Jussie Smollett's Hate Crime Hoax and Media Enablers, with The Hodgetwins and Dr. Carol Swain ｜ Ep. 219
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 32 minutes
Words per Minute
179.73824
Summary
A jury in Chicago finds Jussie Smollett guilty of orchestrating a fake hate crime against himself. This marks the end of a shameful saga involving the actor and his media and Democratic enablers who rushed to establish their woke bona fides by accepting Jussie s absurd allegations as incontrovertible and as proof of their belief that America is awful.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.
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We have a big show for you today. The Hodge twins are here later.
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And the brilliant Dr. Carol Swain joins me in just one minute.
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A jury in Chicago finds Jussie Smollett guilty of orchestrating a fake hate crime against himself
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in January 2019, convicting Smollett on five of six felony counts after nine hours of deliberation.
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Put another way, the jury has had the final say in this case, and it is this.
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Jussie Smollett is a liar, a race hustler, and now a convicted felon.
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This marks the end of a shameful saga involving the actor and his media and Democrat enablers
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who rushed to establish their woke bona fides by accepting Jussie's absurd allegations as
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incontrovertible and as proof of their belief that America is awful.
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Let's be clear. It was apparent from the start that Smollett's allegations stunk to high heaven.
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A black gay man, star of the show Empire, but virtually unknown to most Americans, was allegedly
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recognized on the streets of Chicago at 2 a.m., where he spur of the moment headed out to Subway
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for a tuna fish sandwich in the middle of the epically cold polar vortex.
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There, in the middle of deep blue Chicago, Smollett was attacked by two racist, MAGA-loving
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homophobes. Luckily, he just happened to be on the phone with his manager at the time,
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who could thus be an earwitness to the attack, in which Smollett was most definitely a very tough
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and brave guy, as he explained to ABC's Robin Roberts.
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And while he was on the phone, I heard, as I was crossing the intersection, I heard,
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Empire. And I don't answer to Empire. My name ain't Empire. And I didn't answer. I kept walking,
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and then I heard Empire. So I turned around and I said, did you just say to me? I mean, I see
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the attacker masked. And he said, this MAGA country punches me right in the face. So I punched his ass
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back. And then we started tussling. You know, it was very icy. And we ended up tussling by the stairs,
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uh, fighting, fighting, fighting. There was a second person involved who was kicking me in my
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back. And, uh, then it just stopped and they ran off. When Smollett regained his composure,
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he said he looked around and his horror only grew. And I looked down and I see that there's a rope
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around my neck, which I hadn't noticed it before. No, because it was so fast. You know what I'm
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saying? It was so fast. How long did this all? It felt like minutes, but it probably was like 30
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seconds. Honestly, I can't tell you honestly. Um, I noticed the rope around my neck and I started
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screaming and I said, there's a rope around my neck. Oddly, his first instinct was not to call the
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police. Why? Because again, he is a very tough and brave guy. Why did you hesitate to want to
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call the police? You know, there's a level of pride there. We live in a society where
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as a gay man, you were considered somehow to be weak. And I'm not weak. I'm not weak.
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And we are, as a people are not weak. So I can accept that there was pride there. There's also
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privacy. Smollett claims that it was at that point that he realized his attackers, whom he later
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claimed were white, had poured bleach all over him, too. How it was that two racist, homophobic,
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MAGA loving attackers just happened to recognize him, hurl racial and gay slurs at him, knowing,
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of course, his sexuality and be ready to attack him with a noose and bleach at 2 a.m. on the streets
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of Chicago remained unclear, as Robin Roberts apparently did not feel the need to ask.
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It would later become clear that Smollett tightened the alleged noose around his own neck just in time
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for the arrival of the cops, who his manager called, testifying that it was thrown on him loosely.
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But pictures later showed it nice and tight around his throat. Wonder how that happened.
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The Robin Roberts did not confront Smollett with the obvious implausibility of his entire story.
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She did get him to wax poetic about how hard it is when not everyone believes you.
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I'm pissed off. What is it that has you so angry? Is it the the attackers?
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It's the attackers, but it's also the attacks. It's like, you know, at first it was a thing of like,
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listen, if I tell the truth, then that's it, because it's the truth.
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Then it became a thing of like, oh, how can you doubt that? Like, how do you how do you not believe
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that it's the truth? And then it became a thing of like, oh, it's not necessarily that you don't
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believe that this is the truth. You don't even want to see the truth.
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You don't want to see the truth, the truth about America, that is about life as a black gay man in
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racist, homophobic America. You doubt Jussie, you see, and you are hashtag part of the problem.
