The Megyn Kelly Show - DOJ Charges Castro, House Hearing Targets SPLC, Bezos Slams Mamdani & Praises Trump： AM Update 5⧸21

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00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone. I'm Emily Jashinski, host of After Party and the Megyn Kelly Wrap-Up

00:00:37.660 Show on Sirius XM channel 111. It's Thursday, May 21st, 2026, and this is your AM update.

00:00:45.200 Today, we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy

00:00:53.460 to kill U.S. nationals. The DOJ indicts former Cuban leader Raul Castro as questions emerge

00:01:01.920 over whether the Trump administration is preparing for a broader confrontation with Cuba.

00:01:07.960 Turned out for them, creating hate was more profitable than fighting it.

00:01:10.920 A House judiciary hearing puts the Southern Poverty Law Center under the microscope as

00:01:16.680 Republicans accuse the indicted group of manufacturing hate for profit. Billionaire

00:01:22.500 Jeff Bezos, weighs in on President Trump and the First Lady, New York City Mayor Zoran

00:01:27.720 Mamdani, and more.

00:01:29.700 And James Murdoch, the liberal son of the Fox Titan, making a major media play of his

00:01:36.160 own.

00:01:36.840 All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

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00:02:40.820 dollars. The DOJ announcing the indictment of 94-year-old former Cuban President Raul Castro

00:02:49.360 nearly 30 years after the Cuban military shot down two civilian planes operated by humanitarian

00:02:55.880 group Brothers to the Rescue. Five Cuban fighter pilots involved in the shooting also indicted.

00:03:02.720 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche unveiling the charges yesterday in Miami, where Cuban Americans

00:03:08.320 make up about 30 percent of the population. Today, we are announcing an indictment

00:03:15.560 charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.

00:03:26.020 Mr. Castro and the others are charged with additional crimes as well, including destruction

00:03:31.220 of aircraft and four individual counts of murder. The indictment was returned by a grand jury

00:03:39.220 sitting in this district in Miami on April 23rd, 2026, and was unsealed today. For nearly 30 years,

00:03:49.560 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice.

00:03:55.560 The DOJ saying the planes were civilian aircraft flying over international waters as part of a humanitarian mission focused on Cuban refugees fleeing the island by sea.

00:04:06.660 Well, Cuba claims the planes were violating its airspace.

00:04:10.080 The announcement timed with Cuban Independence Day.

00:04:14.980 Secretary of State Marco Rubio releasing a Spanish-language video directly targeting Cubans saying,

00:04:21.120 quote, the real reason you don't have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your

00:04:26.880 country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.

00:04:33.100 These latest actions coming amid a series of recent moves raising questions about whether

00:04:37.660 the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for a more aggressive military confrontation with

00:04:43.460 Cuba. In March, President Trump openly floating the idea of, quote, taking Cuba in some form,

00:04:48.920 calling the island a failed nation and saying he believed he could, quote,

00:04:52.980 do anything he wanted with it. Earlier this year, the U.S. military captured former Venezuelan leader

00:04:58.260 Nicolas Maduro, a longtime Cuban ally who had already been indicted by the DOJ. Venezuela now

00:05:05.220 run by Maduro's former deputy, Delce Rodriguez, who has been allowed to remain in power as long

00:05:11.740 as she cooperates with the administration. Maduro's removal has had direct consequences

00:05:17.160 for Havana. For years, Venezuela was one of Cuba's most important oil lifelines. Since Maduro's

00:05:24.640 ouster, the administration blocking oil shipments to Cuba, worsening an already severe fuel crisis,

00:05:31.140 prolonging blackouts, and stirring up the civilian population. And earlier this week, Axios reporting

00:05:37.180 based on alleged classified intelligence that Cuba, in its weakened state, has obtained more

00:05:43.360 than 300 military drones from U.S. adversaries and discussed possible attacks on American targets,

00:05:50.260 including Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and possibly Key West, Florida.

