The Megyn Kelly Show - August 05, 2025


DOJ Opens Russiagate Grand Jury Investigation, TX Dems Flee, Secrets of Dem PAC Cash： AM Update 8⧸5

Topics
redistricting maps
Hosted by
Megyn Kelly
Mentioned
Donald Trump Greg Abbott Cozy Earth Vladimir Putin Gayle King Obama Hillary Clinton Gail King Megan10 Jasmine Crockett Tahanisi Coates Kalen Rovinescu Jonathan Turley Chris Hadfield Shauna Thomas Tony Dokopoul Jeanine Pirro Kathy Hochul Gavin Newsom Alan Shepard and 8 more
Trump Praises Sydney Sweeney as Natural Beauty Defeats Woke, and Incoherent Kamala is Back, with Michael Knowles DOJ Weighs Releasing Maxwell Transcript, Trump on Third Term, Titan Disaster Report： AM Update 8⧸6

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

147.58

Word count

3,329

Sentence count

238

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The DOJ launches a grand jury investigation into the Russiagate hoaxers. What Texas and Republican states are doing at the direction of Donald Trump, I say is nothing short of a legal insurrection. A battle over the Texas congressional map causes Democrats in the statehouse to flee their state, with other governors promising to retaliate in their states. A Stanford professor follows the money raised from those aggressive, obnoxious text message fundraising campaigns from the Dems, and guess where those donations wound up?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 What are the new technologies that will change aviation?
00:00:04.460 Well, hydrogen would be one for sure if we got there.
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00:00:14.940 Today, I'm speaking with Kalen Rovinescu, the former president of Air Canada and a trailblazer in global aviation.
00:00:24.440 Join me, Chris Hadfield, on the On Energy podcast.
00:00:27.760 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly.
00:00:35.040 It's Tuesday, August 5th, 2025, and this is your AM update.
00:00:39.800 The DOJ launches a grand jury investigation into the Russiagate hoaxers.
00:00:44.900 What Texas and Republican states are doing at the direction of Donald Trump, I say is nothing short of a legal insurrection.
00:00:51.740 A battle over the Texas congressional map causes Democrats in the statehouse to flee their state,
00:00:58.300 with other governors promising to retaliate in their states.
00:01:02.320 A Stanford professor follows the money raised from those aggressive, obnoxious text message fundraising campaigns from the Dems.
00:01:09.760 And guess where those donations have actually wound up?
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00:01:21.040 And CBS News' top astronaut, Gayle King, facing an uncertain future as new leadership prepares to take control of the network.
00:01:29.920 Houston, we have a problem.
00:01:31.620 All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.
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00:03:08.300 Attorney General Pam Bondi reports Fox News directing her staff to open a grand jury investigation into the 2016 Russiagate conspiracy to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
00:03:24.560 In mid-July, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sending a criminal referral to the DOJ, providing evidence that Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and members of his National Security Cabinet manufactured and politicized intelligence to subvert the incoming Trump administration.
00:03:43.680 The criminal referral following the release of a declassified 2020 House Intel report that analyzed the tradecraft used to compile a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA, at the direction of President Obama.
00:04:00.240 The ICA infamously concluding, quote,
00:04:03.640 We also assess Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
00:04:17.380 The declassified 2020 House Intel report revealing serious flaws with the intelligence and methods used to craft the 2017 ICA,
00:04:26.400 exposing that the only classified information cited to conclude Russian President Vladimir Putin aspired to help Mr. Trump's chances of victory was based on, quote,
00:04:36.900 one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from a single human report.
00:04:43.740 A DOJ spokesperson telling Fox A.G. Bondi is taking the referral, quote,
00:04:48.220 very seriously.
00:04:49.500 The charges at play, and exactly whom the grand jury is expected to target, not yet clear.
00:04:54.720 Legal scholar Jonathan Turley on X, providing more color, quote,
00:04:59.040 While Obama enjoys immunity, others, like Brennan, remain exposed.
00:05:03.560 Perjury, obstruction, and lying to federal investigators are obvious areas for exploration by prosecutors.
00:05:10.260 Turley posting he expects the investigation to rest with a newly confirmed U.S. attorney for D.C.
00:05:16.060 and his former Fox colleague, Janine Pirro.
00:05:18.840 Dozens of Texas State House Democrats now facing removal from office and potentially felony charges
00:05:28.620 after failing to meet Texas Governor Greg Abbott's Monday afternoon deadline to return to special session.
