The Megyn Kelly Show - Fatal Flaws in Alex Murdaugh’s Cross Examination, Staying True to Your Convictions, with Mark Geragos, Ronnie Richter, and More ｜ Ep. 500

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.860 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.820 Oh my gosh, I'm really looking forward to this show.

00:00:20.800 I mean, when I say there are new developments in the murder trial that's been captivating the nation of Alec Murdoch,

00:00:26.640 I am understating the significance of what has happened over the past 24 hours.

00:00:31.300 This is like if Scott Peterson took the stand. This is like if OJ took the stand.

00:00:37.060 Except, unlike those two guys, this guy Alec Murdoch is as slick as they come.

00:00:44.600 He's a former prosecutor. He's a career lawyer. And man, he's been slippery on the stand.

00:00:51.360 It's actually been weirdly impressive to watch him dodge and weave as the prosecutor's thumb tries to pin him down.

00:01:00.360 And it's getting very tense. They're in a break right now, but we've got all the latest developments for you.

00:01:04.920 It's getting very tense now because this is where the rubber meets the road.

00:01:08.360 They are zeroing in on the moments of the murders, the moments preceding the murders and right after the murders.

00:01:13.960 And actually, it's fascinating because his demeanor is changing. His loquaciousness is changing.

00:01:19.640 Suddenly, he's very short winded instead of long.

00:01:23.580 So we're going to get into all of this.

00:01:25.540 This guy stands accused right now of murdering his own wife and his 22 year old son on June 7th, 2021.

00:01:32.960 The prosecution's theory is that he was under enormous financial strain.

00:01:38.580 He had been caught by his law firm embezzling from them and stealing from clients and had been confronted that very day.

00:01:44.540 He claims he was on opioids.

00:01:47.200 He was also facing a lawsuit in connection with the son, Paul, who was murdered.

00:01:52.540 His boat crash a couple of years earlier in which a young woman was killed.

00:01:56.020 So a lot of financial pressure and the theory of the prosecutors is essentially that he killed his wife and son to garner sympathy for himself and make the law firm and others get off his case.

00:02:08.920 And there's been testimony in this case that that kind of happened.

00:02:12.060 The law firm did take their foot off the pedal when they found out this happened to him.

00:02:15.220 They were like, my God, backseat on all the financial misdeeds.

00:02:17.960 Poor guy had a double murder in his family.

00:02:20.080 Well, today on the stand, Murdoch was asked why it took this trial getting underway and five weeks of testimony before he finally admitted that he lied.

00:02:31.700 He lied to investigators about his alibi.

00:02:34.480 And just for the viewers who aren't up to speed, what he originally told the cops, because he did talk, talk to the cops that night.

00:02:39.640 I'm innocent.

00:02:40.320 I'm helpful.

00:02:41.300 I'm the grieving husband and father.

00:02:43.600 What he originally told them was I went down to the kennels or sorry, I never went down to the kennels where my wife and son were.

00:02:50.080 Instead, I was back at home taking a nap during the time the murders took place.

00:02:53.840 And I only went to the kennels later.

00:02:56.220 And that's when I found the bodies.

00:02:57.760 Well, unbeknownst to him, his son, Paul, had taken a Snapchat video six minutes before they believe the murders took place.

00:03:03.420 And his voice is clearly on it.

00:03:04.980 They had multiple witnesses say that's Alex voice.

00:03:06.920 He knew he couldn't get out of it.

00:03:08.840 He knew the jury was believing it.

00:03:10.260 It's so clearly his voice.

00:03:11.760 So he decided to take the stand and the prosecutors pressed him.

00:03:15.500 OK, so you just finally decided to take a stand now.

00:03:20.080 You finally decided in direct testimony yesterday to say, I lied to the investigators.

00:03:26.120 I was at the kennels.

00:03:27.140 That is my voice.

00:03:29.480 Finally decided to come clean about this.

00:03:31.100 You didn't think like earlier in this case when the police investigated you and talked to you and interrogated you.

00:03:36.400 That would have been a good time.

00:03:38.280 And Alex Murdoch claimed he never really had the opportunity to confess.

00:03:42.600 He was dying to confess.

00:03:43.880 He tried to call prosecution many times to confess, but they didn't get back to him.

00:03:48.480 That's where we are right now.

00:03:50.040 We've got another all star Kelly's court panel to analyze it all.

00:03:53.920 Mark Garagos is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Garagos and Garagos.

00:03:58.860 I mentioned Scott Peterson.

00:04:00.080 He represented Scott Peterson and would never have let him take the stand.

00:04:03.200 He represented Michael Jackson and a bunch of other very famous people in big, big cases.

00:04:06.560 And Ronnie Richter is back with us today.

00:04:08.840 He's an attorney in South Carolina where this case is taking place and the founding partner of the Bland Richter Law Firm.

00:04:15.440 Guys, welcome to the show.

00:04:17.360 Thank you.

00:04:18.420 Thanks.

00:04:19.160 So let me start with you, Mark, since I mentioned Scott Peterson.

00:04:22.220 And we haven't heard from you.

00:04:23.580 I had Ronnie on yesterday.

00:04:24.500 But your reaction to the fact that the defense put Alec Murdoch on the stand at all and your thoughts on how it's going so far.

00:04:31.880 Well, number one, I don't know that I would probably take issue with the defense put him up.

00:04:38.620 This is one of the only decisions that the defendant absolutely controls, meaning Murdoch can be advised by his lawyers not to take the stand.

00:04:49.920 I've been in a situation where I've actually in a murder case on repeated times told a client it's over my dead body.

00:04:56.120 And the client says, I don't care and testifies anyway.

00:04:59.080 So that's one issue.

00:05:02.340 But number two, he really has nothing, absolutely nothing to lose.

00:05:07.100 The financial crimes, if you believe what's been put out there and what's been developed in this case, he's facing essentially under South Carolina law the rest of his life in prison anyway.

00:05:18.520 So is he going to go down for those anyway and get convicted of this?

00:05:25.580 Or is he going to get up there and try to explain it?

00:05:28.180 So I had always suspected he would take the stand and had said as much.

00:05:32.700 I don't see any downside for him to take the stand.

00:05:34.900 By the way, up until this morning, I would have told you he was winning on points.

00:05:40.500 What I generally see in cases like this is if the prosecutor feels that way, he's going to run out the clock, regroup over the weekend and come back on Monday and keep cross-examining him.

00:05:52.260 If the prosecutor sits down today, then the prosecutor thinks he's done his job.

00:05:57.780 Are you guys feeling any frustration, Ronnie?

00:06:01.140 Let me ask you at how let's put aside the last 15 minutes before they break at 1130 Eastern, OK, because that that got spicy and it seemed to be going well for the prosecution.

00:06:11.220 But the the it started at 930.

00:06:14.140 So he had almost two hours of testimony before that last 15 minutes.

00:06:16.740 I am feeling frustrated as a recovering lawyer who did try cases at the the way this cross is being handled.

00:06:25.060 You know, it's not like we're always taught.

00:06:28.000 And in actual practice, most skilled cross examiners only want yeses or nos from the person they're crossing.

00:06:36.340 And then you went down to the kennels, didn't you?

00:06:40.100 And you saw Maggie and Paul, didn't you?

00:06:42.160 And you spent the following amount of time there, didn't you?

00:06:44.820 And yet you told this jury yesterday that for the first time, whatever, when you spoke to law enforcement days after the murders and the night of the murder, you claimed you never went to the kennels.

00:06:52.680 Isn't that true?

00:06:54.100 Yes or no, sir.

00:06:55.160 This calls for a yes.

00:06:56.120 You control the witness.

00:06:58.280 It's not really about extracting info.

00:07:00.520 It's about having the jury hear your version of the events confirmed by the defendant.

00:07:06.740 And that's not what's happening here, Ronnie.

00:07:09.620 No, I agree.

00:07:10.560 I mean, on cross examination, it's always the question that's more important than the answer.

00:07:14.160 And you're you're literally just using the opportunity to grab the microphone and say what you want to say through the witness.

00:07:19.560 So, yes, he gives he gives a skilled and evasive liar lots of rope and lots of microphone to get his speaking points in.

00:07:30.140 And I would like to see him cut him off more effectively.

00:07:34.540 It's very frustrating, Mark.

00:07:36.160 It's like Alec Murdoch is smart and this ain't his first rodeo in a courtroom.

00:07:42.460 And he's taking all these opportunities to try to ingratiate himself with the jury, go off on his meandering talking points about things that may or may not matter to the case, but trying to show them I'm helpful.

00:07:56.020 I'm here cat in hand, you know, admitting to the financial crimes.

00:08:00.500 I didn't do the murder.

00:08:01.420 But like, let me speak to you, South Carolinian to South Carolinian.

00:08:04.800 We can all bond to get.

00:08:05.820 And the D.A. is allowing him to get away with it.

00:08:09.340 Well, there's one thing that we probably should talk about.

00:08:13.920 We are watching this and not in the courtroom.

00:08:16.720 If you believe what's happening or what's being reported in the courtroom yesterday, I heard at least two reporters say that at least two jurors were crying during his testimony.

00:08:28.900 Another juror apparently pushed some Kleenex towards him.

00:08:33.020 If the prosecutor is seeing this, he may want to kind of run out the clock, which is what it seems like they're doing right now.

00:08:41.740 To to follow up on your point, the fact that they've spent so much time in what Dick Harpootlian said yesterday before they recess is I haven't heard murder.

00:08:51.200 The word murder for the last two hours.

00:08:53.760 And the judge said, well, that's fine.

00:08:55.860 It's credibility.

00:08:57.060 I think that's precisely what the prosecutor's mindset is.

00:09:00.620 He's going to try to destroy his credibility.

00:09:05.340 I will come back to this, though.

00:09:07.120 He I do.

00:09:07.940 I do not think that they're laying a glove on him, even in the last, as you said, 15 minutes.

00:09:14.220 It appears to me that he has endeared himself to at least a number of these jurors.

00:09:19.960 That's all he needs in this case.

00:09:21.500 A hung jury for him is as good as a win. 0.98

00:09:23.960 I it's right.

00:09:25.740 You're exactly right.

00:09:26.480 A hung jury is a huge win for Alec Murdoch.

00:09:28.060 And so he just needs one.

00:09:29.740 Ronnie, when you listen to this guy on the stand to me as somebody who very recently interviewed the human lie detector, Phil Houston, developed the CIA's deception detection program that they're still using to this day, was at the CIA for 25 years actually doing this.

00:09:44.220 So I'm not joking when I say he's a human lie detector.

00:09:46.520 He actually is.

00:09:47.500 And he talked to us at length about a little bit actually about this case in the Alec Murdoch interrogation interviews.

00:09:53.660 But in general, and when you qualify all of your answers on the important details, it's a sign of deception.

00:10:03.700 You know, if somebody says to me, Megan, did you cheat on your husband, Doug?

00:10:07.460 I say, no, I didn't.

00:10:09.480 I never have.

00:10:10.200 Period.

00:10:10.860 I don't say, well, if if I cheated on him, it was definitely not at a time when, you know, we were married.

00:10:18.400 And it's not I don't remember a time where I ever would have cheated.

00:10:21.700 No, I didn't.

00:10:22.580 That's what a truth teller sounds like.

00:10:24.680 And we pulled just a small soundbite.

00:10:26.440 But I do think it was interesting that this the story in that's changed that's so critical is whether he was home taking a nap at the time of the murders or he was down at the kennels doing the murders.

