The Megyn Kelly Show - Hunter Biden Plays the Victim, and Left Shifts Blame on Israel, with Peter Schweizer, Margot Cleveland, and Rabbi Steve Leder ｜ Ep. 685

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, a wild scene on Capitol Hill

00:00:17.180 today where Hunter Biden was scheduled to be deposed behind closed doors as Republicans pursue

00:00:23.860 an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. For months, Republicans have been looking into

00:00:29.120 the President's alleged ties, possible ties to his son's overseas business dealings and to the

00:00:34.780 Biden's enrichment as a result of Joe Biden, then Vice President's connections. But instead of

00:00:42.060 appearing before lawmakers, Hunter went to Capitol Hill and gave them the bird. He flipped them the

00:00:48.260 bird, rhetorically. Jonathan Turley, very smart lawyer, is out there saying, I cannot fathom for

00:00:53.960 the life of me why he would choose this. It's so stupid to openly defy the subpoena,

00:01:01.040 choosing instead to actually show up there showing you are available, but instead to make comments

00:01:06.120 in front of the press, but not take any questions. Where he waxed poetic about how hard it is to be a

00:01:14.420 Biden. I'm here today to acknowledge that I've made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities

00:01:21.940 and privileges I was afforded. I am first and foremost a son, a father, a brother, and a husband

00:01:30.700 from a loving and supportive family. They've ridiculed my struggle with addiction.

00:01:36.520 They've belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me, all to embarrass and damage my

00:01:44.140 father, who has devoted his entire public life to service. They displayed naked photos of me

00:01:52.520 during an oversight hearing. And they have taken the light of my dad's love,

00:01:59.540 the light of my dad's love for me, and presented it as darkness. They have no shame.

00:02:09.660 Oh, my God. I think there's a psychiatric term for that. It's called projection.

00:02:17.420 That is unbelievable. Poor me. My dad's love. You are a tax cheat, sir. I'm sorry. That's what's

00:02:28.040 happened to you. You exploited the Biden family name. The American people elected your dad in good

00:02:34.420 faith to that office. And then you spent the next several years exploiting it to line your own

00:02:39.060 pocket. That's what happened. No one feels sorry for you. You absolute baby. He also took aim at the

00:02:47.060 so-called MAGA Republicans, insisting that his father was not. Here's the new term. Ready? Here's

00:02:53.300 the new iteration of what Joe Biden was not doing, was not financially involved in my business.

00:03:01.160 Let me state as clearly as I can. My father was not financially involved in my business,

00:03:09.280 not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese 0.90

00:03:16.320 private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.

00:03:22.700 And in the depths of my addiction, I was extremely irresponsible with my finances.

00:03:27.600 But to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. There's no evidence

00:03:34.480 to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business

00:03:38.620 because it did not happen. James Comer, Jim Jordan, Jason Smith, and their colleagues

00:03:51.660 have distorted the facts by cherry-picking lines from a bank statement, manipulating texts I sent,

00:04:00.460 editing the testimony of my friends and former business partners, and misstating personal

00:04:06.220 information that was stolen from me. No matter how many times it is debunked, they continue to insist

00:04:12.400 that my father's support of Ukraine against Russia is the result of a non-existent bribe.

00:04:18.360 Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics,

00:04:27.160 expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say.

00:04:33.540 This is spectacular stuff. This is a gift. This is mana from heaven. This guy, can you believe the nerve?

00:04:41.240 Can you imagine not paying millions of dollars in taxes, getting paid 80 grand a month on a Ukrainian 1.00

00:04:50.640 energy company that you don't know shit about energy, cashing all these checks as your uncle Jim does the

00:04:56.300 same, your kid, everybody, and then going out there and having the nerve to play the victim?

00:05:01.100 It's like, he's spectacular, this guy. What a class act.

00:05:04.780 Republicans are now threatening to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. Hello,

00:05:09.360 that is what you must do. Right now, though, it's unclear when or if that will happen.

00:05:14.400 Joining me to discuss it all, Peter Schweitzer, president of the Government Accountability

00:05:18.320 Institute and co-host of The Drill Down with Peter Schweitzer, which I enjoy, Peter,

00:05:22.840 and Margo Cleveland, senior legal correspondent at The Federalist and lawyer with the new Civil

00:05:28.480 Liberties Alliance. Peter and Margo, welcome back to the show. Boy, we lucked out having you guys

00:05:37.580 booked. I mean, we knew that he was supposed to give testimony this morning. We didn't know it was

00:05:41.240 going to come out like, can you believe the whining and the, oh, poor me. You took my father's light,

00:05:50.220 the light of his love and turned it into darkness. Is that what this is? This impeachment inquiry is

00:05:56.220 about, Peter, turning the light into darkness? Well, yeah, I think there's a lot of darkness.

00:06:02.520 I think it has to do with the financial deals that Hunter was involved in. I mean,

00:06:07.400 this is really honestly almost like a Saturday Night Live skit. You know, Hunter Biden has been hiding

00:06:13.700 from taking questions from the press, from taking questions from the IRS, from people who wanted to

00:06:20.740 investigate these things. And now when he's been subpoenaed, he suddenly shows up and doesn't even

00:06:26.480 talk about the substance of what's going on. Look, my feeling is that there is already ample evidence

00:06:33.060 for a criminal bribery inquiry involving the president of the United States. I think the committee is making

00:06:41.340 a mistake by focusing on money going to Joe Biden. The bribery statute is clear. If your family profits

00:06:49.980 off of your public service, specific acts you're doing, and I think there's ample evidence for it,

00:06:55.600 that constitutes bribery. You don't have to show that Joe Biden personally profited from this.

00:07:01.400 And we have tens of millions of dollars of examples to show that the family received money

00:07:07.100 and Joe Biden took specific actions that benefited those that were paying his family.

00:07:12.180 As far as I'm concerned, bribery has already been proven. And this is all kind of just a sideshow.

00:07:19.480 So you're saying that the Republicans are setting too high a standard for themselves

00:07:24.400 in this impeachment inquiry. All this stuff is interesting about, you know, we just heard that

00:07:30.280 there were some small payments, relatively speaking, from Hunter's account directly into Joe Biden's

00:07:36.240 account. I think it was like $1,300 a month for a few months. And Democrats kind of laugh like,

00:07:42.800 oh yeah, you got him on the $4,000 alleged auto loan repayment. This is not the 10% of a Chinese 1.00

00:07:50.940 $5 million payment Republicans, you know, put up or shut up. And your point is kind of,

00:07:57.380 there doesn't have to be any payment from Hunter or Jim Biden to Joe, not one. The enrichment of Hunter

00:08:04.060 and Jim is plenty. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, really, honestly, it's only the dumb politicians

00:08:11.220 who take bribes by taking the money themselves. They usually lose, use a third party, whether that's

00:08:17.540 their, you know, chief of staff or a family member and look at the Menendez case. I mean, Senator

00:08:23.080 Menendez's defense is that, well, that was my wife's business. It was not mine. And the Republicans are

00:08:30.100 really playing into Democratic hands because the goalposts have shifted. When I first reported on

00:08:35.980 the overseas deals with the Bidens in 2018, they said there were no deals. Then it became that Joe

00:08:42.420 had no knowledge of the deals. Then it became Joe did not participate in the deals. Then it became now

00:08:47.780 that Joe did not profit from the deals. They're always going to move the goalposts. You're not going

00:08:53.460 to get Democrats to acknowledge what is going on here. And the criminal legal standard, the federal

00:08:59.680 statute is clear. If you pay a politician or a third party in exchange for favors in government

00:09:07.700 actions, which I think is there, that constitutes bribery as if Joe Biden took the tens of millions

00:09:13.900 of dollars personally himself. Okay. But what's the favor? I mean, I think you, it's pretty well

00:09:18.220 established that everybody around Joe Biden got paid. And there's actually plenty of evidence that Joe

00:09:22.740 Biden got some money too. It's just a question of for what, but what, what is the, you know,

00:09:27.960 this quid pro quo, what, what is, what's the deal? What did Joe Biden do in response? Cause most of

00:09:33.280 this dough came post his vice presidency, uh, though not all of it. Hunter was on that board

00:09:38.520 while Joe was the sitting vice president in charge of Ukraine policy. Yeah, no, I think there's a couple

00:09:43.940 of examples. I mean, I could give three of the first one is the firing of the prosecutor. I kind of

00:09:48.960 poo-pooed this, uh, when it first came out in 2019. But honestly, there's an email from Vadim

00:09:55.680 Pazarsky, the executive at Burisma in late 2015, telling Hunter Biden, we're paying you money,

00:10:02.100 your deliverables for us to get this money is to get the prosecutor to lay off our boss,

00:10:08.380 the guy that's paying you money. We know that about six weeks after that, uh, according to his

00:10:14.020 business partner, Devin Archer, Hunter and Burisma executives called Joe Biden from Dubai and said,

00:10:20.240 you need to fire the prosecutor. And we know that Joe Biden later bragged about using a billion

00:10:26.180 dollars in USA to get the prosecutor fired. We also now, now, now know based on John Solomon's

00:10:32.980 reporting that the state department in the midst of all of this was actually giving accolades to the

00:10:38.720 prosecutor. So that's, that's example. Number one, that's important that can it, let's just pause

00:10:43.260 there. Cause I just, I just think this is a point that gets missed too often, not by you two, but

00:10:47.140 that John Solomon reporting showing state department correspondence where they were all said they were

00:10:52.780 fine with the prosecutor. They liked that Ukrainian prosecutor. They thought he was doing a good job

00:10:57.600 cleaning up the corruption. And they were taken aback when the then sitting vice president, Joe Biden

00:11:03.980 suddenly said, no, we're going to fire him or no, we've got to get him fired or we're going to

00:11:09.600 withhold the aid. And he, he has the correspondence showing the state department employees being like,

00:11:14.560 what, wait, this is a reversal from where we just were. I mean, I just think that's so telling.

