The Megyn Kelly Show - October 08, 2025


Katie Porter's Interview Meltdown, AOC's "Body-Shaming," and the Truth About Biden Corruption, with Link Lauren and Ken Vogel | Ep. 1167


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 45 minutes

Words per Minute

187.0143

Word Count

19,757

Sentence Count

1,472

Misogynist Sentences

115

Hate Speech Sentences

41


Summary

The leading candidate to be the next Governor of California is a nightmare. She completely implodes in a spectacular fashion in a new interview simply because she was asked what she would say to voters who supported President Trump to get them to vote for her in the primary. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is out there on her book tour calling Republicans "motherfucking morons." Meantime, former Congresswoman Katie Porter could not handle the thought of talking directly to Republicans at all.


Transcript

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00:00:30.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
00:00:42.280 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:45.660 The leading candidate to be the next governor of California is a nightmare.
00:00:50.220 It's so fun. This is the best story.
00:00:52.940 Have you seen this?
00:00:54.080 She completely imploded in a spectacular fashion in a new interview simply because she was asked what she would say to voters who supported President Trump to try to get them to vote for her in this gubernatorial race.
00:01:10.560 I mean, is that so hard?
00:01:13.720 It's basically like, what do you say to people on the other side of the aisle whose votes might be helpful to you?
00:01:20.480 That's it.
00:01:21.380 This is very foreseeable and really not that hard.
00:01:24.660 You know, I understand your complaints.
00:01:28.540 I know there are a lot of disaffected California Republicans who haven't been at whatever.
00:01:32.560 That's so easy.
00:01:33.600 That is a softball question.
00:01:34.880 We're talking about former Congresswoman Katie Porter, who could not handle the thought of talking directly to Republicans at all.
00:01:43.500 I mean, it completely froze her brain.
00:01:46.180 Instead, she tried to shut down the interview because she only wanted to have a, quote, positive conversation.
00:01:53.440 I just want a positive conversation.
00:01:55.680 I'm here for a pleasant experience.
00:01:58.220 That's actually what she said.
00:02:00.620 Meantime, former Vice President Kamala Harris is out there on her book tour calling Republicans motherfuckers.
00:02:07.140 So it's come to that.
00:02:08.500 Joining me now on all this news and more, Link Lauren, host of Spot On with Link Lauren on the MK Media Podcast Network.
00:02:15.860 Link will be joining me on the MK Live Tour in Fort Worth, Texas, his home state.
00:02:22.620 That's October 25th at Dickies Arena.
00:02:26.360 It's going to be so much fun.
00:02:27.220 So go get your tickets right now before they sell out.
00:02:29.160 MeganKelley.com.
00:02:30.500 If you want to see me and Link together and meet us behind the scenes, too, you can find all of the 10 stops we'll be making on the tour there at MeganKelley.com.
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00:03:43.420 Link, great to see you.
00:03:45.880 How's it going?
00:03:46.380 Cannot wait to see you in person.
00:03:48.180 I know.
00:03:48.920 I'm so excited to be back in my hometown being from Dallas.
00:03:52.100 I was just talking to some folks last night who are getting their tickets.
00:03:54.700 They're coming to the show.
00:03:55.820 My pitch to everyone listening, come out and have a good girls' night in Fort Worth.
00:04:00.680 I have so many groups of girls who are coming to Billy Bob's.
00:04:03.220 They're going to see the stockyards.
00:04:04.440 They're going to go get drinks.
00:04:05.700 Make their way over to the show.
00:04:07.000 Nestle in.
00:04:07.960 And then the last thing I wanted to say is, I know there are a lot of folks who live alone, right?
00:04:11.540 There might be someone who hasn't gotten off the couch in a week or months.
00:04:15.120 Come to the show, okay?
00:04:16.420 Come to the show.
00:04:17.060 You're going to make friends in line, going through security, sitting around you.
00:04:20.280 Very seldom can you get this many like-minded individuals who are a fun night out, okay?
00:04:24.120 People who have common sense.
00:04:25.480 So come to the show, and I'm so excited.
00:04:27.160 That is my pitch.
00:04:28.540 I love your pitch.
00:04:29.660 It's a great pitch.
00:04:30.540 That's how I feel.
00:04:31.420 It's like, you know, originally when we were doing the tour, they asked,
00:04:34.120 do you want to just do like two weeks straight where you just go night after night?
00:04:36.900 And the more we thought about it, the more we're like, people don't want to leave their house on a Sunday night or a Monday night.
00:04:41.920 You know, like you want to go out a Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
00:04:44.680 So we're like, let's move it so that it's like a few weekends over the course of a couple of months so that people want to go.
00:04:51.180 So that's the whole goal.
00:04:52.320 So like make it an event.
00:04:54.120 Come out like a party.
00:04:55.820 We're going to have a great time.
00:04:57.280 We're going to have a lot of laughs.
00:04:58.440 We're going to have smart discussions.
00:05:00.060 It's like we will make it worthwhile for you to actually get up off your couch,
00:05:03.800 get dressed and go through security and get in there.
00:05:06.820 I get it because I am a homebody, too.
00:05:09.800 I don't love to do that kind of thing.
00:05:11.420 So believe me.
00:05:12.620 Between Link and yours truly, we'll make sure it's fine.
00:05:15.280 I will do my Jasmine Crockett impression during the show, I promise, in Dallas.
00:05:19.480 Watch it.
00:05:20.120 Something tells me the crowd in Dallas might want the Jasmine Crockett impression.
00:05:24.540 I will do it for you guys.
00:05:25.880 I'm a martyr.
00:05:26.520 So get your damn tickets, OK?
00:05:28.320 You are a giver.
00:05:29.760 Now, if only we could book Katie Porter because I think she'd be better than either one of us.
00:05:33.160 I had no idea she was this entertaining.
00:05:35.540 None.
00:05:36.200 I love everything about this interview.
00:05:39.440 I don't remember the last time I went and bothered Doug, my husband,
00:05:43.320 like after seeing something on my phone and said,
00:05:45.800 you need to sit down next to me and we need to watch this together next to one another.
00:05:50.040 And that's what you and I are about to do with this audience who, unlike us, have lives
00:05:55.120 and probably are not sitting around watching every minute of Katie Porter because why would you
00:05:59.240 unless you were in this business?
00:06:00.480 But we're going to do it today because it's our gift to you.
00:06:02.520 We screen all the nonsense hits so that you only get the gold ones, members of the audience.
00:06:10.060 And Link and I would like to bring you the Katie Porter interview.
00:06:13.040 But here, I'm going to set it up first, OK?
00:06:14.680 So she's running for governor of California.
00:06:16.700 She's got the inside track.
00:06:18.360 And she sits down with this journalist from the local CBS who's an investigative journalist
00:06:22.560 who's been doing a series of interviews of all the candidates and asking the same,
00:06:27.760 I don't know, like 10 questions of them.
00:06:29.220 And it's been going fine.
00:06:31.540 This is not new in politics.
00:06:34.120 This is a time-tested way of doing a candidate comparison.
00:06:38.780 And so she starts off with the other candidates and then eventually she gets to Porter.
00:06:43.540 Here is a sampling of how it went when she sat down with the other candidates asking the same
00:06:50.800 questions that caused Katie Porter to self-immolate.
00:06:55.200 Here's thought two.
00:06:57.520 Six million voters who voted for Trump is a lot of votes.
00:07:00.300 Are you going to need those votes in order to win if you're a top two?
00:07:03.540 I need every vote.
00:07:04.660 What do you say to those 40 percent who you may need in a top two California primary?
00:07:08.720 I think them specifically.
00:07:09.780 I think they're tired of politicians just talking at them.
00:07:13.620 And I feel like they just want to be heard and they want to want to listen.
00:07:17.380 When it comes to redistricting.
00:07:18.540 Yeah.
00:07:18.740 Are you alienating those Republicans by saying, yes, I support what Gavin Newsom is doing?
00:07:24.180 You know, look, I would look at the polls of the state right now.
00:07:27.320 The polls say protect California, whatever the California customers want.
00:07:31.540 I will be their leader and representative.
00:07:34.600 OK, it's not hard.
00:07:36.300 Literally, you can you can pivot to something you do, put whatever you want in there.
00:07:40.340 Just say something resembling anything.
00:07:42.180 It's so good.
00:07:46.320 OK, so then sits down Katie Porter and the audience.
00:07:49.900 You guys, you need to know she's long suffered under reports that she's a bully, that she's
00:07:55.640 extremely nasty to her staff and people around her, like not just like a tough boss, but abusive.
00:08:02.100 She had this crazy thing with her ex-husband where he he said she was abusive toward him
00:08:07.300 and was like controlled whether or not he could have a phone and was verbally abusive to him.
00:08:13.100 And like it said that that's what we knew about Katie Porter before this interview.
00:08:18.940 The lady seems to have a temper, a temper temperament problem.
00:08:24.220 So glad we get to do this together.
00:08:26.860 Here is the interview that went around the world.
00:08:30.840 We're going to air these three and a half minutes in full and you can see for yourselves how it went.
00:08:37.300 What do you say to the 40 percent of California voters who you'll need in order to win who voted for Trump?
00:08:45.360 How would I need them in order to win?
00:08:47.620 Well, unless you think you're going to get 60 percent of the vote, you think you'll get 60 percent.
00:08:52.920 Everybody who did not vote for Trump will vote for you.
00:08:55.120 That's what you're saying.
00:08:55.940 In a general election?
00:08:57.280 Yes.
00:08:58.180 If it is me versus a Republican, I think that I will win the people who did not vote for Trump.
00:09:02.820 What if it's you versus another Democrat?
00:09:04.340 I don't intend that to be the case.
00:09:05.700 So how do you not intend that to be the case?
00:09:09.060 Do you are you going to ask them not to run?
00:09:11.480 You know, I'm saying I'm going to build the support.
00:09:13.440 I have the support already in terms of name recognition.