00:10:38.640 And he told the cops he was home taking a nap during the time of the murders, then got caught that he was there on that Snapchat video at least six minutes before the murders, like around six minutes before the murders took place.

00:10:49.040 So now he's changed the story to, OK, I did go by the kennels, which isn't what I said initially.

00:10:55.800 I did go by the kennels.

00:10:57.080 I didn't want to do it, but I went.

00:10:58.360 I did.

00:10:59.220 And I had a quick exchange with Maggie and Paul.

00:11:01.680 Then I went back home and got home around 848.

00:11:06.860 This is where the prosecutor has them.

00:11:08.080 They think the murders took place at 850, 850 when the old version was I was asleep that whole time.

00:11:13.720 OK, now he's home two minutes before the murders take place and home is just, you know, yards away.

00:11:19.300 Didn't hear anything.

00:11:20.540 And we've gone from I napped for an hour to I dozed.

00:11:24.780 Maybe I dozed.

00:11:25.900 I didn't.

00:11:26.440 Well, and here's just a little bit of how he sounded on his alleged nap.

00:11:30.600 All right.

00:11:30.760 This is soundbite three.

00:11:33.820 Taking a nap if I took a nap.

00:11:36.420 But when I got up from laying down, as I was getting ready to go to my mom's, there was a point in time where I thought Maggie and Paul had come back.

00:11:50.860 All right.

00:11:51.680 So just hold that because here's he goes on a little bit more in soundbite six about his alleged nap.

00:11:57.900 All right.

00:11:58.440 Before you said you've been napping for an hour or so.

00:12:01.180 We're napping that entire time.

00:12:02.220 And now you you lay down on the couch.

00:12:04.460 That's correct.

00:12:05.000 All right.

00:12:05.780 And maybe doze for a second.

00:12:09.400 Maybe.

00:12:10.240 According to your new story.

00:12:12.400 How long did you doze?

00:12:14.380 If I dozed, extremely short time.

00:12:18.440 Extremely short time.

00:12:20.580 Because you would agree with me that at 9.02, you're up and moving.

00:12:25.760 According to the data.

00:12:27.180 I agree that according to that data, my phone's recording steps at whatever time it is, 9.02 something.

00:12:34.280 How long did it take you, if you're at the house at 8.49, how long before you went late on the couch?

00:12:43.880 I would have gone straight to the couch, probably.

00:12:46.080 I may have gone by the sink or I may have gotten a spit cup.

00:12:52.300 But it would have been basically straight to the couch.

00:12:58.780 I if I did, I would have.

00:13:02.680 I may have.

00:13:03.680 It probably.

00:13:04.260 That's what a liar sounds like, Ronnie.

00:13:07.640 Yeah, it's a ridiculous story.

00:13:09.220 You know, and the danger of having him put on the stand at all.

00:13:12.460 I thought the defense was gaining great ground on a weak motive, on weak forensics, and on a rush to judgment by the investigator.

00:13:21.580 So they had all of that in their camp.

00:13:24.060 I agree with Mark.

00:13:24.760 It sounds like this is the witness who just had to testify.

00:13:27.280 But by him testifying, they turned a very complex case into a single issue case, which is, do you believe Alex Murdoch?

00:13:35.700 And to put a finer point on it is a single issue case on one lie in particular.

00:13:41.400 Why did you lie to the police about having not been at the kennels?

00:13:45.140 And the account he gives for that lie, I think, is preposterous.

00:13:49.140 So this is the hazard of having him testify or him insisting on testifying.

00:13:57.420 Because if you recall back to the reason he gave for having lied, it's not that the drugs made him do it.

00:14:04.860 It's that his addiction made him paranoid and made him not trust the police.

00:14:09.900 Although he's been a solicitor, he's a third-generation solicitor, he is the law in Hampton County.

00:14:15.960 So it's a ridiculous story.

00:14:17.500 And now he's got to back into version two that puts him safely away from the murder at the time it actually takes place.

00:14:26.940 So he's put himself in quite a corner by electing to testify the way he has.

00:14:32.860 Mark, just react to that last soundbite.

00:14:35.140 I may have napped.

00:14:35.880 I probably would have.

00:14:36.900 I may have got a spit cup when I napped, if I napped.

00:14:40.720 The old story on camera, two cops, was I napped for one hour.

00:14:45.080 Now, could you put more qualifiers in the on-stand testimony?

00:14:50.540 Well, so one of the things, you know, my father was a homicide prosecutor, and he always used to say that it doesn't matter what happens in a trial once the defendant takes the stand.

00:15:02.360 Because then the jurors are going to go back into that jury room, and all they're going to talk about is what did the defendant say.

00:15:09.680 And here, that's what they're going to be focused on.

00:15:12.360 I don't agree so far, and like I say, I think it's premature to make a judgment until we see whether they go the rest of the afternoon, regroup, and come back on Monday, or whether they just sit down.

00:15:23.880 I think it's premature because so far, if what people are telling me in the courtroom is true, I think he's acquitted himself, if you'll excuse the pun, extremely well.

00:15:36.800 And he's obviously connected with some of these jurors.

00:15:39.560 And, you know, the sip cup and the shit me up and the other colloquially expressions, colloquially expressions that he's been using, I think he resonates with some of these jurors.

00:15:52.340 And obviously only time will tell, but I also think that the prosecutor understands that.

00:16:00.320 And I think part of the, because the prosecutors are taking enormous criticism on their approach.

00:16:06.260 I think they understand that they've got to do something to erode or take back the narrative, if you will, because I think he's been effective so far.

00:16:16.160 I know. Well, that's, I'm actually troubled by that as somebody who thinks he did it, by how kind of charming he is.

00:16:24.420 You have a, you've got a chorus of people who agree with you because you cannot believe the ransacking that the prosecutors are taking here.

00:16:32.920 And I, you know, I'm not one to usually jump in to defend the prosecutors, but I understand their conundrum.

00:16:39.280 I've been there before on the other side. And if you've got jurors and you're watching those jurors in real time and they are,

00:16:47.980 if your opponent is resonating, you have to be very careful as to what you do and how you do it.

00:16:54.980 I mean, I've never tried cases like you have. And I start, I have never tried a criminal case,

00:16:59.540 but I'm much more in your, in your old colleague, Nancy Grace's field of get up there and browbeat the hell out of him.

00:17:07.040 Show the jury, you can't stand this guy. This is an evil man who murdered his own child and his wife and has been lying about it ever since.

00:17:17.480 I'd, I'd have no trouble showing them. I hate him and you should too.

00:17:22.020 But the problem with that approach, and I've gone round and round with Nancy about this over the years,

00:17:28.060 but the problem with that approach is you don't want to, if you're the person who's supposed to be guiding them

00:17:34.500 to the ultimate truth, if you will, you don't want them to hate you or turn on you.

00:17:40.020 And if you browbeat too much on somebody who they like or feel empathy for, they can turn on you.

00:17:46.600 I know that's true. But if there's been so much evidence in this case that I feel like makes them not like Alex Murdoch,

00:17:53.620 Alex Murdoch, his best, his best quality is what we're seeing on the stand or what we at least saw yesterday on direct,

00:18:00.260 which is he's a good talker. He sounds like a, you know, sort of, I don't know,

00:18:05.180 a guy you'd want to have a drink with or a dinner with like that, like the way he talks.

00:18:08.500 And he's, he's sort of doing a good job of seeming helpful.

00:18:12.700 But the prosecutor got, got a good line in on that right before they went to break when, you know,

00:18:18.200 Alec Murdoch is like, I've been so cooperative. And the prosecutor saw a moment and took it.

00:18:22.280 This is soundbite four. Other than lying to them about going to the kennel.

00:18:31.820 I was cooperative in every aspect of this investigation.

00:18:35.700 Very cooperative, except for maybe the most important fact of all that you were at the murder scene

00:18:40.340 with the victims just minutes before they died.

00:18:47.280 Right. I did not tell them that I went to the kennel.

00:18:52.280 That was a good moment, Ronnie, for team prosecution.

00:18:57.060 Well, it was. The missus, not to be critical of the prosecution, I think they're doing a good job.

00:19:02.540 He's a difficult witness. But the whole purpose of the financial crimes truly was to bolster a pretty

00:19:09.900 weak motive case for the state. We all know that. You know, that being said, if it's turning into a

00:19:16.240 credibility case, the financial crimes are a goldmine. And yet the prosecution let Alec get away with

00:19:23.080 this false narrative all day yesterday that he's candidly and openly admitting that he stole that

00:19:29.460 money. I mean, I don't know how many times I need to say it to you, Mr. Waters. I took that money. It was

00:19:33.380 wrong. He pled not guilty to all 90 of those offenses. As he sits in the courtroom today,

00:19:39.380 the official position is not guilty. So I think he should have snapped that off on him pretty good.

00:19:45.980 And then then with Russell Lafitte, there's another example. He tried to come to the defense

00:19:51.400 of Russell Lafitte and the. Remind us who that is. Yeah. And what he said about Russell Lafitte is

00:19:58.120 Russell had nothing to do with this. I did all of that by myself. Well,

00:20:03.640 is Russell Lafitte the bank executive who was found guilty on like helping Alec with these crimes?

00:20:10.000 Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. He is the bank official from Palmetto State Bank who was charged as a

00:20:14.940 co-conspirator on many of Alec's financial crimes. He was tried in Charleston just months ago.

00:20:21.900 Alec didn't appear for his friend. He sat silently by why this guy got tried and convicted on all of

00:20:28.380 those offenses. And yet, yet he tries to garner some sympathy, some credit for now saying openly,

00:20:34.960 well, Russell had nothing to do with that. You know, there was a time to come forward and say that.

00:20:38.520 And it wasn't yesterday. It was when your good friend Russell Lafitte was facing his own trial

00:20:44.060 and was convicted. The problem is that arguably is what's called Griffin air. And the U.S. Supreme

00:20:53.300 Court has weighed in on that. And that's commenting on the failure to of a defendant to comment can get

00:21:00.580 you in big trouble as a prosecutor. And they don't want to go down that road. They've had a couple of

00:21:04.560 objections on that so far when when the the D.A. said you never told anybody this story, did you?

00:21:09.360 You never volunteered. And the defense is sort of trying to stand up and say Fifth Amendment,

00:21:12.640 you know, privilege had no no obligation to. And the judge has been overruling that objection.

00:21:17.120 But the financial crimes, it's not that Alec Murdoch has rehabilitated himself on them,

00:21:22.220 but he has been saying, OK, I lied, feel terrible. I'm very sorry to everybody, but not for nothing.

00:21:28.920 And like the one guy I stole from owed me a bunch of money. So I didn't really feel like I was that

00:21:34.400 much of a crumb in stealing back from him. He owed me the dough. Our joint investment fell apart.

00:21:40.340 And then I was the one stuck with the bill. So, yes, I did steal money when it came from him later

00:21:45.200 or to should have gone to him. But, you know, he's no angel is kind of what Alec Murdoch said. OK,

00:21:49.980 point for him. Why is it? Why the prosecutor is allowing him to go on like this again? I do not know.