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As if on cue, Smollett's media and Democratic enablers jumped in, making clear one may not
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question the hate crime story of a black gay man who is a very tough and brave guy and definitely not
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a liar. Example, Ellen Page, now Elliot, who went on with Colbert to express her disgust at those who
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would question this obviously true story. I have a media that's saying it's a debate whether or not
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what just happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It's absurd. This isn't a debate.
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I agree. Sorry, I'm like, I'm like really fired up tonight. This is how you have to be fired. It
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feels impossible to not feel this way right now. And those questioning his story, those two also
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meant those jerks who used qualifiers when describing Smollett's allegations like the
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bigots at Sweet Little Entertainment Tonight. No, they did not escape their notice. You see,
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E.T. reported Smollett had been hospitalized after a, quote, possibly homophobic and racially
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charged attack. Not good enough, people. Enter AOC, who never misses a chance to exploit a thing like
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this. She tweeted out, quote, there's no such thing as racially charged. This attack was not
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possibly homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack. If you don't like what is happening to our
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country, then work to change it. It is no one's job to water down or sugarcoat the rise of hate crimes.
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AOC was not the only one unwilling to wait for the facts to play out. Kamala Harris immediately
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called it a modern day lynching, adding no one should have to fear for their life because of
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their sexuality or the color of their skin. We must confront this hate. Joe Biden tweeted that this
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kind of attack, quote, must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no
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longer give this hate safe harbor. Bernie Sanders weighed in, calling the attack on Smollett, quote,
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a horrific instance of the surging hostility toward minorities around the country. Never to be outdone
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on racial hysterics, Joy Reid tweeted out, nooses never really disappeared as messages of a very specific
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kind of terror. But every time they're used, my God, it's chilling. Praying for Jussie's full recovery.
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And for us all. Rashida Tlaib added, when one of the most famous black and gay men in America is
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not safe, the message is clearer than it has ever been. The dangerous lies spewing from the right wing
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is killing. Subject verb disagreement is on her part, is killing and hurting our people.
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That was the politicians. The politicians, we expect them to be biased and stupid and to jump
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to conclusions that they think will help them win votes. Except for Joy Reid. She's part of the media.
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But her brethren in the media, well, they were just as bad, just as bad. Check out this pathetic
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display from Grabian. And remember, we in the media used to try not to assume facts until they had been
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Jussie Smollett was the victim of a vicious, racist and homophobic attack.
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His attackers hurled racial and homophobic slurs.
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The hate crime went down early this morning in Chicago.
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Officials are investigating the alleged assault as a hate crime.
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And now police say they're investigating this as a possible hate crime.
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This is, this is stomach turning, mind boggling information. It's out of control.
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tweeting the racist, homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett
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And Senator Cory Booker said the vicious attack on actor Jussie was an attempted modern day lynching.
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Kamala Harris calling the attack an attempted modern day lynching.
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I'm so shaken by the story. This is horrible to report.
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Yeah. A lot of people can't believe this is actually happening in 2019.
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It's hard to believe that we're reporting, that we're even saying words like this in 2019.
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Remember when skepticism used to be a virtue amongst reporters?
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Why him? Of all the black gay men out there, why him?
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I can just assume. I mean, I come really, really hard against 45.
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I come really, really hard against his administration.
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Right? I mean, it's like, as Abby would say, secondhand embarrassment.
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And he's an example to young black gay children everywhere.
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I just want young people, young members of the LGBTQ community, young black children to know how strong that they are, to know the power that they hold in their little pinky.
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It's been two weeks since that night left actor Jussie Smollett bruised but not broken.
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If you watch this later on YouTube, he's got the tissue and the tears as you hear the track from Robin.
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And it was obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology from the start.
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But we also heard reports that Jussie early on refused to give police his cell phone.
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As it turns out, he had very good reason not to give it to them.
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His phone records showed that he had exchanged at least five calls, 40 text messages and several Instagram DMs with one of the two men he hired to attack him in the days before said attack.
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By the way, those two men, Nigerian brothers, were black.
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Jussie needs to learn a thing or two about fake hate crimes and how they're perpetrated.
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Smollett would not provide his medical records to the police because he didn't want cops to know he had not been seriously injured.
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When the police identified the two brothers as the perpetrators, was Jussie relieved?
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Was he overjoyed to finally find out who did this to him?
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In fact, he didn't even want to file charges against these brothers.
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Listen to what he had told Robin Roberts before they'd been nabbed.
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Let's, um, I was talking to a friend and I said, I just want them to find them.
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And she said, sweetie, they're not going to find them.
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That just made me so angry because so I'm just going to be left here with this?
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He didn't want these brothers to be found or arrested because he knew that they would give up the fact that he hired them.
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That he paid for the rope, the bleach, all of it.
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They turned on him just as soon as the Chicago PD got their hands on those two guys.
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The Chicago PD, which had put all hands on deck to solve this horrific crime and spent $130,000 of taxpayer money.
