The latest on Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke on May 13, 2022, four days before the Democratic primary, and is now in the hospital with lightheadedness. We talk to cardiologist Dr. Anish Koka and National Review Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry about what could be the cause. Plus, the latest on Alec Baldwin s new civil lawsuit against the family of Helena Hutchins.
00:01:02.780Now, I don't know if that's off or what, but he's retained Gloria Allred and they've filed another lawsuit.
00:01:09.580All right, so we'll get into all that.
00:01:10.960Then we're going to have a conversation with Miranda Devine on the Hunter Biden laptop Twitter hearing yesterday.
00:01:15.220So much good sound to bring you from that.
00:01:16.780But we are beginning with the news that Senator John Fetterman has been hospitalized to discuss this breaking news.
00:01:24.460We have cardiologist Dr. Anish Koka and our friend Rich Lowry from National Review.
00:01:29.780Guys, thank you so much for being here.
00:01:31.640So, Doc, the latest news we got is that he was hospitalized overnight and that his team is saying that the initial review did not show evidence of a new stroke,
00:01:45.740but doctors are running more tests and this is yesterday evening and that he's remaining overnight for observations that he was in good spirits and talking with his staff.
00:01:54.240But we really don't know much more than that about the 53 year old who, as viewers and listeners may recall, suffered a stroke on May 13th, 2022, four days before the Democratic primary.
00:02:06.740So what concerns come to mind as you hear this news?
00:02:11.140Yeah, I mean, thanks for having me, Megan.
00:02:14.080You know, when you have somebody like Mr. Fetterman have lightheadedness, you know, it's important to remember, put it in context.
00:02:22.040It's not like, you know, having, you know, a 25 year old man who has no medical history having lightheadedness.
00:02:28.380This is, you know, a 50 some year old man who, you know, really unfortunately had a stroke.
00:02:34.500And then, and then, you know, it was a more, it wasn't just a, and that's complicated enough.
00:02:39.100But on top of that, it was discovered at the time, I think we found out a few days later that he had, he has a weak heart muscle.
00:02:49.020On top of that, he has a defibrillator.
00:02:51.500A defibrillator is a device that is implanted in the, in the body by cardiologists that kind of sits there and it's like a computer that's constantly monitoring the heart rhythm.
00:03:02.040And if there's a bad heart rhythm that's noted, the device gets activated to try to save your life.
00:03:06.260So the diagnostic possibilities in terms of somebody who's 50 some years old, who has a history of a stroke, who has heart failure, who has a defibrillator, who has lightheadedness is, is obviously, you know, there's some severe possibilities there.
00:03:21.800It could be that, it could be that he's dehydrated.
00:03:25.320It could be that the doctors in terms of her managing his heart failure, when they're adding medicines for that, it could be that, you know, those medicines, he could be having some type of a reaction to, and they have to dial back some of those medicines.
00:03:38.220Or it could be, or it could be things that are, you know, that could be, you know, more concerning, like bad arrhythmias or heart failure that, that, that's progressing.
00:03:48.180Um, so there's a number of different possibilities.
00:03:50.740And again, it's, it's really hard with the little pieces that we get from, uh, from the, the Fetterman side of things to kind of figure out where, where, where in that whole gradient, uh, you know, he would be.
00:04:02.900Well, when you say it could be heart failure progressing, um, I, of course I know absolutely nothing about cardiology in the way you do, but if you have a defibrillator in there, as well as a pacemaker, how does one suffer heart failure?
00:04:23.500Defibrillators and pacemakers, um, except for one peculiar circumstance where you have a certain conduction problem with the heart and then the pacemaker actually is resynchronizing the heart to make the heart pump better.
00:04:34.740And, and we don't, we have no idea because we've never actually spoken or heard from the treating, uh, physician who actually put in the device.
00:04:42.280So we don't even know the details of what exact device is.
00:04:46.280There's a defibrillator that says one lead that sits there and is just sitting there looking to see if you're going to have a bad rhythm and it shocks you or paces you out of that bad rhythm.
00:04:54.460And then there's one unique case, like I'm talking about where the, uh, uh, a resynchronizing pacemaker can be used to improve your heart function.
00:05:03.020We don't know any of that, but if he has the general type of defibrillator, which is just a defibrillator that's sitting there waiting to save your life in case you have a very bad rhythm.
00:05:11.300And you're predisposed to these bad rhythms because your heart muscle is weak, then that defibrillator isn't doing anything to make your heart better per se.
00:05:18.880So, so, um, so yeah, so again, it's, it's very hard kind of stumbling around in the dark, uh, without knowing any, any of these details.
00:05:26.800And there's so many details that, you know, as cardiologists, we would, we would love to, love to know.
00:05:31.420Well, can I ask you about that? Cause you're from Pennsylvania.
00:05:36.240Has it been frustrating for you as a doctor, who's also a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania?
00:05:41.220The commonwealth of Pennsylvania to not get more information because all we ever got was like a general note from his general practitioner saying he's fit to serve.
00:05:48.720He never released his medical records.
00:05:51.120Yeah. I mean, it gets to this whole notion.