00:21:55.460 And then he says he made some points on the prosecution's theory is on June 7th, 2021,

00:22:02.300 he was confronted by the law firm. We know you stole. You've been embezzling. You stole from

00:22:07.560 clients. You know, you're basically if all this is true, you're not only fired, you're going to get

00:22:12.060 disbarred. The water's creeping up on Alec Murdoch to the point where he goes home and kills his family

00:22:17.060 to generate sympathy for himself instead of making himself into this horrible person in the newspapers

00:22:22.080 the next day. And he has been rehabilitating himself on that, too, Ronnie, saying it really

00:22:29.080 wasn't much of a confrontation. When I talked to Jeannie of the law firm, like she was basically

00:22:33.940 like, I feel bad even raising this. We've noticed some irregularities, but he has way,

00:22:40.720 way, way downplayed what happened between him and the law firm on June 7th. And that's that's

00:22:45.600 hurtful to the prosecution. It is hurtful to the prosecution. When she testified, Jeannie was a

00:22:51.780 terrific witness. And I think she gave a completely different account of what that that exchange was

00:22:57.280 with Alex. It was far more confrontational. It was far more direct. And at the time she testified,

00:23:03.460 I think it came across very impactfully. But that was a long, long time ago. So I don't think the

00:23:09.080 jury recalls much of Jeannie. I think they're going to take away Alex's recall of it, that it was really

00:23:15.180 kind of a non-event. I do think he gave very good answers to dispel the idea that his financial world

00:23:22.040 was collapsing on him. Yeah, I know. And that's motive. That's motive, which, of course, is not

00:23:27.680 required, but nice to have. More with Mark and Ronnie after this quick break.

00:23:37.180 Ronnie Richter remains. He's a South Carolina lawyer. Mark just got called into court because

00:23:41.340 he's a busy, busy man. So we'll see. We'll check back in with Mark and his thoughts.

00:23:46.040 Let me go back to Ronnie. So, Ronnie, one of the things that's been bothering me about

00:23:50.640 the Alec Murdoch testimony is and the prosecutor is trying to point this out like you got this great

00:23:56.700 memory for all sorts of details, unless they relate to the moments before the murder or right before you

00:24:03.100 claim you left Paul and Maggie. And here was just an example that just stuck out to me as,

00:24:08.280 you know, like this. This makes no sense where he he allegedly can't remember what would be the

00:24:14.220 final conversation he had with his own wife. This would be. Think about it. If you have a loved one,

00:24:20.080 a spouse who gets brutally murdered, you don't remember the last words you spoke to that person.

00:24:26.160 Everyone remembers the last words they spoke to a dying loved one, whether it's by murder

00:24:29.960 or another cause. But I would imagine, especially if it were a murder. Here's thought five.

00:24:34.320 Did I say goodbye? Yeah. Did you talk to them at all? Or did you just get the chicken,

00:24:39.840 put it on there, jump on there and just take off? I wouldn't have just gone off. I mean,

00:24:43.600 I would have said, I'm leaving. Okay. Did I say goodbye or bye? And again, go ahead. I mean,

00:24:48.320 there would have been some, you know, there would have been some exchange. I'm not staying here.

00:24:55.780 Well, what was that exchange? I mean, you have, you've had such a photographic memory about these

00:24:59.220 new stories. What, what, what, what happened here? No, it's not, I can't tell you the exact words.

00:25:06.040 You don't remember your conversation after you put that chicken up. Did y'all talk about the chicken?

00:25:14.060 No, I don't think we did. Did you talk with Paul about catch his tail?

00:25:18.760 After the chicken? Yeah. No, I know I didn't do that. Did you tell Maggie,

00:25:24.240 Maggie, I'm going to go check on him? At that point? No, I don't. I don't think I did.

00:25:28.320 Could you tell Maggie, oh, it's hot out here. I think I'll go back?

00:25:31.820 I certainly would have said something to that effect. All right.

00:25:36.040 I mean, Ronnie, really? No, no, it bothers you for the same reason it bothers me. And that is,

00:25:43.240 that is not truthful testimony. But the bigger question is, what is the jury hearing? You know,

00:25:48.500 has he connected with one, two or more, like Mark seemed to believe?

00:25:52.200 When you see the techniques that he's using in answering questions, he recasts questions all

00:25:59.340 the time, right? So I don't know, what do you mean by wealthy? I mean, I don't know,

00:26:04.140 what do you mean by, you know, just constantly creating room for himself to maneuver by recasting

00:26:11.640 the question? Even here in this most important of all conversations ever, he's creating time and

00:26:17.480 space for himself to think about it. You don't have to think about the last words that you said

00:26:22.040 to your wife who's brutally murdered. And it's not believable. So if the jury believes he's lying

00:26:29.340 about the most important fact in the case, and that's the fact that he was there minutes before

00:26:34.800 the murders, then he has to be guilty. And even just like, he's, he's sort of lost the thread on

00:26:42.800 when to cry. You know, like, he knows he should cry when he's talking about the condition of the

00:26:48.600 bodies when he allegedly stumbled upon them innocently, not knowing what he was walking

00:26:53.100 into. But an actual grieving relative would 100% be choked up in talking about the last moments they

00:27:01.160 laid eyes upon their son and their wife, literally four minutes before they were brutally murdered,

00:27:07.680 when you could have been there. Maybe you could have stopped it. You could like, that's what a normal

00:27:13.420 dad or spouse would be saying like, my God. It would be emblazed in your brain. Wouldn't it?

00:27:22.220 Wouldn't you play this over in your head over and over again? Every movement, every glance, you know,

00:27:29.360 every word that was spoken. I mean, if there are facts that should be cemented in this man's mind,

00:27:35.160 it's that last interaction with the people who met the most to him in the world and that he's

00:27:40.280 fuzzy on this facts really doesn't play well at all. Yes. Honestly, I, the audience knows I lost my

00:27:47.160 sister, um, who's 58 years old, just this past October. And I, I mean, I remember every word I

00:27:54.900 said to her when I got to that hospital, she couldn't, you know, necessarily hear me, but it

00:27:59.800 doesn't matter. I remember every word I uttered in that hospital room where we were for hours.

00:28:05.160 That, that kind of memory doesn't go away. It's seared in one's memory. You know,

00:28:09.960 you're losing somebody who's hugely important to you. And even if he didn't know he was about

00:28:15.480 to lose Maggie and Paul, you go back and relive it. You know, you, most people beat themselves up

00:28:19.940 after they lose somebody suddenly due to murder, due to a car crash, you and say like, why didn't

00:28:24.140 I say I love them? I wish I had given him a hug. You know, like none of that, none of that.

00:28:28.680 He's just weaselly all over the board. No. And, and I, I, in the past have lost a loved

00:28:34.780 one to an act of violence. And I, I can tell you, I think mentally you're prepared to hear

00:28:39.640 the news that maybe someone got sick or there was a terrible accident, but you're not prepared

00:28:44.140 to hear the news that someone died violently. And it, it, it embosses on you. I mean, where

00:28:50.700 you are, what, who you spoke to, what those words were, it, it imprints immediately and

00:28:57.800 indelibly. So I don't buy at all that, that he's looking for the words that should be so

00:29:04.860 imprinted in his mind. Especially if you were there moments before the act took place,

00:29:12.320 any normal family member would be saying the number of hours I have beaten myself up for

00:29:19.040 going back to the house. Why did I go back to the house? What if I had stayed there? Maybe

00:29:23.640 I could have saved them. Maybe I would have seen the killer. You know, none of that. He's

00:29:27.980 not, he's not emotionally in tune enough to realize this is a whole thread that actual grieving

00:29:34.480 family members would be mired in. And there was an important admission. I thought it was

00:29:40.100 the only moment I've seen him on the stand, Ronnie, where he didn't seem to get that he

00:29:45.580 was giving them a good admission. He he's been two steps ahead of them for most of the

00:29:49.460 cross, but in this one moment, he didn't seem to realize what he was admitting when the prosecutor

00:29:55.280 was asking him about whether the dogs at the kennels were acting strangely as if potentially

00:30:03.240 a stranger was there. Cause of course, what, what he's setting up is under your new story,

00:30:09.020 sir, you left. And like two minutes later, after you left, they were murdered. And so somebody

00:30:17.840 didn't just pop up at the kennels or on the Mazzell property within those two minutes, like

00:30:23.500 that person would have had to be there. And this is how Alec Murdoch handled the, the,

00:30:28.680 the questions about the dogs it sought to for the dogs barking and carrying on or going out

00:30:37.780 into the woods or acting like they sent somebody was around that they didn't know

00:30:41.520 where the dogs acting like there was somebody around it. They didn't know. Yeah. Like dogs do

00:30:48.300 know. No, they weren't. There was nobody there was around it. The dogs didn't know. Okay. Dogs

00:30:56.620 didn't didn't to your indication sense anything out of the ordinary. They were just chasing after

00:31:01.880 the guinea. There was nobody else around. All right. Good for them to sense.

00:31:10.900 What did you make of that? Yeah. You know, I'm from here and I don't know for the broader audience

00:31:18.820 that they can appreciate just how remote this place is. I mean, this is, this is as rural South

00:31:25.400 Carolina as you can make it. There's some backwaters, there's some farms. I mean, there is nothing out

00:31:31.620 there and people who do have dogs or kennels. I mean, they're out there for a reason. If anything

00:31:37.040 moves, I mean, they're, they're raising hell out there and it's an experience that the jurors here

00:31:44.060 would, would understand. Also this family in that community, you know, if, if the squirrel farts in

00:31:52.140 Hampton, I mean that the Murdaugh's know about it. So the, the idea that two unknown assailants could

00:31:59.440 have slipped into Mazzell in the middle of the night undetected and been there coincidentally,

00:32:05.420 just minutes after Alex leaves the area and shoots and kills Maggie and Paul with weapons that

00:32:12.080 were from the residents is so outlandishly it's, it's hitting the lottery while getting struck by

00:32:21.520 lightning. I, and to me, I hope that's what the, the prosecution ultimately conveys to the jury,

00:32:27.960 how unlikely it could be that it's anybody other than Alex.

00:32:31.680 Mm-hmm. He, um, yeah. And when they, I hope they are better at closing than they are at crossing.

00:32:38.860 That's my one big hope. Like when you've got your cross because the best way to do a cross

00:32:43.240 examination and I was watching it thinking they should have, they needed to pull an all nighter

00:32:48.220 and they didn't because you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. And you say, Mr.

00:32:54.420 Murdoch, you previously told law enforcement that you took a nap. We've gone back and checked. We can't

00:32:59.680 find him saying an hour. We, which, as the prosecutor said, I'm trusting the guy that

00:33:03.080 that's what Alex said at some point we do. We have it. Hold on. Listen to my team here. Let's

00:33:08.100 play what we do have. Here's where, here's what we heard Alex saying 25 minutes. It's definitely

00:33:13.600 longer than may or may be not napped. It can't be sure. I might've napped him a short dose,

00:33:18.200 whatever. He used to say 25 minutes. Here's what we have.

00:33:21.140 I, uh, I was up at the house, uh, laid down, took a nap on the couch, probably,

00:33:28.620 I don't know, 25, 30 minutes. I got up. I called Maggie.

00:33:36.800 Okay. So you and I both know a skilled prosecutor has that at the ready. And they say yesterday,

00:33:43.600 you told this jury that you may or may not have napped. Your new story is you don't,

00:33:47.540 you don't know if you're napped. Isn't it true? You told law enforcement moments after the alleged

00:33:51.280 murder, you nap for 25 to 30 minutes. Yes, it is. In fact, here you are telling law enforcement,

00:33:55.940 let the jury see it and then let him lie right on the back end of it. Like at every turn,

00:34:01.020 you should be doing that to underscore what a liar he is and on big details and small.