00:11:21.520 It is very telling. And Megan also, let's keep in mind, it's not a defense to say, well, I wanted to

00:11:27.520 fire him for other reasons too. The moment that Joe Biden knew that his son was on the board of Burisma,

00:11:33.220 which he knew by the spring of 2014, the moment that his son called him to ask him to fire the

00:11:38.840 prosecutor, Joe Biden had a legal responsibility, according to federal law to recuse himself

00:11:44.980 from any decision that would have benefited Burisma. So even if he said, oh, I fired him for other

00:11:52.460 reasons. The fact of the matter is he has a legal obligation to avoid even the appearance of a

00:11:59.460 connection between them. So for me, the firing, the prosecutor is a great example. Look at the issue

00:12:04.620 of Yelena Baturina in 2014. She wires millions of dollars to Hunter's business, $3.5 million. 0.92

00:12:12.760 Wife. Yeah. Yeah. Wife of the former mayor of Moscow. According to one just started keep

00:12:18.200 interrupting. This is the thing Trump tried to raise in the debate against Biden that Chris Wallace

00:12:23.420 shut down, did not let Trump raise it. It was a legitimate, but Trump was right. And he didn't get

00:12:29.180 to air it on the presidential debate stage because the moderator interfered Candy Crowley style to stop 1.00

00:12:35.460 the discussion. Sorry, keep going, Peter. No, you're exactly right. And here's the strange thing.

00:12:41.820 So you've got Yelena Baturina, who is a pro-Putin oligarch. Her husband was the mayor of Moscow. She is

00:12:49.120 listed in Obama State Department cables that came out in WikiLeaks as a member of Russian organized crime.

00:12:55.820 She wires $3.5 million to Hunter Biden. About five, six weeks later, Russia invades Ukraine.

00:13:03.800 The Obama-Biden administration releases a list of hundreds of oligarchs, Russian oligarchs,

00:13:12.100 who are now sanctioned because of their connections to the regime. And guess whose name is not on the

00:13:17.580 list? That is a very curious and glaring omission on the part of the Biden administration.

00:13:24.360 Just stated explicitly, you're suggesting she bought her way off the list. She bought her and 1.00

00:13:29.740 her husband's way off the list. That's correct. And when Vladimir Putin went back into Ukraine,

00:13:35.900 again, during the Biden administration, now, guess what? They expanded the sanctions even more. It

00:13:42.400 still does not include Yelena Baturina, which is, again, a massive omission. And the third example I

00:13:49.220 would give is the exclusion that Chinese companies have from abiding by our accounting standards to list

00:13:56.500 on the American stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ. Only companies on the

00:14:04.280 planet, German, Japanese, American companies, all have to abide by Sarbanes-Oxley and other restrictions.

00:14:10.860 Chinese companies are exempt because of an agreement that Joe Biden, as vice president,

00:14:16.080 negotiated in 2013 with Chinese officials. As he was negotiating the terms of that agreement,

00:14:23.180 which ended up benefiting the Bank of China, guess who inked the private equity deal with the Bank of

00:14:30.640 China? Hunter Biden. This was all going on in the summer of 2013. So you see this pattern of

00:14:37.580 favorable treatment for entities that are paying Hunter Biden. And Joe initially said he didn't know about

00:14:45.320 the deals. He never met with the business partners. We now know that all of that is not true.

00:14:50.660 So that, to me, is grounds for the impeachment inquiry. And I think when it comes to the firing

00:14:55.960 of the prosecutor, there is already ample evidence that shows that there is bribery that took place.

00:15:01.880 All right. So, Margo, let's talk about what happened with Hunter on Capitol Hill today. I mean,

00:15:06.020 the brazenness of showing up there, right? It's kind of like double barrel middle finger.

00:15:12.520 He's there. He's where he was subpoenaed to show up, but he wouldn't give testimony because he wanted

00:15:19.100 to set the terms of where and how he would do it, which is not how this works. If you or I got subpoenaed

00:15:27.020 by the House, we'd have to show up where they told us to and give testimony or they'd find us in contempt.

00:15:32.700 And he wouldn't have testified to anything, even if it was on public in the middle of Congress. His

00:15:40.240 attorney would have had him plead the fifth and say, I can't talk about this. But you are so right.

00:15:45.420 That was manna from heaven. His father's public service, the public service that enriched the

00:15:51.960 family by millions from this poor guy from Scranton. Please. He got that money and his family was enriched

00:15:59.560 by the public service of the selling of the Biden name. And as Peter said, all of these favorable

00:16:05.800 treatments to these other folks who were feeding Hunter Biden millions of dollars, as well as Jim

00:16:13.120 Biden. Then you got to look at the fact that he said, my father had nothing to do with the financial

00:16:18.540 affairs. However, he spun it this time. You know what he didn't mention? He talked about being on the

00:16:23.500 board of Burisma and being an investor. He didn't talk about the lobbying though, how his father

00:16:29.360 had nothing to do with the financial benefits from the lobbying, which is clear, even if we're going

00:16:36.080 to put to the side bribery, which I don't think we should, there was clear lobbying going on. And his

00:16:42.040 father was the reason that lobbying was being, was made possible. Can you explain that? Can you just

00:16:47.960 put a little meat on that bone? Sure. So, and this actually ties to the indictment that just came out

00:16:53.960 in California. Against Hunter. Right. Against Hunter Biden. After Patrick Ho, who was one of the Chinese 1.00

00:17:02.900 connected businessmen, was under, well, was about to be under indictment, he transferred a million

00:17:12.240 dollars that went to a partnership Hunter Biden had. And then Hunter had that million dollars transferred

00:17:20.040 to him, supposedly for legal representation. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This is, I know this one. This is

00:17:26.620 the one, the judge, that brilliant judge who stopped the plea deal was like, wait a minute,

00:17:30.360 were you there lawyers? Were you, were you the lawyer for this guy for this million dollar payment?

00:17:34.340 And he was on his heels in court. He was like, oh yeah. Oh, well, I'd have to go back and check.

00:17:40.040 And everyone paying attention said that's him trying not to perjure himself in front of the judge,

00:17:44.320 because that wasn't a legal fees payment. That was, that was a bought and paid for bribe or

00:17:50.080 something much more nefarious than straight legal fees. So keep, keep going. Sorry. Just trying to

00:17:54.300 keep the audience up to speed. That's exactly right. And, and that's not really the old news. You're

00:17:59.480 right. That came up during the plea agreement. And it was a tell when he said, well, I think it was my

00:18:04.260 law firm, but you know, I, I'm not positive of that. The indictment that Weiss just dropped in

00:18:10.940 California continued to pretend that was legal fees. It wasn't legal fees. It didn't even go to

00:18:16.680 Hunter Biden's law firm. It went to a different association that was a holding company. Then

00:18:23.460 Hunter took all of that money and spent it on his personal affairs. So was this money a bribe or was

00:18:30.980 this money to get Hunter to lobby the DOJ to drop the investigation into ho? Or did he embezzle this money 0.73

00:18:39.920 from, from Patrick Holt? Any of these scenarios is a clear criminal violation, but I think the

00:18:47.560 lobbying has, has the most meat to it. Even if you're saying the Burisma stuff wasn't a bribe,

00:18:53.620 which I'm with Peter on that. There's more than ample evidence. It was lobbying on behalf of

00:18:59.880 Burisma. He was working. Hunter Biden was specifically working with another lobby firm to help Burisma kind

00:19:07.660 clear its name so that it could kind of come out into the friendly nations and make money after all

00:19:15.100 of this corruption. That was clearly law. And what would be, what would be the import of that? Would

00:19:18.920 that be a violation of the foreign agent registration act where if you're doing the business of a foreign

00:19:23.420 government, you have to be open about it? Right. Correct. And, and that's, that's the lobbying

00:19:29.340 component of it. And I do wonder if Weiss is going down that road because the indictment in California

00:19:36.300 that dropped started out with a description of Hunter Biden as being a businessman and artist.

00:19:42.020 Apparently he's also an actor given today's performance. And then we also have lobbyists

00:19:48.040 thrown in there. So Weiss actually put lobbyists in it. And yet we didn't have any far registration

00:19:56.000 showing he was doing this lobbying. So is there any possibility he lobbied on B he was talking about

00:20:02.780 doing that on behalf of a domestic corporation that would not require that kind of disclosure under

00:20:08.060 FARA? Right. I'm sure that his attorneys will be able to spin it as some reason that there's no

00:20:14.600 requirement for it, but I don't see that flying with Burisma. Definitely not when we're talking about

00:20:21.840 the Chinese companies. And this is just part of it. There is a huge, a huge business, multi national

00:20:31.060 going through so many countries, going through millions of dollars. We have barely scratched the

00:20:36.320 surface of this. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, just the audience should remember that Paul

00:20:41.000 Manafort, who ran Trump's campaign for a while, he, he was indicted and convicted over this kind of

00:20:48.480 behavior for not for allegedly acting as a foreign agent for Ukraine and not registering it, not

00:20:54.440 disclosing it. So why, why would he be prosecuted? And Hunter Biden would not. And then speaking of

00:20:59.780 that same thing, this administration or Congress, I should say that, that Congress found Steve Bannon

00:21:05.960 and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress for flouting subpoenas in exactly the way Hunter Biden just did.

00:21:13.820 And as this comes in, I, Margo, you're a lawyer, which has got this in from my team, uh, quoting

00:21:19.780 here, Hunter Biden today, this is a house oversight chair, James Comer and house judiciary chair, Jim

00:21:25.700 Jordan, Hunter Biden today defied lawful subpoenas. And we will now initiate contempt of Congress

00:21:31.400 proceedings, uh, saying we will not provide special treatment because his last name is Biden. So it seems

00:21:37.340 to me they're likely to succeed on that based on what we saw this morning, he showed up, he was available.

00:21:43.280 What was his good reason for not giving testimony? He said, Oh, I want it to be in public. They said,

00:21:48.320 no, we'll dictate. We want it to be behind closed doors, which is their right. And he just said, F you,

00:21:53.640 I'm going to go out and talk to the press and I'm not going to give you the testimony at all. In no world

00:21:58.500 is that okay.

00:22:01.720 Absolutely not. And his whole idea that the Republicans are leaking, you know, selective information.

00:22:08.700 Democrats have the transcript too. They can share it with anyone, but he's taking things out of

00:22:14.520 context. It was a big lie. And, and Hunter Biden knows this and there's no way again, his attorney

00:22:21.460 would let him say anything substantive, but again, it allowed him to play the victim card, the mega

00:22:27.900 Republican card. But there's too much evidence out there for the country to look at this and say,

00:22:34.720 this is just an attack on Hunter Biden because of what his last name is. People know it doesn't pass

00:22:41.480 the SNF test. They know that there's something going on here and it's taking time, but it's actually

00:22:48.140 finally breaking through to, to the media, to the general populace of how this money went to the

00:22:55.600 Biden family.

00:22:56.440 I want to go back Peter, to what you were saying. And, and again, you know, understanding that

00:23:01.700 they don't have to prove payment to Joe Biden. They, they only have to prove that the family

00:23:07.020 members were enriched as a result of some deal that involved Joe Biden's conduct in some way.