00:09:15.800 And so I'm going to do the very best I can to make sure that we get through this primary in a really strong position.
00:09:20.420 But let me be clear with you.
00:09:21.800 I represented Orange County.
00:09:23.380 I represented a purple area.
00:09:25.120 I have stood on my own two feet and won Republican votes before.
00:09:28.240 That's not something every candidate in this race can say.
00:09:30.760 If you're from a deep blue area, if you're from L.A. or you're from Oakland, you don't have an experience.
00:09:36.060 But you just said you don't need those Trump voters.
00:09:38.260 Well, you asked me if I needed them to win.
00:09:40.240 So you don't think you need them to win.
00:09:40.900 I feel like this is unnecessarily argumentative.
00:09:42.880 What is your question?
00:09:44.240 The question is the same thing I asked everybody, that this is being called the empowering voters to stop Trump's power grab.
00:09:52.020 Every other candidate has answered this question.
00:09:53.620 This is not argumentative.
00:09:54.720 And I said I support it.
00:09:56.440 So and the question is, what do you say to the 40 percent of voters who voted for Trump?
00:10:01.560 Oh, I'm happy to say that.
00:10:02.760 It's the do you need them to win part that I don't understand.
00:10:05.420 I'm happy to answer the question as you have it written and I'll answer it.
00:10:08.380 And we've also asked the other candidates, do you think you need any of those 40 percent of California voters to win?
00:10:13.900 And you're saying, no, you don't.
00:10:15.060 No, I'm saying I'm going to try to win every vote I can.
00:10:18.180 And what I'm saying to you is that.
00:10:20.800 Well, to those voters.
00:10:21.700 OK, so you.
00:10:22.740 I don't want to keep doing this.
00:10:23.640 I'm going to call it.
00:10:24.300 Oh, thank you.
00:10:27.240 You're not going to do the interview with us.
00:10:29.380 Nope, not like this.
00:10:30.140 I'm not not with seven follow ups to every single question you ask.
00:10:33.280 Every other candidate has answered.
00:10:35.020 I don't care.
00:10:35.600 I don't care.
00:10:36.300 I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation, which you ask me about every issue on this list.
00:10:41.600 And if every question you're going to make up a follow up question, then we're never going to get there.
00:10:47.020 And we're just going to circle around.
00:10:48.400 I am an investigative reporter.
00:10:49.700 I have never had to do this before.
00:10:50.860 Ever.
00:10:51.440 Oh, you've never had to have a conversation with a reporter.
00:10:56.260 OK, but every other candidate has done this.
00:10:58.320 What part of I'm me.
00:11:00.860 I'm running for governor because I'm a leader.
00:11:02.660 So I am going to make.
00:11:04.400 So you're not going to answer questions from reporters?
00:11:06.940 OK, why don't we go through.
00:11:08.220 I will continue to ask follow up questions because that's my job as a journalist.
00:11:11.700 But I will go through and ask these.
00:11:13.260 And if you don't want to answer, you don't want to answer.
00:11:16.000 So nearly every legislative.
00:11:17.960 I am.
00:11:18.480 I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you.
00:11:21.300 And I don't want this on camera.
00:11:22.780 I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you either.
00:11:24.720 I would love to continue to ask these questions so that we can show our viewers what every candidate feels about every one of these issues that they care about.
00:11:33.380 And redistricting is a massive issue.
00:11:35.020 We're going to do an entire story just on the responses to that question.
00:11:38.360 And I've asked everybody the same follow up questions.
00:11:40.700 It's so good.
00:11:45.000 I want to tell the audience that reporter is Julie Watts, CBS News.
00:11:49.760 And my own take on it is Katie Porter's not ready for primetime.
00:11:53.180 That's obvious.
00:11:53.900 You could tell from the dress she was wearing, the lighting she accepted, and her absolute meltdown on being asked follow up questions.
00:12:01.480 I mean, pretty basic follow up questions.
00:12:03.080 But I will say there was something mildly antagonistic about this Julie Watts that I loved.
00:12:10.800 It was like everything she said was so by the book.
00:12:14.700 And her tone wasn't bad either.
00:12:16.320 There was just something very needling about it that it was absolutely delicious.
00:12:20.920 And Katie Porter, she was responding a bit to that and also to her own ineptitude mostly.
00:12:27.140 But that's what made it so compelling is that the reporter didn't give one inch and clearly was like, fuck off.
00:12:33.740 This is happening.
00:12:34.860 And Katie Porter knew she had humiliated herself and kept looking for the moral high ground but couldn't get there.
00:12:40.700 She was desperately trying to get there and just never could.
00:12:44.540 She obviously ended her campaign.
00:12:46.780 I mean, what Californian would vote for that?
00:12:50.920 I mean, it's going to be tough to come back from.
00:12:52.720 It honestly felt like a scene from that show Homeland when they're doing an interrogation.
00:12:56.400 Like one light, one overhead light interrogation.
00:13:00.360 But Katie Porter, this is what it's like being a Democrat, right?
00:13:02.760 Joe Biden, people would ask him what his favorite ice cream flavor was.
00:13:05.900 So I think they've gotten so spoiled they're not used to actually having real questions.
00:13:09.980 But none of those were tough questions.
00:13:11.620 It was like, hey, how are you going to reach the other side of the aisle?
00:13:14.300 This isn't rocket science, okay?
00:13:15.700 You don't have to be in Mensa to answer that question.
00:13:17.740 But Katie Porter, I think she probably has anger issues from the stories we've heard and the rumors we've heard around California.
00:13:23.720 I also just feel like Katie Porter, I thought she was transgender.
00:13:26.860 Until today, I thought Katie Porter was transgender.
00:13:29.260 From the way that she looked, apparently she is not.
00:13:31.740 But I don't know who has more testosterone.
00:13:33.540 Michelle Obama, Brigitte McCrone, or Katie Porter, okay?
00:13:36.440 Because Katie Porter, she looked like one of those people, you know, like back in the day, like the bearded ladies at the circus.
00:13:41.880 Like the people who could like lift 500 pounds and stuff.
00:13:44.400 That's how I felt about Katie Porter.
00:13:46.100 Like her poor husband, when he doesn't give her the TV remote, does he get a black eye or something?
00:13:50.200 So no, I would not want to be with her in private if that's how she's acting in public.
00:13:54.120 And my last thing I'll say is, if you're going to do a walk-off, okay, you guys need to watch Andy Cohen.
00:13:58.780 If you're going to do a walk-off, you've got to walk off.
00:14:00.800 You can't like kind of walk off and then you stay.
00:14:03.180 You either walk off or you don't do the BS and the theatrics of it all.
00:14:06.760 Yeah, I love my favorite part is, I'm me, I'm me.
00:14:12.880 And I don't want to have an unhappy experience.
00:14:17.260 You know, Dan, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.
00:14:21.120 I don't want to have an unhappy experience.
00:14:23.120 And the reporter's like, I don't want to have an unhappy experience either.
00:14:26.240 But like she kept shaming her with the, every candidate has answered these questions.
00:14:30.960 Every candidate has answered these questions.
00:14:32.560 And it paralyzed Katie Porter because she's not actually just me.
00:14:35.720 She was not able to say, fuck off.
00:14:38.260 I don't really care.
00:14:39.120 You're annoying.
00:14:39.560 I'm getting up and leaving, which actually would have been the power move.
00:14:42.320 She like tried to do the power move without putting the power behind it and just demanding
00:14:47.240 to have a pleasant, positive and happy experience, which is, ma'am, this is politics and news
00:14:54.760 that none of those adjectives applies.
00:14:57.680 Also, I will say it's hard to look like a badass getting up and walking out of a broom closet.
00:15:03.020 Okay.
00:15:03.180 That looked like where Harry Potter lived under the stairs, like this dark, dingy broom closet
00:15:07.640 they were in.
00:15:08.100 They couldn't find a better set.
00:15:09.360 Like I'm such a stickler for lighting.
00:15:11.180 If I am not like blown out like the sun, I won't be in there.
00:15:14.240 You know what I'm saying?
00:15:14.820 I will go Mariah Carey.
00:15:16.040 So for Katie Porter to be sitting in there with like one little candle light a thousand
00:15:20.240 yards away, it's hard to look badass walking out of a broom closet.
00:15:23.340 It's amazing that the reporter allowed it.
00:15:25.140 Like I'm surprised.
00:15:25.980 Can we roll the tape without running the sound for a second?
00:15:28.200 Because I want to show something on Katie Porter's shot.
00:15:31.460 The reporter, honestly, CBS should have done a more professional job in lighting the scene
00:15:35.680 and picking like a lot of times you do a newsroom interview.
00:15:38.260 It's exciting you're in the newsroom, but like this was not it.
00:15:41.700 And on the single shot of Katie, look how it looks like there's something blue sticking
00:15:45.680 out of her neck.
00:15:46.520 Hold on.
00:15:46.780 It looks like she's got like a blue flag coming out of the right side of her neck.
00:15:49.580 We'll get back there.
00:15:50.500 Stand by.
00:15:50.900 Um, they never should have allowed that.
00:15:53.920 Like Katie Porter should have sat down.
00:15:55.740 She need look right there.
00:15:56.680 It's so weird.
00:15:57.420 It was there the whole time is clearly like a piece of tape or a light.
00:16:01.400 I couldn't tell the difference on some something behind Katie.
00:16:04.120 It looked terrible.
00:16:04.820 It was so distracting.
00:16:06.080 This is why Trump does so well.
00:16:07.400 Link, you sit down in any interview as a monitor to see things.
00:16:11.440 Um, and he'll say the light needs to come up, pet up with the camera.
00:16:16.180 This vase needs to go like that's what a lifetime intelligence will do.
00:16:20.180 Clearly, this woman is not focused enough on how one should appear.
00:16:25.620 Let's put it that way.
00:16:26.540 She's in what we call a rough lighting, but my family and friends know I travel with full
00:16:31.680 lighting.
00:16:32.180 I am ready to go at all times.
00:16:34.000 Katie Porter, you need some gay interns.
00:16:36.420 Katie Porter has no gay men around her because she's being sabotaged.
00:16:40.080 But yeah, no, also it's like the sleeveless dress and then kind of like the Helga Oktoberfest