00:05:52.560I never really spent that much time thinking about it, but it does get to this notion of like, well, what exactly is the public supposed to know about the politician you're voting for, um, in terms of how sick you are, you know?
00:06:04.200And I mean, do we need to know like what exact hypertension medications he's on?
00:06:07.680I guess probably not, but, but, um, but, you know, after someone suffers such a significant, um, event, um, yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's, it behooves folks to know more about what the prognosis is here.
00:06:23.020And, uh, uh, you know, more heat and, and in order to know what prognosis is, how well you're going to be able to discharge, you know, what is a very busy or can be a very, very busy stressful job.
00:06:35.360Um, yeah, it would be really helpful to know, no more details.
00:06:38.300And, and we just, you know, there just have been details have been so, so difficult to, uh, to kind of, uh, pull out.
00:06:44.840So yeah, that is, that has been, has been frustrating.
00:06:49.580It's interesting to hear, um, you know, the good doctor, a cardiologist talk about how frustrating it is for him to not get the details he would like to, to ascertain whether Fetterman really is fit to serve.
00:07:00.540And is capable of doing this job. And it was a frustration that a lot of voters and would-be voters had in the run-up to this election.
00:07:07.660One that we were told over and over again was somehow inappropriate to raise that you were being an ableist if you push too hard for more details.
00:07:17.320And now the guy was sworn in on January 3rd. It's a month later and he's already had a medical event.
00:07:23.460He's back in the hospital. And once again, we're getting the stiff arm on details.
00:07:28.040Yeah. So let's hope it's nothing and let's hope he he's out soon and feeling better, but they've been hiding the ball on this from the beginning.
00:07:37.380And the fact is it's not unusual. Any politician with a major health issue instantly becomes George Santos, right?
00:07:44.240You can't believe anything they say. They always hide the ball. And Fetterman was diagnosed with this, uh, heart condition in 2017.
00:07:51.440We never heard about it. He has the stroke. They're not transparent about it. They're not forthright about it.
00:07:56.380As you say, they get a general note from a friendly doctor. I would say in their defense, that debate he had with Oz, the one debate is pretty much all you needed to know as a voter to ascertain his condition.
00:08:09.620And it was not good. You know, he had trouble understanding the questions and expressing himself.
00:08:13.580And it wasn't just problems with the teleprompter as they tried to spin it afterwards.
00:08:17.340It has he has genuine problems communicating, which is a huge part of the job of the senator.
00:08:22.940But Oz managed to lose to him anyway. And a decisive segment of Pennsylvania voters just decided it wasn't important to them.
00:08:31.700But I'll just add the most shameful episode this entire period when they tried to destroy the career of that NBC News reporter who's covering the campaign, had an interview with him and said prior to the interview, it was clear he did not understand what she was saying when she was trying to engage in idle chit chat.
00:08:49.220They said she was lying. And as you say, she was an ableist and hated disabled people and set the cause of disabled people back decades.
00:08:56.860And it's one thing, Megan, like people to come after you. You know, you're used to it.
00:09:01.340Here's this young reporter has to fear. Is she going to get fired? Is she going to have any career again?
00:09:05.640And they were lying. And she was telling the truth. And that was just disgraceful.
00:09:09.220Yeah. I mean, she was the best example of people being shamed for asking good questions or raising concerns.
00:09:15.060And all along, Doc, they kept telling us there's no there's no cognitive issue with him.
00:09:19.720It's just this auditory processing difficulty in the wake of the stroke.
00:09:24.680And yet in that debate and since then, it does appear that there are cognitive issues.
00:09:30.400He can't. It's not just the way he hears things. His speech makes no sense half the time.
00:09:36.560You he's not saying the right words in the right situations. Am I? Is that cognitive?
00:09:42.860All right. Hold on. We're going to work on a connection with Dr.
00:09:46.040Coca and try to get an answer to that question. But here's an example, Rich, of what I'm talking about.
00:09:50.060He spoke. This is February 3rd, not even a week ago in Philadelphia.
00:09:57.040And you can see you can hear for yourself. He's trying to talk about clean water.
00:10:00.640Here's how it went. Replacing the lead pipes and ensuring that everyone has clean, safe, clean drinking work waters.
00:10:13.520Drinking work. I mean, meanwhile, the drinking water sign is like blaring behind him.
00:10:16.720This is what the whole event is about. He couldn't get it out.
00:10:19.060Anybody else? He'd say, oh, we all stumble on our words.
00:10:21.660I mean, it's it's every day with this guy.
00:10:23.480Yeah, it's it's painful. And he's he's generally avoided interviews.
00:10:28.340And it's a clear double standard, because when Mark Kirk, former senator from Illinois, a Republican, had a stroke and was like, he had a stroke.
00:10:35.800He's not going to be able to be a senator anymore.
00:10:37.960You know, the newspaper said it in Illinois.
00:10:40.120No one was like, oh, you're an ableist. This is a terrible thing you're doing to Mark Kirk.
00:10:44.060So, again, I would have thought just given that debate that you shouldn't have voted for John Fetterman because it's going to be really hard for him to do the job.
00:10:50.780But they had the debate and Pennsylvania motor voters made made a different decision.