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They figured out that Smollett was a liar fairly easily on, fairly early on in the case and fairly easily.
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They were most unhappy with the wild goose chase he put them on, as we heard directly from the police commissioner.
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Jesse Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.
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Why would anyone, especially an African-American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations?
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How could someone look at the hatred and suffering associated with that symbol and see an opportunity to manipulate that symbol to further his own public profile?
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How can an individual who's been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false claims?
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Contrast that message with the George Soros backed Chicago D.A., Kim Fox, who tried to dump the whole case and tried to let Smollett off the hook scot-free.
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Thankfully, a judge wouldn't allow it and appointed a special prosecutor instead.
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The former U.S. attorney out there named Dan Webb.
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And he appeared to agree with at least one piece of Smollett's sentiments as expressed so eloquently to Robin Roberts.
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I respect too much the people who I am now one of those people who have been attacked in any way.
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You do such a disservice when you lie about things like this.
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Hate crimes are horrific things, but the truth is they are a negligible portion of total crime in this country.
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Peter Kersenow, a black member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, laid out the facts in National Review in 2019 after this whole incident,
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reporting that in 2015 there were 1.2 million murders, rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies in America.
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Of those, 821 or .00067 percent were classified as hate crimes for an entire year.
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Kersenow went on to point out that an average of 550 Americans are struck by lightning each year, most in a six or seven month period.
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In other words, the odds of being the victim of a hate crime are roughly the same as being struck by lightning.
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Those stats warrant some skepticism when someone tells you there's a rash of hate crimes in America and even some skepticism when one alleges it has happened to him.
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And especially skepticism when you're a member of the media and it's your business to be skeptical.
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And that skepticism is there for very good reasons, right?
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For those reasons, these cases should not play out on Twitter or in newsrooms, but on dockets and in courtrooms where, as the New York State courthouse, where I tried my very first case as a young lawyer,
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proclaims in marble on its exterior above the big pillars shown on law and order episodes.
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The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government.
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I still want to believe with everything that has happened that there's something called justice.
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Because if I stop believing that, then what's it all for?
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Coming up next, Dr. Carol Swain joins me to talk about the Jussie Smollett fake hate crime hoax.
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Joining me now, Dr. Carol Swain, retired professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University
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and now a distinguished senior fellow for constitutional studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
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So and it's a great day for it, obviously, because this is I mean, when you hear it laid out, right,
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like you go back and you listen to that GMA interview he did and his acting and he played every card.
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I mean, it's infuriating, right, because what he's essentially done is made the road 10 times harder
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for any person who actually is the legitimate victim of a hate crime.
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And thanks to him, thanks to him, people are less likely to believe the next person when they come along.
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Well, Megan, I'm always suspicious of those reports.
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I don't know what the stats are, but of the ones that the media covers, most of them turn out to be hoaxes.
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And the timing of his hate crime hoax coincided with a narrative that the Democrats were pushing about lynchings
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lynchings and about all these horrible things that Trump supporters had brought back to America as far as white supremacy.
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He was feeding and providing support for a narrative that they had out there in Congress.
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And so I think that if you go back and look at the conversation that was taking place in the context of his hopes,
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And I would also argue that real white supremacy and violence against blacks has declined to the point
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that people that want to keep the racism narrative alive, they actually have to invent a lot of this stuff.
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And so there's a reason it's almost become like when a man reports his wife missing,
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the husband becomes the suspect when a person, especially, you know, a racial and ethnic minority
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I think they are automatically suspect because too many of them have turned out to be hoaxes.
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There have been a lot, you know, it's like the whole Bubba Wallace thing with the noose and the NASCAR.
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And I think, again, that racism in America has declined to the point that you really have to
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And too often the person who reports it is actually the person who, you know, is putting
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Unfortunately, they usually don't pay any real penalties for that.
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And if he appeals his conviction, he may still walk because for the most part, the people
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in the past that have reported hate crime hoaxes, it's just been dismissed because the
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left says that if it didn't happen in that particular case, it happened to someone somewhere
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Black Lives Matter issued a statement yesterday before the verdict.
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They haven't updated it, but they don't need to because it foresaw this because we all
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This is what they say in part, BLM, to your point.
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As abolitionists, they call themselves abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love
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and align ourselves with our community because we got us.
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They say this is not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade.
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In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place and our communities would
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not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth.
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We can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department, over Jussie Smollett,
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a black man who has been courageously present, visible and vocal in the struggle for black
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Can we believe the two black Nigerian brothers who testified and said Jussie's a liar?
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Can we believe the black police commissioner who said Jussie's a liar and made this whole
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thing up to the detriment of black people who actually do get attacked?
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Black Lives Matter, they finish, will continue to work toward the abolition of police and
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So, OK, we don't care about verdicts because the whole system is white supremacist.