00:16:44.060 haircut.
00:16:44.680 Like, I don't know.
00:16:45.260 I think she's a calamity and we won't be hearing from her a year from now.
00:16:49.180 What did you make of the reporter?
00:16:51.040 Because I also found her very entertaining.
00:16:53.560 I mean, respect.
00:16:54.280 She handled herself like a pro.
00:16:56.180 But do you see what I mean?
00:16:57.140 There was something just mildly antagonistic about like somewhat mocking and like she wouldn't
00:17:03.240 get off.
00:17:04.240 There were seven follow ups to that first question because Katie Porter wouldn't answer
00:17:08.100 it and she just tried to go seven ways from Sunday to make her answer it because Katie
00:17:12.740 Porter was pretending she didn't understand anything and sort of playing dumb and like
00:17:18.000 she wouldn't drop it.
00:17:19.620 And that is something that you don't often see when they're when they're talking to Democrats.
00:17:22.880 Like if they can find if they can see this Democrat target is uncomfortable.
00:17:27.140 Ninety nine percent of reporters move on.
00:17:29.280 They do not want to make them uncomfortable.
00:17:31.660 No, what's interesting is that Katie Porter said, I've never had this happen before.
00:17:35.080 I'm like, you've never been asked a follow up question or second or third question.
00:17:38.960 And like I said, I know I keep coming back to this like a broken record.
00:17:41.560 These were very easy questions.
00:17:43.120 And I feel like when you're running for office, I'm always shocked when politicians aren't
00:17:46.280 ready for questions because there aren't really that many tough questions.
00:17:49.300 It's like, hey, what are you going to do for the voters?
00:17:51.280 How are you going to reach people?
00:17:52.340 How are you going to solve this issue in your state that you live in?
00:17:55.260 I don't know why she's acting like she's caught off guard, but I think there might be a
00:17:58.360 more underlying mental health issue like anger management or some type of personality
00:18:02.460 disorder, which means she's actually perfect for California.
00:18:05.080 She has severe narcissism and a personality disorder.
00:18:08.960 She can join Gavin Newsom in that.
00:18:10.860 But no, Katie Porter, we wish you well.
00:18:13.740 Sort of.
00:18:14.740 She here's here's why I think it happened, because it's a Democrat primary.
00:18:21.760 That is the only time the media asks tough questions of Democrats or is in any way relentless
00:18:26.960 in questioning a Democrat.
00:18:29.020 That's why, because it's dem on dem violence.
00:18:31.780 It's like normally they steer clear of it.
00:18:33.920 If Katie Porter were already the nominee up against a Republican, I'm sorry, I don't know
00:18:38.340 this particular reporter, but the vast majority of the media would not lay a glove on her.
00:18:42.600 There would be no follow up.
00:18:44.020 It would have been a lot more gentle from most reporters.
00:18:47.120 But it's dem on dem contest now.
00:18:50.200 So that's when you see the media actually actually lean into being good journalists like that's great.
00:18:56.220 They actually do want the strongest candidate to emerge so that they can beat the Republican.
00:19:00.080 I think also from a ratings perspective, this journalist is probably thinking, okay, it's
00:19:04.360 my job to be a conduit from, let's say, all Californians.
00:19:07.880 California has been shifting to the right.
00:19:09.680 In this last election, President Trump was able to shift so many counties to the right.
00:19:13.400 They thought Kamala was going to win in this massive landslide because she's from California.
00:19:16.900 She didn't.
00:19:17.500 She won California, obviously.
00:19:19.000 But I think California has been shifting red.
00:19:20.720 People want voter ID.
00:19:21.880 They want common sense.
00:19:22.880 They want to clean up the homelessness.
00:19:23.960 So I actually don't blame this journalist for pressing Katie Porter a little bit.
00:19:27.520 What are you going to do?
00:19:28.640 Because it's a fallacy to think that everyone in California is a diehard liberal.
00:19:32.360 I don't think that's the case.
00:19:33.420 I think about 40 some percent are red.
00:19:35.680 Right.
00:19:36.180 And you can't just ignore them when you're asking to be governor of the whole state.
00:19:39.560 Eventually, you heard her kind of stumble into what should have been the first answer,
00:19:42.760 which is like, I represented a purple area and Orange County.
00:19:46.000 So I understand.
00:19:47.000 Yes, that's that's your answer, madam.
00:19:49.160 That's where you should have gone.
00:19:50.380 I understand those people.
00:19:51.740 I know what their concerns.
00:19:52.840 Then articulate their concerns and say, and they're in my policies on X, Y and Z are much
00:19:58.700 better than this other guy's.
00:19:59.700 That's why I should get the red vote, too.
00:20:02.140 OK, let's keep going, because there's other clips of Katie that I do want to get to.
00:20:06.260 OK, she's super fun, this lady.
00:20:09.240 Here is the Katie Porter comparing herself.
00:20:14.620 Well, I'll let this out play for itself.
00:20:16.180 But she's being asked about those toxic workplace allegations and whether she's a bully.
00:20:20.420 Listen here.
00:20:21.080 So three.
00:20:21.460 And I saw this as a professor, certainly female professors, particularly women of color,
00:20:27.320 get much worse teaching evaluations.
00:20:28.880 Yes.
00:20:29.720 And even when the you know, all the professional evaluations are the same.
00:20:33.020 And so we see this again and again.
00:20:34.600 Lots of the so-called bad bosses are women and disproportionately people of color.
00:20:39.180 I think it's really unfortunate because those are the very voices we need more of in our
00:20:42.420 government.
00:20:42.960 Yeah.
00:20:43.120 So I'm proud of my stuff.
00:20:44.100 I'm proud of the relationship we've built.
00:20:46.180 OK, so she's like a woman of color who was discriminated against when asked about whether
00:20:51.400 she's a bully.
00:20:52.160 This is just April of 2023.
00:20:53.820 That's OK.
00:20:54.440 She's Rosa Parks now.
00:20:56.100 She's that's she's not a bully.
00:20:58.880 She's always been bullied.
00:21:00.440 Democrats get very uncomfortable when you put them in the role of like the victimizer.
00:21:04.220 They're much more comfortable being the victim much.
00:21:08.060 No, absolutely.
00:21:08.820 It's funny.
00:21:09.080 She says she's a woman of color or something.
00:21:10.560 I'm like, no, you're just wearing pink.
00:21:12.080 You're not a woman of color because you're wearing color.
00:21:14.440 But no, it's interesting.
00:21:15.220 There's so many.
00:21:16.040 There's so many up and coming Democrats right now who have bullying allegations.
00:21:19.520 Look at Jasmine Crockett.
00:21:20.800 She was accused of bullying and having people, you know, open the car door for her and snapping
00:21:24.800 at them and making male aides carry her purse and carry a pillow.
00:21:28.140 I think these Democrats are just divas and they're used to everything going their way.
00:21:32.740 That is what is so clear about Katie Porter and every single clip.
00:21:36.120 They're used to nobody pressing them.
00:21:37.500 It's not like President Trump where he gets 99% negative coverage from the mainstream media.
00:21:41.900 Katie Porter knows going on The View.
00:21:43.740 They're going to be pretty positive and nice to her.
00:21:46.060 And then even Kamala Harris.
00:21:47.500 Kamala Harris had tons of bullying allegations.
00:21:50.000 She had 92% staff turnover the four years she was in D.C. as vice president.
00:21:54.180 The media didn't even want to cover that.
00:21:55.820 They didn't want to cover any of that.
00:21:57.160 And so, Katie Porter, we are going to bring your stuff out into the open now because we
00:22:00.420 have new media, we have podcasts, and these Democrats can't hide their horrific behavior
00:22:04.520 any longer.
00:22:05.400 All right.
00:22:05.940 And put a pin in that because we will get to Meghan Markle before the end of this hour
00:22:09.300 when we're talking about badly behaving Democrats who appear to be psychopaths.
00:22:13.460 Listen to her when she Fox's Hillary Vaughn asked her in April of 2024, that first
00:22:19.300 shot, I think I said, was April 2023.
00:22:21.460 Here's a year after, April 2024, asking her about some of the chants we're hearing.
00:22:25.920 And that are anti-Israel and anti-America, SOT 5.
00:22:30.060 Protesters blocking the Brooklyn Bridge burned the American flag and chanted death to America.
00:22:36.420 Do you condemn this type of rhetoric?
00:22:39.920 We've got to get her on to her next event.
00:22:41.960 Are you OK with people burning the American flag?
00:22:44.320 If you'd like to follow up with us.
00:22:47.360 Are you OK with people chanting death to America?
00:22:49.720 She's she's walking.
00:22:53.300 She just won't answer.
00:22:54.200 Congresswoman Porter, are you OK with people chanting death to America?
00:23:00.180 Is it OK?
00:23:01.180 Do you not have a problem with it?
00:23:02.760 Happy to reach out here.
00:23:04.720 I mean, that guy does seem a little gay to me, Link.
00:23:09.280 I don't know.
00:23:10.240 She has one gay assistant, but he's honestly, the people around you might be sabotaging you.
00:23:15.320 I'm happy she was getting some exercise in that clip, though.
00:23:17.520 She was getting sunlight, vitamin D exercise.
00:23:20.160 These are things I think Democrats need more of.
00:23:22.280 But the reason she won't answer is because the Democrats are perfectly fine with Americans
00:23:26.140 chanting, you know, death to America, burning the American flag.
00:23:29.220 As we just saw in Portland with Nick Sorter, who's an independent journalist, he was trying
00:23:32.900 to put out an American flag that they were burning.
00:23:35.300 There is this radical Marxist, you know, faction on the left that's growing and growing.
00:23:40.080 And folks like Katie Porter are so scared of turning them off, they won't condemn that
00:23:43.660 behavior.
00:23:44.120 That's what we're seeing with Chuck Schumer and Haki and Jeffries.
00:23:46.320 They're not radical far left, but they're just capitulating to those folks as they don't
00:23:50.060 want to scare that progressive wing of their party.
00:23:52.580 So the reason Katie Porter didn't answer, it's not because she had to go to an event.
00:23:55.780 It's because she thinks that's fine.
00:23:57.200 Yeah, she was no, she had no problem with it.
00:23:59.580 Here she is behaving dishonestly and as an extremist on the subject of women's rights
00:24:05.920 versus trans rights.
00:24:08.220 She was on with Bill Maher.