00:10:57.120Here's why it's upsetting, because he was pressed over and over again about whether he was fit to serve.
00:11:02.180I mean, honestly, he's made it one month and he's back in the hospital one month.
00:11:07.280And here's just a preview of what was happening back in November 22, 2022, when he was talking about this.
00:11:13.860And the thing is, the there's a reason that nobody wanted us asking these questions.
00:11:18.500The Democrats understood very well that it was a 50 50 Senate at the time they had the opportunity to capture this seat.
00:11:25.140And therefore, we weren't allowed to inquire past unfit unfit unfit.
00:11:30.680Here's an example of an exchange he had with Don Lamont over at CNN.
00:12:29.340And it's just that we've talked about this a lot over the years.
00:12:32.500One of the worst things about our politics is just there are two different sets of standards.
00:12:36.620And reality is distorted to accommodate one side and whatever its interests are at that time.
00:12:42.260So we heard from all sorts of voices in the legacy media.
00:12:46.140Oh, it's so he's so courageous because he did this debate knowing he's not gonna be able to talk very well.
00:12:51.500Or, you know, this is this is a great advance for disabled people that are gonna have a senator who can't really communicate very well,
00:12:57.540which no one would have thought of saying prior to needing to elect John Fetterman to the seat that, you know, could have a decisive effect on who controlled the Senate.
00:13:08.400So just just making up these these new standards are a reason why everyone distrust or a huge swath of people distrust anything you hear in the media.
00:13:18.080His physician, the one we were relying on for these assurances that he was a OK, you know, the primary care physician, which is not a cardiologist.
00:13:27.440That is not somebody who's got the in-depth knowledge.
00:13:29.440He came out and said before before the debate that Fetterman speaks intelligently without cognitive deficits,
00:13:36.260though, shows signs of auditory processing disorder, which causes him to have trouble understanding certain spoken words.
00:15:23.040And I take care of a number of wonderful patients who've had strokes and have difficulty speaking.
00:15:28.480And, you know, and I've written testimonials for them in terms of, yes, you know, these folks are doing well and they can participate in X, Y and Z.
00:15:36.540But I think it would be nice to have just more transparency because I think most doctors that are busy that see patients, you know, they're not going to necessarily say this is a patient that has difficulty processing and getting words out.
00:15:51.160And therefore, you cannot do anything like this ever again.
00:15:54.480Or this definitely means that there's some severe cognitive impairment.
00:15:58.600But I think the issue is, is that just the lack of transparency, as you're saying, makes it difficult to trust them, right?
00:16:04.360If they say if they say right after having a stroke, oh, it's a standard thing that you get a getting a standard pacemaker put in after you have a stroke.
00:16:12.600Not only do you not get a pacemaker, you got a defibrillator, which implies a weak heart pump, which implies heart failure, which is much more ominous than just having just having, you know, had a stroke, which is ominous in and of itself.
00:16:24.120So I think the issue is just one of transparency, and I wish they would be more transparent and, you know, focus on regardless of your politics.
00:16:31.440I think folks would feel a lot better about that.
00:16:33.800Mm hmm. Do you what do you make of that report feeling lightheaded and then hospitalized for observation?
00:16:39.800What does that sound like something that happens to a stroke victim or?
00:16:44.000No, no. Yeah, that it's just it could it's not necessarily related, could not necessarily be related to stroke.
00:16:49.560It'd be something just simple as he was a little dehydrated. Right.
00:16:52.300The most common thing I would say from a cardiac standpoint in my heart failure patients that I cause this all the time is when I'm trying to up titrate their medication to get their heart muscle to pump better.
00:17:02.400You want their heart marinating in a nice mix of medicines.
00:17:06.060Some of them are another panoply of, you know, four or five medicines.
00:17:09.200And the goal is to try to get them on all these medicines so you can get the heart pumping better.
00:17:12.660But one of the downsides of doing that is that you drop their blood pressure.
00:17:16.220You make them more dehydrated and they may and they will come in saying, Doc, I'm feeling a little lightheaded, you know, after you started this medicine just happened an hour ago.
00:17:23.720And so, like, all right, well, we got to pull you back off that medicine.
00:17:26.040So it could be something as simple as that, but it could also be something much more serious.
00:17:30.840And so that's why, you know, they're right to take him to the take him to the ER to check to make sure he doesn't have a stroke.
00:17:36.340But there's other things that could be, you know, he has a defibrillator for a reason.
00:17:39.980The defibrillator there is there to look for bad arrhythmia that he's more predisposed to because his heart muscle is weak.
00:17:44.700And so, you know, is it related to could there be some arrhythmia going on that could have caused him to be lightheaded?
00:17:50.040We have no idea. That's complete idle speculation.
00:17:51.880But the point is, if you are transparent about those things, I think everyone would feel a lot better.
00:17:55.960Like simply the treating cardiologist saying, hey, you know, we checked out his device.
00:17:59.500Everything looks beautiful. You know, this is what his heart function is looking like now.
00:18:03.440These are the meds. You know, this is what we found.