00:05:56.440 Cuban's foreign minister calling the allegation a fraudulent case designed to justify possible

00:06:02.620 military action. We spoke to South Florida-based freelance journalist Juan Rojas, who sees the

00:06:08.420 Trump administration's push against Cuba as part of a broader electoral strategy.

00:06:12.740 It looks like they're moving forward with some sort of Maduro-esque playbook.

00:06:19.800 Hard to say if they'll actually go through with trying to arrest him or maybe some sort of negotiation with the regime to hand him over.

00:06:28.220 Other than that, maybe nothing comes of it at all.

00:06:31.820 It's just purely symbolic, but that symbolism is clearly just meant for South Florida and Cuban Americans more broadly.

00:06:39.400 With recent polling showing President Trump hemorrhaging Hispanic support, Rojas says the push to topple Cuba's communist regime could help the administration shore up a key part of its Latino coalition.

00:06:51.260 The administration has really alienated a lot of Latinos, including Cuban Americans, who still generally support President Trump.

00:07:00.620 But a lot of them, and you do feel this a lot in South Florida, have been upset by what they view as excesses with like the deportation policy,

00:07:10.780 like deporting people to third countries that they're not originally from, excessive force used to like arrest people.

00:07:20.640 But on the other hand, they really love the Cuba policy and the prospect of regime change on the island.

00:07:28.720 As a result, I see I at least see a lot of Cuban Americans, especially giving the administration a pass and possibly like even this could motivate turnout during the midterms, which was really crucial among Latino voters where support has dropped off a lot.

00:07:46.880 Rojas says D.C. is making a dangerous bet that making conditions even worse will force Cubans into revolt.

00:07:54.480 If they don't get oil, they just can't turn the lights on.

00:07:57.240 And so as a result, that's a lot of Cuban Americans here have called on boycotting third countries.

00:08:06.080 Yeah, Mexico and Russia from Venezuela shipping oil to the island under the theory that, you know,

00:08:13.220 if we make conditions so bad on the island, people will rise up and overthrow the regime.

00:08:18.500 I think that's orchard logic.

00:08:20.580 But you want to make people suffer to stimulate them in order to overthrow a regime.

00:08:26.720 But there's a lot of it's kind of a double sided sword.

00:08:30.260 I mean, besides like the humanitarian aspect to it, you usually like create a rally around the flag effect around whatever government is in power.

00:08:41.500 And you also give them an excuse to crack down and also just scapegoat, which is what the Cuban regime has done for decades.

00:08:49.000 Rojas warns Cuba is not Venezuela, and that any hopes of copying the Maduro playbook may be underestimating the island.

00:08:56.420 It's really hard to say because it's such a closed-off system.

00:09:00.520 I mean, you know, like in Venezuela, for instance, there is like a formal opposition.

00:09:05.480 There's like civil society and like whatever.

00:09:07.960 Cuba, it's a one-party state. And the Communist Party literally controls everything. So what

00:09:16.880 comes after? I'm not really sure. I mean, you know, some people say that, oh, if we invade,

00:09:23.400 you know, the Cuban people will rise up and defend the revolution. I have my doubts. But yeah,

00:09:29.700 sure, I'm sure there's some diehards that would be willing to, you know, fight an invasion to the

00:09:36.920 death, but then there are people, there could be people that go into the mountains and mount

00:09:41.220 an insurgency. The House Judiciary Committee holding a hearing yesterday on the Southern

00:09:47.700 Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, amid mounting scrutiny of the once prominent civil rights

00:09:53.200 organization now under federal indictment. The hearing examining what House Republicans describe

00:09:59.220 as the SPLC's role in artificially elevating the threat of domestic extremism. Founded in

00:10:06.580 Montgomery, Alabama in 1971, the SPLC began as a non-profit civil rights law firm known for

00:10:13.200 bringing cases against the KKK and other white supremacist organizations. But in more recent

00:10:18.380 years, the group branding conservative and libertarian groups like Moms for Liberty as

00:10:24.020 anti-government and placing Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA on its hate map alongside the KKK

00:10:30.720 and other extremist groups. The hearing coming after a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted

00:10:38.020 the SPLC last month on 11 criminal counts, including wire fraud, false statements to a