00:24:09.640 Thank God Piers Morgan was there.
00:24:11.340 And here's a snippet of what happened in 5B.
00:24:14.980 You should be able to have a civil debate.
00:24:16.500 Nobody, including Riley Gaines, who I disagree with strongly, should be.
00:24:21.160 What do you disagree with out of interest?
00:24:23.320 I think that it should be up to sporting bodies.
00:24:27.200 To make the decisions about who and how she can compete.
00:24:29.820 What has she said that's actually wrong?
00:24:31.560 I think that what she has done is try to turn this.
00:24:34.980 We talked about people, you know, becoming, using things to kind of get likes and get clicks.
00:24:40.400 That's not what she's doing.
00:24:42.020 It's not?
00:24:42.620 I mean, I've got no truck for Riley Gaines personally, but all I've seen her do is stand up for women's
00:24:46.740 rights to fairness and equality.
00:24:47.900 She has been.
00:24:48.300 She actually competed against Leah Thomas, and it was obviously unfair.
00:24:53.060 Leah Thomas won one of the races in the NCAA championships by 50 seconds against a bunch
00:24:58.320 of biological females who simply couldn't keep up.
00:25:01.620 That cannot be right.
00:25:02.920 It cannot be fair.
00:25:04.140 That is something.
00:25:04.960 I'm here for a pleasant experience.
00:25:08.960 I was told this would be positive and I would be happy.
00:25:12.800 Bill Maher.
00:25:14.600 That's what I show up on a first date.
00:25:16.580 I was told this was going to go well.
00:25:18.480 What is happening?
00:25:19.260 I feel bamboozled.
00:25:20.780 But no, this is really what it's like.
00:25:22.580 The women on the left, they purport themselves to be, you know, feminist and we're going to
00:25:26.860 protect and uplift our girls.
00:25:28.640 They're perfectly fine with men coming into their locker rooms, into their sports teams.
00:25:32.420 For folks like Katie Porter, Kamala Harris, all of these elite women Democrats, they think
00:25:37.300 women's rights begin and end with abortion, right?
00:25:39.900 That's it.
00:25:40.220 They think women's rights is abortion.
00:25:41.480 Yeah, you're so right.
00:25:41.920 Kamala Harris showed us that on the campaign trail for 107 days.
00:25:45.220 What did Kamala Harris talk about?
00:25:46.580 Bringing abortion.
00:25:47.480 She would go to black colleges and tell young girls, we're going to get you the right to
00:25:50.620 abortion.
00:25:51.100 We're going to do this abortion.
00:25:51.980 The girls are like, okay, but women's rights is also like, how do we pay our bills?
00:25:55.940 How do we have health care?
00:25:57.160 How do we not have criminals?
00:25:58.340 We don't have criminals on the street so we can walk home from work.
00:26:00.420 And so for Katie Porter, of course, she doesn't know about women's rights and she thinks it's
00:26:03.560 fine for guys to come in to women's sports teams.
00:26:05.940 But this is going to continue to be the losing issue for Democrats and they keep trying to
00:26:10.020 minimize it.
00:26:11.240 One more and then we'll move off of Katie Porter.
00:26:13.120 But here she is talking about her 12-year-old after Trump won last November.
00:26:19.300 So on election night, I was with, I went to pick up my daughter from water polo practice
00:26:23.360 and she's 12 and she got in the car and she was crying.
00:26:26.460 And I said, did someone punch you?
00:26:28.700 Like water polo is a rough sport.
00:26:30.180 I was like, did someone hit you?
00:26:31.340 Did the coach yell at you?
00:26:32.440 What happened?
00:26:33.180 And she said, mom, Trump won.
00:26:36.680 Trump's going to win.
00:26:37.540 And what if I get raped and I need to have an abortion?
00:26:41.840 This is from a 12-year-old, my 12-year-old daughter.
00:26:44.600 And so it was really a reminder of how scary this time is for people and how important it
00:26:50.200 is for Democrats to have strategies, both at the state level and the federal level, to
00:26:54.540 make sure that we can continue to protect people's rights.
00:26:56.980 It's really a reminder of how sick you are as her mother to be filling a 12-year-old's
00:27:03.160 head full of worries about getting raped and needing abortions and having that be, of course,
00:27:09.740 your next available option.
00:27:11.420 I'll have something hideous happen to me.
00:27:13.260 By the way, if it does, it will be at the hands of a Democrat DA who let some criminal
00:27:17.200 come in and go out like it's a revolving door.
00:27:19.700 And then, of course, what I'll do is I'll kill my baby because I'm Katie Porter's daughter.
00:27:24.120 This reveals so much about her.
00:27:27.300 No, she's absolutely a radical.
00:27:29.400 And folks like Katie Porter and Pete Buttigieg, these folks who think they're sort of the
00:27:32.700 next generation of the Democratic Party, they always want to portray themselves as very
00:27:36.360 moderate, middle of the road.
00:27:38.060 We're just like moderate Democrats.
00:27:39.700 When push comes to shove and you really press them, they are just as radical as everybody
00:27:44.100 else, right?
00:27:45.540 They want abortion until the end.
00:27:47.320 They want open borders.
00:27:48.340 They want criminals on the street.
00:27:49.600 They want men and women's sports.
00:27:50.820 They want the transing of children.
00:27:51.960 And they might say, oh, we don't want these things, right?
00:27:54.840 But it's sort of like lying by omission.
00:27:56.620 If you won't condemn something that's absolutely horrific, right?
00:27:59.920 Absolutely disgusting, like a 16-year-old girl getting a mastectomy, which should never
00:28:03.620 happen in the United States of America.
00:28:05.040 If you won't condemn that, then that makes me see you as a sick and disgusting person yourself.
00:28:10.100 And I hate that we even have to have this conversation.
00:28:12.400 You know what I'm saying about people who are seeking high offices in the United States
00:28:15.800 of America.
00:28:16.380 But that's who Katie Porter is.
00:28:17.680 And she's kind of on par with this next generation of Democrats.
00:28:20.160 Well, it's like AOC.
00:28:22.500 She wants you to believe that she's super woke and she's really into like uplifting
00:28:26.440 people and we don't put people down for their immutable characteristics.
00:28:30.600 But she's in the news this week for mocking Stephen Miller, basically calling him a dwarf.
00:28:36.060 Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is a normal height man.
00:28:38.820 I think the average height in America, the average height of a man is about five, nine and
00:28:42.620 a half, which is shorter than you might think.
00:28:45.240 But that is the average height of an American male.
00:28:47.600 Stephen Miller says he's five, ten and a half.
00:28:49.940 So not the tallest guy, but not short.
00:28:52.760 And here's AOC talking about him in SOT 15.
00:28:57.160 Point is, is that they are scrapping and grasping at straws because they have nothing else.
00:29:05.520 Laugh at them.
00:29:06.600 Stephen Miller is a clown.
00:29:08.440 I've never seen that guy in real life, but he looks like he's like four ten and he looks
00:29:16.280 like he is angry about the fact that he's four ten and he looks like he is so mad that
00:29:23.560 he is four ten that he's taking that anger out at any other population possible.
00:29:31.360 Like laugh at them.
00:29:34.520 But one of the most powerful cultural things that you can do to a political movement that
00:29:40.160 is predicated on the puffery of an of insecure, insecure masculinity.
00:29:47.660 That's what this is about.
00:29:48.900 This isn't people talk about toxic masculinity.
00:29:50.840 And one of the best ways that you can dismantle a movement of insecure men is by making fun of
00:29:58.220 them.
00:29:58.460 OK, first of all, that is not an AOC thought.
00:30:02.040 That is an Elizabeth Bennett thought penned by Jane Austen.
00:30:05.140 It's a classic line from Pride and Prejudice.
00:30:08.200 We've all read the book a million times and seen the many movies.
00:30:11.580 Elizabeth Bennett is the one who said you laugh at him.
00:30:14.620 That's what you do to a man who intimidates you or by whom you feel put down in any way,
00:30:19.640 shape or form.
00:30:20.200 She cribs it to make it her own.
00:30:22.220 And then she body shames him.
00:30:24.200 Link, that's not allowed by leftists.
00:30:26.340 I'm reliably told you're not allowed to do that by the woke left.
00:30:31.640 Well, that was my first thought when I saw this clip going viral of AOC.
00:30:34.780 They preach about diversity and love everybody and kumbaya and braid each other's hair.
00:30:38.900 But of course, the first thing they do is going to attacking people's looks and height and the
00:30:43.640 way they look.
00:30:44.180 And we do that here and there.
00:30:45.380 OK, we don't lecture anybody when they do it.
00:30:48.020 Exactly.
00:30:48.800 That's my whole point.
00:30:49.980 It's like, I don't act holier than thou.
00:30:51.720 It's like, I'm going to break down Lauren Sanchez and Meghan Markle at Fashion Week.
00:30:55.040 You know what I'm saying?
00:30:55.820 But AOC, these folks on the left, they're all about kumbaya diversity.
00:30:59.060 I also think this is rich coming from AOC because part of the reason AOC has been so
00:31:03.000 successful is because of her looks.
00:31:05.160 People talk about this all the time in private.
00:31:07.000 Let's talk about it in public.
00:31:08.240 AOC is not excellent.
00:31:09.600 She's not a genius.
00:31:10.380 Ted Kennedy didn't just hire her years ago to be his intern because she was so brilliant
00:31:14.560 and top of the class.
00:31:15.720 She's beautiful.
00:31:16.500 She has big breasts, cute face.
00:31:18.140 She's Latina.
00:31:18.880 That has helped her advance herself in her career.
00:31:21.560 So she's hating on someone for his looks.
00:31:24.000 And yeah, the last thing I'll say is actually sort of a more dramatic point.
00:31:28.020 She says we have to laugh at these Republicans.
00:31:30.020 We have to laugh at them and scoff at them.
00:31:31.840 I would rather you laugh at us than pick up guns and try to shoot us as we have seen recently,
00:31:36.600 right, with Charlie Kirk, with the assassination attempts on President Trump and so many other
00:31:41.500 Republicans, Kavanaugh.
00:31:42.980 I would rather you laugh at us than tell your supporters that we're fascist and dictators
00:31:47.140 and Hitler and Nazis to where they come and try to kill us in our own homes.
00:31:50.480 That I would actually prefer, AOC, if we're going to get serious.
00:31:53.020 Sorry.
00:31:53.460 She doesn't mean it.
00:31:54.040 You're right.
