The Megyn Kelly Show - Kash Patel Spars on the Hill, New Crooks Files, Nick Reiner Won't Face Death Penalty： AM Update 9⧸16

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00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. It's Wednesday, September 16th,

00:00:36.840 2026. And this is your AM update. By the way, I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000

00:00:42.900 percent since you became United States Senator. An FBI oversight hearing erupting into insults,

00:00:48.760 accusations and downright bizarre exchanges as Director Kash Patel battles fierce critics

00:00:55.080 on Capitol Hill. A possible sighting of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks with two unidentified

00:01:01.220 men weeks before the assassination attempt, among the new details emerging from the latest release

00:01:07.280 of FBI files on the Trump shooter. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk

00:01:13.240 about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months. Attorney General Todd Blanche

00:01:18.700 facing the White House press corps weighing in on the escalating AI battle and then some. And the

00:01:24.740 death penalty off the table for Rob Reiner's son, Nick Reiner. All that and more coming up

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00:02:39.020 FBI Director Cash Patel facing nearly five hours of grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday

00:02:46.220 as a routine Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing erupted into a series of sometimes

00:02:52.260 personal and at times downright bizarre confrontations. Lawmakers from both parties

00:02:58.180 pressing Patel over everything from controversial firings and election monitoring to the Bureau's

00:03:03.580 newly released hiring standards. Director Patel opening on offense, listing out a series of FBI

00:03:10.380 accomplishments under his leadership. The FBI has arrested 54,000 violent criminals. That's up 90%

00:03:20.540 from the 18-month-year period prior to that. 31,000 violent gang members have been arrested

00:03:26.740 by the FBI. We've removed, the FBI has removed 3,258 kilograms of fentanyl. That's enough to

00:03:34.280 kill a quarter billion Americans. We have located, found and identified 11,081 child victims. That is

00:03:43.660 up 21 percent. That is making America safe. We have arrested 5,072 child predators and human

00:03:51.100 traffickers. That's up 13 percent. This FBI have arrested 4,260 foreign terrorist organization

00:03:59.100 related affiliates. That's up 38 percent, including the fact that this FBI has stopped

00:04:06.200 1,100 criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The victory

00:04:12.780 lap soon giving way to one of the hearing's strangest disputes. CBS News reporting the FBI

00:04:18.780 issued new guidance in June, removing the automatic disqualification of some applicants

00:04:24.600 who previously stole from an employer, paid for sex, or engaged in bestiality or animal cruelty

00:04:33.940 before turning 18, ranking Democrat Dick Durbin, arguing the Bureau had lowered its standards,

00:04:41.040 while Director Patel contended the change had been badly mischaracterized.

00:04:45.220 Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter.

00:04:48.780 We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked.

00:04:53.860 We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you are a victim of these awful, heinous acts.

00:05:01.300 They still have to go to the same rigorous standards and application process.

00:05:04.700 We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country who may be most motivated to serve our FBI workforce.

00:05:13.260 He's no longer protecting those who've been charged with bestiality.

00:05:16.740 He's protecting those who are victims.

00:05:18.540 just turned it upside down.

00:05:20.460 No, you did.

00:05:21.380 You actually did because you lied.

00:05:23.480 Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana

00:05:25.960 trying to pin down precisely

00:05:27.660 who the revised policy was intended to protect.

00:05:31.980 Tell me what it said before.

00:05:34.220 It automatically disqualified any individual

00:05:37.180 who participated on either side of it.

00:05:39.960 Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminal.

00:05:42.160 This side of what? The bestiality?

00:05:44.180 Yes.

00:05:44.640 So you disqualified the animal?

00:05:48.540 Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify.

00:05:52.200 I understand. I'm trying to understand why you did this.

00:05:56.300 If Joe if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human.

00:06:05.040 Don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified if he voluntarily did it?

00:06:09.520 Sure. But if he was trafficked into it, how do you involuntarily do it?

00:06:13.360 And in a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution, they traffic you for degrading acts of all kind, and they force you into that type of conduct.

00:06:26.020 And some of these individuals would go on to be law enforcement officers who qualified to be law enforcement officers and later applied to the FBI.

00:06:32.560 Director Patel saying he initially reacted to the proposal much as Kennedy did,

00:06:37.600 before bureau officials showed him actual cases involving trafficking victims who later applied

00:06:43.400 to the FBI. The revised policy allowing those applicants to receive individual consideration,

00:06:49.500 with Patel insisting anyone who voluntarily committed the act would still be rejected and

00:06:54.640 prosecuted. Two months before the midterm elections, the questioning then shifting to

00:06:59.180 what role the FBI intends to play on Election Day.