00:34:07.600 Yeah. You, you have to wonder. I certainly they anticipated he would testify, but

00:34:11.760 maybe not, you know, maybe you would want those first 10, 15, 20 questions to be just hit stick,

00:34:19.800 move, no room for wiggle from Alex Murdoch hit with your best punches first. And to your point,

00:34:26.800 there should be nothing more than room to say yes or no. And if he says anything else,

00:34:31.160 he's going to look like the liar that he is, but that's not the way the prosecution came out of the

00:34:36.460 box. Now it's, it's more of a grind. Um, but I think you got to capture that jury immediately

00:34:42.240 and hit with your best, best punch fast. The, um, I, you tell me, is it a Southern thing? Like

00:34:48.320 a polite manners thing? Cause I know they're a lot more polite in the South than they are in New York

00:34:52.300 where I'm from. Um, but I'll give the audience an example that they remember recently. And that was

00:34:57.300 the cross-examination of Amber Heard in the Amber Heard, Johnny Depp case. Um, the lawyer,

00:35:02.660 Camille Vasquez, she did not offer her any quarter. It was answer my question, please.

00:35:09.200 That's not what I asked you, your honor. Could you please instruct the witness to answer the

00:35:12.600 question? If you can't control the witness yourself, you get the judge to step in because

00:35:16.140 the judge understands. And so does the, the lawyer for the person on the stand.

00:35:20.220 This is cross-examination. This is cross. I'm allowed to be aggressive. I'm allowed to treat

00:35:24.940 the witnesses hostile. I'm allowed to elicit only the answers that I'm asking for. Yeses or noes,

00:35:29.520 if that's what I want. And if you try to wiggle, I will control you.

00:35:32.660 I will prove to you in this jury who is in control. It is me. It is not you. And so like

00:35:37.480 she did a masterful job with Amber Heard and scored a lot of points. So is it a, is it a

00:35:42.860 cultural difference? A little bit. I mean, there are rules of engagement here that I think don't

00:35:48.520 apply everywhere else. I mean, and he did lose his wife and his son. Okay. So that that's a fact

00:35:54.840 that we know. Um, so you have to tread lightly a little bit. Okay. But when he starts becoming

00:36:02.600 evasive, it's at that point, you're allowed to take the gloves off and go hard. Now, if you, if you

00:36:07.380 have a bad witness, a bad person on the stand, yes, you go hard immediately, but this is kind of an

00:36:13.700 unknown quantity. You know, is the jury perceiving him as the murderer or as the victim? We're not sure,

00:36:19.420 but Alex gave the prosecution, the opportunity to go hard when he started becoming evasive.

00:36:26.420 And then you go in all those qualifying words is Phil Houston. Human lie detector explains

00:36:33.700 are basically off roots. He's giving himself off roots. Like maybe might've could be possibly

00:36:41.020 because he doesn't know what the prosecutor has. He doesn't know whether the prosecutors got

00:36:46.500 something in his pocket that he's going to hammer him over the head with. If he's too definitive,

00:36:51.480 if Alec is too definitive. So he puts all these off roots in their qualifiers. Like, well, I didn't

00:36:57.160 say, Oh, I said, maybe I said, probably I didn't really commit to that, but that's what a skilled liar

00:37:00.400 does. And that, and now Ronnie, this story about, I was prepared to tell you this story all along.

00:37:07.280 You blew off all my many phone calls to you, the prosecutors there. I was sitting in jail saying,

00:37:13.180 I want to tell you something really important and nobody returned my call. Here's a little bit of

00:37:18.480 that on the stands, hot one. Did you ever reach out to anyone in law enforcement or the prosecution

00:37:26.800 and tell that story that you told this jury yesterday about the kennels before yesterday?

00:37:33.100 Did I ever reach out to law enforcement to say, I want to tell you about the kennels? No, sir. I did not

00:37:38.320 before yesterday. Did you ever bring up what you told this story about that kennels

00:37:44.320 to anybody in the prosecution or anybody in law enforcement? No, I didn't have the opportunity

00:37:50.920 to, Mr. Waters, because you would not respond to my invitations to reach out and tell you about

00:38:00.000 all the things that I'd done wrong. And to talk about bringing this to a head, to talk about

00:38:07.200 bringing disclosure. I understand how many people I hurt. I understand how angry my partners are and

00:38:16.440 how hurt. Unbelievable, like literally unbelievable. Well, I mean, it's it starts with a terrible

00:38:24.840 question, right? Did you instead of isn't it true that you never is the way that you would want that

00:38:30.400 question to be phrased? But you give him the microphone and the guy's a chameleon on the stand.

00:38:35.780 And yes, you hear him recast the question first to give him the room to think and then go back on

00:38:42.580 the offensive with the answer. So he's he's very skilled up there. Mm hmm. What what the lawyer did

00:38:48.240 for the prosecution instead was he switched to, well, you never told your friends that you never

00:38:53.780 told the witnesses who have spoken to you between then and now this story, which was less effective.

00:38:59.660 I mean, now the jury's wondering, did he reach out to the prosecution and offer to come clean on all

00:39:07.320 of this? Like, sadly, the prosecutors left that as a question in the air. Yeah. And they invited that

00:39:14.340 pain through through a poorly phrased question. You should never give room to even, you know,

00:39:19.320 expand on the answer to that question. Isn't it true that you never said that before today?

00:39:23.520 I mean, you don't give him room to to wax poetic about what he could have done.

00:39:29.380 Well, and here's the other thing. Then he tried that the prosecutor was

00:39:32.200 floundering, right? Because he's like, oh, God, you know, I wasn't prepared for that

00:39:37.260 left, you know, turn. Yeah. So then he goes to isn't it true you're a lawyer? Because the defense

00:39:43.760 lawyer, Jim Griffith, appeared on this good HBO documentary called Low Country. There's one out

00:39:49.960 right now on Netflix. The two are not to be confused. They're different filmmakers. But the

00:39:54.220 Low Country one has been out for a while. And Jim Griffith appeared in it and offered some of Alec

00:39:59.320 Murdoch's defense. And he says, isn't it true that your lawyer appeared in a film as recently as

00:40:06.560 November 2020, in which he wasn't telling this story of you not napping and actually down at the

00:40:14.020 kennels within moments of the murders? And Alec Murdoch's response is basically, oh,

00:40:19.440 he gave that interview before November 2020 or whatever the date was. He's like, he actually

00:40:23.940 sat for the I mean, what? The prosecutor is unprepared. You have the clip, you know,

00:40:30.540 because you've done your homework. When did Jim Griffith sit for that interview? You say,

00:40:34.680 isn't it true? Your lawyer said this play. The jury hears it. Why did he say that? That he's

00:40:40.620 speaking for you. Right. And the judge actually the defense got up there and said attorney client

00:40:45.600 privilege. Right. Like, what did you tell your lawyer? Because he got into like, what hadn't you told

00:40:48.860 your lawyer? And they said attorney client privilege. And the judge overruled the objection.

00:40:52.960 He was going to let Murdoch testify what he had told the lawyers and the prosecutor backed away.

00:40:59.440 He was like, never mind. I think we've gotten the point. No, no, we haven't gotten the point.

00:41:03.420 You did not stick the dagger in. You did not twist the dagger. You kind of teased him with the dagger

00:41:07.340 and then you walked away. Yeah. And it's just asking that question that you don't really know the

00:41:13.180 answer to, or to your point that you're not prepared to follow up on. So if you really thought

00:41:18.540 Alex was ever going to take the stand, I mean, you don't want to work off of the script because you

00:41:23.300 want to be a little more natural than that, but there should be in your queue, you know, these

00:41:27.840 highlights, these points that you must make with, without affording any opportunity to Alex or his

00:41:34.060 team to offer any explanation, you know, the changing of the answer from, I went back and took a

00:41:39.200 nap for 25 minutes to, uh, maybe I dozed off for a second. Maybe I didn't. He should have been able

00:41:44.840 to nail him right there with the video at the moment to drive the point home. And the point is

00:41:50.540 that Alex's story changes as he learns more about what the prosecution has in its queue.

00:41:57.080 That's exactly right. Now they are having said that through, you know, a series of admissions and

00:42:02.260 statements they have gotten out of him. And of course, now we know, thanks to the Snapchat video,

00:42:05.960 he was at the murder scene six minutes before we believe, well, now it's shortened to four

00:42:11.600 minutes before we believe the murders took place. Cause he says he left, um, he, I guess he was

00:42:16.780 there. We know at 44, eight 44, he says he was there for probably two minutes. So that puts it

00:42:22.200 eight 46 that he's at the kennels, possibly eight 47. If you add on the seconds that they've got the

00:42:27.220 timing on, let's say eight 47. And we believe the murders happened three minutes after that. So

00:42:32.800 they've gotten that. And they also have, they can tell from his cell phone when he got up and

00:42:36.400 started walking around and they know he took a bunch of steps at nine Oh two. So at most,

00:42:42.260 even if you give him two minutes driving back home, you've got, he's back home at eight 50.

00:42:46.680 You got 10 minutes inside that house, which is why he had to change to maybe I dozed. Maybe I closed

00:42:52.960 my eyes for one minute from, I took the nap for 25 minutes. Like they have him, the prosecution,

00:42:58.920 not withstanding the kind of lackluster job on cross, Ronnie, the forensic evidence is pretty

00:43:05.500 strong. Yeah, I think it is as well. And, uh, you know, what they've proven more than anything

00:43:11.340 else. I apologize. What they've proven more than anything else with the financial crimes is that

00:43:16.260 Alex is a monster. Okay. And what we know about monsters is that we don't trust them and that

00:43:24.420 they're capable of doing anything. So if he's a monster and he's lied about being at the scene,

00:43:30.540 you know, is he guilty of the crime? Ultimately. He tried, the prosecutor tried to zero in on those

00:43:36.980 financial crimes and get him to admit. He remembers looking at a client in the eye and lying to him.

00:43:44.240 That too did not go very well. That was also an exercise in frustration,

00:43:48.140 but we queued up just a bit of it inside 11. Every single one of these, you had to sit down

00:43:55.840 and look somebody in the eye and convince them that you were on their side when you were not

00:44:02.800 correct. That's what you did in every single one of these. I mean, every time answer my question,

00:44:08.380 yes or no. And then you can explain, I'll let you explain all day long. Well, I mean, no,

00:44:12.220 sir, that may or may not be true. And Mr. Waters, just to try to get through this quicker.

00:44:15.760 I admit. I know you want to get through it quicker, but we're not. So answer the question,

00:44:20.300 please. What I admit is that I misled them. I did wrong and that I stole their money. For me to sit

00:44:28.580 here and tell you specifically that I remember sitting down and talking with Natasha Thomas,

00:44:33.560 I can't tell you that. But what I can tell you, and I can tell you that I didn't do right by

00:44:40.180 Natasha Thomas. I took money from Natasha Thomas that didn't belong to me and I was wrong for doing

00:44:46.960 that. What'd you make of that one, Ronnie? Yeah. You know, he's, again, his official position,

00:44:56.580 there is an indictment for him on that crime and he has pled not guilty. He maintains not guilty

00:45:04.040 today. Was that his guilty plea? Now that you're in front of the jury, now that you're trying to garner

00:45:08.840 some favor. I mean, I, I think it, I think ultimately that is devastating to him that if

00:45:16.660 we can, you know, catalog him to be characterize him to be a skilled liar, how do we trust that in

00:45:24.500 the most important lie of his life, the lie about not being at the kennels that he was telling us the

00:45:29.560 truth? Honestly, there was no reason for the, do you remember the moment of looking him in the eyes

00:45:35.420 in line? You save that for your closing. You can argue that on closing. You don't have to keep

00:45:40.320 throwing out all these lines and pulling in zero fish. It's just ineffective. It's kind of

00:45:45.680 frustrating. Ronnie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. To be continued. And the cross

00:45:51.040 examination is to be continued this afternoon too. We'll have full coverage for you on Monday.