00:31:54.360 She's a complete hypocrite because she's running around there dropping the fascist word
00:31:57.080 like it's going out of style.
00:31:58.400 So she doesn't mean that either.
00:31:59.720 You know, like she doesn't actually mean laugh at them because that's not what she's been
00:32:02.200 doing.
00:32:02.820 And she doesn't actually mean her woke messaging about not shaming people and
00:32:06.280 celebrating whatever immutable characteristics because she doesn't do that if it's a Republican.
00:32:10.920 And then you've got to love the self-flagellation because a little too late in the game, she
00:32:14.220 realized, oh, shit, I'm not supposed to be doing that.
00:32:17.020 I guess I'm getting blowback on this.
00:32:18.580 So she tried to follow it up.
00:32:20.880 That original video was on Sunday.
00:32:22.780 The next day she goes back on camera to offer this.
00:32:27.040 I want to express my love for the short king community.
00:32:31.860 I don't believe I'm body shaming.
00:32:34.560 I am talking about how big or small someone is on the inside.
00:32:40.320 Like, for example, I have no idea how tall Andrew Tate is.
00:32:45.680 No idea at all.
00:32:47.140 But that guy looks to me like.
00:32:51.100 Five, three.
00:32:54.320 Now she's back at five, three, five, four.
00:32:56.680 Whereas physically men of smaller stature can come across.
00:33:03.260 They are spiritually six foot.
00:33:07.320 If you're a good dad.
00:33:09.340 If you're.
00:33:10.740 Some of my best friends are short.
00:33:12.540 If you're not belittling immigrants, you're like, you know, six, three spiritually.
00:33:17.600 I don't know.
00:33:18.200 Am I being problematic?
00:33:18.840 Yes, you're being problematic and dishonest and a hypocrite.
00:33:23.260 Do you?
00:33:23.720 I was talking about how tall or short they are on the inside.
00:33:31.020 Yeah, that's what I used to think when I was dating.
00:33:33.260 Yeah, I'd go on a date.
00:33:34.260 The guy would be, you know, five, two on his profile.
00:33:36.240 He'd say he's five, 10.
00:33:37.180 He's tall on the inside.
00:33:38.680 Okay.
00:33:39.060 He's tall in his brain.
00:33:40.660 But yeah, no AOC.
00:33:41.660 I don't think anybody should be taking her seriously.
00:33:43.800 God, she's really just such a joke.
00:33:45.840 I don't know.
00:33:46.220 AOC to me is just such a joke.
00:33:47.600 I don't know why she's even, you know, put on this pedestal as this leader of the Democratic
00:33:51.220 Party.
00:33:51.960 She has no accomplishments, right?
00:33:53.540 I remember when she first got in.
00:33:55.460 Remember she was doing those sit-ins in Nancy Pelosi's office and causing all this trouble?
00:33:59.800 That AOC, I respected a little bit more because at least she was trying to buck the system and
00:34:04.580 sort of take on the system.
00:34:06.120 Now, you know, she was out campaigning with Joe Biden, wearing the aviator.
00:34:09.380 She's just another member of the swamp.
00:34:11.800 She doesn't have that cool factor.
00:34:13.120 She's not taking on the system anymore.
00:34:14.980 So AOC can sit there and do her little Instagram videos.
00:34:17.680 Why doesn't she actually go have some legislative achievements?
00:34:20.020 That would be sort of a first for her.
00:34:21.880 Well, I look forward to taking her advice and making lots of fun of her.
00:34:25.100 The internet right now is commenting on how she's gained a bunch of weight and they're
00:34:30.100 calling her abuelita.
00:34:31.380 So, okay, let's do that.
00:34:34.760 Okay, that's what she wants done?
00:34:37.200 Okay.
00:34:37.600 And it's because AOC has been able to coast on her looks for a long time.
00:34:42.460 And people talk about this in D.C. privately.
00:34:44.520 I'm just bringing it out in the open.
00:34:45.940 AOC, the fact that she's very beautiful and voluptuous and has a little waist, that has
00:34:49.920 helped her in her career.
00:34:51.480 I just have to be honest and say it.
00:34:53.200 And so now when she looks a little bit different, you're going to get called out.
00:34:56.440 You're going to get called out.
00:34:57.300 Yes.
00:34:58.020 Yeah.
00:34:58.660 The internet is pretty clever, I have to say.
00:35:01.300 AOC and the O is for Ozymbic.
00:35:04.900 Okay.
00:35:05.620 So we got to keep going with terrible people and hypocritical left.
00:35:09.700 I'll get to Megan in a second.
00:35:11.360 We got to go to the view.
00:35:12.220 My relatives?
00:35:12.740 No.
00:35:13.400 And Whoopi Goldberg.
00:35:16.220 Okay.
00:35:17.020 I have heard from in certain circles, you know, I don't want to get specific, that you're
00:35:23.440 not allowed to darken your skin as any sort of a costume or it's racist.
00:35:29.000 I heard that.
00:35:29.820 I'm trying to remember where I heard that, but I definitely heard from many, many leftists.
00:35:34.500 You are not allowed to do that.
00:35:35.920 It's racist.
00:35:36.900 It's always been racist.
00:35:38.500 Don't, don't pay any attention to the fact that Billy Crystal opened the Oscars wearing
00:35:42.020 blackface.
00:35:43.100 The point is, it's always been racist and everybody always knew that.
00:35:46.100 Enter Whoopi Goldberg with a solution to how to handle ICE being at the Super Bowl looking
00:35:56.180 for illegals.
00:35:57.320 She's threatening to go to the Super Bowl when Bad Bunny is there and round up all these
00:36:05.120 people that are illegal immigrants.
00:36:06.840 Do you think that she would go if it was Garth Brooks or Eminem or Taylor Swift or any
00:36:13.320 other white person?
00:36:14.420 I understand what you're saying because she's going to go to the Super Bowl and round up.
00:36:20.360 How's she going to know who's who?
00:36:22.020 Because the Supreme Court has given permission to question anyone who has a Spanish accent who
00:36:27.600 has a dark skin.
00:36:28.660 Yeah.
00:36:28.840 So here's the thing, everybody, get a little cocoa butter, sit in the sun.
00:36:37.740 That's the first thing.
00:36:39.400 And then, and this is the only time you can probably ever do this, give yourself a Latin
00:36:45.200 accent.
00:36:46.440 You know, Whoopi, that is such a good idea.
00:36:49.640 And just see if she can tell who's who.
00:36:53.320 Okay, you get the cocoa butter and you tan, you go in, you tan your face with it and then
00:37:00.500 you speak in a Spanish accent and that's fine.
00:37:03.220 And you know what?
00:37:03.700 At least Whoopi is consistent because Whoopi actually was fine with Ted Danson wearing actual
00:37:09.680 minstrel face, black face, like the, the deeply offensive stuff from like the forties films.
00:37:15.820 It, she stood right next to him when he did that at a roast, she thought it was hilarious.
00:37:20.580 And then she sat there as Joy Behar celebrated her own wearing of black face on Halloween.
00:37:26.740 She went as a beautiful black woman.
00:37:29.360 There's joy with her dark face and her Afro, which would be also celebrated.
00:37:33.740 So at least she's not totally hypocritical, but the left is hypocritical.
00:37:37.160 And you tell me whether they on the view would be celebrating it, Link, if you and I went to
00:37:41.920 the Superbowl wearing brown face and big hoop earrings and lip liner outside the lips and
00:37:48.920 speaking in a Spanish accent.
00:37:50.900 Well, you know, I was actually going to go as Diana Ross for Halloween this year.
00:37:54.460 I'll have to throw the Afro in the trash, unfortunately, but you know, inside joke here,
00:37:58.340 I think it's good.
00:37:59.100 You're allowed to talk about black face on ABC, just not NBC.
00:38:02.620 I think, I think there are a lot of talk about it on ABC apparently, but no, I think on ABC
00:38:06.760 as well, it wasn't Jimmy Kimmel and a black face scandal.
00:38:09.080 Maybe we can find a picture, but Jimmy Kimmel, who's, you know, one of the 100%
00:38:12.440 big guys over at ABC, yeah, he's done black face for sure.
00:38:15.900 But no, this is just part and parcel of the hypocrisy of the women of the view.
00:38:19.620 As I always say, none of these women are in Mensa either.
00:38:22.060 They've kind of found the worst five women you can put on a panel and just have them
00:38:25.660 go at it.
00:38:26.220 Yeah, they can't spell it.
00:38:27.180 They can't spell mom backwards.
00:38:29.160 But yeah, no, Whoopi Goldberg, I'm not shocked to see this, but there's also been such
00:38:32.820 an increase in attacks on ice and sort of vitriol against ice agents, people having their
00:38:37.880 families threatened and them being attacked and punched and shot at.
00:38:40.680 And so as much fun as it is to laugh about how ridiculous these women of the view are,
00:38:45.260 there are serious repercussions when you vilify law enforcement, right?
00:38:48.720 When you vilify our men and women in uniform, cops, ice agents, there are real repercussions.
00:38:53.320 People go out in the street and shoot at them and try to attack them.
00:38:56.540 And so of course that doesn't affect these women on the view because they make millions
00:38:59.500 of dollars and they live in penthouse apartments with chefs and security and their only job is
00:39:03.740 to come to a nice studio each day and get driven home.
00:39:06.100 They don't really understand the immigration crisis, right?
00:39:08.200 They're in this liberal bubble.
00:39:09.520 So Whoopi Goldberg, I wasn't shocked by any of this, but she's been cosplaying a comedian
00:39:13.160 for years.
00:39:14.020 So she's been a comedian face for a long time.
00:39:16.240 There was a time a long time ago when she was funny.
00:39:17.620 It's really a long time ago.
00:39:19.220 A word on what Joy Behar, noted legal expert, not purported to represent as the Supreme Court
00:39:26.400 ruling.
00:39:26.640 That's not what happened.
00:39:27.500 The Supreme Court, the ice criteria for deciding whether somebody might be the illegal they're
00:39:34.420 looking for is long.
00:39:36.460 There's a long list of factors that they said that they look at, and one of them is skin
00:39:40.980 color.
00:39:41.520 So if they know they're looking for a guy from Venezuela, they're probably going to rule
00:39:45.340 out a super white guy who has an Irish accent.
00:39:48.180 And that has been upheld by courts for decades now as an acceptable one criterion of many.
00:39:54.640 It cannot be the sole criterion, but it's one of many that they are allowed to factor in,
00:39:59.320 not represented accurately by legal scholar Joy Behar.
00:40:03.160 All right, stick to fake comedy, Joy.
00:40:05.780 Please, stay in your lane.
00:40:07.960 Yeah, no, Joy Behar, I think she's a drunk Italian.
00:40:10.180 She's not an expert, you know, legal analyst.
00:40:12.220 But I think they could also do like a sequel of My Cousin Vinny with Joy Behar.