00:18:05.940And I think, you know, we would be able to not just sit here and throw darts, throw darts and be like, is it this or is it this?
00:18:12.000Well, because we all know that if the treating cardiologist had been saying optimistic things back before the election, they would have put him out there.
00:18:20.340Right. They would have put him out there. There's a reason they didn't allow us access to the true expert.
00:18:28.040And also, you know, they've won. So he's there for six years, God willing.
00:18:33.820Be honest now, at least. Be transparent now. Don't don't leave these lingering questions.
00:18:38.280Well, I guess I guess I guess. Yeah, go ahead, Doc.
00:18:42.160I guess I guess, you know, I wonder. I mean, you always worry when they're not being transparent about how bad something may really be.
00:18:48.860So, you know, if for instance, your left ventricle, which is, you know, if it's dilated, there's there's degrees to that.
00:18:53.900Right. If it's mildly dilated, it's one thing. If it's six point five centimeters dilated, you know, any heart failure doctor you talk to is going to be like, oh, my goodness.
00:19:00.240That is that is a prognostically difficult place to be. And and, you know, do you want somebody like that necessarily being in a very, very busy, active, stressful job?
00:19:09.860And so I think I think one of the things in terms of why they kept him away so long until the debate is that they're really hoping for for improvement.
00:19:17.860Right. So, you know, they want to take a snapshot when he's doing really well.
00:19:21.420And I do understand that, that, you know, they were hoping for as long as possible, you get as much recovery as possible and then kind of show your cards.
00:19:29.960And, you know, the question is, at what point do you say, OK, this is this is what we have and this is this is this is where we are with his heart, with his brain, et cetera.
00:19:39.100So after all the heart disease talk, all viewers of the segment go straight to the treadmill.
00:20:38.220So it would be up to the governor, though. And it's not like the governor is going to pick our Republican.
00:20:44.720No, no. And I don't know whether there eventually have to be a special election, but if there if there would be, I would be pretty confident, given the record of Pennsylvania Republicans here, that they'd mess it up.
00:20:56.220Yeah. So you can be rest assured of that one thing closing out the segment.
00:21:01.740Dr. Koka, thank you so much for your expertise.
00:21:03.840They lost to John Fetterman in his current state that they can lose to anyone.
00:21:08.040Yeah. Put your money there. Rich Lowry, great to see you, too. Thanks, guys.
00:22:49.260Well, as you say, Judy Woodruff has given him a soft soap and he knew that that question was coming.
00:22:58.700And I think that's really the only way he can deal with it.
00:23:02.220He can't deal with it, honestly, because he's denied that he had anything to do with his son, Hunter,
00:23:08.860or his brother, Jim, or Frank's overseas business dealings when they were selling his name for profit overseas.
00:23:16.900But I just don't think that this line is sustainable.
00:23:22.200At some point, they have to confront the problem that they have about the influence peddling scheme that his family was running and Joe Biden's involvement in it.
00:23:32.680And, you know, it's it's not just the Republicans in the House who are aggressively investigating this corruption,
00:23:41.460but it's also the long running attorney general, not attorney general, US attorney in Delaware's investigation into Hunter Biden and all his businesses.
00:23:53.340So at some point, they have to confront it.
00:23:56.260And Joe Biden has has been an ostrich from the beginning and it's worked for him.
00:24:01.880But when he says the public isn't interested, he's only talking about that half or less of the American public who still reads the New York Times and the Washington Post and gets all their news from CNN and MSNBC and PBS.
00:24:19.880They don't actually know because they've been kept in the dark the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop and Hunter Biden's former business partners like Tony Bobulinski and all the financial documents uncovered by the Republican senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson.
00:24:38.480They don't know about the corruption and so, of course, all they hear vaguely in the background about a laptop is that Hunter Biden was a poor, you know, drug addict and he's reformed now.
00:24:53.560And these mean Republicans are crucifying the child of the president, who's such a great family man.
00:25:00.320And that's all they hear, maybe a little bit of drugs and sex, but they don't care because they constantly the refrain is Hunter Biden's a private citizen.
00:25:12.740But thankfully, as the Republicans, James Comer and Jim Jordan and so on in the House are making very clear this is not an investigation into Hunter Biden.
00:25:23.700It's an investigation into Joe Biden and whether or not all these millions of dollars that flowed through to his family have compromised the president of the United States in the eyes of China and Russia and Ukraine and so on.
00:25:39.360Yeah. Like why didn't why did he spend about 17 words on China in his State of the Union?
00:25:43.540What what could there be some reason for that beyond the fact that he feels feckless in dealing with them for professional reasons and for national reasons?
00:25:51.940Could it be personal reasons, by the way, he's wrong, too, because we just pulled this.
00:25:56.660This is from a Fox poll from just this past December.
00:25:59.940Nearly three quarters of voters, 72 percent, say it is important for the Justice Department to investigate the younger Biden hunters business dealings with foreign governments unchanged from the 72 percent who felt that way in August.
00:26:12.000And that number includes majorities of Republicans, 88 percent of Republicans, independents, 74 and even 54 percent of Democrats.
00:26:19.760So even a majority of Democrats believe it's important to investigate Hunter Biden's business dealings.