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I mean, this whole thing about Black Lives Matter, I'm talking about the slogan and the
00:24:14.360
But the organization, if they really cared about black lives, they'd be out there fighting
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the abortion clinics and they would be fighting.
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They would be out there doing something about the violence in Chicago.
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The crime rate has skyrocketed since they appeared on the scene.
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And the defunding of police only hurts black people.
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I mean, they care about pushing a Marxist agenda.
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And Smollett was trying to help them with their agenda, their white supremacy narrative.
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The dangers that we face today is because white people are not holding black people and other
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And there cannot be any equality in our nation until all citizens are held to the same standards
00:25:11.160
Yeah, it's it's crazy to actually read, you know, how they just don't care about the facts
00:25:17.780
Um, in the meantime, let's talk about what's likely to happen to him, because he hasn't
00:25:27.700
But normally somebody who makes up something like this might expect to get probation and
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It was basically all you lied to this cop by saying you were the victim of a fake hoax and
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you lied to this cop and you lied to this person again.
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And basically, they weren't sure about whether he lied to the sixth cop, which is why he got
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convicted on five out of six instead of six out of six.
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Now, he's facing potentially up to 18 years in prison because it's three possible years
00:25:56.660
per count that that won't happen and it shouldn't happen.
00:26:00.720
But I do believe he should face jail time because of the damage he's done to the legitimate
00:26:07.540
claims when they do come after him to the country, to the narrative and the divisive
00:26:19.020
And I also believe he should face jail time, Carol, because he perjured himself.
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And that is a factor you can consider when sentencing a defendant.
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He he lied under oath on the stand to that jury.
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I mean, we could give him a nominate him for an Academy Award for his performance on the
00:26:46.800
And it's not, you know, it's that it's the fact that when they have these hoaxes done by
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members of the, quote, victim groups, there's usually no consequences.
00:27:00.180
And and I can go back to some of the times when people are caught, you know, engaging in
00:27:09.860
There are not consequences for certain groups of people.
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I think that we all need to be held to the same standards.
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And that's when you have true equality in America.
00:27:21.620
Right now, there's no deterrent for engaging in that kind of behavior.
00:27:28.060
What is the deterrent to the next person in making such an allegation if he doesn't have
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a real penalty, if he doesn't spend some time in jail?
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Two would be a reasonable sentence to this, because if you were prosecuted for perjury and
00:27:44.800
he lied repeatedly, I mean, he could be facing several years in prison and they are allowed
00:27:49.320
If Dan Webb wanted to separately now prosecute him for for perjury, he could.
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But more than likely, it'll just be argued as a factor at his sentencing for these felonies.
00:28:01.580
Megan, if that was me, if I was the guilty party or if it was a conservative Republican,
00:28:14.240
But unfortunately, in this country, at this point in time, it seems to be a double standard
00:28:19.100
that people that align themselves with the Democratic Party and the progressives, they
00:28:34.300
But I wouldn't hold my breath that that's going to happen, because at the end of the
00:28:38.660
day, the people in power and the elites, they cave.
00:28:42.360
And I think that they are afraid of the political left.
00:28:48.520
And Black Lives Matter would threaten to burn down the nation, maybe.
00:28:52.320
And so we have all this intimidation that we allow to take place.
00:28:57.600
I hate this moment in American history where there is no justice.
00:29:04.200
Where people are still in a situation like this more worried about social justice than
00:29:09.060
You know, we saw a good outcome in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, I thought.
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And now it'll be up to the judge to take the next step.
00:29:20.160
But here's here's the other thing I wanted to ask you about.
00:29:23.200
Before this happened, before Jesse staged the attack on himself and he had worked with
00:29:32.340
He had mysteriously, Carol, received a hate letter with like it was straight out of one
00:29:38.220
of these stupid serial killer movies where they take the block letters out of the magazine
00:29:45.160
It was once again like a MAGA related threat against him as a black gay man.
00:29:49.980
I mean, Jesse weirdly falls under attack a lot.
00:29:52.180
Um, and I'm telling you, because I had a lawyer on the on the show not long ago saying because
00:29:57.340
that was put that was put in an envelope and was put in the U.S. mail and it was mailed
00:30:08.400
And he could actually be prosecuted on that, too.
00:30:10.980
He was asked about this alleged, you know, threat during the interview with Robin Roberts.
00:30:17.500
And listen to how he himself is willing to tie whoever sent it to whoever committed the
00:30:25.540
hate crime on the streets of Chicago against him.
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In fact, the week before the attack, police confirm a letter was sent to the Fox studio
00:30:34.940
in Chicago with threatening language and laced with powdery substance, likely Tylenol.
00:30:40.460
Do you think there's a link between the letter and the attack?