00:45:54.560 We're going to take some letters from the MK mailbag. If you want to mail me, you can at

00:46:06.020 Megan, just go email it at M E G Y N at Megan, Kelly.com M E G Y N at M E G Y N K E L L Y.com.

00:46:15.180 That's how you reach me. You can also sign up for our American news minute, which only comes out on

00:46:20.420 Fridays and is always worth your time. It's all the news of the week in one minute or less.

00:46:24.560 Plus some really fun clips and things you might've missed on the show. Everybody really enjoys it.

00:46:28.940 So I think you will too. It doesn't cost you a thing. Um, and it keeps you up on the news in a

00:46:33.080 very low cost kind of way. Okay. So, so much mail. I think we broke the mailbag record, uh, on the

00:46:40.460 Yon Me Park interview, which aired last Friday. If you didn't hear it, please go listen to it. I

00:46:45.560 promise you it will change your life. I promise. How, how many people can say that? I promise you it'll

00:46:51.160 change your life. It'll change your dinner conversation that night. It'll, you'll want

00:46:55.020 to tell everybody you want to share it. I'm telling you, that's how much confidence I have

00:46:58.300 in the Yon Me Park interview. Um, I'll just give you a couple of examples. Ellen writes in the

00:47:03.140 interview with Ms. Park left me speechless. Her story should be taught in schools. Listening to her

00:47:08.560 really made me understand how sick our higher education system in is. I have to work much harder

00:47:13.380 and stay true to my convictions. Bill with a similar sentiment saying everyone in the U S should

00:47:19.000 hear what it's like to live under an oppressed society. She was from North Korea. She escaped

00:47:23.080 and have to endure with this young woman and her mother experienced her appreciation and

00:47:28.060 understanding for our country is amazing for someone who's relatively youth new to the United

00:47:32.920 States. She can clearly see that we are headed in the wrong direction. Here's just one other

00:47:38.240 Lori in Calgary writes in. Wow. Wow. Wow. What a moving interview. I felt a flood of mixed emotions

00:47:44.060 throughout it. God has his hand on that young lady. Uh, North America's got to wake up. My gosh.

00:47:50.660 So true. So many people wrote in that they were fighting tears or that they did cry.

00:47:55.000 Yon Me too is more emotional than she's been in a lot of her interviews. You know what I mean?

00:47:58.700 You find a way of sort of packing that trauma up when you've been through so much of it,

00:48:02.060 but we had such a beautiful exchange. Uh, she was moved. I was moved. The audience was moved

00:48:06.420 worth your time. Okay. Um, last week I was in Vegas for a couple of days. I was doing an event

00:48:11.900 out there and I decided to parlay it into a girl's trip. So there's this group of friends

00:48:17.280 in all we are seven. And, uh, we met in New York when we were raising our young kids,

00:48:21.940 all of our daughters in particular within the same preschool together. And, uh, we call ourselves

00:48:26.760 Joe Palooza because we, the first girl's trip we took was to celebrate our friend Joelle

00:48:30.420 and her 40th birthday. So Joe Palooza went to Vegas, had a super great time. And two members

00:48:36.520 of Joe Palooza came on with me and you met them. Uh, yeah, L, uh, Denbo and, uh, Joelle

00:48:42.400 Cosentino. So got some fun feedback on them. Here's, here's some samples. Valerie writes in

00:48:49.320 no group of people have more vacation fun than a group of women friends. The best part of the show

00:48:54.420 was your message to women on how important it is to have kind, smart, 0.99

00:48:58.140 and emotionally supportive women in your lives. This is the message we must pass on to our girls.

00:49:03.220 Valerie word. And I tell you, as the audience may know, cause I talk about this sometimes

00:49:08.320 I'm not great at this. Like I'm, I'm not great at pursuing my friends and I'm actually not even

00:49:13.960 that great at being pursued. Like I don't, I'm so busy with my show and my family that my

00:49:20.440 friendships fall down first because of me and, uh, my therapist who I love, love, love. He recently

00:49:26.220 told me, MK, he said, you've got to make a commitment to do at least three social things

00:49:32.520 a week. It doesn't have to be like three dinners out. That's a lot, right? We can't do that. But

00:49:36.740 like, maybe it's just like a walk with somebody, or maybe it's a phone conversation even. Or like

00:49:42.440 last night I was in the city for the Ben Shapiro yes, uh, interview yesterday. And I'm in the city

00:49:47.080 where I used to live. And so I called my friend. I'm like, Hey, do you want to meet for a drink?

00:49:50.740 I hadn't made the plan in advance. Sometimes that's risky. You can easily be rejected.

00:49:54.240 She's like, sure. She was going out to dinner later with her husband. She said, I'll meet

00:49:57.560 you. We had such a nice time. It was, it was like an hour, hour 15 caught up. I felt the

00:50:04.220 connection. I felt better. So my, my therapist is right. And you guys should give it a try

00:50:08.480 to, um, hear a couple of questions. Uh, Kyla in Tennessee writes in about motherhood. She

00:50:14.340 writes, I am currently pregnant with our first child. Congrats, Kyla, a long time listener.

00:50:19.520 And I wonder if my son will find your voice more recognizable than my own. Ha ha. In all

00:50:25.740 seriousness, any advice for a first time mom? You know what, Kyla, I can tell you that Abby's 0.98

00:50:30.520 children have had the same problem. And, um, the little one Lillian is just like me.

00:50:37.640 It's a blessing and a curse. So good luck with your son. The only piece of advice I have for you as a

00:50:43.280 first time mom, um, is don't be too hard on yourself. Many of us struggled with that first

00:50:48.380 year or two and didn't particularly love it. And it doesn't mean you're a bad mom. It just means

00:50:52.860 you're a regular mom struggling with the regular challenges that come with a new baby. Do not

00:50:57.920 believe seventies reference the Brett commercial. That is not what it looks like. It's hard. And they

00:51:03.560 spit up on you and they vomit on you and they crap on you, but it's amazing. It's amazing. And when

00:51:09.080 they get a little older, it's easier and they're so fun and they're so fulfilling. Don't listen to

00:51:14.040 Chelsea Handler. Uh, having a child was a great idea and only gets better. We have covered one

00:51:22.280 dysfunctional family today with the Murdochs down in South Carolina. So we're going to keep that theme

00:51:27.780 rolling. Standup comedian and host of the very popular weekly podcast, Kill Tony, Tony Hinchcliffe

00:51:34.780 joins us now. He is one of America's top rising young comedians, as he likes to point out. And he

00:51:40.480 is here to discuss his crazy, crazy upbringing, political correctness, and how we have lost our

00:51:46.400 ever loving minds as a society. He knows firsthand. Tony, welcome to the show. Hello, Megan. How are you?

00:51:53.060 Hey, I'm good. It's great to have you. Thank you for being here. And thank you for allowing such

00:51:56.600 an offensive introduction to you. No, I like it. You, you pretty much nailed it. I love it.

00:52:03.120 We're in dysfunctional family. It's I mean, no, the vast majority of people have them. If

00:52:07.500 you, all you need to do is get talking with somebody and you realize, even if you think

00:52:10.980 you came from a healthy family, you didn't. Oh yeah. Especially in my world, the comedians

00:52:16.600 that, uh, that end up hanging out with us and with me are just, I mean, it's just wild. And

00:52:22.900 the musicians out here in Austin, Texas, that's another thing. You find that the best rock

00:52:27.000 stars, the ones that can make a guitar appear to float in front of them when having a solo

00:52:32.720 all have these crazy, crazy backgrounds. No, nothing is normal. None of them that I know

00:52:38.700 ever had dinner with their entire family after they all went to their nine to five jobs. There's

00:52:44.340 nothing normal about, uh, any of the most creative people that I know, you know, when you think

00:52:50.860 exactly, I was just going to say people who go into the entertainment field in general, whether

00:52:54.620 it's acting, the theater, whether it's music, comedy, art. Um, yeah, they do tend to have

00:53:02.400 a fair amount of like maybe more than their fair share of family damage. And maybe this

00:53:07.280 was just the release they needed or what got the creative juices flowing. Like you kind

00:53:10.740 of need that. I had a relatively normal upbringing. So I became a lawyer. That's what happens when

00:53:15.680 you have a relatively normal, you wind up a lawyer, sadly.

00:53:19.240 Yeah. That's a lot of reading books right there. It's not that easy to calm your brain

00:53:24.080 and read books when you're, uh, when you're used to whatever we all came from. I mean,

00:53:29.100 it's wild, but what's weird in your situation is it correct me if I'm wrong. You know, you

00:53:33.540 have like a loving mom, you had loving siblings. It's not like you were beaten. It's there's

00:53:38.360 a very weird situation with your dad who, I mean, maybe bigamous is too strong for what he

00:53:45.300 was doing, but it was kind of in the bigamy lane.

00:53:47.940 Yeah.

00:53:49.240 Yeah, it was, uh, well, bigamy. What exactly does that mean? I'm not sure. I didn't go to

00:53:56.780 law school.

00:53:58.080 Bigamy would mean he's married to two different women and has like two different families.

00:54:01.520 That's not exactly right.

00:54:03.560 Right, right. Well, it was old school Italian, uh, in a, what was a mostly like a Catholic 0.90

00:54:10.540 city and it was, uh, an all black neighborhood. So like we were the last of the Italians to be,

00:54:19.220 even in our little part of Youngstown, Ohio, which by the way, is I believe 20 minutes from

00:54:26.460 East Palestine. And I've been talking with my mom about everything that's going on. I told her

00:54:30.860 if it starts raining, get the hell out of there, get under something and have bagged ice and don't

00:54:37.580 stay away from your tap water. But anyway, um, yeah, it was a very, very, very interesting situation to

00:54:45.360 where, uh, you know, my back then you didn't get divorced. So my dad and my mom were hooking up

00:54:52.960 with each other forever for years. And yeah, he was, uh, right around the corner. It turns out

00:54:59.120 the entire time. Married to someone else. Yes. Yes. And was your mom married to someone else too?

00:55:05.600 Yeah, they were both married. So neither one of them got divorced. They just started hanging out

00:55:09.860 all the time. Uh, and, uh, you know, they were all sleeping in different beds than their partners.