00:23:15.180 This story has evolved as you made reference to a few minutes ago. Initially we were told,

00:23:20.900 um, we never discussed it that Joe Biden never discussed business with his son. Then they changed

00:23:28.360 it to, uh, he was never in business with his son, never in business. And then today we got a new

00:23:37.800 iteration from Hunter of, he was not financially involved in business. So that could leave open.

00:23:47.100 And he was in business, but wasn't getting direct payments, which kind of underscores your point

00:23:52.360 earlier, which is only the dumb asses would take a direct payment when they're involved in like a

00:23:58.160 corruption scheme. There's other ways of doing it. And so I, I think we're getting closer and closer to,

00:24:03.900 you know, the truth and to him getting less and less able to wiggle because there's too much evidence

00:24:10.420 that disproves the lie that he was never, uh, he never discussed business and that he wasn't in

00:24:17.760 business. Anyway, here's just some of that. Um, well, I actually, let's just listen to the way he put

00:24:23.180 it today first. So the audience can hear his latest claim in sought three.

00:24:29.220 Let me state as clearly as I can. My father was not financially involved in my business,

00:24:35.900 not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not my partnership with a Chinese private

00:24:43.520 businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.

00:24:50.900 Okay. So that's, that's where he's going, right? He wasn't financially involved in that. Maybe they

00:24:56.380 can prove that. I don't know. I mean, there may, maybe not, but it's kind of beside the point.

00:25:00.720 Yeah, it is. When, when he says my dad was not financially involved in my businesses,

00:25:07.280 he's saying my dad was involved in my businesses. That's, that's really what he's saying.

00:25:11.820 He's just trying to carve out the financial part of it. Um, and there's just so much evidence, uh,

00:25:18.060 here, you know, if you, if you look at the Hunter Biden laptop, which I know has been picked over so

00:25:22.620 many times, there are ample communications, not just with Hunter Biden, uh, you know, communicating with

00:25:28.560 his dad, but with his business partners, communicating with his dad, Eric Schwerin and, and, uh, and Devin

00:25:34.620 Archer communicating with the vice president of the United States. I mean, who are they? They're

00:25:39.140 business partners with his son. What are they talking about? Uh, they're not talking about the

00:25:43.440 weather that, that was jokingly referenced in the past. You also have the issue of the phone. I mean,

00:25:49.540 Joe Biden, vice president of the United States is carrying around his official phone that he has as

00:25:55.760 the vice president of the United States at secure. He's got a phone line that is for his family. That's

00:26:01.240 his personal phone. He's also carrying around a phone that is being paid for by who Rosemont Seneca

00:26:07.140 partners, which is Hunter Biden's business. Why on earth is he carrying around a phone that's being paid

00:26:13.760 for by his son's business because he is wants to be available to talk to his son and the business

00:26:20.400 partners like Eric Schwerin. Um, it's crystal clear how this thing operated and they've tried to

00:26:25.740 structure it in such a way to give them plausible deniability. Uh, the problem is, is that the

00:26:31.620 evidence that continues to amount, uh, they simply can't make that point anymore. So they now need to

00:26:37.740 increasingly parse their words. And again, I think the point to make here is even if Joe Biden didn't

00:26:44.840 get a dime, there's plenty of evidence that he got, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars,

00:26:48.980 uh, from Hunter, uh, and, and his brother. Uh, but even if he didn't get a dime, there is still

00:26:54.700 criminal conduct that occurred here. And we have to ask the broader question, Megan, I, you know,

00:27:00.540 raised the same question when it came to the Clintons and the Clinton foundation back in 2015,

00:27:05.180 2016, do we want to have a country? Yeah. I mean, Megan, do we want to have a country where the

00:27:12.540 president, the vice president, the secretary of defense, as long as they don't take money,

00:27:18.000 their adult children, maybe even their spouse can go out and secure multimillion dollar deals with

00:27:24.280 Chinese and Ukrainian and, and from companies all around the world. But as long as that politician

00:27:30.000 doesn't take a dime, it's okay. Is that going to become the Biden rule? Is that really the,

00:27:35.440 the standard that we want for our leaders? I sure hope not.

00:27:38.460 Mm-hmm. The, um, you know, the, the allegation by Hunter and that soundbite that we played was

00:27:45.700 I was an addict and I behaved irresponsibly with money. Okay. That both of those things are true,

00:27:54.140 but also not at issue here. It's, it's really not what anybody's accusing Hunter of, of doing,

00:28:01.920 uh, that no one's bringing up his addiction and nor is that a legal excuse to tax cheating.

00:28:07.260 And he's saying that then he pivots to, but that's not grounds for impeachment. And to me,

00:28:15.340 Peter, that was just such an obvious straw man, like, right. And no one's claiming that it is.

00:28:22.000 Yeah. Well, and I will say this, Megan, I've, I've talked to, uh, to two of, uh, of, uh,

00:28:28.500 Hunter Biden's, uh, former business partners, uh, Devin Archer and, uh, Jason Galanis. Galanis is now

00:28:34.640 in prison. Uh, and they will both tell you that, yeah, Hunter clearly had an addiction,

00:28:39.340 but he showed up at meetings. He charmed these foreign businessmen when they had very detailed,

00:28:45.780 specific discussions, he was there. So, you know, they went from saying at first he's this buttoned

00:28:52.720 up businessman. Now they're saying he's like this druggie who could barely get dressed in the

00:28:57.900 morning, uh, because they're trying to emphasize that point and avoid the responsibility. The fact

00:29:04.020 of the matter is, is he did show up at meetings. He did make presentations separate apart from that.

00:29:09.060 Well, the point I'm going for is, yeah, I don't care whether he was high or he was sober. The point

00:29:13.860 is you, the allegation is you got on this board and took this money as part of a quid pro quo that

00:29:23.380 involved your dad, the sitting vice president. That's it's not, yes, there's a separate matter

00:29:28.800 of criminal charges against you for tax being a tax cheat. That's not what the impeachment inquiry

00:29:34.660 is about. It's about the alleged quid pro quo. It's about enrichment for political favors. You also

00:29:40.900 appear to have committed a bunch of other crimes when it comes to not paying your taxes and dealing

00:29:45.340 with a gun, but he's trying to mix the two because he can bring up his addiction and try to play the

00:29:51.700 sympathy card. Meanwhile, the quid pro quo, no one gives a damn if you did that while in a drug

00:29:57.160 induced haze, haze. All we care about as the American people is, did you do that? And did your

00:30:02.760 father participate when he was our sitting VP? Yeah, no, no, that that's exactly right. I mean,

00:30:08.440 whether, whether he was sober or whether he was on drugs, if he had this drug addiction and he

00:30:14.620 hadn't done foreign deals, people would have felt sorry for him, but they certainly would not be

00:30:19.100 investigating it. This is about the conduct of his father ultimately. And whether Hunter wants to say

00:30:25.520 that he did that because he was trying to enable me or whatever is irrelevant. The fact is, is that his

00:30:30.140 father took actions in his official capacity. He certainly played along with the notion that his son was

00:30:37.320 juiced in meeting with his business partners on multiple occasions. And, and so it's, it's not

00:30:43.500 something that is even relevant anymore. And I think if you look at a lot of the polling now, Megan,

00:30:49.000 that has come out, the Harvard Harris poll, the New York times poll, this is an issue that resonates

00:30:55.280 with people because they see the pattern of behavior. They see how the story has changed. I don't think this

00:31:01.520 gambit is going to work. It may help with a base of Biden supporters, however large that is,

00:31:06.740 or small that is, but it's not helping with independent swing voters. Um, and, and I think

00:31:12.380 they are rapidly seeing this as a major, major ethical and legal problem for this president.

00:31:18.440 See, cause Margo, people need to keep the two tracks straight in their heads, right? You've got

00:31:22.380 the impeachment inquiry, which is kind of what I've spent this past half hour talking mostly to Peter

00:31:27.240 about the impeachment inquiry. Why is Joe Biden in trouble for any of this? Like what, what connection

00:31:32.180 does he have? If any, and he's not in trouble because Hunter didn't pay his taxes. That's a

00:31:37.220 separate lane. And that's, that's Hunter's legal troubles that he's dealing with right now in two

00:31:42.180 different jurisdictions, um, that are alleged crimes. The impeachment inquiry is about selling

00:31:48.340 access and getting favors for the enrichment of the son's bank account. And in some instances,

00:31:55.240 Joe Biden's brother's bank account, but Hunter keeps conflating the two, um, Hunter's lawyer,

00:32:02.800 Abby Lowell has tried to argue in the second lane, the criminal charges against Hunter, which now

00:32:08.840 include this gun charge and tax evasion for, um, later years. They let the most troubling years

00:32:15.340 lapse the statute of limitations. He says, this is BS that Joe Schmo would never be charged criminally

00:32:23.860 for these crimes. And that this is a political persecution. Here he was to CNN sought nine.

00:32:31.960 The charges in this new tax indictment. Talk about a period where Hunter was at the lowest ebb of his

00:32:38.080 addiction. And like people in that regard, and I know everybody in America either has somebody in

00:32:43.120 their family or friends who suffer from addiction. He certainly did things that he's not proud of,

00:32:47.920 but wait, what happened since he got himself sober in 2019 and he paid all of the taxes that are owed

00:32:56.220 in this indictment more than two years ago with interest and penalties. Nobody in that position

00:33:02.340 would be charged the way he was yesterday. Agree?

00:33:06.920 Absolutely not. And I want to add a third lane there, what the FBI and the DOJ did to protect

00:33:15.360 the Biden family, because that is just as important. And the criminal charges that were just dropped in

00:33:21.560 California established that there was a protect Biden racket going on because everything in there

00:33:28.420 they knew about before the 2020 election. It tracks everything that the whistleblowers said.

00:33:34.800 The only reason they weren't charged is because they gave a sweetheart deal to Hunter Biden

00:33:42.660 just, I think it was a couple of weeks after the whistleblowers went forward and they knew about it.

00:33:51.240 And all of a sudden we have the U.S. attorney, the assistant U.S. attorney in Delaware,

00:33:56.820 contacting Hunter's lawyers to come up with this really complicated scheme to let him plead

00:34:04.660 to basically nothing. So complex, in fact, that now we've got this whole procedure about,

00:34:11.300 well, is this diversion agreement valid? Is it not valid? Does it get rid of all these?