00:30:44.040
Um, and you did mention it to the police right away about the letter.
00:30:49.120
Um, just because on the letter it had a stick figure hanging from a tree with a gun pointing
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towards it with the words that said, Smollett, Jussie, you will die black.
00:30:59.840
There was no address, but the return address said in big red, you know, like caps, MAGA.
00:31:12.420
Well, the thing about it, it's so ridiculous, so stupid.
00:31:16.460
What comes out of their imagination is that his creativity, um, obviously, uh, if he faked
00:31:24.320
that part of the hope, the, uh, the hate crime was a hoax, uh, the person who sent the letter,
00:31:30.260
uh, it was obviously him or him working with someone else.
00:31:34.800
And so it's the same crime, and I think he should be prosecuted for that, too, and held
00:31:44.240
And you know something, the conservatives that I know about it, they're not fixated on gays,
00:31:51.780
You know, that's not what people spend their time thinking about.
00:31:56.920
And so, uh, the whole idea that, you know, the Trump supporters, this is what they're
00:32:06.240
It's like, he doesn't understand Trump supporters.
00:32:11.820
If Jussie Smollett really did receive that letter from some, you know, racist homophobe, and
00:32:17.500
then it gave him the idea, let's say, to perpetrate an actual attack on himself, and it would maybe
00:32:22.720
improve his negotiations with Fox on salary for empire.
00:32:26.240
He was already getting a hundred thousand dollars an episode.
00:32:28.440
Um, when they, when they then ask you, do you think it was the same person?
00:32:33.040
You know, like, and you're thinking you really received this letter from a, from a homophobic
00:32:37.900
You would say, I don't know, you know, we should investigate both of them, right?
00:32:42.800
We should really look into, no, he's like, yes, it was the same.
00:32:47.220
It was, he knew it because it was, it was, it was him.
00:32:52.280
And he, as far as I'm concerned, he should be prosecuted for that.
00:32:59.280
He has committed a fake hate crime, which is divided us apart even more than we were.
00:33:06.220
I have to ask you about, um, the news and the, and sort of the Hollywood community and
00:33:14.060
So the news media, Carol, can I tell you, we went back and looked, what, what did MSNBC
00:33:19.700
Joy Reed, who was so outraged about, you know, the news in America, nothing.
00:33:25.420
She didn't say one word, nor did Chris Hayes, nor did Rachel Maddow, nor did Lawrence O'Donnell,
00:33:37.580
Even that Black Lives Matter protester, who was an instigator, I think his name is Sullivan,
00:33:45.900
He was released, you know, where other people, you know, are in jail.
00:33:49.540
Some of them have not had charges filed against them.
00:33:52.220
How long will the political left be able to, to get away with what they're doing?
00:33:57.240
And the people that I know in my network, they're saying that nothing will happen to
00:34:01.680
Smollett because he has friends in high places, that the Democrats will protect him, that he
00:34:09.700
I mean, what kind of America, what has America become that that's the case, that people believe
00:34:15.840
that if you have friends in high places among the political left, there's no consequences.
00:34:21.920
We know that there are always consequences for conservatives and they can be first offenders.
00:34:29.540
It's, it's, it's, it's just an America that I barely recognize.
00:34:35.440
It's amazing to me that they didn't even have the nerve, the skin saving instinct to at least
00:34:41.740
put on a report, just at least put up a reporter to tell America what happened in that trial.
00:34:51.400
I haven't looked at the whole show, but I'm, I'm told that it looks like they didn't put
00:34:55.300
They didn't acknowledge what happened with Robin.
00:34:57.540
I'll take a closer look at it myself later, but what they did was just a straight report.
00:35:01.520
But MSNBC couldn't even be dragged to do that, to update its audience on, on the truth about
00:35:07.960
these crazy tweets they had sent and reports they had done at the time.
00:35:12.620
The Hollywood community is just as bad, Carol, as you know, I mean, and the absurd, they know
00:35:26.980
Here's Rob Reiner, you know, he's like crazy far left that his hatred for Trump was just
00:35:34.820
He says the horrific attack on Smollett has no place.
00:35:41.300
Homophobia existed before Trump, but there's no question that since he has injected his hatred
00:35:46.080
into the American bloodstream, we are less decent, less human and less loving.
00:35:57.580
He later deleted it once it became clear that Jussie was a liar.
00:36:06.440
Actor Billy Eichner, he tweeted out heartbroken and furious reading about the attack on Jussie
00:36:11.120
I want Trump and all MAGA lunatics to burn in hell.
00:36:15.080
He again later deleted the tweet and then tweeted this after the fact.