00:26:25.240And it's it is because they understand it could reflect on the president and the safety of the country in terms of Joe's decision making.
00:26:31.840So he's wrong about that. And Judy Woodruff should have done her homework or at least tried to pretend to give a damn on behalf of her audience and just the truth.
00:26:41.320So she didn't. So now cut to the House where the Republicans have taken over and they are taking a look at this.
00:26:48.280And so they had some Twitter executives come yesterday and started asking questions about your paper.
00:26:56.760It's breaking of the Hunter Biden laptop news shortly before the midterms and I'm sorry, before the presidential election and why Twitter decided to suppress that reporting.
00:27:08.360And the coordination that Twitter was clearly doing with the FBI to make sure that the people never saw that reporting and in particular the documents that proved it, the documents from the laptop that showed what you guys were were reporting in your paper.
00:27:24.840So let me ask you overall what you thought of the hearings and whether any ground was made.
00:27:27.980Look, they were a little bit frustrating from my point of view, because it seemed like some of the Republicans asking questions weren't really on top of the detail, which is complicated.
00:27:40.340And that was sort of repetitive and uncoordinated.
00:27:43.580But in in total, I think it was a good taster for what's to come.
00:27:48.560My big takeouts were that James Baker, who was the number two lawyer at Twitter, parachuted in from the FBI, where he'd been the top lawyer involved in all the Russiagate hoaxes.
00:28:03.620And he was parachuted into Twitter five months before the 2020 election.
00:28:34.880Let me let me interrupt you and just I'll play that and then pick it up on the back end.
00:28:38.200And this is this is important because what they're interested, not so much in what a private company Twitter did around the election, even though it was despicable.
00:28:45.620They're interested in this as government officials, because they do believe and have good reason to believe that there was coordination with our intelligence agencies, that the FBI was actively working to insert itself in a presidential election on behalf of one candidate.
00:29:00.140That's why it's interesting and problematic.
00:29:02.080So here they have the general counsel of Twitter, deputy general counsel who had just two minutes ago been working for the FBI and they're probing him on.
00:29:11.380Did you, as the top lawyer at Twitter, have any conversations with your old pals at the FBI, in addition to the ones we know they all had, about this specific report in the New York Times and the New York Post and Hunter Biden's laptop?
00:30:06.360So they were talking about Hunter Biden and he was weaseling and wiggling to avoid admitting that.
00:30:12.480We don't know what else he might have admitted if they'd had longer time and, you know, effective cross.
00:30:16.840Look, I think what was really telling there was when James Baker qualified himself and said the laptop, the laptop, meaning you can assume that he was talking to the FBI about Hunter Biden, about the Hunter Biden matter.
00:30:35.860He may not have been talking about a laptop, but he was talking about material from the laptop that was going to be damaging to Joe Biden if it came out before the 2020 election, which, of course, the FBI knew it would because they'd been eavesdropping spying on Rudy Giuliani's cloud.
00:30:58.160So they knew that he'd been contacted by the computer repair shop owner who had the laptop after Hunter had abandoned it.
00:31:07.020They knew because he emailed Rudy Giuliani with some pretty forensic material from the laptop.
00:31:16.780And then they also would have had access to my messages with Rudy Giuliani, which would have given them an indication that the New York Post was about to publish or would publish.
00:31:26.320And so the FBI knew. And of course, they'd had the laptop since December 2019.
00:31:31.660And if they were talking to James Baker, James Baker knew and he was instrumental in censoring the post.
00:31:40.720Right. So here's the problem. They had it in their possession.
00:31:43.560They knew full well that it was legitimate.
00:31:45.460And so I don't know what they actually said in terms of words to James Baker, but they 100 percent were warning Twitter disinformation is about to come.
00:31:53.980And I'm sure it sounded something like and it's going to be about Hunter and you can't trust it.
00:31:58.740And of course, they knew the opposite was true, all of which is really problematic.
00:32:04.540Well, I mean, at least problematic. It's corrupt.
00:32:07.820It's interfering in the 2020 election on behalf of one candidate, on behalf of Joe Biden.
00:32:15.540And what we don't know is who was orchestrating it, who who arranged for James Baker to be parachuted into Twitter five months before the election to act as a gatekeeper to ensure that none of this material saw the light of day.
00:32:34.360They also did the same thing with Facebook.
00:32:36.880They parachuted in a left wing lawyer who was there for a few months and then got a job in the Biden administration.
00:32:44.080This was a woman, a professor, Pamela Carlin, who had already publicly shown hostility towards Donald Trump's then young teenage son, Barron, making some snide joke.
00:32:56.440And so it was a sort of an orchestrated campaign to crush the story that the FBI knew was coming out.
00:33:07.840We know from FBI whistleblowers that there were people within the Washington field office who had buried the laptop, ensured that no investigation could occur into it before the election.
00:33:20.340And not only that, they had buried the material that Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden's former business partner, had brought to them before the election, including the contents of three of his devices and a five and a half hour interview that he gave in Washington, D.C.