00:34:16.000 I'll get to that in one second.

00:34:17.260 So you got to look, there's a third lane here. The third lane is what did our DOJ,

00:34:23.080 our FBI do to protect the Biden family? And the lane about his tax violations

00:34:30.220 was clearly covered up. And as much as Lowell wants to say this is when he was in the deepest depths of

00:34:37.320 his addiction, the indictment dropped in California. It was extremely clear that the evasion of taxes in

00:34:47.940 2018 was done later after he had already gone and rehabilitated himself. It wasn't filing false

00:34:58.440 returns while he was addicted. It happened, I think, in 2020. So you can't even blame it on the addiction

00:35:05.840 that he lied on these tax returns.

00:35:08.140 And it's several million dollars. The notion that a regular person not named Biden would not

00:35:15.860 be prosecuted for that is absurd. It's absurd. You look at the stats of who gets prosecuted

00:35:22.260 by IRS agents, and it's overwhelmingly men like Hunter Biden. And the dollar figures tend to be what,

00:35:29.600 I think it's around 300,000 that they don't pay. It's far less than two point whatever million

00:35:34.700 like he did. And in anybody's return, if you've got write-offs for hookers, you're going to get in 0.99

00:35:42.340 trouble. Those are not business expenses. It doesn't take a seasoned IRS agent to find it.

00:35:48.580 It's a lie. He got away with it for as long as he did because he's a Biden. He didn't get targeted

00:35:56.200 for prosecution because of the last name. Everyone knows that. And this lawyer, Abby Lowell,

00:36:02.220 is just trying to spin us. I want to take a quick break because I want to do that. But then I want

00:36:07.880 to come back with Hunter. He actually gave an interview to the rocker, Moby. And you will not

00:36:14.520 believe what he's... He really... He won't talk to Congress, but he'll talk to Moby. And he really

00:36:19.780 should keep his mouth shut. We'll go there with Peter and Margo next. Stand by.

00:36:23.280 All right, guys. So a couple of questions to clean up here. So what happened this morning,

00:36:32.140 Comer wants to hold him in contempt. Just as a practical matter, what will that mean? Like,

00:36:36.980 what will that look like? Will he have to serve time if he's found in contempt? Like,

00:36:41.080 what happens to him? Peter, do you know?

00:36:42.780 Well, I think, you know, Steve Bannon faced a similar situation. He claimed executive privilege

00:36:48.140 because he'd served in the Trump administration. This is a mirror case. And Bannon's looking,

00:36:53.060 I think, at four months in jail because of this. So I think that's a real possibility.

00:36:59.320 Look, I think as far as the hearings are concerned, Megan, the reason you want them behind closed doors

00:37:04.220 is in that format, in the privacy of a meeting, in that format, you can have extended questioning

00:37:11.380 and conversations. If you have the public hearings, you get where each politician gets five minutes,

00:37:17.320 nothing gets accomplished, nothing of substance. So I'm glad they're sticking to their guns,

00:37:22.180 because if they're going to question him, it needs to be in the context of an actual deposition

00:37:27.180 rather than the kind of political theater we see in these public congressional hearings.

00:37:31.740 Okay, so he's in trouble. But then what this is, there's not an official impeachment inquiry going

00:37:39.460 on in the House that they've voted on yet. It just got started, but they haven't voted to support it.

00:37:46.760 And even if they do, that won't be an official impeachment effort. It's just an inquiry still,

00:37:53.900 just with the stamp of approval. So they're looking at doing that. Do we think, Peter,

00:37:59.080 that that's going to happen, that they will vote to support an official impeachment inquiry?

00:38:03.780 I think they will. And I think it will give them more power in terms of subpoenas to gather

00:38:11.360 information. Whether that vote passes or not, I think it will. Hunter Biden is still in contempt of

00:38:18.160 Congress. You know, if a congressional committee that has subpoena power subpoenas you and you don't

00:38:24.180 show up, you have a legal issue. But I do think we're going to see the expansion to the impeachment

00:38:29.360 inquiry. And it's going to provide more evidence and more information to confirm what we already

00:38:34.640 know. And I think that is a disaster for Joe Biden. And keeping in mind here, that's a long

00:38:41.360 way away from actually impeaching Joe Biden in the House. And even if they were to impeach Joe Biden

00:38:48.980 in the House, there is zero chance of conviction in the Senate, similar to what we saw under President

00:38:54.780 Trump, because the Senate is controlled by the same party as the president. You know,

00:38:59.640 the impeachment is basically like an indictment. And then the trial takes place in the Senate and

00:39:03.260 you're found guilty or not. So, you know, yes, it could dirty him up politically in the same way

00:39:07.560 the Dems did to Trump. But just, you know, for people who really want to see Joe Biden gone,

00:39:11.800 don't get your hopes up. That's that's not where this is going in any sane man's take on what lies

00:39:17.040 ahead. I want to get to what Hunter Biden is saying. Amazingly, he gives an interview to Moby,

00:39:24.340 I guess they have like the addiction thing in common or so I read. And so there must be some

00:39:29.020 sympathy going on there. And listen to the musings of Hunter Biden and what's really behind all this

00:39:34.920 drama in SOT6. I recognize that none of this is necessarily about me. They are trying to,

00:39:44.340 in their most illegitimate way, but rational way, they're trying to destroy a presidency.

00:39:52.740 And so it's not about me. And their most base way, what they're trying to do is they're trying

00:40:01.300 to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle.

00:40:09.160 These people are just sad, very, very sick people that have most likely just faced traumas in their

00:40:18.600 lives that they've decided that they are going to turn into an evil that they decide that they're

00:40:25.480 going to inflict on the rest of the world. OK, so it's about the childhood trauma of James Comer

00:40:33.640 and Jim Jordan, Margo. That's what's and the effort as a result of that trauma to kill Hunter Biden,

00:40:40.740 which would then in turn kill Joe Biden from grief and sadness. That's his take on what's happening here.

00:40:47.880 Well, he is right on one thing. This isn't about Hunter Biden. It's about Joe Biden and Joe Biden

00:40:54.720 taking bribes, allegedly, that we had from Ukraine. Joe Biden helping the money go to Hunter Biden.

00:41:03.200 So Hunter is right. This isn't about him when we're talking about the impeachment inquiry,

00:41:08.360 that lane. But the tax stuff, that's all about Hunter and his evasion there and the gun charges.

00:41:15.140 It's about Hunter. It is ridiculous, though, that he's it's projection, I think, as you said,

00:41:21.700 that these are evil people who are acting out because of it. Hunter showed us the acting out

00:41:27.160 that he had. And he great. He's recovered, has nothing to do with whether or not Joe Biden

00:41:32.760 helped accept bribes through his family members.

00:41:37.320 No, I mean, listen, they keep saying, oh, you know, millions of Americans have had somebody

00:41:42.560 in the family who's an addict or dealt with it themselves. Right. And if you've ever had somebody

00:41:46.600 who's an addict who you love and they happen to commit a crime, which is not that unusual for

00:41:51.660 addicts, they don't get off because they can say I was an addict when I did that thing.

00:41:58.460 That's not how this works. It doesn't work that way for regular people and it doesn't work that way

00:42:04.240 for Hunter. So they really should stop playing that card because there's not a person in America

00:42:08.600 who's had to deal with that issue that got special treatment or got a pass because the loved one said,

00:42:15.500 oh, well, I was an addict and that's why I stole or I did X, Y or Z.

00:42:21.780 Let's go back, Margot, to what you were saying on the diversion agreement where I stopped you

00:42:26.080 because it's a little complicated, but we're going to make it simple for the audience.

00:42:29.520 Hunter Biden in the lane of the criminal charges against him, which are now in California for the

00:42:35.640 tax cheating and in Delaware for the gun, having a gun and lying on the gun application.

00:42:42.880 He tried to strike this sweetheart deal with the prosecutors in July and the prosecutors,

00:42:48.780 we I think both believe were totally on his side. And the only reason that sweetheart deal did not go

00:42:53.840 through is because that smart judge said, what is this? You're giving immunity on everything? No,

00:42:59.880 no, I'm not signing off on that. But the prosecution, David Weiss, may have been too cute by half here.

00:43:09.380 And what they did manage to sign before the judge found this whole thing may actually get Hunter off

00:43:17.920 in the criminal lane entirely. His lawyers are bringing what looks like to me a pretty good

00:43:25.460 argument that a lot of these charges have already been waived because of what David Weiss signed with

00:43:32.500 Hunter in July. So can you explain that? Sure. So the pretrial diversion agreement is something that

00:43:41.300 was entered into by the U.S. attorney and by Hunter Biden. A diversion agreement does not have to be approved

00:43:50.120 by a judge. The diversion agreement was about the gun and said, if Hunter doesn't buy another gun, if he

00:43:59.420 doesn't use drugs, then after 24 months, then there will be no charge. But they didn't say no charge about the

00:44:07.500 gun. They said no charges related to anything in Exhibit 1 and Exhibit A, which went through and detailed

00:44:17.220 all of these financial affairs that Hunter was doing during that time period, including the underlying

00:44:25.000 tax problems. Because the diversion agreement did not require the judge to approve it, Hunter Biden is

00:44:34.140 arguing. This agreement is fully binding. We both signed it. It wasn't conditioned on anything. And under

00:44:42.680 this agreement, which I'm living up to, I'm still staying sober, I'm not buying guns, they can't prosecute

00:44:49.900 me. And they can't prosecute me for the gun charges or the tax charges. Or if another charge comes later

00:44:58.920 for a fire or a bribery, watch for his attorneys to argue, they can't prosecute me for that.

00:45:06.060 It does look like a very solid argument. And I've actually debated other conservative attorneys on this.

00:45:13.300 I don't think it's going to fly. One, before this judge, because this judge has already kind of shown

00:45:19.800 her hand that she doesn't think there was ever what's called a meeting of the minds. Under contract...

00:45:26.780 Because the prosecution, once it got caught by that judge, was like,

00:45:30.700 huh? What? Oh, we didn't mean to give him blanket immunity on everything. We swear we're just these

00:45:36.100 dumbass bumpkins who don't know anything because they got so much shit for trying to give away the 0.99

00:45:42.280 whole farm. So they tried to pretend like they didn't realize they were giving him sweeping immunity.

00:45:47.640 But meanwhile, Hunter's lawyers are like, that's a lie. We all knew he was getting sweeping

00:45:52.540 immunity. It's right there, black and white. So the judge is kind of using the acting job

00:45:58.280 by David Weiss to say, oh, see, no meeting of the minds. You didn't agree on what was being waived.