00:36:18.540
There's no part of me that doubts that Trump and MAGA culture have encouraged and emboldened
00:36:30.300
And Megan, I mean, I'm wondering, like, for people like us that care about truth, we care
00:36:41.120
Is there a way that we can reach the audiences of, you know, CNN, MSNBC, all of those places
00:36:51.180
The truth is being withheld that I don't know, you know, like, what can we do?
00:36:57.620
Because you can't force them to go to a particular outlet.
00:37:01.180
Yet these people are being held in darkness when it comes to truth about what's taking place
00:37:10.780
And one wonders whether they want the delusion.
00:37:14.560
I think that there are people that trust the media because at one point, I can say that
00:37:21.720
You know, I didn't realize that there was so much fake news.
00:37:25.020
And for me, it was, I don't know if you remember, Jenna 6, Louisiana, where people went to Jenna,
00:37:33.100
There was supposed to be a white tree that only white students could stand under.
00:37:39.400
And it turned out that that was a false narrative.
00:37:41.640
And but that was when I first saw that CNN staged news, news that it was staged.
00:37:51.460
Well, I mean, then, of course, in the past year and a half, we've been treated, treated
00:37:54.900
to more staged news as Chris Cuomo, the now fired Chris Cuomo emerged from his basement
00:38:02.980
Meanwhile, we'd all seen the pictures of him running around the Hamptons with it.
00:38:09.660
It's like this is that's a matter of breaking trust with your audience.
00:38:13.280
This is a matter of dividing us even more at a really precarious time when we were already
00:38:28.340
Do a full report on GMA about how you weren't skeptical enough and you gave a platform without
00:38:42.980
All those other people I mentioned, where's their apology?
00:38:46.040
You know, the folks on MSNBC we showed they should be out there.
00:38:50.220
They should be on the air this morning doing the report I just did and saying this is bullshit,
00:38:59.520
What I think is happening is that they get their talking points from the Democratic Party
00:39:06.380
Again, if you go back to the discussions they were having at the time that the hate crime
00:39:16.760
And so I think that if we have a media that is in bed with the progressive left, they're all
00:39:23.500
going to be on the same page because they're getting their talking points from one source.
00:39:27.500
And I think that a lot of the journalists and the anchors, they're so afraid of the radical
00:39:32.360
left that they're not going to step out and speak truth.
00:39:41.740
That's a reaction you say for when you see dead bodies in the street after a truck mows
00:39:47.280
them down or you see a school shooting that you knew that, you know, happened.
00:39:51.440
Not a case like this where there's no eyewitness.
00:39:54.460
People right from the get go were casting doubt on it and it didn't make sense on its face that
00:39:59.400
you don't do the horrible, horrible coordination in a case like that, because your news judgment
00:40:19.620
Because you are somebody I want to do a full show with, a background profile on you.
00:40:30.120
But will you come back and we do the full caboodle one of these days?
00:40:33.840
And you keep up the good work because we need you out there and we need so many more people
00:40:41.400
And coming up to you guys, I've also been looking forward to meet the Hodge Twins superstars
00:40:48.440
And they're going to have some strong thoughts on this, too, because they've been doing videos
00:40:52.440
And don't forget, folks, you can find the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel
00:40:56.960
111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips when you subscribe to our
00:41:02.360
YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash Megyn Kelly.
00:41:08.860
You can share it with people who haven't seen it because they should.
00:41:12.160
Or if you prefer an audio podcast, you can go ahead and subscribe and download on Apple,
00:41:17.300
Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for free.
00:41:21.520
There you'll find our full archives to more than 215 shows.
00:41:31.360
We're joined now by Keith and Kevin Hodge, better known as the Hodge Twins.
00:41:37.520
Keith and Kevin are known for their unbridled and hilarious takes on the news.
00:41:42.240
They are proud and outspoken conservatives, a viewpoint they admit took about 30 years
00:41:50.220
Keith and Kevin are also the perfect guests to continue our discussion on the guilty verdict
00:41:53.960
in the Jussie Smollett case and to dive into all the headlines ahead of the weekend.
00:42:02.920
But for our YouTube audience, I just want to make sure it's Kevin.
00:42:14.460
You with the red are Kevin and you without the red are Keith.
00:42:19.500
I mean, for the listening audience, they are truly identical.
00:42:27.000
I mean, like it is it is hard to tell you apart.
00:42:29.020
I'm sure your wives can do it and your mom and all that.
00:42:30.800
But let's talk about Smollett because I know you guys have been covering it on your channel.
00:42:35.500
And I mean, to me, it's just when you go back and you look at his interview with Robin Roberts,
00:42:40.360
it's it's embarrassing what an obvious liar he was, how everyone ran with it gleefully.
00:42:46.380
They loved believing it, which is so weird, but not surprising.
00:42:51.960
And your thought, your thoughts now on the fact that he's been publicly humiliated and disgraced.