00:33:39.980at FBI headquarters, that according to him, had the agents, the young agents interviewing him, their jaws were on the floor with the stories he was telling them about the Biden family's involvement with China, this mega million dollar deal, and that Joe Biden was involved and had met personally with Tony Bobulinski to vet him as CEO of this scheme, this deal, you know, in California.
00:34:08.700So this was implicating Joe Biden, and again, Tony Bobulinski never heard from those people again.
00:34:15.940And extraordinarily, you'd think he'd be the star witness of that U.S. attorney's investigation down in Delaware into Hunter Biden, the grand jury there that's called Hunter's, you know, former lovers and a couple of other former business partners.
00:34:31.480But, you know, they've never asked or subpoenaed Tony Bobulinski to appear there.
00:34:37.120Right. Is that right? That's just first of all, the fact that this poor guy was in earnest going in saying, you I have information you really might need to know.
00:34:46.620And they already had the laptop and he's thinking he's dealing with federal investigators who will get to the bottom of this potential crime, potential corruption.
00:34:54.240And the poor guy takes him years to realize they're corrupt there.
00:34:58.800You're going to people who are in the business of covering up for the very man you are essentially accusing.
00:35:04.900I mean, that's really what we've learned over the past two years, thanks to you, The New York Post and this great reporting you've been doing about what the FBI did to Tony Bobulinski and anybody bringing them information on Hunter Biden slash Joe.
00:35:17.160Yes. And that includes John Paul MacIsaac, the computer repair shop guy.
00:35:22.980Remember, he didn't want to go to the media and he didn't.
00:35:26.580He never did. He went to the FBI about eight months after he got that laptop and after it became his legal property because of the work order that Hunter had signed, saying that if he abandoned it after 90 days, it belonged to the store.
00:35:42.360And he looked at the material. He was disturbed by especially the Ukraine stuff and the China stuff.
00:35:51.120He thought this is a matter of national security.
00:35:54.520There was the impeachment of Donald Trump going on at the time.
00:35:58.160He was a Donald Trump voter, supporter.
00:36:25.360He has a top secret security clearance from the Navy and somewhere else.
00:36:33.540So he's not someone that you can just dismiss as an unreliable witness.
00:36:38.980And he again went because it was his patriotic duty, he felt, before the election to allow the American people to understand exactly who Joe Biden was, which really is the opposite of the persona that he has built for himself.
00:36:54.340And remember when he was up on the debate stage in that last debate against Donald Trump and he looked down the barrel of the camera and told the American people that, you know, this story about the laptop, it was just a Russian plant.
00:37:09.560And he said, look at my character and compare it to his, to Donald Trump's, you know, I'm honest, you know, I'm trustworthy, you know, my integrity.
00:37:18.640And unfortunately, he has managed over four decades in the Senate and as vice president to fool a lot of Americans.
00:37:28.440And I think that mythology is coming to an end now.
00:37:31.800So you've got James Baker, the FBI lawyer who then got parachuted into Twitter, clearly, in my view, misleading about his specific contacts with the FBI on this story while he was in his Twitter role.
00:37:44.440And the guy under him is this Yoel Roth, who he's been out in the news quite a bit in the wake of his departure from Twitter.
00:37:51.360And he got the vapors over COVID in January 6th and all the things.
00:37:55.200And now they ask him about what happened with the Hunter laptop.
00:37:58.580And this, to me, we don't have this sound cut, Miranda, but this, to me, was probably the least credible testimony that was given yesterday.
00:38:07.940Jim Jordan, who's the best cross examiner they have, they should just give everybody should just cede their questions to Jim Jordan.
00:38:14.500Just let him do a thorough a through line, you know, just fight.
00:38:17.700Everybody's need their moment in the sun, but they should just let him do it.
00:38:20.840Um, he starts asking Yoel Roth about the fact that FBI special agent Elvis Chan sent you, Mr. Roth, an email.
00:38:31.840And this email, Miranda, as I understand it, was sent the night before you broke the laptop story.
00:38:40.980It was the night before you and the New York Post were breaking the laptop story.
00:38:45.020So this is the FBI special agent reaching out directly to this guy, Yoel Roth, and saying, heads up, I'm going to send you a teleporter link for you to download 10 documents.
00:39:51.460No, and particularly when you put it into context, you're talking about 6.30 in the evening on the very day that we had called Hunter Biden's lawyer, George Mazzeer, to try and get a comment from his client and to give them a heads up that the story was coming.
00:40:15.160And next thing in the evening, John Paul MacIsaac is at his computer store and he gets a phone call from a man who says he's George Mazzeer and says that he understands that John Paul MacIsaac has his client's computer.
00:40:35.420And so, John Paul MacIsaac, being a pretty savvy individual, says to this man on the phone, look, can you please hang up and send me an email so that I can check your bona fides, send it from your work address, and then we can talk.
00:40:51.280And so, George Mazzeer did send that email from his law firm email address and confirm that he was George Mazzeer and that he just talked to John Paul MacIsaac.
00:41:03.480So, there you have it, the panic was setting in, they were trying to retrieve the laptop, and so all you can assume is that it's an enormous coincidence that mere hours or less than hours after we alerted the Hunter Biden people that we were about to do the story the next day,
00:41:26.900you had this late night flurry of documents come into Twitter from the FBI.