00:55:15.680 It was just, I guess it was a thing back in 1984 to, uh, to rather than separate from someone

00:55:23.680 completely to just live in the same house, sleep separately, hate each other basically. And, uh,

00:55:31.900 yeah, they were doing whatever they wanted. Was it disclosed to the spouse or the person,

00:55:36.540 you know, their partner who was in their home? Did those, did their current like in-home romantic

00:55:41.060 partners know that there was somebody else? Well, what's interesting is that I think my dad's

00:55:47.460 wife at the time always suspected something. And then she heard rumors that he had a kid

00:55:54.520 and it was just rumors that there was some kid that went to St. Ed school that was saying that,

00:56:00.320 you know, so-and-so was his dad. And then one day I was bartending after I went to LA and went broke

00:56:08.760 the first time at the age of 18, I had to go back to save money again. So I got this job bartending

00:56:15.000 temporarily in Youngstown, Ohio, uh, at a place called Anthony's on the river. Anyway, it's like

00:56:20.820 their 30th high school reunion, 30th or 40th or something of, uh, high school. And I'm just

00:56:28.900 slinging drinks. It's just a, it's an open bar for this high school reunion. And this lady comes up 1.00

00:56:36.960 and looks at me like she's seen a ghost. And, uh, I almost knew immediately. I feel like I knew

00:56:43.480 immediately who it was and what was happening. And she said to me, she goes, you know, is your dad,

00:56:49.940 Joe blank and blank, right? My dad's name. And I go, yep, sure is. And she goes, wow,

00:56:56.880 you look exactly like him. And I married him 30 years ago or whatever it was. So it was like,

00:57:06.440 she was seeing a ghost, this, you know, 18 or 19 year old bartender. And she's looking at like

00:57:12.060 the man that she married before. And she had just heard rumors. But the crazy thing is that she was

00:57:17.100 super, super cool about it. She insisted that, you know, uh, she actually had a lot of power. 1.00

00:57:23.800 It was interesting. She got me to the whole side of my dad's family to meet me and bring,

00:57:31.000 bring me in. We had a nice big, uh, Italian like party, kind of a, a welcome to the family party

00:57:37.540 when I was 18 or 19. So. So you had never known your biological dad's side of the family. You only

00:57:43.660 knew your biological mom. Correct. A hundred percent. So it was all very, very interesting. But I mean,

00:57:49.560 again, this is how comedians are made. You gotta have some weird stuff. And you know, I think that

00:57:55.180 like, this is next level weird though. Cause I know I heard you tell Dr. Drew something to the

00:58:00.220 effect of you, you really, you knew your dad. He would come by like a couple of times a week when

00:58:05.780 you were really young. And then it started to peter down to like a couple of times a year.

00:58:10.240 And your mom had a story prepared for you on why you saw your dad. So little was your,

00:58:16.020 was your, I don't, is it, are we calling the other guy, your stepdad? Like the person who was

00:58:19.940 in home? Well, where would he be when your dad would come by for the visits?

00:58:24.400 Well, once I was born, that other guy was out once she got pregnant and they weren't, uh,

00:58:31.280 hooking up. He knew that that was, that was it pretty much figured that one out. Okay. So he,

00:58:36.780 and so he was out of the house at that time. Um, but yeah, it was, it was tricky. So like

00:58:42.980 when he would come and visit, you know, I would try to impress him because I, I wanted him to hang

00:58:48.780 out more. So it's the ultimate, like, I can see how I became the way that I became. It's just a kid

00:58:57.180 that, because once I figured out that he was, you know, again, I might as well just tell the quickest

00:59:03.520 version of this story for the listeners that don't know it, which is, yeah, she told me that

00:59:08.480 he worked a lot on the road. And then when I was, you know, I can't remember maybe she's 10, 11, 12,

00:59:14.760 I always get it confused, but I was very, very young. And, um, I noticed that across the, when I

00:59:21.140 was taking the school bus to school that, uh, across the street from my one friend's house,

00:59:26.520 there was a, a white SUV that looked exactly like my dad's car. So the next day when we drove by that

00:59:36.160 car, I took note of the license plate. And then the next time my dad visited, I matched up the

00:59:43.420 license plate with the car. That's always in the driveway across from my one friend's house that

00:59:47.700 I saw on the school bus, my dad visited, but I didn't want to bring it up then. Uh, so he left and

00:59:53.480 then I brought it up to my mom. I go, look, I, I had matched up the license plate to, you know,

01:00:00.240 a house where a right across the street from Jeff Lewis's house. And she just broke it down to me.

01:00:05.640 She told me everything at a very, very, you know, young age, again, 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there.

01:00:11.640 And, um, she told me, yep, your dad lives a few blocks away. He has a different family. He has

01:00:19.520 two older kids than you. Um, you were supposed to keep this a secret. He's a little bit connected

01:00:26.200 to some, you know, it, it was Youngstown at the time and mafia. I mean, everything was just,

01:00:36.240 it's just a land of illegal crime activity. Um, extreme gambling, everything that you sort of see.

01:00:44.100 I used to watch Goodfellas and a Bronx tale and Sopranos just to sort of feel that was the closest

01:00:50.860 thing to my Italian family that I had is taking a sick day from school and watching Goodfellas and

01:00:57.040 eating spaghetti. Like it was like in my DNA. And, uh, so yeah, she broke everything down to me,

01:01:04.300 which I think created this kind of like, you know, I don't know, kind of like a little monster inside

01:01:10.800 of me. That's like, I'm going to show him I'm cooler than the kids that he likes, you know,

01:01:16.020 that he has over there. I'm going to, you know, I have to figure out a way to impress my father,

01:01:22.540 just simple psychology 101. And, uh, you know, everything evolved to, you know, it was cool.

01:01:30.980 And then I went to LA and then at this point, it's just been amazing. You know, we don't communicate

01:01:35.900 that often, but when we do, it's hilarious and cool. And he got to come see me perform in an arena

01:01:41.380 in Pittsburgh a few months ago and hang out with Joe Rogan in the green room. Afterwards,

01:01:46.420 we watched a really cool boxing match that was going on. And you know, those green rooms and arenas

01:01:52.380 are amazing. So he's drinking coffee and he's just having a blast chain, smoking cigarettes,

01:01:58.780 watching boxing with a crew of guys that he just watched have a blast in the middle of an arena.

01:02:04.360 So I think I finally accomplished the goal of, uh, trying to impress my father for 38 years still

01:02:12.040 talking about it like that. Cause I would feel like by this point, usually the anger kicks in,

01:02:17.380 you know, the resentment, like, where were you? Why didn't you pay more attention to me?

01:02:22.620 You don't sound resentful. It's so interesting. I think about that. Sometimes I never felt that way.

01:02:29.220 He's a cool guy. He's a cool Italian guy, you know, the wife beater and the gold chain and the 0.97

01:02:36.520 nice, you know what I mean? Like he's always well presented, you know, black dress shirt,

01:02:42.120 fresh press. I mean, he's a cool guy. He's likable. He's very funny. He talks cool. He talks like a real

01:02:49.380 old school Italian, you know, and I never really felt resentment towards him. It was just always a, 1.00

01:02:58.760 it was just always simply, I want him to think I'm cool. I want to make him laugh when he's around.

01:03:04.280 I want him to, you know, know that I'm okay. I've always told him that. And my mom, that is that I

01:03:10.280 wouldn't change a thing about my chaotic upbringing in Youngstown and it being a dangerous neighborhood

01:03:16.820 and my family being completely, you know, a chaotic, different thing, but I wouldn't change

01:03:22.720 a thing about it. I love how, well, one of the things that I know you, you dealt with there was,

01:03:28.660 you know, as you point out, it was a tough neighborhood. And, um, now I did not grow up

01:03:32.460 in a tough neighborhood in that way, but I had vicious like tween and teen bullies who I would 1.00

01:03:39.040 put up against the worst neighborhoods in America any day of the week. I mean, you think, you know,

01:03:43.860 mean, you, you don't know, mean until you've lived life as a 12 or 13 year old girl, then come back

01:03:47.820 to me. Um, but I do think, you know, back to the discussion we just kicked off with, there's a,

01:03:53.900 it's part of the reasons that I became a lawyer. Like I, I'd been bullied so badly. I wanted to

01:03:59.460 stand up for people. Like I wanted to confront bullies. It's sort of, and actually it's been a

01:04:04.420 true line in my journalism career too. You experienced this too, not with bullies per se,

01:04:10.760 but just tough, tough guys everywhere around you. And you were never like the big meaty,

01:04:16.980 muscly dude. You had to find another way of protecting yourself. And it's directly related 0.77

01:04:23.220 to what you do today. So talk about that. Yeah, uh, absolutely. The neighborhood that I grew up in

01:04:29.340 was the most dangerous part of Youngstown. So there's houses being arse and people being shot.

01:04:35.600 I thought every city in America, there was always a police siren that you could hear

01:04:40.960 from wherever you were. That's just what was normal to me. Uh, and so it was very dangerous

01:04:48.540 and it was all very real. And I mean, bullying isn't even the word that was going on in my

01:04:55.780 neighborhood. It was just straight up like thuggery, I guess we could call it. Like it was

01:05:01.400 just, you couldn't, you shouldn't make eye contact with anybody. That's not a lot of fear,

01:05:06.080 a lot of danger. And my whole way of handling that is if anybody ever tried anything with me,

01:05:12.220 I would just make fun of them from the youngest, from as far back as I can remember. You know,

01:05:16.620 one of the famous little stories that I always tell is that I got beat up on my first bus ride

01:05:22.300 to my first day of school. Um, I made fun of my, who ended up being, and still is one of my good

01:05:28.820 friends. I made fun of him because his grandma walked him out to, uh, to the bus stop. And like,

01:05:35.560 he's standing there with his grandma as the bus pulls up. And I go, I can't remember exactly what

01:05:40.540 I said, but basically something like, Oh, you had to have your grandma stand out there with you.

01:05:45.500 And, uh, he punched me right in the face of my, when I arrived to school, the first thing I had to

01:05:50.700 do was rinse blood out of my mouth and a little tiny water fountain. Anyway, uh, it's just,

01:05:56.560 Are we both on his side in the story? So far I'm on his side.

01:05:58.820 Yeah, no. Yeah. I deserve it. I didn't know at the time that, you know, that's what could happen.

01:06:05.600 I hadn't really gotten punched in the face that much at that point. Um, yeah, exactly. But, uh,

01:06:14.060 yeah. And I mean, that's just carried on. And then I hated all my teachers all throughout school too.

01:06:19.140 I always felt like they were, had something against me. They could bully me more because I didn't have

01:06:25.260 like a dad to complain or to go to the parent teacher meetings. So I felt like they were my

01:06:32.480 bullies, the teachers and the teachers were telling me making fun of people's never going to get you

01:06:37.520 anywhere. And, uh, I mean, it's just, the story's just wild to think that that I, I use that as fuel

01:06:46.180 to, uh, literally make my entire life. Exactly. That my show kill Tony. I make fun of people I've

01:06:53.720 written for the last, whatever, 10 comedy central roasts. I've been on a bunch of roasts, just did

01:06:58.980 more roasts recently, the roast of Bert Kreischer. Uh, and, uh, yeah, I literally make fun of people

01:07:07.100 for a living. So how does it come to you? And maybe that's a weird question, but I would always

01:07:12.440 love to be more clever in my takedowns of people. And, you know, if you're not, if you don't have it,

01:07:17.960 you don't have it, you know, just the way I talk about somebody privately, I'm not talking about on

01:07:21.240 the air, just like when you dislike somebody, I don't, I feel like it's a gift that you either

01:07:25.560 have or you don't have, but am I wrong? Were you, was it something you developed from that moment

01:07:29.500 on the school bus forward? And is there for it's a skill any of us can have? I think it's a little bit

01:07:34.160 of both, you know, you find out, I mean, yeah, there's a natural skill for it, but I definitely

01:07:39.540 had it, uh, evolved and tailored. You know, I was lucky enough to have a great mentorship under Jeff

01:07:47.380 Ross, uh, the roast master general a decade and a half ago, I went on the road with him and I told

01:07:53.860 him, you know, if you ever need help writing jokes or anything, I specialize in making fun of people.

