to to tee up this idea that these people are bad because they've got it all wrong.

01:42:51.300 And in in his case, he's good. And and all he's done is made a mistake. He didn't break the law,

01:43:00.500 so to speak. That's the implication is trying to to get across your innocent and a truth teller.

01:43:06.380 You're out there saying, look, I didn't do this, period. There's no reason to drag your accusers

01:43:11.420 through the mud or try to diminish or discredit them. That's exactly correct, Megan. It is when we see

01:43:19.180 people in an act of wrongdoing fail to make the direct denial. That is a very significant deceptive

01:43:27.000 behavior because because in reality, for the truthful person, the way you just described it,

01:43:32.340 that's their most important fact. That's what they're eager to get out on the table.

01:43:37.780 We don't see that at all in here throughout the entire press conference. And that really

01:43:43.720 it's our attention when we when we look at it. Right. Right. Because a truth teller would want

01:43:49.240 you to know that first and foremost. All right. Another one here. This one. He went on and he

01:43:53.980 waxed poetic here about I'm a son. I fought here. I'll let him say it.

01:43:58.860 I am first and foremost, a son, a father, a brother, and a husband from a loving and supportive family.

01:44:12.180 I'm proud to have earned degrees from Georgetown University and Yale Law School. I'm proud of my

01:44:18.420 legal career and business career. I'm proud of my time serving on a dozen different boards of directors.

01:44:25.100 And I'm proud of my efforts to forge global business relationships.

01:44:31.140 Global, global business relationships. What's wrong with this one?

01:44:34.940 This is classic deceptive behavior. This is a string of what we term convincing statements.

01:44:41.620 When an individual where the the facts are not their ally and they're afraid to say, I didn't do it.

01:44:48.920 So what can they say? How can he defend himself, so to speak?

01:44:53.780 They go they go into the persuasion mode. It's a string of statements that in many cases here

01:45:01.200 are technically true statements, but they have no little or no relevance to the allegations at hand.

01:45:09.680 And what they're doing is is trying to simply buy the the allegiance of the listener and say,

01:45:19.420 wait a minute, you know, Hunter Biden is a great guy. He may be a great guy, but that doesn't mean he

01:45:24.940 didn't do or isn't culpable with respect to any of the allegations that are going and or questions

01:45:32.140 that are going to be posed to him. All right. This is the most important one and the one that made the

01:45:36.800 new news. He had been saying that there had been Joe Biden never discussed business with his son.

01:45:43.960 That was the original message. Then they changed it ever so slightly like he was never in business

01:45:49.640 with his son. And now the latest iteration comes out from Hunter Biden himself saying my father was not

01:45:55.300 financially involved in my business. And so, you know, as they keep saying, the goalposts are getting

01:46:02.200 moved. Here was that moment, which appears to be where Team Biden has landed, not financially

01:46:07.640 involved in my business. Watch it. Let me state as clearly as I can. My father was not financially

01:46:16.680 involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not my partnership

01:46:24.400 with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not

01:46:30.540 as an artist. What do you make of it? Megan, this is he's relying on the phrase I'm not involved or

01:46:39.980 my father was not involved in any financial aspect of the business. And in reality, there's a whole lot

01:46:46.580 more to the business than just the financials. And the issue at hand is, did his father profit in any

01:46:55.740 way from, you know, from this business. And he's really not addressing that. He's, he's, he's addressing

01:47:02.620 the segments of the business, the financials. Well, what are the other segments? There's operations,

01:47:09.180 there's strategy, there's personnel, there's, there's all kinds of different things. And he,

01:47:15.100 what he's doing is he's trying to give the impression that he's addressing the entirety of

01:47:19.400 the business, when in fact, he's carving out most of it. And, and it would be interesting if you were

01:47:25.900 to go down and ask him, you know, on the segment by segment, you know, especially maybe the strategy

01:47:32.880 whose ideal was this and so forth. And then the profit question itself. It's a way of trying to

01:47:40.600 avoid that one. It's so funny, because we all kind of know this instinctively, but to hear you put

01:47:47.620 the meat on the bones really brings it home. This is why we know, and we may not have been trained

01:47:52.440 like Phil is, but in the back of your head, you know, things are going off, you know, what a truth

01:47:57.800 teller sounds like versus these minuscule admissions that kind of obscure the larger picture. You're

01:48:05.520 trained to see that. Let me finish with SOT 8, which is the very next one, which is also interesting.