00:40:16.220 Maybe she can play the attorney in like a My Cousin Vinny sequel.
00:40:19.080 But no, I don't take her seriously for her legal prowess whatsoever.
00:40:22.120 Don't even talk about her ruining yet another of my favorite movies.
00:40:25.380 Another classic.
00:40:26.100 It's bad enough she was in Manhattan Murder Mystery, which I absolutely freaking love if you
00:40:30.340 haven't seen it, Run, Don't Walk, starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton and Joy Behar.
00:40:35.420 I can't have her in another one of my favorite movies, My Cousin Vinny, which really is one
00:40:39.260 of the top 10 of all time.
00:40:40.840 One more thing before we leave the view, and that is Joy Behar, back to our local resident
00:40:45.060 legal expert, on why Trump is so determined to put the National Guard troops in various cities.
00:40:50.860 Watch this, SOT 29.
00:40:51.740 There is crime in American cities, but the way to deal with it is get the funding that
00:40:56.440 you need for police, get the training that you need, and work with local officials.
00:40:59.480 This is a pretext to stop the next election.
00:41:03.000 That's what I think it is.
00:41:03.940 I would say it might also be a distraction from the hearing that's going on right now
00:41:07.500 about the Epstein file.
00:41:09.000 Right.
00:41:09.040 Some things have come up, and AG Pan Bondi was dodging questions and attacking back.
00:41:16.600 Do you not think maybe the whole civil unrest storyline is maybe overblown?
00:41:21.920 This is in order to make the case, because in their minds, in all of their minds, they
00:41:30.780 now believe they have carte blanche to do whatever they want to.
00:41:34.340 That's right.
00:41:34.800 Yes.
00:41:35.020 That's what the feeling is.
00:41:37.140 And if they stop us from voting, that's the one thing people have.
00:41:40.040 Well, I mean, it's the one thing that makes us very different from lots of other countries.
00:41:47.260 Our votes, they do count.
00:41:50.360 I do know that they count.
00:41:51.640 If we can't be allowed to vote.
00:41:54.780 Okay.
00:41:55.700 So it's back to the Bill Maher.
00:41:59.260 He said he believes this.
00:42:01.680 Then Gavin Newsom repeated Maher.
00:42:03.700 And now the ladies of The View think Trump's going to have a permanent state of National
00:42:09.100 Guard in all these blue cities, so they can't vote at all, because he's worried about people
00:42:14.080 like Joy Behar actually voting.
00:42:16.800 No, I actually, anytime I see clips of The View, I can feel my IQ cells just disintegrating.
00:42:22.000 I can feel my brain atrophying, watching these women try to form a coherent thought.
00:42:26.480 Like, if reaching was a sport you're honored, they are reaching, okay?
00:42:29.920 They're reaching and forming conclusions, and they are absolutely ridiculous.
00:42:34.120 So no, I don't take any of these women seriously.
00:42:36.220 It's also funny, Alyssa Fair Griffin is supposed to be the conservative on the panel.
00:42:40.340 There's really not much conservative about her.
00:42:42.440 I would love for them to bring in a real conservative on The View.
00:42:45.000 I dare them to bring in a real conservative for one hour, for 10 minutes on The View.
00:42:48.460 They had Meghan McCain for years, who is conservative, but a Trump hater.
00:42:51.500 The whole time she was there, it was like, so that's why she was acceptable, because
00:42:54.200 as long as you're going to dump on Trump, we can take you.
00:42:56.600 And this, same with Alyssa Fair Griffin.
00:42:58.880 She's a disgruntled former Trumper.
00:43:00.440 She hates Trump.
00:43:01.500 Sarah Haynes was the other one commenting.
00:43:03.240 She also hates Trump.
00:43:03.980 She was the one like, oh, you know, why is he bringing these National Guard troops?
00:43:07.760 And elsewhere she tried to claim that there's been no violence against ICE, no threat she's
00:43:11.340 ever seen against ICE.
00:43:12.380 These are the conservatives on the show.
00:43:13.620 Whatever, it's a hot mess.
00:43:14.780 We know that.
00:43:16.060 We can't get too exercised about The View.
00:43:17.800 It's just fun to sometimes check in on what they're doing.
00:43:20.580 Okay, I want to keep with it.
00:43:22.600 I do want to get to Meghan Markle, but before we go there, we've got to spend a minute on
00:43:27.260 Greta Thunberg, who has moved on from her climate activism, as you know, to being a pro-Palestinian
00:43:32.900 warrior.
00:43:34.620 She joined this flotilla, which actually is like a normal thing from Sweden.
00:43:39.280 I guess they've been doing these flotillas for like 20 years.
00:43:41.860 This is just the latest one.
00:43:43.620 And apparently it's always a collection of C-list stars who are just looking for attention.
00:43:48.000 It's basically like they're big brother or they're real housewives that you join the
00:43:52.620 flotilla to get your name back in the news.
00:43:54.420 And that's Greta Thunberg.
00:43:55.420 And there's actually a really interesting piece in National Review that is dated today, October
00:43:59.860 8th, by John Gustafsson, that gets really into Greta's background and how I didn't know
00:44:05.700 this.
00:44:06.080 She's the child of two celebrities over there in Sweden.
00:44:09.060 And she was somebody who is probably obviously ignored for a while because her parents were
00:44:13.360 busy building these big careers.
00:44:14.580 And then she decided to make like a name for herself through climate activism.
00:44:19.960 And she had she has Asperger's and severe mental health problems.
00:44:26.580 So those are two different things.
00:44:28.820 But she's, according to John, got actual severe mental health problems so bad that her mother
00:44:33.360 like had to take a leave of absence and be home with her.
00:44:35.300 So this is a girl who needs parental attention more than the mother's short leave of absence
00:44:40.400 and has decided to get it first from climate activists.
00:44:43.640 And now by joining the C-lister flotillas to make Gaza her cause, she's been out there
00:44:49.120 railing about Palestine and Israel and all of that.
00:44:51.980 And finally, we have seen.
00:44:55.340 Well, I'll give you the montage of Greta first, and then I'll show you what Trump is saying
00:44:58.320 about her.
00:44:58.780 Sot 24.
00:45:00.300 You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.
00:45:05.300 And yet I'm one of the lucky ones.
00:45:09.580 People are suffering.
00:45:11.960 People are dying.
00:45:14.180 Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
00:45:17.480 We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.
00:45:21.120 And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
00:45:27.540 How dare you?
00:45:28.520 Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius?
00:45:32.100 Because even at one degree, people are dying from climate change because that is what the
00:45:38.880 United Science calls for, to avoid destabilizing the climate so that we have the best possible
00:45:45.440 chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions.
00:45:48.820 Every fraction of a degree matches.
00:45:52.220 OK, so none of that was right.
00:45:53.760 And you shouldn't take your climate advice from somebody who has to go home and put benzoyl
00:45:56.920 peroxide on their skin in the evenings.
00:45:59.240 Now, Trump has finally decided to weigh in on Greta.
00:46:02.380 And here's what he said.
00:46:03.280 She's just a troublemaker.
00:46:05.800 You know, I mean, she's you mean she's no longer into the environment.
00:46:08.680 Now she's into this.
00:46:10.080 She's a troublemaker.
00:46:11.260 She has an anger management problem.
00:46:13.000 I think she should see a doctor.
00:46:14.580 She needs anger.
00:46:15.660 If you ever watch her, she's a young person.
00:46:18.720 She's so angry.
00:46:19.640 She's so crazy.
00:46:21.020 Now you can have her.
00:46:22.500 You can have her.
00:46:22.960 She's just a troublemaker.
00:46:25.740 How is he wrong?
00:46:27.600 He's not wrong at all.
00:46:28.700 Maybe no Katie Porter was talking about her daughter.
00:46:30.860 Maybe the daughter is Greta Thunberg and we've never seen them in the same room at the same
00:46:34.700 time.
00:46:35.320 It all comes together.
00:46:36.500 It's all coming together.
00:46:37.940 OK, we're analyzing it here.
00:46:39.620 But yeah, no, with Greta Thunberg, she's just a professional activist, which is why I don't
00:46:43.400 take almost any activist seriously.
00:46:45.360 And shout out to the people who opened doors for all of us and yada, yada, yada.
00:46:48.600 But I don't take a lot of these new activists seriously because they just go from one grift
00:46:52.260 to the next.
00:46:53.200 First, it's climate.
00:46:54.460 That didn't work for a few years.
00:46:55.880 Now they went on to Ukraine.
00:46:57.260 Then it's going to be something else.
00:46:58.460 Then it's oil and drilling and everything in between.
00:47:00.860 But these folks are such professional activists.
00:47:02.860 They will go out there.
00:47:03.660 They'll do like a sit in or they'll lock arms on a freeway.
00:47:06.200 Then they'll go back to like a five star hotel and be eating crumpets and scones.
00:47:09.560 So I don't take Greta Thunberg seriously at all.
00:47:11.860 And when it comes to this flotilla, I don't even know what a flotilla is.
00:47:14.560 It sounds like something you could get at like Chipotle, like a flotilla, like a grande
00:47:18.400 flotilla.
00:47:19.560 Like I don't know what a flotilla is.
00:47:20.140 To me, it sounds like what they put together in Jaws 2, which did not end well for most of
00:47:23.880 those high school students.
00:47:25.100 It's like Contiki or something.
00:47:26.600 I don't want to get on a flotilla.
00:47:27.760 Also, I don't share bathrooms and I really like my creature comforts and my amenities.
00:47:32.000 You know what I'm saying?
00:47:32.820 And my bath salts.
00:47:34.180 So I am not going to be on a flotilla.
00:47:35.280 What would the water pressure be like on the flotilla?
00:47:37.140 Probably not so great.
00:47:37.960 Not good.
00:47:38.860 Not good.
00:47:39.500 Like I am such a creature comfort person.
00:47:41.600 I will change hotel rooms if there's like a faint noise.
00:47:44.820 Okay.
00:47:45.240 I am that person.
00:47:46.220 So I am not going to be on a flotilla with a bunch of like stinky little liberal, you
00:47:50.240 know, kids on the spectrum.
00:47:51.520 Sorry, I am going to get canceled for saying that.
00:47:53.060 But I don't want to do that and be on the flotilla and like sailing to Gaza.
00:47:56.780 Who wants to sail to Gaza?
00:47:58.420 Sorry about me.
00:47:58.540 You just remember, they smell good on the inside.
00:48:00.540 That is what is important.