01:07:59.460 He's like, what's your email? Let's go. And the rest is history. And, uh,

01:08:04.160 he taught me how to do it a little bit sweeter. You know what I mean? Instead of just going straight

01:08:09.980 in on something, the first thing that you see, you can, you know, hit them in the ribs a little

01:08:15.280 bit and, or make fun of something that they don't see coming. Uh, he, he taught me how to craft it a

01:08:22.360 little bit more into like a martial art rather than just being very blunt about the first thing that

01:08:27.900 you notice about somebody. It's definitely an art form, but just like anything, you know,

01:08:32.540 you find out like, yeah, tiger woods was a great golfer when he was 10, but he also practices

01:08:38.260 all the time. So I do that all the time. Even when I don't say what I'm thinking about somebody

01:08:44.580 like making fun of somebody, if I don't say it out loud, I'm still thinking it and I can use it at a

01:08:49.780 later time on somebody else. You must be terrifying to spend time with at a party. This is like, I'm

01:08:53.720 having the same feelings I had when I interviewed the radical honesty guy who came up with this whole

01:08:57.300 program where you have to say whatever you're thinking and you can't have any filter. The whole time I was

01:09:01.360 like, Oh my God, he's going to lay it on me any second. You're, you must be a terrifying party

01:09:05.920 guest.

01:09:07.180 Nah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty cool. It's pretty, it's pretty, I'm pretty mellow. If I'm around

01:09:12.460 strangers, I know how to, you know, how to, how to hide it a little bit. But if I'm around my crew

01:09:19.780 here in Austin, like last night we were out at a bar with a big round table and it was just

01:09:24.840 all my friends that know me so well, then I can really amp it up and just be direct. Wow. You

01:09:31.460 look like crap today. I mean, just no humor to it whatsoever. And everybody laughs, you know what I

01:09:37.300 mean? Just being blunt and ridiculously. Uh, do you know my mom? It's weird. I've been through this

01:09:43.040 before. It sounds familiar. Um, so Austin, Texas now, which is, I don't know that like what brought

01:09:48.740 you, so from Youngstown to LA, you mentioned that now down to Austin. So why Austin? So I went to LA

01:09:57.060 to go to the best comedy club in the world and start there, the comedy store. I did dream story

01:10:03.100 worked there, worked my way up, worked my way up the lineup. So much fun. You know, it's a dark place

01:10:08.880 that's known for a bunch of misfits that literally are, you know, little troublemakers. And, uh,

01:10:17.480 so I developed there over 16 years. And then when the pandemic happened, uh, and California completely

01:10:24.780 mishandled the situation in every single way possible. Um, I realized that, uh, yikes, I am

01:10:32.860 not in the place that I want to be in. I mean, they had everything so close. There were so many weird

01:10:38.840 rules and especially where I was in West Hollywood and the comedy store is, I mean, it was chaos.

01:10:47.480 And when the riots happened, they happened right next to where I lived, um, my lovely little

01:10:54.360 neighborhood, six minutes from the comedy store. Um, and I saw how they handled that. I saw how

01:11:02.520 everybody was. I saw the, it was just, there was a police car on fire on both ends of my street.

01:11:10.140 Um, when the, when the George Floyd riots happened or the black lives matter movement,

01:11:17.420 whatever it was, you know, June of 2020 is when it was. And, uh, between that and the complete

01:11:24.240 shutdown of everything, I just, I was so miserable and I came to visit Austin. Uh,

01:11:33.800 and I went golfing with Ron white. I was amazed at how open everything was and Ron white and Joe

01:11:43.400 Rogan really laid out the red carpet for me, showed me all the coolest, you know, places and how open

01:11:49.860 the culture is. And, you know, instead of not doing shows indoors in California, we were doing

01:11:57.940 shoulder to shoulder shows and there's no sick people. There was no, there was the hospitalizations

01:12:04.200 weren't higher. There was, it was just an open, fun, mentally healthy place where everything at

01:12:13.100 the time in LA people, everybody was so depressed. Everybody just wanted to get back to doing shows.

01:12:18.300 And all you could do there were these weird outdoor shows where people are 12 feet apart from one

01:12:23.760 another. So you have like 20 people scattered around a giant patio wearing masks. Nothing made

01:12:30.780 any sense. And, uh, I remember on my way back to LA, I got, I read a news report that California was

01:12:39.200 going to close golf. You had to live in the same household with whoever you were going to go golfing

01:12:47.100 with ridiculous. And they were going to check IDs at the main place to make sure that you live

01:12:55.140 with the person, the people that you're golfing outdoors in California with. And the timing couldn't

01:13:03.380 have been better. Cause again, I was at a country club with Ron white the day before in Texas, having

01:13:09.720 the time of our lives, cracking up, smoking, driving golf carts, beautiful day, waterfalls. Everything's

01:13:16.400 great doing shows at night. And then I'm flying back to Cali and I'm realizing I can't golf outside with

01:13:24.440 my friends and there's no shows at one point. Here's an interesting one. At one point we were

01:13:32.420 doing a thing where we were filming my live podcast at the comedy store, but you weren't allowed to have

01:13:39.560 an audience indoors. So we streamed it outside to the parking lot on a screen and we just let people

01:13:47.720 in for free, just to, just to, just to, if for anybody that wanted to come by that needed it to

01:13:53.680 just a laugh. And, uh, the city of West Hollywood came by and saw that there was a screen playing

01:14:02.500 something that was happening live and they go, that's a live show. You guys are breaking the rules.

01:14:07.980 So they wrote a ticket to the comedy store. It's just crazy for me to have these memories. I kind

01:14:14.320 of repressed them for a little while when I first got here. And like, I think about these things,

01:14:19.900 they just pop back into my head and it's like, wait, I asked my buddy the other day, I go,

01:14:24.740 they wrote a ticket that day. Didn't they? Am I crazy? Am I remembering this wrong? He's like,

01:14:29.200 no, they, they wrote a ticket. It was happening at the same time. I go, if there was a 10 second

01:14:33.620 delay or something, would they have like, what, what are we talking about? A live show?

01:14:38.780 And, um, you're gathering, gathering of humans was offensive. So you got asked, you got to Texas,

01:14:43.340 you got the most liberal part of Texas, but you got to a sane state. So I'm sure you've felt the

01:14:49.420 difference. Yes, no doubt. And it's funny. The most liberal part of Texas is kind of a, uh,

01:14:55.500 I hear that a lot and it's, yeah, it is the most liberal part of Texas, but I think it's important

01:15:02.820 for people to realize that, uh, the most liberal part of Texas is like saying the, uh, the coldest

01:15:09.960 part of Antarctica. That makes sense. No, wait, actually that's a bad analogy, but, uh, the warmest

01:15:18.120 part. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, I got it. Still cold. And that's your point. Yeah. It's way,

01:15:23.720 certainly any, any place in Texas would be better than West Hollywood, LA. I mean,

01:15:27.900 there's a reason there's been such a mass exodus there, but can I ask you about this? So you find

01:15:32.600 yourself in Texas and I think if I'm, if my timeline's correct, it was after that move that

01:15:38.180 you found yourself. I don't know. I don't think you were canceled, but I think there was an attempted

01:15:43.540 cancellation. There was an attempted takedown, um, because of a bit you did in an Austin, Texas comedy

01:15:50.140 club. Yep. I made fun of a comedian after, uh, he brought me on stage, a comedian that knows me,

01:15:58.060 a comedian that I've hired for work. And at the time, uh, canceling was all the rage and, um,

01:16:07.260 he knew that I was going to make fun of him. And he had a friend film the transitionary part of his set

01:16:16.380 and he edited it and clipped it to make me look as bad as he possibly could. He picked the exact

01:16:23.800 moment of starting and ending this clip exactly how he could possibly make me look the worst.

01:16:31.860 And he played, uh, he played victim with it. And it was a very, very, very, uh, very big surprise.

01:16:39.120 Um, and, uh, situations where you, of course, the news runs with the headline. Okay. So Tony used

01:16:46.760 this, this racial slur against an Asian man. Oh my God, he's terrible. Who would do that? Who

01:16:52.200 would it in being so, uh, kindly past the mic was such a nice intro respond with a racial slur.

01:17:00.540 Only a complete douchebag would do. But then you read more. And there were some honest brokers who wrote

01:17:06.300 the full story about what really happened. Like you, he did know you were going to make fun of

01:17:10.780 him. It was like sort of not a preordained bit, but it were, there was like, some of it was known.

01:17:15.700 And apparently his whole routine was about how you like, don't say anything mean about Asian people.

01:17:21.540 Like it'd be nicer to us. It's not cool to make fun of us. And it wasn't particularly funny,

01:17:26.320 but that was whole. So you were, you were basically, it was baked into like, Oh, this is how I'm

01:17:31.480 responding to your be sweet, be sweet. No, I'm not sweet. It's right on brand for you. If you know,

01:17:36.160 your line of humor, but that wasn't highlighted. Right. Exactly. And you know, it's one of those

01:17:43.680 things to where you talk about, you hear fake news and boy, when you're part of it, when you

01:17:49.820 actually are in it and you realize, Oh my God, all of these people that are reporting on this thing,

01:17:56.600 like at the time, if you Googled me or went to the first line of my Wikipedia page, literally,

01:18:02.980 I think it's changed now for some reason. I don't know who writes these things or how it even works.

01:18:07.400 But at the time I remember specifically the first line of my Wikipedia pages, Tony Hinchcliffe is an

01:18:13.520 American insult comedian. And I think to myself, like, how do you continue the article? How do you

01:18:20.080 call yourself a journalist or a reporter? If, and God help you, if you make it to the second paragraph,

01:18:27.060 you see that I've written on all the comedy central roasts that my specialty is not even

01:18:32.520 making fun of people. It's really making fun of comedians. And meanwhile, they, you know,

01:18:40.420 everybody wanted to blow this thing up. It was Asian heritage month, which was, I mean, 1.00

01:18:45.960 I asked Asian people at the time when that started and they're like, I have no idea. This is a brand new 1.00

01:18:50.820 thing. You know what I mean? Like a ton of Asian friends. I had a, I had a half Chinese girlfriend

01:18:57.840 for four or five years at one point in my life. But to say that anybody doing anything on stage

01:19:04.700 is a cancelable offense to me is absolutely insane. I mean, it's one thing if it's Twitter or Instagram,

01:19:11.800 I could see how those things could be taken out of context, but no professional comedian is just

01:19:18.900 going to all of a sudden lose his mind and go on a racial, uh, um, uh, diatribe. No, I got it.

01:19:28.920 One of the things that bothered me the most about your story was your agents cut and ran. Ah, the

01:19:35.160 agents are absolutely disgusting. I mean, I've had enough of them in my career to know

01:19:39.680 that is the last person you want in your life. Don't get an agent, find a way of making it without

01:19:44.260 one if you can, because truly they're disgusting. And there's a, there's always an exception here or

01:19:49.260 there, you know, but in general agents are absolutely disgusting.

01:19:54.340 A hundred percent. They were literally, they ended up doing just as much damage basically as he did

01:20:01.440 because on day two, when the news cycle should have been over, uh, they wanted to virtue signal,

01:20:10.600 you know, and, and they, and dropped me for no reason, literally so that they can just,

01:20:16.340 nobody knew I was even repped by WME at the time. It wasn't even a thing. It's literally calling them

01:20:21.600 saying, are you going to dump Tony? Right. Right. And it's just a corporation virtue signaling.

01:20:27.660 It was disgusting. And it's just wild to think that that's the world we live in where it's like,

01:20:33.560 oh, this is going to make us look good. Let's throw this guy who we know, who we've had dinner

01:20:39.880 with, who we've, you know, had great meetings with, who's made us laugh, who's gotten us into

01:20:44.980 great shows, all these things. Let's bury him right now. We can do it. And we'll blame it up on

01:20:49.420 the higher up. So it wasn't up to me. You know, I wish I could have, I wish we could have continued

01:20:54.060 working together. But a fun fact about that is that I see those people a lot because they rep

01:20:59.720 other friends of mine and they, and I'll see them after Madison square garden performing in the

01:21:06.600 middle of an arena with Rogan or after the MGM garden arena. And they're watching me literally

01:21:12.600 because that, that, that assassination attempt on my career really woke up a whole nother level

01:21:20.100 of my comedy, of my perspective of just who I am now on this, like, you know, and Texas too also did

01:21:28.380 it. We're doing some real rock and roll comedy out here. The phones are locked up all the time.