00:05:34.820 The Dem lawmakers fleeing to New York and Illinois over the weekend to deny a quorum ahead of a State House vote on a new congressional map,
00:05:43.540 which will add five, count them, five new GOP seats ahead of next year's midterm election.
00:05:50.060 Texas State Dems accusing the GOP of gerrymandering at the behest of the Trump administration.
00:05:56.260 In early July, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dillon,
00:06:01.620 expressing concern to state leaders that five Texas congressional districts may be unconstitutional,
00:06:08.380 based on how race was the predominant factor in the past when drawing them.
00:06:12.660 Governor Abbott then adding a redistricting bill to the special session to address those concerns.
00:06:19.660 Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Representative Gene Wu, on CNN Monday morning,
00:06:24.840 defending the decision to flee the state.
00:06:27.500 We really didn't have a choice.
00:06:30.400 We tried to negotiate Republicans.
00:06:32.060 We tried to talk to them.
00:06:33.240 We tried to reason with them.
00:06:34.900 We tried to tell them that the public is very angry at what they're doing,
00:06:38.600 and they simply wouldn't listen.
00:06:40.500 This was the only way we could protect our constituents and protect the state.
00:06:45.360 And frankly, Democrats say, come and take it.
00:06:48.500 Texas rules impose a $500 per day fine for lawmakers leaving the state to prevent a quorum,
00:06:55.220 some Democrats using the penalty as a fundraising tactic.
00:06:58.780 Governor Abbott on Fox Monday morning saying that is not OK.
00:07:02.260 So very simply, it would be bribery if any lawmaker took money to perform or to refuse to perform an act in the legislature.
00:07:13.500 And the reports are these legislators have been both.
00:07:17.880 They sought money and they offered money to skip the vote, to leave the legislature, to take a legislative act.
00:07:27.220 That would be bribery.
00:07:29.120 And so the facts will have to come out.
00:07:31.200 But I think based upon comments made by legislators themselves,
00:07:35.220 they face a possibility of facing bribery charges, which is a second-degree felony in the state of Texas.
00:07:41.220 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton posting Sunday on X,
00:07:44.720 Democrats in the Texas House, who try and run away like cowards, should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.
00:07:52.920 We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.
00:07:58.420 The governor does not have the ability to unilaterally declare a seat vacated.
00:08:03.480 That battle will have to be argued in court.
00:08:06.400 U.S. Congresswoman from Texas, Democrat Jasmine Crockett, weighing in on A.G. Paxton's proposal in her own special way. 0.85
00:08:14.720 I am so very proud.
00:08:16.560 Please, please, please look up these amazing state representatives.
00:08:20.160 Show them some love.
00:08:21.220 Encourage them.
00:08:21.840 Because this is really hard to make the decision that you're going to leave your family behind as you go and hide out.
00:08:27.840 Because we got a rogue bootleg criminal attorney general who absolutely is, like, wanting to be Trump 2.0 himself.
00:08:36.220 And he wants to put warrants out for people, even though, like, he's the one that was under federal investigation for years.
00:08:42.160 And he's the one that had felony indictments pending for years and, of course, was avoiding prosecution for years.
00:08:48.320 Yeah, because, like, that's what makes you real MAGA is, like, you've got to be about this thug life.
00:08:52.740 You've got to be, like, cheating on your wife. 0.92
00:08:55.020 You've got to at least be going to get impeached if you ain't been impeached because he was impeached.
00:08:59.180 He just wasn't convicted again.
00:09:00.620 Kind of like, you know, the orange orangutan, you know, the Timber Hitler, he on the same nonsense, too. 0.88
00:09:07.360 On Monday afternoon, Republican members of the Texas House voting to approve arrest warrants for all missing members,
00:09:13.880 a symbolic gesture as the warrants are only valid inside state lines.
00:09:18.560 Last night, a group of U.S. Congress members from Texas joining state House Dems on the run in Illinois for a press conference,
00:09:26.800 saying they're not fleeing, they're fighting.
00:09:28.960 They're focusing on pushing these racist, radical redistricting maps.
00:09:34.420 It's not just Texas.
00:09:36.360 It really is the United States of America because if they succeed in Texas, they will take this to other states,
00:09:43.400 but they'll do it if we only stand by and watch them.
00:09:47.840 What is happening here is the most blatant, racist disregard for the voters of Texas.
00:09:54.940 They expect Democrats to kind of be the nice guys that we are.
00:09:59.040 They expect us to take the punch and say, thank you.