00:46:04.900 That, along with the fact that during the hearing, Hunter Biden said, oh, no, no, no,

00:46:09.660 I'm not going to plead if I don't get this diversion agreement, which was also showing there was no

00:46:15.060 meeting of the minds on whether it was a separate agreement. So I think that when we look at it,

00:46:21.280 we're going to see that the judge is not going to hold the diversion agreement, protects Hunter

00:46:27.620 Biden. But it's ridiculous we're even getting here. And it's all because Weiss tried to give him

00:46:32.980 a get out of jail free card. And it would be the ultimate Weiss move to knowing that he signed that

00:46:40.960 agreement, then try to look tough by bringing charges in California, which he chose not to do.

00:46:46.900 There have been no additional facts, as you pointed out, that would justify the charges now.

00:46:50.400 And bringing charges in Delaware and knowing all the while, he's good. I already signed the deal

00:46:57.680 that's going to get this guy off, but I get to look tough. And yet this agreement is going to get

00:47:01.900 him. All right. I'm going to hold you guys over if you don't mind, because we've got to get to

00:47:05.160 the Trump immunity claims that looks like it's going up to SCOTUS right now. Stand by for that.

00:47:10.340 Peter and Margo, stay with me.

00:47:16.020 Something very interesting, just crossing the news transom, guys. This is very interesting.

00:47:22.460 Couple of interesting things happening for President Trump in fighting one of the worst

00:47:27.420 cases against him. And that's the January 6th allegations against him in Washington, D.C.

00:47:32.120 in federal court by Jack Smith. One of the reasons that's the worst, potentially, is the judge can't

00:47:39.020 stand him. That's obvious. The jury is going to hate his guts. The city went 92 percent for Joe Biden.

00:47:44.620 And she has the trial judge set the trial for March 6th. Right. Sixth or fourth. I always confuse it.

00:47:52.340 But the day before or the day after Super Tuesday. And she's been holding fast to it.

00:47:57.900 And in fact, Trump filed a motion to get the whole thing kicked, saying you can't file a criminal

00:48:01.940 charge against somebody for things they did as president. And she struck that down, saying,

00:48:07.360 yes, you can get out. And normally what the fourth. OK, normally what you do is you as Trump would then

00:48:13.520 appeal that to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And if they ruled against you, you'd file in the

00:48:17.320 Supreme Court. What happened in this case was Trump was expected to file an appeal with the D.C.

00:48:21.160 Circuit Court of Appeals. And he would have enjoyed that because what Trump wants is delay.

00:48:26.760 Trump does not want the federal cases being tried before he potentially becomes the president again.

00:48:31.460 And he can remove the D.O.J. off of his back because he's president. He wants delay. Jack

00:48:37.840 Smith wants pedal to the metal. And so Jack Smith filed an immediate request with the U.S. Supreme Court

00:48:45.400 saying you need to hear this immunity thing right now. Skip the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. People had

00:48:50.080 expected eventually Trump would do that when he lost at the D.C. Circuit. No, Jack Smith went right

00:48:54.880 to SCOTUS and said, you need to hear it. You need to hear it now. And we need an almost immediate

00:48:59.280 declaration about whether you are going to hear it. And the high court just set a briefing on that,

00:49:03.560 whether it should hear it for like next week. So it was proceeding with speed to try to decide

00:49:10.020 whether this is an issue it wants to take up and do it to do it quickly. It will, I think,

00:49:15.820 take it up and we'll see how that goes. But something very interesting just happened. That's

00:49:20.500 what I wanted to talk to you about. But now this just happened in the break. The Supreme Court in a

00:49:24.600 totally separate matter, but it very much relates to this case against Trump that we just that I just

00:49:28.560 outlined. The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to decide a question at the heart of this January

00:49:34.900 6th case against Trump in federal court before Judge Chutkin, not to mention this is how they got

00:49:40.820 it. Hundreds of prosecutions arising against others from the assault on the Capitol on January

00:49:47.080 6th. Can the government charge defendants in those cases under a federal law that makes it a crime to

00:49:54.760 corruptly obstruct and an official congressional proceeding? The decision to hear this case by

00:50:01.700 the Supreme Court will complicate and perhaps delay the start of Mr. Trump's trial. So this is a

00:50:10.360 challenge going up by one of the J6 defendants, not Trump, but it directly affects him because he's 0.58

00:50:14.920 been charged with this offense, too. And so this J6 defendant is saying this is not a real crime. 0.79

00:50:20.580 You can't get me with this. And Trump's been charged with it, too. So he's going to get more delay,

00:50:24.700 which, again, enures to Trump's benefit because he wants the whole thing kicked after November 2024

00:50:29.800 when he believes he'll be reelected and he can remove the DOJ from this case entirely. He's back in

00:50:34.860 charge. It's getting so interesting. The Supreme Court's ultimate ruling, which may not arrive until

00:50:42.020 June, is likely to address the viability of two of the main counts against Trump. It could severely

00:50:48.240 limit efforts by the special counsel, Jack Smith, to hold the former. What is the source of what I'm

00:50:53.020 reading, you guys? They sent me a news alert, but I don't know who I'm reading from. Let's see.

00:50:58.840 Their ultimate reading is from The Times, which may not arrive until June, likely to address the

00:51:03.040 viability of two of the main counts against Trump. It could severely limit efforts by special counsel,

00:51:06.580 Jack Smith, to hold the former president accountable for the violence of his supporters

00:51:11.140 at the Capitol. The court's eventually decision could also invalidate convictions that have already

00:51:15.700 been secured against scores of Trump's followers who took part in the assault. That would be an

00:51:20.540 enormous blow to the government's prosecutions of the J6 riot cases. Look, the bottom line is things

00:51:28.480 just got a lot better for Donald Trump in one of the worst cases against him. Do I have that right,

00:51:35.320 Margo? I think you do. I think that the Supreme Court taking this up so quickly indicates that at

00:51:43.220 least several of the justices are concerned about what the charges alleged were. I actually didn't think

00:51:50.220 it was problematic that Smith sought to go right to the Supreme Court. There's no case law on this.

00:51:57.360 It makes sense to not waste time at the circuit level. I'm surprised, though, that the Supreme

00:52:03.500 Court expedited. There was no reason they couldn't have just said that we will consider it and everything

00:52:10.340 has stayed until then and kind of delayed. You're talking now, just to make sure everybody

00:52:14.120 understands, you're talking now about the immunity argument that you can't charge me with a crime

00:52:19.200 for things I did while I was president, which is not yet decided. Weirdly, the Supreme Court's never

00:52:23.940 had to take that up. And so your point is SCOTUS is going to have to decide it at some point soon.

00:52:30.080 Right. So it makes sense for them to take it. But from a practical standpoint, there's no reason for

00:52:35.260 them to expedite it, just put on hold his criminal trial. There's no reason it has to happen before the

00:52:41.800 election. So that actually kind of surprised me that they went quickly with that, unless they are

00:52:47.080 trying to resolve it before the election, in which case we got to wonder which ways the tea leaves go

00:52:54.320 on that. The thing is, Peter, on the news that just broke, if this charge against Trump falls apart,

00:53:03.080 thanks to this January 6th, the defendant appealed to SCOTUS. There are other charges like it's it doesn't

00:53:10.680 mean the case is gone. But there is no question it's going to delay the trial against Trump. If

00:53:17.500 the Supreme Court right now is deciding whether one of the main charges against the defendant can be

00:53:23.940 brought, is even a real crime, or Congress meant to make it a real crime, that's the question.

00:53:30.640 You can't, as a trial judge, say, oh, we're going full speed ahead. She's going to have to wait,

00:53:35.720 I think, until the Supreme Court ruling, which pushes this thing well back. She doesn't want 1.00

00:53:42.660 that. And Jack Smith doesn't want that. And I have to tell you, as a lawyer, Jack Smith's like,

00:53:48.280 I do think it's relevant. He skipped the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Why is he so viciously

00:53:53.700 pursuing it on such an aggressive timeline? Because he wants Trump in jail and convicted, at least,

00:53:59.560 before the election. To me, it just underscores the political nature of this whole case.

00:54:04.200 Yeah.

00:54:05.720 Yeah. I mean, I'm going to defer legal questions to you and Margo, because you are two very,

00:54:10.560 very smart lawyers. I'm not a lawyer at all. But there are two things about the Trump case,

00:54:16.200 and frankly, the January 6th cases, that I think don't seem to pass the smell test. The first one

00:54:22.100 is the political nature. I mean, a lot of the J6 people that went to jail, it was on political crimes 1.00

00:54:28.880 like sedition. You know, I think a lot of people say, hey, look, if they hit a police officer when they

00:54:35.000 were there, if they did property damage or vandalism, charge them with those crimes. But

00:54:39.740 when you start to get into these politically motivated crimes, it really gets very, very

00:54:47.100 fuzzy. And they're trying to do the same thing with Donald Trump. They're trying to say that

00:54:51.720 these, quote unquote, political crimes occurred. And so that's the first thing that I think makes a lot

00:54:57.480 of people nervous, not even people that are just Trump supporters, but a lot of civil libertarians

00:55:03.340 that look at this case seriously. The second one is the point you just made, Megan, is the aggressive

00:55:08.680 speed with which he is engaging in this. It has all the smell of political interference. We've got to

00:55:16.000 get this done before the election. We've got to get everything rammed through so he cannot be on the

00:55:23.260 ballot in November. And again, I think there are a lot of people, independent voters, they may not

00:55:28.380 even like Donald Trump, but they look at it and say, why are you doing this? You're trying to limit

00:55:33.240 our electoral choices. This could certainly wait until after an election. And I think those are heavy

00:55:40.520 marks against these cases. And this is the case that Andy McCarthy of National Review has been saying

00:55:47.680 is most likely, of all, to potentially put Trump in jail prior to November of 2024, which really,

00:55:55.860 let's face it, even Trump would have difficulty, I think, getting a certain section of the electorate

00:56:01.560 to vote for him if he's in jail. You know, he does. Andy said there's a decent chance, Judge

00:56:07.260 Chutkin would say, you are not free pending your appeal. You're going into the pokey. But I do think,

00:56:12.940 Margo, it's very interesting because the immunity claims, you know, Trump's argument, you can't

00:56:17.680 prosecute me for things I did, alleged crimes while I was the sitting president. That's not good for

00:56:21.640 the United States. Because there's already been rulings that you can't, a sitting president can't

00:56:26.820 be sued civilly for certain actions that he did while president, not all, but some. And that's

00:56:34.480 because they just, he'd be a sitting target. Everybody would go after him all the time. It's

00:56:38.380 the president of the United States, how fun to just mess with his life. But criminal is different.