01:21:33.180 It's nothing like what we're seeing on Netflix and HBO putting out there. I mean, even YouTube,

01:21:41.140 I don't think could air exactly the type of stuff word for word, what I'm talking about and what a lot

01:21:48.760 of my great peers here in Texas are talking about. And so they're seeing this leveled up comedy.

01:21:54.700 They're seeing me even stronger than I was. And that's a true story. They had to watch me.

01:22:01.160 My old agents had to watch me have the time of my life in a, you know, a custom suit in the middle

01:22:09.920 of these arenas because they rep other people. And it's just so funny to me to think like, God,

01:22:16.760 you must feel like such a tool, just such a moron. What a dork that you would drop somebody

01:22:24.520 that now literally my career is like, I don't know, a hundred times better than it was before

01:22:31.760 that cancellation attempt. Cause real comedy fans see right through that.

01:22:37.680 And the thing was weird too. What comedy fan would ever cut and run

01:22:41.560 from a comedian who gets kissed? The absurdity of that, right? Like they don't. So it's what

01:22:47.080 exactly, what is the consequence? They're trying to make you so toxic. You can't get

01:22:50.380 on SNL or an HBO special. Like, what do you think is the goal in comedy of these very excitable

01:22:57.960 cancelers? I don't know. I, I can't quite understand, but yeah, I think that they are 0.55

01:23:07.600 such not comedy fans that they probably think, Oh, well, the goal is an HBO special or the

01:23:14.140 goal is a SNL. They think that it just goes to show their ignorance in the first place.

01:23:19.340 Cause those things are just dead old pirate ships that once had a thriving life. And it's

01:23:26.040 again, it's just the opposite. Is there any comic who's dying to get on SNL in today's day

01:23:29.660 and age? I mean, anybody now, I know more people dying to get off of SNL than I know

01:23:34.120 dying to get on it right now. That makes more sense. So now you're out there. You basically

01:23:38.760 didn't get canceled because you didn't allow yourself to be canceled. And that's like a

01:23:41.740 secret of cancellation. You just refuse to be canceled. You can lose one thing. You could lose

01:23:46.580 your agent. You could lose one deal, whatever you could lose one role. But if you just keep

01:23:51.480 doing your thing and in today's day and age, there's so many ways of just doing your

01:23:55.780 thing, you're not canceled. And so that's how you managed to stay alive and upright and

01:24:00.700 doing better than ever. I will say, I predict your agent will come back to you. This only

01:24:05.560 happened in 2021. So I'm going to guess within the next, I'm going to put in 12 months in

01:24:08.900 the next 12 months, WAME will come back to you because they have zero principle. All they 1.00

01:24:16.280 care about is money. So they cut you when they thought, Oh, maybe somebody is going to be

01:24:20.140 offended. And we have to look like, you know, like one of our richer clients is going to be

01:24:23.400 mad. So we got to like, look like we're mad too, but now they're going to come back. They're going

01:24:27.200 to beg. And I already know what your answer will be, but I mean, that'll be a satisfying moment.

01:24:31.280 I have been there too.

01:24:33.180 Megan, you are so correct that it actually already happened. And instead I signed with the only bigger

01:24:41.480 agency. I ended up signing with UTA who they literally hate their arch rivals. And I'm at the

01:24:49.180 tippity top and they are the absolute best and everything is better coordinated, bigger shows.

01:24:56.060 And they're going to have to watch me announce this massive tour for the back end of 2023 with

01:25:02.340 venues twice as big as they were ever, ever able to put me in and, um, huge, huge stuff happening with

01:25:10.340 my podcast, kill Tony to where, you know, I, I can't talk about it now, but let's, I will say that

01:25:16.800 the venue size that we are going to end up having some shows that is hundreds of times the size of

01:25:25.880 our current setup. I didn't like, first of all, I will say this. I don't believe in UTA either.

01:25:31.760 You're, you're also on shaky ground. Love no one, trust no one. Okay. Just a word to the wise.

01:25:36.680 However, um, I like sticking it to the ones who screwed you. Um, I, I'm just listening to you.

01:25:42.420 Like it actually is hard in comedy without an agent, you know, in my business, it's not that

01:25:45.920 hard without an agent, but in your business, like all that stuff you really, that's a, that's a

01:25:48.880 massive undertaking to book all that stuff and manage all those venues and like, keep it all

01:25:53.280 straight. You definitely need some sort of a help. And I'm having a newfound respect for the comedians

01:25:57.380 who are up and coming, who don't have it, who are trying to make it in your industry.

01:26:01.420 Right. Well, it's a little tricky. The agents can only help those who can sell tickets. So,

01:26:09.140 you know, when you're starting out, having an agent's almost pointless because they can't do

01:26:14.520 anything for you. If you don't sell tickets, they're not going to put you in a venue. They're

01:26:18.040 not going to take that risk and damage their relationships with whoever runs the venues in

01:26:23.200 those cities. So, you know, the trick is being able to sell tickets. And again, you know, it's

01:26:29.960 interesting. I find that, and we see it here in Austin a lot, the people that, um, uh, are,

01:26:38.620 maybe have a new special out on the newly more woke Netflix and things like that. It's funny how

01:26:46.980 tickets are still available that day for their shows in those venues. And meanwhile, you see,

01:26:54.360 you know, me, Joe Rogan and, uh, a bunch of other people, my homie, Shane Gillis, uh, who they tried to

01:27:02.840 cancel for something that he said on a podcast, my good friend, Ari Shafir, who they said was too

01:27:08.780 aggressive with a joke. Once on Instagram, I just had Roseanne Barr on my show on Monday. 1.00

01:27:15.020 And these people have no problem selling tickets. These people that got in trouble for jokes and not

01:27:21.620 only that, but they are absolutely thriving. You know, my buddy, Ari Shafir, again, people thought he

01:27:28.060 was down and out a few years ago, just has literally has the best special of the year on

01:27:33.820 YouTube right now. Um, Shane Gillis, who they canceled for an Asian joke. He was supposed to

01:27:39.780 be on SNL and they, they virtue signaled and fired him before he ever got to do anything

01:27:44.480 has the best special of the year before that. Um, it creates a little bit of a, I think it creates

01:27:52.200 a monster when some, when a comedian is truly wronged for other people's virtue signaling bad

01:28:00.960 intentions. I think that's how monsters are kind of created. And I, again, I had Roseanne on my show

01:28:06.500 on Monday and she was so cognitive and so hilarious and so powerful. And she mentioned at one point,

01:28:16.220 she goes, they stole everything from me. They stole my show. They stole my thing, but she's having 0.97

01:28:22.080 the time of her life. She literally said being canceled is the shit. I'm so glad I'm doing this.

01:28:27.900 Like, this is so much fun. I wouldn't have been able to do this if I was, if I still had the show

01:28:33.160 on ABC or whatever. And she, we had the time of our lives. Roseanne was dancing. It's amazing. It's so

01:28:40.340 sad too, because her show was so good. And it was one of the few shows that spoke to middle America

01:28:46.020 and wasn't woke. Just that phrase you said about cancel for a joke. It's like back in my day. And

01:28:52.340 I grew up in the seventies. That was the whole point of jokes. It was to offend, you know, jokes,

01:28:57.140 Halloween costumes, all this stuff. Like you're meant to push boundaries. You're meant to shock,

01:29:01.460 scare, make people feel uncomfortable. That's the pleasure in it. It's not all like rainbows and

01:29:06.400 unicorns, little giggles. That's a, that's a lane, but the dominant lane has, is usually to kind of

01:29:12.880 offend somebody. That's usually what makes people laugh. I just feel like we've become so soft.

01:29:18.800 Yeah. It is the most exciting part of everything. Literally last night, Thursday nights tend to be

01:29:26.560 the night in Austin where I can try new stuff a little bit more than other nights. There's

01:29:32.540 a couple of different shows where I can bounce around where I'm not on, I'm not announced. It's

01:29:37.200 not my show. So I don't have to, um, you know, bring your a game, perform, perform a stellar set.

01:29:44.820 I can try new stuff. Phones are locked up. And literally yesterday, last night, I'm like, before

01:29:54.240 this, before my first set, I got, I told my buddies in the green room, I go, Oh, I'm about to try this

01:30:00.420 new joke about the porn that George Floyd made. And I don't know what's going to happen. This is

01:30:09.300 crazy. And they're like, what is it? I'm like, nah, I'm not going to tell it here. If you end up

01:30:14.140 hearing it, you'll hear it, but I'm not going to tell you here because you guys might tell me not to

01:30:21.040 do it. And I don't want to hear that. And so I went on stage and I did some material to sort of,

01:30:28.380 you know, get my footing and establish with the audience, a connection. And then I go into it and

01:30:34.780 I nail the landing and the, it is the biggest pop of my entire set. This new thing where I'm like,

01:30:42.860 I don't know, this is right on the line. Here we go. I don't know. Maybe only I think this is as

01:30:49.920 funny as I think it is. And boom, this massive pop. And then I have a second set after that. So I

01:30:56.740 walked down sixth street to another venue. And now at this point I have confidence in it. And I'm

01:31:02.240 like, oh my God, I'm pretty sure this is like my best joke right now, even though I just did it for

01:31:07.340 the first time 15 minutes ago. And so I do it for the second set and now there's more around it. And

01:31:13.300 now I'm delivering it with confidence. And anyway, after that, it goes even better. And I add more to

01:31:20.180 it. And then there's a callback to it because I did another joke and I realized, oh my God,

01:31:25.040 I can now reference that. The point is, is like this thing where I'm like, I don't know,

01:31:29.640 which I'm not really ever like that. But this one is so weirdly offensive in a special way that I'm

01:31:38.260 like, I just don't know. And by the end of the night, here I am again, I was drinking with my

01:31:43.060 friends celebrating because nothing is nothing brings me more joy than having a new joke that

01:31:53.380 I was kind of concerned about. It's like birthing a weird little baby or something like that in my

01:32:00.580 world. You need to make that the tagline of your show, weirdly offensive in a special way.

01:32:06.920 Tony Hinchcliffe, you should totally do it. Listen, Tony, thank you. Please come back and we'll

01:32:12.000 talk about the news and we'll talk about your shows. And if I'm ever in Austin, I'm going to

01:32:15.360 swing by and watch you test out those materials. I'll try to make it on a Thursday so I can get

01:32:18.980 the new stuff myself. I love it. Absolutely. Anytime. Love to have you. All right. And you

01:32:24.160 guys can all find Tony's latest tour dates and more about his live podcast, Kill Tony at Tony

01:32:29.520 Hinchcliffe. That's spelled H-I-N-C-H-C-L-I-F-F-E dot com. All right, you guys, thank you all so much for

01:32:38.780 listening this week. I hope you have a great weekend. Next week on the show,

01:32:41.240 Adam Carolla, Dr. Drew, the guys from Ruthless and much, much more. Plus, we'll have the latest

01:32:46.100 in the Alec Murdoch trial. Maybe we will get a verdict. We'll have it all for you.

01:32:52.660 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - February 24, 2023

Fatal Flaws in Alex Murdaugh’s Cross Examination, Staying True to Your Convictions, with Mark Geragos, Ronnie Richter, and More ｜ Ep. 500

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