00:41:33.380And look, even if the words Hunter Biden were not mentioned, all they would have to say is, and in fact, Joel Roth admitted this, he said,
00:41:43.820oh, most of our conversations with the FBI were about malign disinformation or malign foreign information.
00:41:50.900All they would have to do is say, hey, remember that story that we warned you about that was going to come, the big dump of Russian disinformation in October?
00:42:00.680Well, that's going to happen tomorrow.
00:42:06.140And in the meantime, you've got the New York Post trying to do honest reporting on this, and you've got the rest of the media working together to try and suppress it.
00:42:14.360And that pattern continues to this day.
00:42:20.620OK, this is the new CNN, right, the new more fair and balanced CNN reporting that Republicans are living in a reality distortion field.
00:42:28.220GOP lawmakers continue to push, quote, a factually unsupported narrative about the federal government secretly colluding with Twitter to censor the New York Post,
00:42:37.140despite, quote, no real evidence to support this weighty and consequential claim.
00:42:42.740Republicans were unrelenting in peddling it to the American public.
00:42:48.360He is not a well-respected or well-known person, but AOC is pretty well-known.
00:42:55.360And she pushed similar messaging yesterday in a pretty outrageous description of this entire issue.
01:09:08.000This poor woman, super nice, super honest.
01:09:11.520And I think really sees the best in people all the time.
01:09:14.720But to me, and I think to folks inside that courtroom listening to her testimony, it was clear what Alec Murdoch was trying to do.
01:09:21.680He was trying to flex his Murdoch muscles and influence her to jump on the, oh yeah, Alec was here for 30 or 40 minutes train.
01:09:31.820Steve, the mere fact that he would go back to her a couple days later and be like, it was 30 to 40 minutes is very suspicious.
01:09:38.760Who goes back and tries to say, like, remember the exact length of time I was here on the night of those murders?
01:09:43.480And the fact that she said it through tears, like, I don't, she was basically saying, I don't want to be doing this.
01:09:49.800I don't, I don't want to testify against him as a nice family.
01:09:52.660She didn't want to hurt him, but the truth was the truth.
01:09:55.280And then she added, this isn't just in retrospect, she added in the moment she knew something big was happening there in that conversation.
01:10:02.820And she, what did she do after the conversation?
01:11:31.840But a circumstantial case required requires them to exclude a reasonable hypothesis of innocence in which there is a much more reasonable theory that is unrebutted by the state by any of their evidence has been presented so far.
01:11:45.940Why do you go back to the caregiver and say it was 30 to 40 minutes, right, to the point where she felt uncomfortable because she knew it was much shorter than that at the time the murders were happening?
01:11:55.360Well, I'm not certain because on the cross, I don't I think there was a little bit of equivocation on that.
01:12:01.180And I think that she is a bit, you know, time frames like that, whether it's 20 minutes or 40 minutes.
01:12:07.500Can you be that precise of what you did three or four days ago in a in a in a high stress situation?
01:12:14.780And when at the time those type of time frames were not significant and not important, you know, we really not are not accounting for basic human failings of memory, which is a very common thing.
01:12:27.220In criminal law, we see people testify to vastly different stories and they're not lying.
01:12:32.140They're just misremembering. They're they're perceiving things different.
01:12:35.580So and I think she may have misperceived the way he was coming back.
01:12:39.560I mean, if this man was just all right, if that's true, Vinny, then why'd she call the brother?
01:12:44.280Why if she was just exactly 20, 40? Why'd you call the brother?
01:12:47.800I don't think that gets lost on the jury.
01:12:49.620They understand when there's sort of like a shakedown kind of thing happening.
01:12:53.920Everybody can put two and two together. Folks in the low country, they get it.
01:12:58.080They understand it. And I think they felt it in that moment.
01:13:01.460But it's interesting that Steve mentioned the failure of memories.
01:13:06.360I guess that is true because Alec Murdoch forgot that he was at the scene of the murder that night before the murders.
01:13:13.920Well, OK, so let's let's go through some of the other witness testimony that came out.
01:13:18.720Forgive me, because I can't remember the guy's name, but the friend, he was a lifelong friend of Alex.
01:13:23.420And he was they called him uncle, the Buster and Paul, the two sons called him uncle.
01:13:28.020And that guy took the stand and also did not want to be testifying against Alec Murdoch.
01:13:32.840This is a friend. This is somebody who cared for Alec and those boys.
01:13:36.700And he said, if my memory serves, that's them on that tape.
01:13:41.580That's Alec on that tape. You know, the audio tape that we heard that Paul took moments before the murders.
01:14:11.120And then one of the reasons they believe that is because the wife who was murdered was she started a group text at around 8.48 and change or 8.49.00.
01:14:23.340And then somebody pinged her asking for a response on a text like that same minute.
01:14:28.800She didn't respond and she never picked up the phone again.
01:14:30.860That's what the prosecution is putting into evidence.
01:14:33.060Well, the timeline there's I've been focused on this when I've been covering this stream is on streaming is that there's the 906 time frame is the key number.