00:48:01.480 All right.
00:48:02.040 Now, here we go.
00:48:03.040 Meghan Markle.
00:48:03.740 Well, she is not a well person.
00:48:06.020 She was over in Paris for the Balenciaga fashion show and she filmed herself, herself going
00:48:16.520 by the location where Princess Diana died.
00:48:21.680 And here's the video.
00:48:22.880 Her feet are up in the car.
00:48:28.140 She's having a grand old time.
00:48:29.740 She's showing you out the window where she is.
00:48:31.580 And then you see her naked feet crisscrossed in front of her like, the world is at my feet.
00:48:38.860 Ha ha ha.
00:48:39.580 This is so fun.
00:48:40.580 This is where my children's grandmother died.
00:48:44.560 Good times.
00:48:45.520 Let me put this online.
00:48:47.680 No, what's interesting is Meghan Markle, she will try to plead ignorance and say, it was
00:48:51.560 just a video.
00:48:52.480 I didn't know what I was doing.
00:48:53.620 Her team will put out statements.
00:48:55.280 Everything is a deliberate choice with Meghan Markle.
00:48:58.060 In my opinion, she's sociopathic.
00:48:59.960 She's a narcissist.
00:49:00.720 She's a malignant narcissist.
00:49:02.640 And for her to act like she didn't know where Princess Diana died in that famous car
00:49:06.960 crash is just absolute malarkey, buffoonery, tomfoolery.
00:49:10.620 It's like when she said she didn't even know who Prince Harry was in the documentary.
00:49:13.780 She's like, I don't know much about Prince Harry.
00:49:16.000 Is he nice?
00:49:16.960 Then we find pictures of her out in front of Buckingham Palace.
00:49:20.060 It's like if I say I don't know a guy and then there are pictures of me driving around
00:49:23.440 his neighborhood.
00:49:24.360 Meghan Markle knew exactly who Prince Harry was.
00:49:26.600 She knew exactly where Princess Diana died.
00:49:28.940 But she's doing this for attention.
00:49:30.180 I have a theory.
00:49:31.600 There was some reporting recently that we covered on Spot On that they're doing a Diana documentary
00:49:36.060 to commemorate the anniversary, I believe, in 2027.
00:49:39.020 So this could maybe be part of that.
00:49:40.920 I thought maybe Meghan Markle is out doing research for the documentary.
00:49:44.420 I'm sorry for laughing.
00:49:45.360 But she's going to go drive around and take the exact route to sort of, you know, manifest
00:49:49.300 and put herself in that position.
00:49:50.880 But the last thing I'll say about Meghan Markle, she's gone on the Drew Barrymore show and
00:49:55.120 talked about how she'll FaceTime her kids when she's on the road.
00:49:58.420 She'll send videos to whoever's watching her kids while she's traveling.
00:50:02.260 Instead of going to these fashion shows, you left the royal family because you guys wanted
00:50:06.000 privacy.
00:50:06.800 You wanted to be low key.
00:50:08.180 Go be with your kids and raise your kids.
00:50:10.440 You know, you don't need to go to Balenciaga, who's been accused of grooming children, had
00:50:14.120 pedophilia scandals.
00:50:15.120 Then you're out partying with, you know, your friend who's in charge of membership at Soho
00:50:18.700 House.
00:50:19.240 Go be a mom and be with your kids.
00:50:20.720 If that was the reason you left the royal family, go do it.
00:50:24.060 She doesn't want it.
00:50:25.300 That video of her walking into Balenciaga, it was ridiculous.
00:50:28.560 She looks like she's part of the fashion show in all white, walking out like all eyes are
00:50:33.940 on me.
00:50:34.780 I am the model I've always wanted to be.
00:50:37.200 But no, she doesn't want to be with the children.
00:50:38.620 That's why she keeps doing these things the same way Hoda Koppi doesn't want to be with
00:50:41.280 her children.
00:50:41.960 And you can't get her off the set of the Today Show.
00:50:43.660 She's there every two weeks launching a new business venture because now she's a CEO.
00:50:47.540 Pow, pow, pow.
00:50:49.120 None of these women actually wants to be at home with their children.
00:50:51.840 And it's fine.
00:50:52.380 Look, if you want to be a working mom and, you know, do them both, just own it.
00:50:56.560 Don't try to like build yourself up as like some fake stay at home mom because you're obviously
00:51:01.880 not.
00:51:02.680 And Meghan Markle, you used the word earlier in a post I read that you made, that she's a
00:51:09.020 disaster tourist.
00:51:10.080 That's exactly right.
00:51:11.380 And Uvalde and now this she's never seen a tragedy that she doesn't want to exploit
00:51:16.620 for her own PR, which is sick.
00:51:18.620 All right.
00:51:18.740 We got to run link.
00:51:20.160 Great to see you subscribe to spot on with link.
00:51:22.400 Lauren on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, go to spot on with link.com and that'll show you all
00:51:26.720 the places you can get more of link.
00:51:27.980 And who does not want more of link?
00:51:29.300 Lauren coming up.
00:51:30.640 Ken Vogel of the New York Times on Hunter Biden.
00:51:34.320 It's time for Medicare annual enrollment again.
00:51:37.680 The mailers, the robocalls, the techs blowing up your phone.
00:51:40.880 It can be a circus and overwhelming, but this is one Medicare message you do need to hear.
00:51:45.820 Medicare plans can change every year.
00:51:47.760 And even if you like your current plan, your costs could go up or you could lose coverage
00:51:52.320 for things you depend on.
00:51:53.900 This is why I want to tell you about chapter chapter compares every plan nationwide to make
00:51:58.800 sure you are on a plan that best fits your needs.
00:52:01.240 On average, they save people 1100 bucks a year.
00:52:04.100 I get it.
00:52:04.880 Nobody wants to deal with Medicare, but in under 20 minutes, chapter can review your options.
00:52:09.700 If your plan is already the best for 2026, great.
00:52:12.360 You're done.
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00:52:17.220 No gimmicks, no pushy sales, just straight talk from people who know Medicare inside and
00:52:22.100 out.
00:52:22.820 Call chapter today at 27 Medicare.
00:52:25.480 That's 27 Medicare to talk to a trusted advisor today.
00:52:31.680 We absolutely have to keep talking.
00:52:34.260 It's more important now than ever to cower, to hide, to go silent is not the answer.
00:52:40.420 And all I can tell you is there is no fucking way I am canceling one stop on this tour.
00:52:49.040 Not one stop.
00:52:50.440 I'm going.
00:52:51.380 I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to say all the things that we say all
00:52:56.160 the time on this show.
00:52:57.280 We're going to make it safe for me.
00:52:58.220 We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you.
00:53:01.140 We're going coast to coast and do something really important, which is say what's true
00:53:06.600 and what's real to honor him.
00:53:08.860 I really now more than ever would love to see you all face to face.
00:53:13.800 God, I would love to see you face to face.
00:53:16.880 I need to see you face to face.
00:53:19.600 I am doing this tour and I would love for you to join me.
00:53:23.580 Megan Kelly dot com for the tickets.
00:53:24.920 We've been reporting for years on the conflicts of interest and alleged corruption related to
00:53:33.180 Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings, especially his position as a board member of
00:53:38.740 Ukrainian energy company Burisma, a job for which he had absolutely no qualifications.
00:53:43.860 The corporate media mostly ignored or downplayed this story.
00:53:46.440 But there was one notable exception, Ken Vogel of The New York Times.
00:53:51.000 And boy, was he shamed for it.
00:53:53.760 Here he is back in September of 2019 when the left was all excited about possibly impeaching
00:54:00.200 Donald Trump for his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky when he urged him to find
00:54:06.340 out exactly what Hunter Biden was up to in his country.
00:54:09.720 Vogel pointed out on MSNBC that Joe Biden might have a big problem in Ukraine as well due to
00:54:17.580 Hunter's quote work there.
00:54:20.300 Watch.
00:54:21.620 This situation involving Joe Biden's sons work for this Ukrainian oligarch owned gas company,
00:54:28.460 which is, I have to quibble with some of what your previous guest said, is a significant
00:54:33.320 liability for Joe Biden.
00:54:35.420 Like, there is a story here.
00:54:37.420 We've told some of it.
00:54:38.680 There's more to be told.
00:54:39.780 We're going to continue to sort of pull that back.
00:54:42.960 That said, the way that Rudy is inserting himself into it is both not helpful, I think, to Rudy
00:54:49.560 and to Trump because it kind of jumbles it.
00:54:52.180 He's getting the facts wrong and he is making it appear as if this is just a partisan hit job.
00:54:58.460 Whereas if he would just kind of leave the reporters to do the work on it, I think that,
00:55:03.660 you know, potentially this story might be taken more seriously.
00:55:08.460 Well, that went over like a lead balloon with Team Biden.
00:55:12.460 In fact, just two days later, they put out a digital ad featuring pundits attacking Vogel
00:55:18.620 by name.
00:55:19.340 Watch.
00:55:23.280 Trump invited foreign interference in our election in 2016, and he's doing it again.
00:55:28.040 Will media see through Trump's sleazy playbook or fall for it again?
00:55:30.660 What Ken Vogel said is false.
00:55:33.020 It's not simply whataboutism or equalism.
00:55:36.320 It's false.
00:55:37.860 And when he does that, and when, for example, Politico has a whole bunch of headlines today
00:55:42.680 doing the same thing, they need to be taken on.
00:55:45.380 They need to be taken on by the candidates and responsible people in the media.
00:55:49.280 The New York Times is obsessed.
00:55:51.140 You know, it may market itself as part of the resistance.
00:55:53.700 It's obsessed with kind being right down in the middle.
00:55:56.780 You know, with this Ukraine story, a lot of people say, well, this is just like, you know,
00:56:00.100 2016, and the press hasn't learned anything.
00:56:02.620 At some point, we have to ask if a lot of journalists don't want to learn anything.
00:56:05.940 That was the Biden campaign that put that out.
00:56:10.980 They could not have the story being told about the Biden family corruption over in Ukraine.
00:56:16.920 And it turns out there is more of the story to be told, and Ken Vogel is telling it in
00:56:20.980 his new book titled Devil's Advocates, the hidden story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden,
00:56:26.920 and the Washington insiders on the payrolls of corrupt foreign interests.
00:56:31.960 The book hits stores on October 14th.
00:56:34.300 You can pre-order it right now.