00:10:44.400 federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. According to the

00:10:50.360 DOJ, the SPLC allegedly used more than $3 million in donated funds between 2014 and 2023 to pay

00:10:59.100 individuals associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan

00:11:04.680 Nations, and neo-Nazi organizations, to allegedly act as informants. Prosecutors

00:11:11.120 alleging the group concealed those payments through fake entities and misled donors about

00:11:16.680 how their money was being used. One of the central examples raised in the hearing was

00:11:21.540 Charlottesville, where prosecutors say an SPLC-paid field source was involved in helping

00:11:27.020 plan and promote the 2017 Unite the Right rally that led to one death and ignited years of national

00:11:35.100 debate over extremism and political violence. In yesterday's House Judiciary hearing, Chairman Jim

00:11:41.220 Jordan arguing Charlottesville was not an isolated example, but part of a broader SPLC model,

00:11:47.200 paying sources inside extremist movements, amplifying the threat those movements posed,

00:11:51.940 and then converting the fear into donations.

00:11:55.800 FieldSource 37, again, he was the first one I mentioned.

00:11:59.180 He was part of the planning group

00:12:00.380 for the Charlottesville rally.

00:12:01.940 He was paid to coordinate transportation.

00:12:03.740 He was paid to attend.

00:12:05.260 After the event, again, after the event

00:12:07.800 where a young lady is killed,

00:12:09.360 the Southern Poverty Law Center

00:12:10.880 almost tripled their income.

00:12:13.060 It all worked.

00:12:14.520 They went from 51 million annual income

00:12:16.500 to $133 million.

00:12:19.920 Turned out for them,

00:12:20.740 creating hate was more profitable than fighting it. That's exactly what they did. They ran a scam,

00:12:26.460 they became the standard, they didn't get prosecuted, and they made a ton of money.

00:12:30.860 Made a ton of money. They're sitting on $800 million in assets, $700 million endowment fund.

00:12:36.880 Such a deal. Such a deal. But here's the good news, because there is some good news. Here's

00:12:42.400 the good news. President Trump got elected. Todd Blanche is attorney general. Cash Patel is FBI

00:12:47.100 director. And guess what? They're prosecuting these guys. Ranking member Jamie Raskin, a Democrat

00:12:52.460 from Maryland, accusing the Trump DOJ of criminalizing what he says was a lawful informant

00:12:58.720 program. The DOJ says that the SPLC defrauded its donors by paying undercover informants to

00:13:05.680 infiltrate and collect intelligence on these racist groups. But where are all the donors

00:13:11.440 complaining about having been defrauded. Where is the evidence of the fraud? Where are the civil

00:13:18.760 lawsuits that always follow in the wake of a fraud, a scam, or a ripoff? DOJ has offered no evidence

00:13:26.020 that anyone was actually deceived or defrauded by this perfectly lawful, well-known, and accepted

00:13:30.820 practice that the FBI itself approved for many years. Using informants and undercover agents

00:13:36.180 was indeed the basis for the FBI's own efforts to investigate racist extremist groups when that

00:13:42.660 was a priority, before the targets of the FBI became instead the perceived political foes

00:13:49.460 of Donald Trump. Witness and senior editor at The Daily Signal, Tyler O'Neill, testifying the SPLC

00:13:55.980 was built on a fundraising model that once targeted the KKK, but later required the group

00:14:01.820 to keep expanding its definition of hate

00:14:04.140 to keep donor money flowing.

00:14:06.840 How did the SPLC become so wealthy?

00:14:10.280 Co-founder Morris Dees set up a lucrative fundraising engine

00:14:14.720 by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy.

00:14:18.480 When the SPLC ran out of Grand Dragons to slay,

00:14:22.220 the center needed to find more hate

00:14:25.540 to justify the fundraising. 0.57

00:14:28.320 It has a financial incentive to juice the numbers.

00:14:31.820 The SPLC began to publish a hate map that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters.

00:14:41.080 The map includes Moms for Liberty, PragerU, Turning Point USA, and even Focus on the Family.