01:14:45.140So we have an 8.44 number, which is the video that video was referring to that establishes that he was at that scene.
01:14:52.900But then there's a 22 minute gap to 906 between and at 906, two things happen.
01:14:58.660Mr. Murdoch's car starts and he is suburban and at the same time is the last movement of the phone and the last movement.
01:15:10.260So so basically when his car is starting, that phone is moving.
01:15:15.100And there's another bit of missing evidence, which which is consistent with innocence.
01:15:19.080It's consistent with somebody waiting in the back behind the shed, waiting for him to leave and go back to the house, which only takes two minutes.
01:15:26.340And then coming out and assassinating his family members and then taking the moving the phone and disposing of it outside the thing.
01:15:36.540So there's a 22 minute time gap that the state is trying to compress that, but is not supported by any of the evidence that I've seen.
01:15:43.040And there's one other little bit of evidence, too, that that we're speculating on because we were expecting much better evidence out of the forensics of the vehicle.
01:15:51.000And that was not done. And what they evidently and I'm not a big techie guy, but the cell phone of Maggie never connected into the the the suburban.
01:16:00.360So if it was Mr. Murdoch that killed his wife and picked up the cell phone, you would expect her cell phone to connect into the suburban as he transports it, dispose of it.
01:16:09.760So that's another bit of evidence in the cell phone stuff that is consistent with his innocence and the theory of an assassin who is and he had a lot of enemies, as we've talked about.
01:16:21.000The problem with the assassin theory is that I was at the location and it is extremely quiet there.
01:16:28.860But if there's a noise anywhere close by, it reverberates through the air.
01:16:34.200So I don't know how he is not hearing the gunshot, the AR gunshots or the shotgun blasts before he leaves and says goodbye to Maggie and and would hear those and not check and see what's going on.
01:16:49.180Why are there guns firing in the air? Just ignores them.
01:16:53.040And then well, in New York, he drives to his mother's house at nine thirty at night where like nothing is happening in the low country of South Carolina.
01:17:02.040You can't get a table at a restaurant at nine thirty at night. Those sidewalks, those streets are rolled up at sunset, which was eight twenty nine.
01:17:09.900So that's the whole scenario of the hiding assassin.
01:17:14.900And to me, there is no evidence of it. And if it did happen, there would be evidence of it would be Alec Murdoch hearing the gunshots.
01:17:23.440Well, except that this is a rural hunting camp where people shoot guns and hunt all the time in South Carolina.
01:17:30.200It's not New York City. So the fact that and also he could be in his truck or his house when the assassinations occurred.
01:17:36.580And the fact is, is the violence. And one of the things the defense is doing throughout the trial, every state witness, they're saying he loved his family.
01:17:45.160He loved his family. He loved his family. And there is no evidence of any kind of character that would show his kind of outrage and violence.
01:17:52.120And because this was a very violent, evil killing. So it's much more consistent with somebody who maybe Paul was involved in, in the in the the death of this young girl in this boating accident three years earlier.
01:18:06.140I can foresee lots of people who love that girl or were around her who wanted vengeance on Paul for not getting his comeuppance and did exactly that.
01:18:15.560Waited in the woods, saw what it says, waited to pounce when Mr. Murdoch went back to the house.
01:18:21.300I don't find the the he must have heard it evidence compelling at all, because there's many ways that you cannot hear gunshots.
01:18:28.640Even the reflection of of sound, you could have echoes. There's pockets. You can be inside.
01:18:35.220You could be in his car. You could think it's another hunting gun. There's lots of reasonable explanations why he wouldn't make note of that.
01:18:40.880I mean, I'll say this. No one's a murderer until they are. I mean, no, no one's a murderer until they are.
01:18:45.600So the fact that he hadn't done it before, as far as we know, isn't really all that compelling.
01:18:49.340Although we don't know, you know, there's all sorts of evidence about what happened with that housekeeper.
01:18:53.780How did she fall down the stairs, allegedly over a dog?
01:18:56.840But that wasn't mentioned in the 911 call. And then she died and then he stole the wrongful death settlement with his own insurance company and didn't give it to her sons.
01:19:05.280Like, I don't know what he did with respect to that woman or anybody else, but it's sketchy.
01:19:10.340All right, Vinny, wait, I'm going to give you the floor as soon as we come back. Quick, quick break.
01:19:12.840So much more to get to, including this devastating ruling on the financial crimes they're in.
01:19:17.840And it did not go well for Alec Murdoch.
01:19:23.040So, Vinny, yesterday the proceedings were shut down by a bomb threat being called in to the courthouse.
01:19:31.340The judge, cool as a cucumber, quietly telling everybody it's time to leave.
01:19:37.080Is this what's the speculation? I mean, my own is it's Alec Murdoch or somebody connected to him trying to cause a mistrial, trying to stop testimonial that he thinks is going to be bad for him.
01:19:48.640Who else would have the motive to call in a bomb threat?
01:19:51.520I'm not sure on who else would have the motive to do it.
01:19:55.460I know everything was handled very well at the courthouse.
01:19:58.620I mean, there were a lot of people inside that courtroom.