00:56:43.500 And the Supreme Court hasn't decided that. And I think, just based on what little I've read,

00:56:47.600 and I'd like to read more on it, I think Trump's going to lose that argument. I think the Supreme

00:56:51.760 Court is going to say you can charge criminally certain actions that were done while you were

00:56:59.920 still in the presidency. I could be wrong. But since I think the legal argument there is not

00:57:05.220 stellar for Trump, this development is a very, very good development for him, that they're going to

00:57:11.780 take up this other case, that we're not going to get a ruling before June or, you know, sometimes it

00:57:16.920 crosses over into the first week of July. Delay, delay, delay. He hopes to win. He pulls Jack

00:57:22.420 Smith off the case entirely and Bob's your uncle. All right, let me end on the following legal matter,

00:57:27.780 which caught my eye this week. And I do think it's interesting. We have the guys from Reason

00:57:33.140 Magazine on a lot. Our friends from the fifth column are libertarian buddies. They, Reason Magazine,

00:57:39.560 which is awesome, just like you at The Federalist, just like our pals at The Daily Wire. These are all

00:57:46.440 great websites. I check them all the time for my newsfeed, have been targeted by the government

00:57:54.200 as disinformation sites. And you found this out and The Federalist, among others, have now joined

00:58:02.460 in a lawsuit against the State Department. Why exactly? What's being alleged that they did what?

00:58:10.600 Sure. So I'm putting on my new Civil Liberties Alliance hat. Everything else was The Federalist

00:58:15.800 that I've been talking to before. But the State Department is being sued because of what the State

00:58:21.180 Department did. The State Department funded, tested, and promoted over 365 different types of

00:58:31.020 technology that is used to supposedly find and censor misinformation and disinformation.

00:58:39.080 You just highlighted one of the types of technology that's used, a blacklist through a group called

00:58:46.060 Global Disinformation Index that has Reason, The Federalist, The Daily Wire on there. But the State

00:58:52.140 Department actually tested over 365 of those. They put that technology on a platform

00:59:00.480 for the government and the military and then went out and invited outside tech companies. So we're

00:59:08.720 talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, to come and join this government platform and look at what is

00:59:16.680 available to help, quote, meet their needs, which means censorship. And then they sent a government

00:59:23.620 State Department employee to go visit and market this. This is our State Department that is supposed to

00:59:33.020 be limited to foreign affairs, helping to test markets, promote all of this technology to censor speech

00:59:42.740 that they don't like.

00:59:43.740 Hmm. And as I recall, the list of websites they came up with that were reliable, that, you know, they fell

00:59:52.980 into the good column. I think all three of us would have a problem with who they say is fit to print.

00:59:59.540 Right. I think they had BuzzFeed in there as one, HuffPost, NPR.

01:00:06.740 Oh, God. So they had some outrageous ones. GDI did. That's just what we know. What we don't know is

01:00:14.340 is likely much, much more terrifying. Wow. OK, so got it. According to the State Department,

01:00:21.140 you should all be checking out HuffPost every morning. But do not go near the Daily Wire,

01:00:26.180 The Federalist or Reason magazine, because our betters understand what disinformation is and what

01:00:31.380 it isn't. Sure. In fact, this is what I have to say that. Sure, Jan. I love it. Love it so much.

01:00:40.200 Peter, Margo, that was a very illuminating, easy to understand segment. Thank you so much for being

01:00:45.200 here. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much, Megan. All right. Coming up, we are heading to the seventh

01:00:50.900 night of Hanukkah and one of the best known, most famous rabbis in the world. Steve Leder is here with

01:00:58.780 me next. I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,

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01:02:03.220 Now we turn to the stories of glaring anti-Semitism across our college campuses and throughout the

01:02:08.880 country since the terror attack on Israel on October 7th. Joining me now to discuss it, Rabbi Steve Leder,

01:02:15.560 the senior rabbi at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. He was twice named one of the 10

01:02:21.540 most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, and he comes very highly recommended

01:02:26.480 and respected. Also the author of several books, including his latest, For You When I Am Gone,

01:02:31.960 12 Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story. Ahead of the seventh night of Hanukkah,

01:02:37.880 welcome to the show, Rabbi. Great to have you here.

01:02:40.580 Thank you, Megan. I'm really, really humbled and honored to be with you.

01:02:44.260 Oh, thank you. How are you doing? How are you doing? It's been, gosh, two months now, and I just

01:02:52.380 think it's a question we should be asking all of our Jewish friends.

01:02:55.120 Yeah. You know, I've been, the day after October 7th and October 8th, I met with our entire clergy

01:03:01.280 team and staff, and I added one word to your question, which I so appreciate coming from you,

01:03:07.360 which is, which is, how are you really? Because that changes the depth of the conversation. So how am I

01:03:16.460 really? I am exhausted. I am disappointed. I am determined, focused, grateful for my friends

01:03:34.100 who have reached out. And I feel, not I feel, we're at war. And I'm using the weapons I have

01:03:45.500 to help win this war. And that's how I am. You know, I'm at war. So let's go, bring it on.

01:03:55.300 What are you disappointed in? I'm disappointed in people's inability to disambiguate Hamas on October 0.93

01:04:08.380 7th from other admittedly more complex, nuanced challenges in the Middle East for and because

01:04:18.220 of Palestinians and Israelis. That is a complicated story. Hamas on October 7th, to me, is incredibly

01:04:30.080 simple. But when you conflate it with the complex, in a sense, you are, you're moving away from truth

01:04:41.840 and you're moving away from fact. You know, there's this old Yiddish expression I love, which is a half

01:04:47.520 truth, is a whole lie. And when you conflate Hamas on October 7th with the other complexities

01:04:56.420 and with the fact that the Palestinians have been the doormat of the Middle East for a century, 0.96

01:05:01.440 full stop, they have. When you conflate those two things, you're telling a half truth.

01:05:08.400 So I'm disappointed in people's inability. By the way, extraordinarily bright people in some cases

01:05:14.880 and incredibly ignorant people and others, their inability to disambiguate and or, and I think

01:05:22.360 it's more or as we go up the IQ ladder here, deliberately conflating these things because they

01:05:29.100 don't want to face the truth about what happened on October 7th and they want to blame the victim.

01:05:35.180 That's, they want to flip the script. So that's disappointing. I'm disappointed in, in

01:05:41.060 most, I can't say all, but most of my friends with whom I marched for their causes. And now I realize

01:05:50.940 that we were marching on a one-way street. Well said. When you watch the most prominent display of

01:05:59.260 this recently was those three university professors testifying before Congress, which SNL thought the

01:06:05.760 need to mock target Elise Stefanik, not the university. You know, there's tone deaf, there's tone deaf and 1.00

01:06:13.040 there's tone deaf. And that was really bad. Yeah. Right. It was, I mean, the reports that Cecily

01:06:17.920 Strong was supposed to play the Elise Stefanik part and said, I'm not doing this. Actually, I'm not doing

01:06:23.460 this. I don't feel comfortable. And they had to bring in the newbie who's getting all sorts of blowback 0.98

01:06:27.020 now. But when you watch those three university professors, I mean, the thing about that moment

01:06:31.140 to me was it just so, it was so indicative of what we're hearing now from this woke left,

01:06:37.320 just this cluelessness, this, as you say, tone deaf in their case, as well as SNL's attitude in

01:06:44.140 response to the calls for genocide of the Jewish people. It was like, well, let me consult my Black's

01:06:49.920 law dictionary as opposed to showing any humanity. Yes. Well, first of all, I think they were overlawyered.

01:06:57.020 Not that that's an excuse. They're fully grown adults with PhDs who've been leading institutions.

01:07:01.900 So they, they intentionally absorbed and reflected back that legalese. Okay. But

01:07:15.040 the hypocrisy is what angered and disappointed me. And, and now maybe we can get into what I really

01:07:23.100 think is going on underneath this. I think that to some degree the hypocrisy teaches us about the

01:07:34.060 underlying issues of which Jew hatred is a symptom, but not the disease. First of all, this idea that

01:07:41.180 they can't, that they, that they, now here's where disambiguating is the enemy, right? The fact that

01:07:47.700 they can't conflate what happened on their campuses with earlier examples of racism and hatred and hate

01:07:57.240 speech and death threats. The fact that they can't put Jews in the same category is disgusting.

01:08:05.380 And, and look, I'll pose you, I'll pose a rhetorical question because I think you and I both know the

01:08:10.720 answer, Megan. Imagine if there were a couple thousand kids, white kids, white supremacist kids

01:08:19.880 marching at Columbia or Brown or Harvard or MIT or Penn in white sheets, carrying nooses and shouting

01:08:29.580 from sea to shining sea, America will be free. How long do you think it would take those university

01:08:36.080 presidents and their boards to shut that down? It would take about five minutes. We know that.

01:08:42.840 I don't think that's a stretch of the imagination. They'd call out the national guard if they had to,

01:08:47.660 to walk those black kids into school, to get the education they deserve past those haters.

01:08:53.860 And they would fire faculty who supported those racist haters. But somehow, when it comes to Jews,

01:09:03.200 we're in a unique category. And when I say unique, I mean unique. We're there all by ourselves.

01:09:09.080 Now, I have some thoughts about why that is, but let's accept, first of all, the fact that

01:09:15.940 there is gross, rampant hypocrisy on our college campuses. And I think, and this, you know, I wish

01:09:30.240 I didn't think this, Megan, but I do. I think a part of it is, if you want to hate and rebel against

01:09:38.500 against privileged white people or successful white people or majoritarian culture, which is clearly

01:09:49.500 Western, you can do it if you just start with the Jews, because most people don't really care. If you 0.84

01:09:58.700 want to pick on what you perceive as white privilege and patriarchy, as long as your first target is the

01:10:08.000 Jews, you kind of get a free pass. And I think that this is, this Jew hatred is a symptom for many

01:10:17.820 people of that deeper, more, even more troubling disease. And so that's one theory. I stand by it

01:10:26.220 personally. That's my view. But at the very least, at the very least, we can agree

01:10:32.840 that when you are a feminist out there marching for Hamas, you're a feminist marching for rape. If you 1.00

01:10:41.680 are an LGBTQ person out there marching for Hamas, you are marching for a group of murderers who, if you 1.00

01:10:53.100 were in Gaza, would mutilate your genitals, execute you and behead you. And that's who these people 0.89

01:11:06.540 are out there marching for. If you are a person of color and marching for Hamas, you are unclear about

01:11:15.100 the fact that more than half of Israelis are people of color. So what does this mean? This means either you 0.99

01:11:22.660 you are incredibly ignorant and or your Jew hatred is so powerful that it subordinates all of the other 0.55

01:11:35.340 ideals and values you claim to live by. In other words, your professed values and your lived values

01:11:46.660 are not the same. If you're a feminist out there marching for Hamas, marching for rape, that means your hatred of 1.00

01:11:54.560 Jews subordinates your very identity. And and that's where we are. 1.00

01:12:01.300 And it runs deep, very clearly. You can see it's like, I don't I think a lot of us have been shocked at the depth of

01:12:09.580 the Jew hatred. People apologizing. There was news just just today. This is out of Seattle, Washington, a high

01:12:17.300 school teacher there in Chief South High School, teaches social studies. He's the department chair.