00:14:50.640 The SPLC says the map reveals the infrastructure upholding white supremacy.

00:14:56.540 This hate map kills two birds with one stone.

00:15:00.180 It silences conservative dissent from the left's and the SPLC's agenda, and it exaggerates hate

00:15:07.880 to keep the money flowing. The SPLC denies any wrongdoing, pleading not guilty earlier this

00:15:14.980 month to the DOJ charges, with a case now set to go to trial in October.

00:15:21.160 Coming up, billionaire Jeff Bezos taking on the tax the rich movement,

00:15:25.940 AI fears President Trump and New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani in a wide-ranging CNBC interview.

00:15:32.740 And James Murdoch, once aired to the Fox News empire, now buying up major liberal media brands.

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00:16:43.040 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sitting for a wide ranging CNBC interview, weighing in on everything

00:16:48.720 from President Trump, Zoran Mamdani, and AI.

00:16:52.120 One of the most striking moments coming when Bezos, one of the richest men in the world,

00:16:57.100 argued the bottom half of American earners should stop paying federal taxes altogether.

00:17:02.440 Bezos rejecting the idea that simply taxing billionaires more will solve the economic

00:17:07.460 woes working Americans face, arguing the country is not struggling with a revenue problem,

00:17:12.560 but a spending problem.

00:17:14.740 So there's this tale of two economies, and they're using this age-old technique of,

00:17:19.260 you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers. But the problem is that doesn't solve anything.

00:17:26.820 Why is a nurse in Queens who makes seventy five thousand dollars a year paying more than a thousand 1.00

00:17:31.700 dollars a month in taxes? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only three 1.00

00:17:37.920 percent of the taxes. It's only three percent. We can find three percent. You know, we shouldn't be

00:17:43.900 asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington, they should be sending her an apology.

00:17:51.020 To illustrate the point, Bezos pointed to New York City schools, arguing the government is

00:17:55.140 already spending massive amounts of money but not managing it well. The New York City school system,

00:18:01.180 they spend $44,000 per student, $44,000. That's 30% more per student than other big cities like

00:18:11.480 Chicago, L.A., and Boston. New York City doesn't get better outcomes. If we ran Amazon the way

00:18:19.020 New York City runs their school system, your packages would take six weeks to arrive.

00:18:24.260 We'd have to charge you a $100 delivery fee.

00:18:27.220 Bezos also applying the same argument to Amazon workers, pushing back on the idea

00:18:32.300 that the problem is simply low corporate pay.

00:18:34.820 Amazon, we have our entry level wage for in Queens is $23 an hour. And that's that works

00:18:45.280 up to be like $52,000 a year. Guess what? They're still charging that person more than $10,000 in

00:18:51.640 taxes. And that's absurd. Why would you charge somebody making $52,000 a year, $10,000 a year

00:18:58.440 in taxes? Bezos also asked about a video posted last month by New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani.

00:19:04.400 the far-left progressive who has made taxing the wealthy central to his agenda.

00:19:09.140 In the video, Mamdani stands outside billionaire Ken Griffin's home,

00:19:12.720 announcing a proposed new tax on second homes in the city worth more than $5 million.

00:19:18.060 I think there are two different things about that video.

00:19:21.600 On the one hand, it's perfectly fine to have a policy debate about whether you want to have a peer-to-tear tax.

00:19:29.200 The second piece, which is not so good, is to go stand in front of Ken Griffin's house

00:19:34.180 and act like he's some kind of villain.

00:19:37.000 Ken Griffin isn't a villain.

00:19:38.260 He hasn't hurt anybody.

00:19:39.220 He's not hurting New York.

00:19:40.340 In fact, quite the opposite.

00:19:42.100 A pire de terre tax is, you know, taxes on out-of-towners are very popular taxes.

00:19:48.120 That's why there are hotel taxes.

00:19:50.480 But I think that the pire de terre tax is a fine thing for New York to do.

00:19:55.620 Unfortunately, it is an effective political technique.

00:20:00.060 It's as old as the hills.