00:43:00.180
But I mean, when Trump was in office, you used to hear a lot on the right that people have Trump derangement syndrome on 11.
00:43:08.400
Yeah. I mean, he was infatuated with 45 and even brung it up in an interview with when he was being interviewed about what happened.
00:43:15.520
It's like, yes, you can see through it so much when he was in his interview and then just for it to happen in downtown Chicago.
00:43:31.240
That's exactly it. That's exactly like no one was stopping to ask that question like you.
00:43:35.520
So you by your own testimony, it was a spontaneous trip out for food.
00:43:38.900
Originally at trial, he claimed to I was going to go to Walgreens for some eggs, but they were closed.
00:43:42.960
So I switched it to a 24 hour food location like Subway for tuna fish.
00:43:47.820
And it just lo and behold, these two guys, white guys, he originally said, saw me recognized in the middle of the polar vortex at 2 a.m.
00:43:57.300
That it was that it was I, Jussie Smollett, the star of empire and knew my sexuality that I happen to be gay because everybody knows everything about me.
00:44:05.540
They knew I was a gay man and they were like, thank God we brought our bleach in our noose.
00:44:12.620
Trust me, mega supporters are not going to watch Empire.
00:44:26.940
And when you look back at like how outraged Hollywood, too, was, we pulled some of the examples and I was like, oh, my God.
00:44:36.800
Sean Hayes, who, you know, you love Sean Hayes.
00:44:40.700
You know, I don't he's got a successful podcast now.
00:44:46.400
I can't believe we still live in a country where hate is so severe.
00:44:54.300
We don't live in a country where we don't live in that country.
00:44:58.160
Like, but the left doesn't even stop and pause and ask themselves that because it's baked in.
00:45:04.360
It's like these people really want this hatred to still be out there.
00:45:12.400
Just to assume that this this incident was true.
00:45:15.680
I mean, I've never, ever, ever heard of another incident.
00:45:23.800
And more times than not, when you hear about things, they're all hosts.
00:45:29.720
Well, what do you make of what what will happen in your view if the judge sentence him, sentences
00:45:34.800
him to jail time, both both because he lied repeatedly, repeatedly to cops because he
00:45:41.600
And that's why we don't allow fake claims of hate crimes.
00:45:47.600
And I was just mentioning to Carol Swain, it also appears he committed some mail fraud because
00:45:51.820
it's very clear to me, although it wasn't introduced.
00:45:54.260
He sent himself that scary letter a couple of weeks before his alleged fake hate crime.
00:46:01.820
Because he said, if they don't give him jail time, this sets a horrible precedent.
00:46:06.520
I mean, hate crimes are horrible tragedies whenever it happens.
00:46:10.840
And for somebody to come out, it's like the bogle cry wolf.
00:46:13.620
Nobody's going to believe the people that actually experienced this kind of event.
00:46:17.520
They have to set a precedent that does not tolerate my country.
00:46:22.180
I mean, he should seek the same punishment as an actual hate crime, if you ask me, because
00:46:26.400
he did a lot of harm to the communities across the United States.
00:46:29.440
He needs to go to jail, even though that's probably a playground for him.
00:46:35.720
I don't think, Megan, I don't even actually think this is a punishment for him.
00:46:39.160
He's going to be around a bunch of black guys to work out on him.
00:46:41.520
But all right, no one wants anything bad to happen to Jussie in jail or anywhere else,
00:46:48.780
But let me ask you this, because to me, the media's reaction to this is the same as the
00:46:55.120
Believe all women in, you know, notwithstanding the Duke fake rape allegations and the UVA
00:47:00.380
fake gang rape allegations and the allegations against Justice Kavanaugh falling apart.
00:47:05.560
And now still with this, I guarantee you the next time an allegation like this comes up,
00:47:09.560
no one on the left or the media will have learned their lesson.
00:47:12.380
It's going to be believe all, you know, race hoax claims.
00:47:16.960
I mean, they're still going to believe something happened to Jussie that night.
00:47:21.960
And it's weird that all these mainstream media ran with this story without, you know,
00:47:27.000
They never, I never heard that one commentator or anchor say allegedly, they assumed everything
00:47:32.100
was true, which is weird because you being a journalist, you have to make sure you're
00:47:36.200
putting out truthful things and factual things that go off.
00:47:41.220
It's like very dangerous for, especially somebody on the media wearing a suit.
00:47:45.600
People think there's, you know, yeah, you can trust them.
00:47:48.540
And they just ran in part because of people like AOC, little entertainment tonight, like
00:47:53.680
non-controversial, tried to use qualifiers like alleged, you know, might've been, and
00:48:00.200
You know, it was, you have to say it and so on.
00:48:02.420
Much, much more with Kevin and Keith Hodge going to a lot of fun places.