00:07:02.920 Democrat Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont

00:07:05.200 pointing to comments from Michigan Republican

00:07:07.340 gubernatorial candidate John James,

00:07:09.740 who claimed Patel personally assured him

00:07:12.200 that the bureau would have a presence

00:07:14.080 in both western and southeastern Michigan,

00:07:16.940 the question triggering one of the hearing's

00:07:19.020 most explosive exchanges.

00:07:20.920 We have election crisis coordinators

00:07:25.240 manned at all 56 field offices election integrity is of paramount importance this fbi is not going

00:07:33.320 to shy away from that effort and if you want to continue lying about the men and women of the fbi

00:07:38.980 so you can have your four second campanette go ahead do you pledge that you will not in any way

00:07:45.260 interfere in the will of the american people when they go to the polls in november i pledge

00:07:51.060 unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.

00:07:54.880 Then why are you being such a panderer to President Trump, who's still claiming that

00:08:01.120 he won the 2020 election? What I believe in is the rule of law. What I will always believe in

00:08:06.440 is executing the rule of law. Are you done with your campaign ad? By the way, it's been rigged.

00:08:13.100 I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000% since you became a United States senator.

00:08:17.620 The temperature climbing even higher during Democrat Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey's turn.

00:08:23.760 Once Mr. Booker's allotted time expired, Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley trying

00:08:28.260 unsuccessfully to move the hearing along as Booker and Patel continued trading insults.

00:08:34.700 I'm going to hold this man accountable for as long as he's in his job until he gets fired,

00:08:38.580 which he probably will because he's incompetent at his job and continues to do things that merit

00:08:43.580 his removal. Yes, shame on you, sir. Director Patel, were you done?

00:08:47.620 By the way, violent crime arrests by the FBI in New Jersey are up 75% on top of the historic results we've already delivered for the American people.

00:08:54.600 Yeah, thanks to the state police and local police officers.

00:08:56.320 Irrespective of the lies that he continues to tell.

00:08:58.840 There are nothing I have said here as a lie.

00:09:00.420 You said your time's up. Are you done or not?

00:09:02.160 No, are you done or not, sir?

00:09:03.260 You want to answer my questions?

00:09:04.980 If you want to answer my questions, go to the next person. 0.99

00:09:06.800 This is ridiculous. What a mockery you are. 1.00

00:09:09.700 You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate, and you're sitting next to the ship. 0.99

00:09:12.580 Yeah, well, 8 million people in New Jersey don't think so. 0.94

00:09:14.900 At least I didn't get my job the way you got your job, sir.

00:09:17.540 Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions too?

00:09:21.060 I certainly will not.

00:09:21.760 Too as well?

00:09:23.020 I certainly will not.

00:09:23.780 Are you done now?

00:09:24.320 I am done. 0.96

00:09:25.120 Are you ready to shut up?

00:09:26.600 I am done, sir.

00:09:29.360 More than two years after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on President Trump during a campaign

00:09:35.360 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new release of FBI records revealing previously undisclosed

00:09:41.200 details about the gunman's contacts and the early investigation.

00:09:45.280 The FBI publishing its eighth batch of files on Crooks, including interview summaries,

00:09:51.820 evidence records, and internal communications collected after the July 2024 assassination

00:09:57.700 attempt. Journalist Tom Elliott reviewing the files, highlighting several encounters that he

00:10:03.660 argues complicate the familiar portrait of Crooks as a loner who did virtually everything by himself.

00:10:11.040 The most notable involving a gun store roughly 120 miles from Crooks' home.

00:10:16.220 According to an FBI interview record cited by Elliott, Keystone Armory in Edinburgh contacted

00:10:22.180 investigators after the shooting to report that a man resembling Crooks had visited the store on

00:10:27.920 May 25, 2024. Employees reportedly describing the man as spending roughly an hour inside,

00:10:35.020 accompanied by one man believed to be in his 30s

00:10:38.880 and another older man with a gray beard.

00:10:42.440 The customer purchasing 20 rounds of ammo,

00:10:45.320 though not the same type Crooks used

00:10:47.320 in the assassination attempt.

00:10:49.620 After the July shooting,

00:10:50.900 the store contacting the FBI

00:10:52.400 and supplying investigators with its surveillance video.