00:20:01.080 So when you don't know how to solve a problem, create a villain, blame them.

00:20:06.460 But it won't solve the problem.

00:20:08.260 The only thing that will solve the problem is skill.

00:20:10.640 Bezos also pushing back on the suggestion that Amazon Studios' Melania Trump documentary

00:20:15.820 was part of a broader effort to curry favor with the Trump administration,

00:20:19.900 adding he has worked with presidents of both parties.

00:20:23.140 We need our business leaders to provide input into the administration,

00:20:29.780 regardless of who the president is i want to i'm not on the side you know what this is i'm on the

00:20:35.600 side of america and i and that is so important like and that's where business leaders should be

00:20:42.380 it's just i think they're not no i think no i think we are but we get perceived as being like

00:20:48.020 you know uh partisan or whatever like i was helping obama every chance i could i was helping

00:20:54.300 Biden every chance I could. I still call Obama for advice. He's a very smart guy. And, you know,

00:21:01.020 and by the way, people that are, Trump has lots of good ideas and he's done a lot of,

00:21:07.640 he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.

00:21:11.140 And as AI becomes an increasingly divisive topic with some college graduation crowds

00:21:16.440 booing speakers who praise the technology, Bezos making the case for optimism.

00:21:21.600 and they are saying oh my god you know there's going to be no more radiologists because

00:21:26.240 you know ai can read x-rays better than a radiologist can and they're going to be no

00:21:31.680 more software engineers because ai can program better than a software engineer can these people

00:21:36.760 are wrong let's say you're a software engineer right what the analogy i can give you is you've

00:21:42.340 been digging out a basement for your house with a shovel and somebody's about to hand you a

00:21:49.800 bulldozer. What's really going to happen is we're going to have so much productivity in our economy

00:21:54.900 that, for example, the food will get cheaper and housing construction will get cheaper and so on

00:22:01.640 and so on. It's a real world succession as James Murdoch, the liberal son of Fox News founder

00:22:08.780 Rupert Murdoch, now building out a media empire of his own. Lupa Systems, Murdoch's media and

00:22:14.840 tech holding company, announced a major deal to acquire New York Magazine, Vox.com, and the Vox

00:22:21.060 Media Podcast Network. The acquisition includes podcasts such as Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott

00:22:27.340 Galloway. The deal does not include all Vox Media brands like Eater, PopSugar, SB Nation,

00:22:33.420 The Dodo, and The Verge. The press release not indicating the sale price, though CNN reporting

00:22:38.680 an estimated value of $300 million or more. Murdoch describing the deal as focused on ideas

00:22:44.920 and in-depth journalism, telling the New York Times he was not looking to acquire a quote

00:22:49.820 daily news business, but instead wanted longer form, thoughtful journalism that can really speak

00:22:55.240 to the culture. The deal also carrying a bit of family history. Rupert Murdoch, the conservative

00:23:01.460 media mogul who built the Fox News empire, once owned New York Magazine, buying its parent company

00:23:07.020 in 1977 before selling it in 1991 for $650 million, according to Forbes. James, splitting

00:23:14.920 from the family in 2020, reportedly over ideological differences, he and two other siblings last year

00:23:21.240 reaching an evenly divided $3.3 billion settlement after a bitter legal fight. His brother, Lachlan

00:23:28.080 Murdoch, now serving as executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, effectively running the

00:23:33.400 day-to-day business of the Fox empire. James telling the New York Times his father's past

00:23:38.440 ownership does not hold special meaning for him. Asked whether he is trying to do something

00:23:43.540 deliberately different from his father, Murdoch replying, quote, no, I'm just trying to build a

00:23:48.880 great business. That'll do it for your AM update. I'm Emily Drashinsky, host of After Party. Catch

00:23:56.860 The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM's The Megyn Kelly Channel 111 at noon east on youtube.com

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The Megyn Kelly Show - May 21, 2026

DOJ Charges Castro, House Hearing Targets SPLC, Bezos Slams Mamdani & Praises Trump： AM Update 5⧸21

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