01:48:11.780 During my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me.

01:48:21.160 They literally saved my life. They helped me in ways that I will never be able to repay.

01:48:28.280 And of course, they would never expect me to. And in the depths of my addiction,

01:48:34.320 I was extremely irresponsible with my finances. But to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment

01:48:41.300 inquiry is beyond the absurd. It's shameless. There's no evidence to support the allegations

01:48:49.180 that my father was financially involved in my business, because it did not happen.

01:48:56.520 All right, so there's a denial. It did not happen.

01:49:01.280 It's what we it's, again, what we call a nonspecific denial. What does he mean by it,

01:49:07.680 in the sense that there's a number of allegations and so forth, and he's not addressing them

01:49:15.100 specifically. And that's one problem. Also, up to this point, he has been mostly trying to bolster

01:49:23.200 his own image in those instances when he hasn't been attacking the political opposition.

01:49:29.620 However, in this instance, he's also now trying to bolster the president's image and his parents

01:49:38.600 and in fields that is showing the quality of that relationship that he alleges to have with him

01:49:46.540 and they have that they have with him and he has with them is is a good way of trying to curry favor

01:49:54.860 with those who are on the fence here. All right. So bottom line, as you looked at that presser,

01:50:01.920 it seems to me clear he wrote this himself. Your takeaway was what about Hunter Biden?

01:50:06.940 It's it's it's a ruse. The real the real thing he seems to be trying to do is to go to Capitol Hill

01:50:13.640 and make an appearance, a public appearance, and use that as his response to the subpoena.

01:50:20.800 But in reality, he, you know, he to address the subpoena, he's got to go inside, but he's trying

01:50:28.160 to get them to come out by saying, I want to address these in the public eye. And I can't do that if I'm

01:50:35.680 inside with with you folks. I think it's a delaying tactic in terms of the the the Congress is, you know,

01:50:47.420 working the committee's work, you know, efforts. What's your level of certainty that we were watching

01:50:52.380 dishonesty there? I think it's extraordinarily high, Megan. There's a ton of deceptive behavior

01:51:00.580 from from you can see from the first, you know, phrase in the first sentence all the way to the

01:51:06.800 very end. He lied top to bottom, in your opinion.

01:51:10.740 But I'm he is he is being in my opinion, he is being very deceptive.

01:51:18.300 It's what we see, what we see a lot when people are in trouble and the facts are not their ally.

01:51:24.480 I want to tell the audience, Phil and I've known each other a long time. He'll offer me this analysis

01:51:29.720 sometimes, sometimes solicited, sometimes not on Democrats and Republicans. It's never a partisan.

01:51:34.800 He's he's torn Republicans to shreds with me privately and publicly as well. It's not about

01:51:39.520 politics for him. He's just assessing the speech, the words and the indicators of deception. And here,

01:51:46.040 Hunter Biden, you failed. You failed the Phil Houston test. Sorry, you are not the running toward

01:51:52.060 becoming America's next top honest man. Phil Houston. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Megan.

01:51:57.340 You know, so fun. I love the Phil Houston takes, by the way, just, you know, not for nothing. But

01:52:05.260 you know who else he said was lying? Tom Brady about deflate gate. That was another one shocked

01:52:10.680 a lot of people. But I trust Phil. All right. Before we go quickly, I want to tell you subscribe

01:52:14.940 to our American News Minute by emailing by email. You can sign up at Megan Kelly dot com. And today's

01:52:21.140 we'll have my top makeup tip for you. And I want to tell you about our shows next week,

01:52:26.000 a special edition of the show taking you deep inside the disturbing and fascinating story of

01:52:31.180 the Idaho murders and the suspect, Brian, Brian Kohlberger. Have a great weekend and we'll talk

01:52:36.760 again soon. Much love to you all. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:52:56.000 Queen Mitchell.

01:53:02.180 Everyone's next.

01:53:02.760 We'll be right back.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 15, 2023

Cowardly Media, and Trump's 2024 Court Battles, with Bari Weiss, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Phil Houston ｜ Ep. 687

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