00:10:56.540 Elliott noting Crooks was scheduled to attend

00:10:58.700 a firearms class elsewhere in Pennsylvania

00:11:01.100 later that afternoon,

00:11:03.080 making the timeline possible,

00:11:04.380 though not conclusive. A separate FBI interview summary documenting another interaction one day

00:11:10.420 before the assassination attempt. Officials at the Clareton Sportsman's Club telling investigators

00:11:16.920 that surveillance video showed crooks speaking with another man while the two men were alone

00:11:21.780 on the rifle range July 12th. Agents reportedly photographing the unidentified man and his vehicle

00:11:28.340 from images held by a club official, then checking the names listed in the range's sign-in records.

00:11:34.380 The release offering no public account of what investigators ultimately learned about that

00:11:39.540 encounter. Other records revealing agents were searching for a third cell phone believed to be

00:11:45.280 connected to Crooks. On July 21st, agents reportedly conducting a coordinated search

00:11:50.920 of the wooded area and a nearby dumpster for what the document calls, quote, a phone believed to be

00:11:57.400 associated with Thomas Crooks. Investigators also searching an apartment complex whose coordinates

00:12:03.860 had been stored on one of Crooks' devices. By that point, investigators had already recovered

00:12:09.440 Crooks' primary Samsung phone from his body. The evidence log also listing a second Samsung

00:12:16.240 containing a year of calls and messages ending in July 2023. Elliot noting the separate search

00:12:23.960 in the wooded area indicates agents believed Crooks had possessed a third device, though he

00:12:29.500 reports they found nothing. The FBI maintaining that Crooks acted alone, saying its investigation

00:12:35.760 included more than 1,000 interviews, roughly 2,000 public tips, 100 subpoenas, and the examination of

00:12:43.220 13 electronic devices. Coming up, a wide-ranging White House briefing from Attorney General Todd

00:12:50.980 Blanche, addressing AI and a potential investigation into actress Hayden Panettiere's death, and

00:12:57.800 prosecutors ruling out the death penalty for Nick Reiner.

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00:14:09.980 Attorney General Todd Blanche hosting the White House press briefing from the Rose Garden yesterday

00:14:14.720 as the latest administration member to fill in for the vacant press secretary position.

00:14:20.040 The briefing is spending some time on the hot topic of the week, AI.

00:14:24.740 A.G. Blanche addressing what role the DOJ will play as the tech advances.

00:14:29.600 As far as AI is concerned, we have a lot of, there's a lot of criminal laws.

00:14:34.520 And so if anybody associated with AI violates criminal law, we'll investigate that.

00:14:39.700 We already have.

00:14:40.380 There's plenty of cases involving AI that we've charged individuals.

00:14:43.340 I do not think it's the job of the Department of Justice to regulate.

00:14:47.240 We're prosecutors, not regulators.

00:14:49.060 So we're not going to try to regulate AI.

00:14:52.360 AI is extraordinarily beneficial to our society.

00:14:55.620 There's a lot of great work that AI does.

00:14:58.540 And it's also something that conveniently has become a flashpoint this week.

00:15:02.600 And the president spoke about that, and I very much agree with him.

00:15:05.340 The flashpoint erupting after some of the country's largest AI companies are now calling for lawmakers to regulate their own industry

00:15:12.340 and slow their pace of development, warning of potentially catastrophic risks.

00:15:18.280 President Trump branding the campaign a hoax, while critics question whether the industry's

00:15:22.860 biggest players are using regulation to protect their position and box out smaller competitors.

00:15:29.020 A.G. Blanche, too, questioning the timing of the campaign.

00:15:32.880 This AI issue that's suddenly come up two months before an election is being,

00:15:38.020 the president calls it a hoax. The way this has come around today and not three months ago,

00:15:43.700 I mean, I was watching the news today.

00:15:45.980 Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months.

00:15:52.460 So to talk about the timing of this as being nothing but an effort to influence the midterms, I shouldn't have to say that out loud.

00:15:59.840 Of course that's what it is.

00:16:01.820 And that shouldn't be what drives the decisions that we're making around AI.

00:16:07.360 We can't lose the AI race to China, right?

00:16:10.620 President Trump says that, everybody says that, but they say it because it's true.

00:16:14.740 A.G. Blanche also addressing reports actress Hayden Panettiere may have died after taking a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl

00:16:22.920 and what the DOJ is doing to target the people selling those deadly drugs.

00:16:27.480 So when it comes to fentanyl, they're not fake pills, they're death pills, right?

00:16:31.700 So they're pills that kill people.