01:12:24.260 Ian Golash, Facebook post end of November, saying the following. This is what I understand. Correct me if I'm wrong

01:12:32.120 with evidence, please. On October 7th through 9th, Hamas did not behead anyone. Hamas didn't rape

01:12:38.120 anyone. The bodies found charred beyond recognition were made that way either by Israeli tanks, missiles

01:12:44.020 or helicopter gunships. And on and on it went. This is it. There's something in this guy that makes him

01:12:53.460 and he is not alone. We've been covering the stories just rejects the foot, the photography,

01:12:58.060 the videography, the eyewitness accounts as all lies. What is that? Is that just Jew hatred? 0.67

01:13:04.980 I think it's Jew hatred. I think it's anxiety about I don't know this guy and I can't get into his

01:13:10.540 traumatic childhood, but it's also probably related to anxiety about his own position or standing

01:13:16.900 in society or else in his family. I don't know. But what we do know, what we do know, you don't have

01:13:24.180 to be Sigmund Freud to realize that this person's Jew hatred has caused him to lose his mind.

01:13:33.740 You know, you know a lot about group think. I know a lot about group think. People in groups

01:13:39.480 lose their minds. And that's what we're seeing. And where are the adults? Where are the grownups?

01:13:48.500 You know, come on. Now, we're overstating it a bit because we do have people who care. We do have

01:13:55.880 people stepped up and said and done the right things. Many. I'm not as surprised as most people

01:14:02.280 by what we're seeing. I'm saddened by it. But I'm not surprised that when we turned the rock over,

01:14:08.260 this is what we discovered. Because this is just a new chapter in the oldest of stories, Megan.

01:14:15.020 But haven't you been surprised at, I forget the term, but it's almost bipartisan, the Jew hatred?

01:14:22.120 Like it's, you're getting it from a segment on the far right, and you're definitely getting it

01:14:26.240 mostly from the far left. I was, I'm surprised. I don't, I mean, I guess there's the sort of the

01:14:32.120 alt-right that has hated Jews for a long time and blacks and all sorts of people. But it seems like

01:14:37.840 this isn't just alt-right. There's a segment of the right that really couldn't care less,

01:14:41.920 even though it is mostly leftists who are leading this charge.

01:14:45.560 Yes. Look, first of all, I remember many years ago, I've been working on black Jewish relations

01:14:52.140 my entire adult life, my entire career here in Los Angeles, almost 38 years now. And I remember

01:14:58.180 when I was a young 27-year-old rabbi, and I wanted to bring blacks and Jews together, and I was reaching

01:15:03.520 out and reaching out, and I was having a hard time finding partners to work with. And I remember

01:15:08.840 complaining to who then was arguably the most important black preacher in LA, Chip Murray from

01:15:16.220 First AME. And I said, Chip, I can't even get my phone call returned from some of these churches.

01:15:23.060 What is the problem? And he looked at me, said, Steve, do you know what most blacks think about 0.68

01:15:27.760 Jews? I said, no. And he said, they don't. So this idea that there's something left of alt-right

01:15:38.940 and right of alt-left that is sort of like, okay, the Middle East is on fire again. It'll get worked

01:15:46.020 out. And there'll be a lot of senseless deaths of innocence because of the stubbornness of one side

01:15:52.460 or the other. Okay. So we've normalized that about the Middle East. And we're not at the top of most

01:15:59.180 people's list of priorities. However, when you realize and you think more deeply about what I said

01:16:05.000 earlier, that class warfare starts with the Jews, but it never ends there. Hamas is an American 0.98

01:16:19.240 problem, not a Jewish problem. What Hamas has stimulated, uncovered, catalyzed is an American 0.94

01:16:28.700 problem, not a Jewish problem. And look, neither the alt-left nor the alt-right surprise me. I'm sure

01:16:38.360 you've heard of this horseshoe theory that if you look at the shape of a horseshoe, the left and the

01:16:46.020 right are actually closer together than the middle. Meaning the real enemy here is fanaticism. That's the

01:16:56.540 enemy. The, the enemy is not left or right. The enemy is fanatics on the left and fanatics on the

01:17:04.420 right. That's, that's the danger. That's the malignancy. And it can creep up to the middle.

01:17:13.180 So to add to what you just said, Gallup just had a poll that showed 64% of persons of color in America

01:17:20.120 are not on Israel's side. 64%. That's almost two thirds.

01:17:28.000 Yes.

01:17:28.300 And then you've got the woke left, not, not all people of color are woke, but then you've got the 0.66

01:17:33.480 woke left people like Susan Sarandon, who's constantly out there marching for this, that, 1.00

01:17:38.540 the other thing. And she said this nonsense, she actually had to try to dial it back as she realized

01:17:43.380 she stepped on a rake. She said, there are a lot of people that are afraid of being Jewish at this time

01:17:48.080 and they're getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country. So often subjected

01:17:54.060 to violence because rabbi, you may know Jews have no familiarity in their history with what it's like 0.98

01:18:00.120 to be subjected to violence. Cause when you were talking about how on a college campus, you could

01:18:04.740 never get away with this with the white hat calling for the death of blacks. Of course they'd say, 1.00

01:18:09.960 right, because a it's wrong. And B there's a history. There's a history when it comes to blacks. 0.85

01:18:15.080 Same, same. Well, there's a history. Not only is there a history of othering and violence

01:18:21.920 and irrational hate and hatred, subordinating every worthy value you can think of, but there's

01:18:30.080 another dynamic at work here, which we are very familiar with and we can sniff out faster than most,

01:18:37.340 which is the flipping of the script. This is Hamas playbook 101. Attack, provoke, murder, rape, burn. 0.96

01:18:50.960 And then knowing in advance what the counter will be, what the counter offensive will be.

01:18:59.720 And if you hide underneath and behind enough innocent people who get killed

01:19:04.620 and you, and you frame yourself, the victimizer as the victim, you can flip the script and the real

01:19:16.980 victim becomes the oppressor. And most people stand by and they either don't speak out against the

01:19:25.520 flipping of the script are too naive to even understand the script has been flipped, but

01:19:32.720 we have to keep speaking out. We have to keep telling the truth. Can I say sort of bad words on

01:19:43.840 this? I don't know. Yeah, go for it. Okay. You're on the right show.

01:19:47.340 We have to call bullshit on this. We have to. And, and woe unto us and woe unto this country and,

01:19:59.540 and, and woe unto the world if we ever stop saying its name.

01:20:06.840 Now we've had six weeks of the Israeli response. And to me, it's so frustrating because now the

01:20:21.100 whole narrative, we knew it was going to happen. It happens every time Hamas does this, 0.68

01:20:24.800 they attack Israel constantly. Right. And now it's all, now the people who, let's face it,

01:20:31.040 they were thrilled at what Hamas did on 10-7. They thought the Israelis deserved it. 1.00

01:20:35.480 Many of them before there was a single retaliatory strike by Israel, but now they feel they have 0.97

01:20:42.100 their excuse. Now they can say, Oh, it's just, you know, my heart is breaking for the poor

01:20:46.880 Palestinians. And maybe that's true for some of these folks, but my distinct impression is

01:20:51.640 that that's not what it's about there. They, they want an excuse to condemn Israel to say, stop.

01:20:59.920 They'd love to see Hamas regroup and they muddy the waters, right? To like where you're saying it, 0.94

01:21:07.540 we too are sad about dead Palestinian children, but we also understand who's responsible for that.

01:21:16.600 And yet you hear, you know, the, the college campuses and the marchers. And even I've had like

01:21:21.080 some people I know come up to me, like, it's just so terrible what Israel's doing to the children. 0.85

01:21:26.220 It's like, you have to zoom out and maintain perspective. So what's going on there? How do

01:21:31.000 we get perspective on these arguments? We have been raised, not we, but many,

01:21:37.100 particularly anyone under the age of, I don't know, I'm going to take a guess here, 40,

01:21:42.720 including university faculty who were in their twenties when this started on the college campuses

01:21:47.860 and they were students. We, we have, they have kind of embraced and internalized the idea

01:21:56.380 that the mind, that the underdog is always the victim. Hamas militarily, of course, is that

01:22:07.460 and they conflate it. Here we go again with the inability to disambiguate. They conflate it with

01:22:14.980 the horrible, horrible death of innocent people. Hamas is responsible for the death, kidnapping, torture 0.95

01:22:27.200 of innocent people on October 7th. And Hamas is responsible for the death of probably, 0.86

01:22:42.680 I don't know, 20,000 innocent Palestinians, Gazans in Gaza. Yes, it's sad, but let's be clear about the

01:22:53.880 perpetrator. And now another reason this is happening, Megan, I believe is because people

01:23:00.920 are using what they believe, even, even the best people who, who have this feeling that Israel's at 0.61

01:23:07.160 fault. They are using a single metric to determine who is the victim and who is the victimizer, which is

01:23:15.660 the number of innocent people who have died. Now, let's think about that for a moment.

01:23:22.200 Somewhere between 6.5 and 8.5 million Nazis and German citizens, innocent German citizens died

01:23:33.200 in World War II. About half a million, I'm rounding up and down here, closer to 600,000 from the UK and

01:23:44.160 from France. Now, does that mean since 6.5 to 8.5 million Germans died and 600,000 from the UK died,

01:23:59.860 does that mean the Germans were the victims? Does that mean that the UK was the perpetrator?