00:48:05.160
Don't miss this, including Hillary Clinton and her video, maybe the saddest thing you've
00:48:11.440
I am joined now by Kevin and Keith Hodge, AKA the Hodge twins, the hilarious, conservative,
00:48:24.960
super successful comedians and stars of YouTube guys.
00:48:30.360
You have such an interesting history and I've been sort of studying up on you.
00:48:33.780
I understand that you were born in Virginia, September of 1975, September 17th, identical
00:48:41.040
twins, Christians, former Marines now, which is great.
00:48:48.840
And one of the things that was in sort of the bio about you guys was that according to
00:48:53.560
an LA weekly article from 2016, the longest they've ever been apart is 10 hours.
00:49:09.180
We had quite some time apart when we was in the rainstorm.
00:49:12.120
But our whole lives, we've always been together.
00:49:15.160
Usually like I'll get a job because I interview better.
00:49:19.120
And then once I get to go, I'm saying, I got a guy that looks just like he needs a job
00:49:28.200
Every time he gets me a job there, I always end up getting us both fired.
00:49:32.500
But as I found out in reading up on you, that turned out to be a good thing in your most
00:49:39.780
recent firing because it bounced you into this hugely successful career on YouTube where you
00:49:59.620
People, when it comes to doing videos and being on radio, people can detect fakeness.
00:50:06.080
If you're fake, people are not going to genuinely like you.
00:50:08.220
People are connected to personalities, people that are real and very genuine.
00:50:13.380
How long did it take you to build up those numbers?
00:50:16.940
It started off really slow for us because we was being fake at first.
00:50:22.080
It was like, yeah, the first year it was really slow.
00:50:26.240
I mean, we was on there for like a year and had like 10,000 subscribers.
00:50:28.940
But then we started talking about like current events in the news, whatever was hot in the
00:50:35.320
But it really took off for us when we got into fitness.
00:50:48.700
I don't look like I did before I got into politics.
00:50:56.940
So when you because you were living sort of normal lives, you weren't stand up comics.
00:51:04.160
But you knew you must have known you were funny or had a thing because you sort of started
00:51:10.800
And then when you got fired, as I understand it, that's when you're like, let's go.
00:51:14.880
Yeah, it was just like a hobby because we worked at a Tripway of California's insurance
00:51:23.320
Women must have been like, my car broke down again.
00:51:27.320
So if you come back from the weekend, I was like, I got to go back to these people ahead.
00:51:40.100
We knew people were making money on YouTube, but we didn't we didn't think it was going
00:51:51.200
And most recently, over the last three years, we dealt in politics.
00:51:57.000
And as I understand it, there is this one video that you guys call your first political
00:52:16.860
That dude was not, dude was small wearing that hat.
00:52:19.880
That dude look like he's a pretty big guy, man.
00:52:23.100
I bet you wouldn't have came up to me if I was wearing that hat.
00:52:28.340
Yeah, I've been sitting there eating my burger and fries.
00:52:34.320
I told you, I said, these are some damn good fries.
00:52:50.680
Yeah, what's wrong with making America great again?
00:52:52.620
Ain't nothing wrong with making America great again, man.
00:52:59.680
unfollowed me yesterday just because I was taking up a little
00:53:13.940
with your Make America hat again without getting assaulted.
00:53:25.360
Yeah, that's that lady with that James Brown action.
00:53:32.660
If I'm wrong for taking up for a kid who got assaulted and robbed,
00:54:13.980
And initially, we didn't want to come out politically
00:54:16.060
because we know it's going to alienate half a fan base.
00:54:30.720
So we kept doing the videos and kept doing them.
00:54:33.280
And we never knew it was going to take off the way it did.
00:54:39.200
saying everybody on the right was white supremacists
00:54:41.100
and they wouldn't really like me to begin with.
00:54:45.880
And as a black man, I've been all over this country
00:54:50.480
All this hatred that the left's preaching about.
00:54:54.820
are just great people and just want to be left alone
00:55:14.660
And if I believed that, I wouldn't be where I am.
00:55:17.520
And a lot of people need to take a look at the miracles.
00:55:25.020
sometimes you got to go out and create your own opportunities.
00:55:33.000
Maybe your opportunity is not because you're black.
00:55:49.440
And just a traditional way of earning a living is gone.
00:56:00.000
Because it's still the greatest country on all this planet.
00:56:06.940
I don't know, a month or a month and a half ago.
00:56:10.900
which sum up a lot of thoughts that I've also had.
00:56:53.060
well, of course they're black because I'm black.
00:57:03.700
Yeah, you already believe that you're so standard.
00:57:14.820
She happens to be a beautiful girl that's white,
00:57:22.060
And obviously you can point to a lot of white people
00:57:34.600
which is like the CRT stuff being shoved on your,