00:16:32.940 And there's a federal statute that allows us to go after, assuming we can prove who the dealer is, to go after them and put them in prison for murder.

00:16:42.980 And we do it in every district in this country, and it's a big emphasis of DA, Minister Cole, and our prosecutors around the country.

00:16:52.440 So when we can prove, and sometimes if somebody's an addict, it's difficult to prove who they actually got the pill from.

00:16:58.820 But in the cases where we know who the dealer was and we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person sold the death pill to the victim who then dies, that's a federal crime.

00:17:11.380 And that's something that we will readily prosecute as often as we can.

00:17:16.760 L.A. prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table in the case against Nick Reiner, the 33-year-old accused of murdering his parents, famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner, and wife photographer.

00:17:28.820 and producer, Michelle. Reiner accused of fatally stabbing his parents inside their Brentwood home

00:17:34.540 during the early morning hours of December 14th. A massage therapist arriving for a scheduled

00:17:40.060 appointment that afternoon, contacting the couple's daughter, Romy, after no one answered

00:17:44.860 the gate. Romy discovering her father's body, first responders finding both Rob and Michelle

00:17:50.860 dead inside. Police arresting Nick later that evening near the University of Southern California,

00:17:57.060 roughly 13 miles from the crime scene. Prosecutors charging Reiner two days later,

00:18:02.880 the case initially moving toward a preliminary hearing to determine whether they had enough

00:18:07.120 evidence to take him to trial. A grand jury instead returning an indictment on July 20th,

00:18:13.440 allowing prosecutors to bypass that hearing. The indictment unsealed August 12th, charging Reiner

00:18:20.000 with two counts of first-degree murder and alleging the special circumstances of multiple murders

00:18:25.840 and murder by means of lying in wait.

00:18:29.440 Reiner pleading not guilty to the entire indictment that same day,

00:18:33.500 Reiner currently being held without bail in downtown L.A.

00:18:36.760 The special circumstance charges making him eligible for either the death penalty

00:18:41.320 or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

00:18:45.120 Ahead of yesterday's pretrial hearing, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hockman

00:18:50.380 announcing which punishment his office will pursue.

00:18:53.620 After a careful and thorough review of all these factors, the district attorney's office will not

00:18:59.760 be seeking the death penalty in this case. That means that the maximum sentence that Mr. Reiner

00:19:05.060 will be looking at is life without the possibility of parole. We did speak with Nick Reiner's

00:19:11.420 siblings. They made their views very clear. We took their views into consideration

00:19:16.640 and ultimately deciding not to seek the death penalty.

00:19:20.140 Hockman declining to reveal precisely what Jake and Romy Reiner told prosecutors,

00:19:25.480 Rob and Michelle themselves longtime opponents of the death penalty. NBC News reporting the

00:19:31.020 couple previously advocated on behalf of Texas death row inmate Nainan Williams,

00:19:36.380 developing a close relationship with him over several years. Nick Reiner appearing in court

00:19:41.480 yesterday in a brown jail jumpsuit and shackles reportedly remaining expressionless throughout

00:19:47.260 the brief hearing. Reiner, meanwhile, waging a parallel legal fight in probate court, seeking

00:19:53.460 access to roughly $1.5 million from a trust established by his parents to help pay for his

00:19:59.740 defense. That dispute returning to court October 23rd. We spoke with the MK True Crime show co-host

00:20:06.940 Phil Holloway about why the DA may have taken the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors almost

00:20:13.060 universally take into account the wishes and the desires of surviving family members when they make

00:20:19.340 the decision, often a hard decision on whether or not to seek the death penalty in a case. But that

00:20:24.580 doesn't mean that the wishes of any survivors necessarily completely drive the decision. After

00:20:30.440 all, the tail doesn't wag the dog. The prosecutor has other considerations as well. Certain things

00:20:36.420 like the practical effect of the decision. Will the death penalty ever be carried out if a jury

00:20:43.280 were to impose it? And in California, the answer is almost certainly no. There's been a moratorium

00:20:48.640 in place in California since March 13th, 2019, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

00:20:58.340 And that'll do it for your AM Update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for the MK Show,

00:21:03.040 live on SiriusXM's

00:21:04.260 The Megyn Kelly Channel

00:21:05.060 111 at noon east

00:21:06.600 on youtube.com

00:21:08.140 slash megynkelly

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The Megyn Kelly Show - September 16, 2026

Kash Patel Spars on the Hill, New Crooks Files, Nick Reiner Won't Face Death Penalty： AM Update 9⧸16

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