01:24:07.620 That is not the metric by which you determine good and evil. I'm sorry. It's a metric that pulls at the

01:24:17.180 heartstrings. But if that is your only metric, you have no real understanding of how to assess

01:24:24.760 what is evil and what is not. So where do we go from here? You know, my, my hope is that this

01:24:35.120 expose of, in particular, the woke left will leave them in ruins. We'll leave this pernicious DEI

01:24:43.820 ideology that divides us based on race, gender, so-called identity will be in ruins because it's a force for 0.93

01:24:51.340 evil. That's my hope. If we can get that out of this, I would, I would count that as a small win.

01:24:57.400 It's doesn't tackle the larger problem that's happening in the Middle East. But do you, do you

01:25:03.040 see reason for hope there? Look, there's always hope when the misguided overplay their hand

01:25:12.740 words? Because people wake up in a different way to that. And people, there are still a lot of people

01:25:22.480 who can, who can tell hypocrisy, who know hypocrisy when they see it, when they feel it, when they hear

01:25:29.240 it. Um, it's part of why conversations like this are so important. I am hopeful for the following

01:25:36.980 reasons. First of all, every generation of Jews gets its wake-up call. And for younger Jewish leaders

01:25:45.480 now, we realize some of us knew this, but couldn't do anything about it. We know we were outmaneuvered,

01:25:53.240 outflanked on the college campuses. And we have a lot of work to do to catch up, but we're going to do

01:25:57.940 that work and we're going to catch up. Secondly, I have been called by four or five different people

01:26:04.820 who could make this happen with a stroke of a pen saying, Steve, here's what I want to do. And I

01:26:10.440 hope you'll help do it. I want to now aggregate the best and the brightest of the Jewish people.

01:26:18.640 And I want a legal, a lawsuit division. I want a campus college division. I want a PR and social

01:26:25.920 media division. Um, and I want now to have a, a kind of full scale effort to rid America

01:26:42.660 of this cancer. Look, it's metastatic. Will we get it everywhere? No, but I do think this has been an

01:26:49.700 important wake-up call. By the way, I'm not for a moment suggesting that what happened on October 7th

01:26:55.140 was worth the wake-up call. However, what is my job? What is your job? What is every good person's

01:27:05.120 job to make sure that we don't allow it to be worth less? Right. I often say to people, Megan,

01:27:11.340 when they're sitting on my, on my couch of tears in my study, sharing some very sad event that they

01:27:18.880 have to endure. Uh, and I will say this on the macro level. Also, if you have to go through hell,

01:27:26.220 don't come out empty-handed. So I'm hopeful because I, I know we are not going to come out

01:27:32.860 empty-handed because of this. The other reason I'm very hopeful is why did Hamas do this now? 0.81

01:27:39.320 They did it to sabotage the peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

01:27:43.440 Now, Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Sunnis are 85% of the world's Muslim population. Saudi Arabia has the

01:27:51.660 two holiest sites in Islam within its borders. If Israel makes peace, even a cold peace with Saudi 0.99

01:27:59.280 Arabia, it fundamentally removes the religious component to the conflicts in the Middle East.

01:28:05.460 Number one. Number two, it further marginalizes Iran. And finally, we know that peace deals with 0.74

01:28:15.480 Israel work. You can make peace with Israel and Israel can make peace with you. The peace with 0.97

01:28:21.260 Egypt has held the peace with, uh, Jordan has held the peace with the UAE has held the peace with

01:28:27.840 Bahrain has held Morocco, Sudan. You can make peace with Israel if you want peace. Hamas, by the way, 0.95

01:28:35.300 could have a ceasefire tomorrow. All they have to do is return the hostages, turn themselves over,

01:28:44.740 and there will be a permanent peace treaty between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. And hopefully Gaza, 0.94

01:28:53.060 I'm also hopeful because whoever Gaza is turned over to when that time comes, 1.00

01:28:59.120 they have to be maybe only marginally, but nevertheless better than Hamas because Hamas cares 0.99

01:29:07.140 nothing about the betterment of the Palestinian people. Gaza could have been, well, yes. And Gaza could 0.97

01:29:15.080 have been another Singapore. It's about the same size. It's about the same population. They could have

01:29:20.920 had beautiful seaside resorts. They could have had desalination. It wasn't their mission.

01:29:25.120 No, their mission was to kill Jews. Their mission was dead Jews. Look at article seven of the Hamas 0.97

01:29:30.640 covenant. Their mission is not the betterment of Palestinians. Their mission- They don't want 1.00

01:29:34.640 Singapore. Right. And by the way- They don't want it. Right. And they don't just want dead Israelis. 0.99

01:29:40.640 They want dead Jews. They want me dead too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Not to mention gays. I mean, 0.98

01:29:47.520 it's amazing to see these, these gays from Palestine or queers from Palestine. They've lost their minds. 1.00

01:29:52.580 See how that goes for you. Let me switch to this in the time that we have. It's the seventh night

01:29:58.380 of Hanukkah and so many Jews across the nation are scared at the moment. There was a report in the

01:30:07.120 New York Times about how some Jewish families in New York were not displaying a menorah in their

01:30:12.660 windows. I mean, New York, this is like the most Jewish city, I think, outside of Israel, right?

01:30:17.480 In the world. Yes. For sure. They're afraid. Now, some, some behaving differently, some intentionally

01:30:22.400 putting a menorah in the window for the first time in years, just to sort of assert who they are. But

01:30:26.940 I understand the fear. You know, we've seen Jews attacked, including on college campuses over and

01:30:31.920 over and over just for being Jewish. Yes. So what, you know, how should our Jewish friends, many of whom

01:30:36.720 are listening to this program right now, be dealing with their fear? It's, it's not paranoia when they

01:30:42.400 really are out to get you. And yet the ones here are Americans too. And we don't, we don't, we don't

01:30:49.400 hide in America. That's not, that's not in our DNA. So what's your advice for them?

01:30:54.360 My advice is, and, and this is what I would have said had I written, I would have had the second

01:31:01.080 gentleman say at the Hanukkah cancel lighting, had he asked me.

01:31:05.260 Wait, we got to get to that.

01:31:06.240 We got to get to that.

01:31:07.080 That was all right. So I honestly, I confess, I did actually not know. I want to let me table

01:31:12.540 the question I just asked you. The second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, decided to post the

01:31:20.360 true story of Hanukkah. He says in the Hanukkah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding.

01:31:25.200 No one thought they would survive or that the few drops of oil they had would last,

01:31:29.260 but they did survive and the oil kept burning during those eight days in hiding. They recited

01:31:34.060 their prayers and continued their traditions. That's why Hanukkah means dedication and so

01:31:38.960 on. And then it was forced to take that post down.

01:31:42.560 Yeah. Yeah. He was either.

01:31:44.600 I understand it. That's not quite it, Rabbi.

01:31:46.280 No, that's not quite it. That's like a game of telephone and you're the 10th guy to hear

01:31:50.560 the story. So he was, he was not well-prepared and he was ill-informed or, or ignorant or both.

01:31:57.580 I don't know, but here's what I would say. And what I wish he had said this business about the oil

01:32:06.840 there when the, when the Jews won this kind of guerrilla war against the Hellenized Assyrians

01:32:13.540 who, for, who defiled their temple and forbid them to be Jews when the Jews won. And it was a guerrilla

01:32:20.080 war, which is why he got the in hiding part. When they won, it was a triumph of tenacity and right

01:32:32.080 over might, a triumph. It was a military triumph. Now about 600 years later, Megan, the rabbis of the 0.72

01:32:42.340 day under horrible oppression and occupation, they created this myth about the oil for the

01:32:51.360 rededication of the temple being only enough for one day, but lasting eight. They, they created this

01:32:57.840 myth to transform the Hanukkah story from a story of right over might and tenacity and zealousness for

01:33:07.760 your people. They, they became uncomfortable with the actual narrative. So they, they flipped the script

01:33:15.320 and made it a story about the, the God's miracle, the miraculous nature of, of Hanukkah in, uh, in the

01:33:25.360 vessel of this oil. Uh, they, why? Because they were uncomfortable with the idea and the exercise of power,

01:33:35.920 of Jewish power. Now they were at best ambivalent. They didn't want to provoke. They, they, they didn't

01:33:46.320 want to lionize, uh, bravery and courage in that way. I would say to America's Jews today, let's get,

01:33:56.700 let's for now, let's remove that oil mythology and let's tell the real story of, of right over might,

01:34:02.700 of tenacity. And let's make it clear that it's, it's not as easy to kill Jews as it used to be.

01:34:11.620 And, and you, you know, we do have power and we are going to exercise it. And by that, I do not

01:34:18.620 only mean military power. We have the power of the court system in this country. Still, we have the

01:34:25.200 power of our platforms. Still, we have the power of moral clarity and moral authority. When we talk

01:34:33.680 about Jews as the chosen people, we don't need chosen for privilege. We mean chosen for responsibility

01:34:39.760 to be responsible, morally clear and responsible for the values by which our entire Western civilization

01:34:48.960 has been created. So that's the message I would give be loud, be proud, be brave, be courageous.

01:34:56.960 Now I will say one other thing that I wish I had thought of sooner. And I know we're running out of

01:35:01.040 time. I wish I thought of the sooner, Megan, a couple of weeks ago, I wish I had put out a call

01:35:06.800 for every decent Gentile and Muslim in this country to put a menorah in their window and light those candles. 1.00

01:35:17.920 That, that is a statement about who we are and who our allies are and what we all need to stand for.

01:35:27.520 I wish I had thought of it. I hope I don't need to use this next year.

01:35:32.480 Right. Wow. What a pleasure meeting you, Rabbi Steve Leader. Thank you for your thoughts and your

01:35:38.400 guidance, your wisdom, and happy Hanukkah to you. I'm going to get on that, Laura.

01:35:42.640 Thank you. There's always light. Always.

01:35:45.040 Thanks. God bless. All the best to you.

01:35:46.800 Thank you. You too.

01:35:47.760 We'll see tomorrow. Thanks to all of you for listening. What a way to end the show. I hope

01:35:51.360 that meant as much to you as it did to me. We needed that. We needed that after a rough

01:35:55.200 couple of months together. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:36:12.480 Thank you, everybody.

01:36:15.200 Not to 경 up theACK speaker will stay until the day 2nd of me.

01:36:20.400 I just mentioned at the time you will see me.

01:36:22.720 Oh, yes. I hope that.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 13, 2023

Hunter Biden Plays the Victim, and Left Shifts Blame on Israel, with Peter Schweizer, Margot Cleveland, and Rabbi Steve Leder ｜ Ep. 685

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