00:10:01.780 Well, I am here to tell you not only are we going to punch back, but we about to beat you down.
00:10:06.860 The Texas redistricting plan quickly becoming a national flashpoint as Democrat leaders in blue states promise retaliatory actions of their own.
00:10:15.740 New York Governor Kathy Hochul at a Monday morning press conference with some of the Texas Democrats hiding out in her state.
00:10:21.920 While Donald Trump and his co-conspirator, Greg Abbott, erode our democracy and drag us toward authoritarianism.
00:10:31.500 Now, what Texas and Republican states are doing at the direction of Donald Trump, I say is nothing short of a legal insurrection against our Capitol.
00:10:45.780 Legal meaning they're using the legal process.
00:10:47.780 It does not mean it's legal.
00:10:49.060 And it must be stopped.
00:10:51.320 If Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they're leaving us no choice.
00:10:57.520 We must do the same.
00:11:01.480 There's a phrase, you have to fight fire with fire.
00:11:05.280 That is a true statement of how we're feeling right now.
00:11:08.380 And as I've said, another overused but applicable phrase, all's fair in love and war.
00:11:13.960 California Governor Gavin Newsom, too, considering calling a special election to redraw the maps in California in retaliation.
00:11:29.380 The governor is saying that call would likely come in the first week of November.
00:11:33.120 Coming up, following the money, who's behind the unhinged Democrat fundraising text message campaigns and how much of those donations actually make it to the candidate and astronaut Gail King's future at CBS hangs in the balance as new management promises an end to DEI and woke programming.
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00:13:03.580 So many Americans are all too familiar with the flood of political text messages and emails, unsolicited and relentless.
00:13:15.400 Both parties engage in digital fundraising, but those landing on a Democrat donor list will recognize a distinct and annoying tone.
00:13:23.780 Frantic, melodramatic, and at times, bizarre.
00:13:27.500 One recent text reading, quote,
00:13:29.780 We're 3,539 votes from blocking Trump from winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
00:13:36.560 Hurry, cast your vote.
00:13:38.460 Another proclaiming, quote,
00:13:40.060 Hakeem Jeffries just stonewalled Trump.
00:13:43.340 Show overwhelming support for his bravery.
00:13:46.780 Stand with Jeffries.
00:13:48.480 Followed by a donation link.
00:13:50.120 Stanford University political science professor Adam Bonica, writing for his On Data and Democracy Substack, unearthing some hard truths about the Democratic fundraising scheme.
00:14:02.780 Beginning, quote,
00:14:03.440 The main rationale offered for this fundraising frenzy is that it's a necessary evil, that the tactics, while unpleasant, are brutally effective at raising the money needed to win.
00:14:14.920 But an analysis of the official FEC filings tells a very different story.
00:14:19.740 The fundraising model is not a brutally effective tool for the party.
00:14:23.880 It is a financial vortex that consumes the vast majority of every dollar it raises.
00:14:29.760 Bonica, combing through a web of packs, driving the chorus of alarming messages, uncovering what he calls, quote,
00:14:37.220 A concentrated ecosystem built to serve the firm at its center, Mothership Strategies.
00:14:44.120 The group, founded in 2014 by former senior operators of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
00:14:51.500 is responsible for developing the strategy relying on the frantic and hyperbolic messaging.
00:14:57.160 Bonica reporting, quote,
00:14:58.260 Bonica,
00:15:28.240 Bonica's network of PACs has raised a whopping $678 million from individual donors.
00:15:36.780 Of that total, just $11 million was paid out to candidates, campaigns, or national party committees.
00:15:43.580 What? Where's the remaining $667 million?
00:15:47.700 Bonica writes, quote,
00:15:49.080 For every dollar a grandmother in Iowa donates, believing she's saving democracy, 98 cents goes to consultants and operational costs. 0.89
00:15:59.220 Just pennies reach actual campaigns.
00:16:01.660 $282 million paid directly to mothership, $282 million paid directly to mothership, $159 million of which went to consulting fees.
00:16:10.200 $22.5 million paid a text message delivery service called Message Digital LLC.
00:16:17.080 $70 million more paid to salaries and payroll.
00:16:20.580 That's, I guess, on top of the $159 million in consulting fees.
00:16:26.560 Bonica reporting, quote,
00:16:27.620 Bonica noting the practice does not appear to be illegal, but questions whether Democrats can tolerate what he calls a, quote,
00:16:44.880 Parasitic ecosystem.
00:16:47.600 Results in 2024 certainly suggest not.
00:16:51.380 If you listened to Monday's episode of AM Update, digging into fire aid and the LA wildfires,
00:16:57.040 and how the money is not getting to actual residents,
00:17:00.640 you'll know the real lesson here is be very careful about where you send your donations.
00:17:05.880 The New York Post reporting on the growing internal dilemma over inspirational astronaut Gail King's future at CBS News,
00:17:16.600 as the network undergoes a leadership transition promising a crackdown on bias and wokeness.
00:17:22.700 The $8.4 billion merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance Media expected to close on Thursday following the FCC's approval in July.
00:17:32.820 The merger placing CBS, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Plus, and several cable channels under the control of the independent film studio.
00:17:41.600 In late May, King signing a one-year extension deal reportedly valued at around $15 million.
00:17:47.960 The multi-million dollar extension coming at a time when her show is bleeding viewers. 0.98
00:17:53.620 Nielsen data showing a 20 to 30 percent drop in the already low key 25 to 54 demo over the last three weeks compared to this time last year.
00:18:02.820 And drawing in less than 2 million total viewers in recent months.
00:18:07.020 Dreadful numbers for a network morning show.
00:18:09.900 CBS Morning's consistently trailing behind its competitors, ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's The Today Show.
00:18:16.520 That's nothing new.
00:18:17.900 Paying $15 million to a failing morning star, however, isn't in line with CBS's history.
00:18:24.000 The programming lineup leaning heavily into woke themes that many viewers have had enough of.
00:18:30.520 A source telling The Post, King and her executive producer, Shauna Thomas, set the programming agenda on the show.
00:18:37.940 In mid-April, the program going over the top with its coverage of King's extremely brief blink-and-you-missed-it trip to the edge of space on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket ship.
00:18:50.120 King insisting afterward, she is an actual astronaut, not missing the chance to report on what an inspiration she is to everyone.
00:19:00.640 Just ask her.
00:19:01.900 I still have a hard time calling myself an astronaut, but please don't call it a ride. 0.74
00:19:05.680 That is not a friggin' ride.
00:19:06.780 Whenever a man goes up, you have never said to an astronaut, boy, what a ride.
00:19:11.500 You know, we duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Shepard did back in the day, pretty much.
00:19:16.700 No one called that a ride. It was called a flight.
00:19:19.800 What it's doing to inspire other women and young girls, please don't ignore that.
00:19:25.300 I've had so many women and young girls reach out to me, and men too, by the way, men too, that say, wow, I never thought I could do that.
00:19:32.980 Every other week, King is in the trade rags on another billionaire's yacht or at one's party, not exactly relatable for the moms watching this show from home.
00:19:42.960 The show's had other troubles, too.
00:19:44.580 Last September, co-host Tony Dokopoul, who is Jewish, drawing fierce and widely publicized internal backlash from a mildly challenging interview with radical leftist author Ta-Nehisi Coates about a chapter in his new book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Coates wrote after spending 10 days in the Middle East.
00:20:07.180 When you write a book that delegitimizes the pillars of Israel, it seems like an effort to topple the whole building of it.
00:20:12.660 So I come back to the question, and it's what I struggle with throughout this book.
00:20:16.880 What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place and not any of the other states out there?
00:20:26.680 CBS leadership throwing Dokopoul under the bus in an editorial call, telling staffers the interview fell short of the network's standards.
00:20:34.780 The standards don't allow any tough questions?
00:20:38.220 Those executives have since left the network.
00:20:40.940 A source telling The Post, quote,
00:20:42.620 The audience doesn't want woke.
00:20:45.120 It doesn't like progressive and provocative bookings.
00:20:47.940 The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy.
00:20:51.820 And what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations.
00:20:55.560 Despite several leadership changes in recent years, CBS struggling to turn around the notoriously low ratings.
00:21:03.660 Now that resistance to change appears to be on a collision course with a mandate from the top.
00:21:08.960 You know, from the people who pay the bills.
00:21:12.200 Part of gaining FCC approval for the merger, reportedly involving a pledge by Skydance to eliminate DEI policies
00:21:18.860 and hire an ombudsman to monitor for political bias at CBS News.
00:21:24.240 Good luck with that.
00:21:27.880 And that'll do it for your AM update.
00:21:29.980 I'm Megan Kelly.
00:21:30.880 Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show, live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east,
00:21:35.720 on youtube.com slash megankelly, and on all podcast platforms.
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