00:56:36.040 And Ken joins me today for an exclusive interview.
00:56:39.500 Ken, welcome to the show.
00:56:41.140 Hey, it's great to be with you, Megan.
00:56:42.860 This is crazy.
00:56:44.100 I read this.
00:56:45.440 It was making my blood boil.
00:56:47.060 And I don't care.
00:56:48.080 I don't.
00:56:48.600 I have never run cover for Rudy Giuliani or anybody else who may have their hand in the
00:56:54.720 till.
00:56:55.120 And I certainly haven't for Hunter Biden.
00:56:57.100 So I applaud you for writing this book.
00:56:58.620 Can you just first set it up why this is an area that is just so ripe for exploitation
00:57:04.540 by foreign governments trying to find some, I'm sorry, weakling here connected to whatever
00:57:11.260 president, could be a right-wing one, could be a left-wing one, for exploitation to try
00:57:15.920 to gain access to power?
00:57:18.620 Yeah, I mean, there's this sort of mindset in a lot of the developing world, really a lot
00:57:22.780 of the rest of the world that, you know, you can get what you want from government by
00:57:28.100 essentially paying the government or the people around the government, the families of the
00:57:32.640 elected officials.
00:57:33.960 And we in the U.S. like to think that we're above that.
00:57:37.540 We're different than that.
00:57:38.540 We have all these ethics laws and conflicts of interest laws and disclosure laws that prevent
00:57:43.200 that kind of thing.
00:57:44.080 But it turns out that in the rest of the world, when they sort of get crosswise with the United
00:57:49.320 States or other international bodies, they apply this same mindset and they look for
00:57:53.720 Americans who are close to the government and the top officials in the government to
00:57:58.560 put on their payrolls to be able to at least create the perception that they are gaining
00:58:04.200 some kind of favor or effectively navigating their way out of trouble.
00:58:09.180 And it turns out that there are plenty of well-connected Americans who are willing to take those
00:58:14.880 paydays, including Hunter Biden, including Rudy Giuliani, but also many others who I profile
00:58:20.980 in detail in the book.
00:58:23.280 Yeah, this is a grift because you have some access to power and you run around to deep
00:58:28.620 pocketed foreigners touting it, trying to seem important, like you can change policy.
00:58:33.960 And certainly when you are the son of the sitting vice president, that carries a lot of weight
00:58:40.000 because what you're zeroing in on with Hunter really all started when Joe Biden was vice
00:58:45.180 president.
00:58:46.120 That's when he joined the board of Burisma in Ukraine.
00:58:49.820 Before we get to that, I just want to start with a headline that just came out on Tuesday.
00:58:54.300 Thanks to our pal John Solomon over at Just the News.
00:58:57.280 And the headline is Joe Biden's team blocked the CIA from distributing report on son Hunter's
00:59:03.680 Ukraine business dealings.
00:59:04.760 And what Solomon is reporting that back when Joe Biden was vice president, it was February
00:59:10.420 of 16, his team intervened, his vice presidential team intervened to prevent the CIA from disseminating
00:59:19.720 an intelligence report to policymakers about the senior Ukrainian officials perceptions regarding
00:59:28.900 Hunter Biden and his dealings in Ukraine.
00:59:31.740 In other words, they were going to tell policymakers in the United States, the CIA was, that the
00:59:37.680 Ukrainians think Hunter Biden is a joke and are rolling their eyes at these professions
00:59:43.220 by Joe Biden that we're not corrupt, but foreign countries like Ukraine are, while his own son
00:59:50.720 was on the take.
00:59:52.440 And he, Joe Biden, his team intervened, saying the VP would, quote, strongly prefer this report
00:59:58.780 not be disseminated.
01:00:01.120 And it looks like it wasn't.
01:00:03.460 It was withheld.
01:00:05.280 Just so we have this, here is vice president, then vice president Biden on his infamous anti-corruption
01:00:12.780 speech he gave in Ukraine.
01:00:14.500 This happened in 2015.
01:00:15.760 But listen to the holier than thou attitude he was espousing while his son was essentially
01:00:20.760 on the take.
01:00:21.600 Stop 51.
01:00:22.120 But I can tell you, you cannot name me a single democracy in the world where the cancer of
01:00:32.640 corruption is prevalent.
01:00:35.620 You cannot name me one.
01:00:38.460 They are thoroughly inconsistent.
01:00:40.760 And it's not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting
01:00:49.260 corruption.
01:00:50.880 The office of the general prosecutor desperately needs reform.
01:00:54.660 The judiciary should be overhauled.
01:00:56.180 The energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles, not sweetheart deals.
01:01:01.700 It's not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income.
01:01:06.260 Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interests and
01:01:11.180 their government responsibilities.
01:01:13.380 Lecture, lecture, lecture.
01:01:14.680 Of the democracy in the world that system pertains.
01:01:21.540 Just the news reporting that these Ukrainian officials, quote, viewed the alleged ties of the
01:01:27.240 U.S. vice president's family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double standard within
01:01:33.020 in the United States government toward matters of corruption and political power, according to the
01:01:39.100 CIA.
01:01:39.820 And there it is in a nutshell, Ken.
01:01:41.800 I mean, there it is in a nutshell.
01:01:42.920 That's what was happening.
01:01:46.320 Yeah, and it's not just that it's a double standard, though.
01:01:48.600 I think certainly it is.
01:01:49.740 And we saw this pattern play out where Hunter Biden was working for individuals and companies
01:01:57.040 that were targeted by U.S.-backed, not just U.S.-backed, but anti-corruption initiatives that were
01:02:04.200 backed by his own father around the world.
01:02:06.880 It wasn't just in Ukraine.
01:02:08.820 But this also gets at this other theme that, like, the perception is important here.
01:02:13.380 It's not just that, you know, you're paying Hunter Biden to effectuate some change in U.S.
01:02:18.960 policy to get the U.S. to back away from a given prosecution or to enact energy policies that were
01:02:26.280 more favorable to the Ukrainian gas company for which he was working, but rather that there's
01:02:31.120 an importance that there's a weight that is associated with having Hunter Biden on your
01:02:35.720 payroll in Ukraine.
01:02:36.940 So the Ukrainian prosecutors who are being encouraged by Joe Biden to pursue corruption kind of look
01:02:44.260 at it and say, wait a minute, that here is the son of the vice president who is telling
01:02:49.360 us to pursue corruption.
01:02:50.740 The vice president is the son is working for one of the targets of the of this anti-corruption
01:02:56.880 campaign.
01:02:57.940 That's certainly a mixed message at the most charitable way to perceive it.
01:03:02.360 The more cynical way to perceive it.
01:03:04.140 And not qualified to be there.
01:03:05.340 Protection.
01:03:05.600 You know, it's one thing if Hunter had had a lifetime in the oil and gas industry, still
01:03:09.560 wouldn't have been great.
01:03:10.300 But at least you'd say, all right, I mean, on paper, at least you can sell it.
01:03:13.880 He didn't.
01:03:14.980 There was absolutely no basis for him to be there other than to curry favor with his
01:03:19.100 father.
01:03:19.600 And your reporting is that's exactly why Burisma put him there.
01:03:23.860 Yeah.
01:03:24.000 And it is something where they, you know, the prosecutors are going to think twice when they
01:03:29.960 see that a very the son of a very important U.S. public official who is very important to
01:03:37.060 the U.S. policy towards Ukraine is is essentially sitting on the board of this entity.
01:03:43.700 That that the U.S. is targeting.
01:03:46.700 It's, you know, again, it's like a mixed message at best, but it could be seen as protection,
01:03:52.600 like that they are paying for protection from this prosecution that the U.S. is encouraging.
01:03:57.980 And I think that very much comports with the post-Soviet mindset that prevailed in Ukraine
01:04:03.600 at the time and still.
01:04:05.420 And so you could see where the motivation would be for the Ukrainians or for anyone else who
01:04:09.320 is in a similar position where they're being targeted by a U.S.-backed anti-corruption
01:04:13.260 initiative to look for that kind of protection and see Hunter Biden as the type of person
01:04:19.120 who could provide it.
01:04:20.220 Right.
01:04:20.740 What an opportunity for Hunter, whether it was with the Chinese or the Ukrainians or
01:04:24.180 the Romanians.
01:04:25.320 There were the opportunity abounded for him to line his own pockets, never mind what it
01:04:30.440 would cost the United States or his father.
01:04:32.320 Now, there is reason to believe that Joe Biden paved the way for him.
01:04:37.440 You've got a quote from Devin Archer, who I did not realize was previously an Abercrombie
01:04:42.060 and Fitch model.
01:04:43.300 You taught me that.
01:04:44.960 But Devin Archer was his business partner and best friend.
01:04:48.740 And those two, plus a guy named Chris Hines of Hines Ketchup fame and fortune, originally
01:04:54.780 formed this business venture, Rosemont Seneca.
01:04:58.140 Eventually, Chris Hines got a touch of, like, morality, where he looked at these other two
01:05:04.060 and said, I'm not sure I want this association or whether this is going to a good place.
01:05:07.740 And he peaced out.
01:05:09.060 But Devin Archer and Hunter stayed in business together.
01:05:12.240 And you point out in the book that Devin Archer says Joe Biden used to call people and
01:05:17.000 he said, you do something for me, you're a friend.
01:05:20.540 You do something for my son, you're a friend for life.
01:05:24.060 Yeah, so even if we accept the argument at face value that the Bidens have made and Joe
01:05:31.940 Biden has made himself and Kareem Jean-Pierre made from the White House podium that Joe Biden
01:05:37.480 never specifically talked with Hunter or Hunter's business partners about these foreign business
01:05:43.760 ventures, you see right there that the message is communicated.
01:05:47.060 It's the same sort of wink and nod that we're talking about the Ukrainians wanting to avail
01:05:51.760 themselves of by putting him on this board that Joe Biden is telling these foreign business
01:05:58.360 partners that, like, he sort of endorses their whatever it is that they're doing with Hunter
01:06:04.840 so that even if he doesn't know the specifics of it, it is certainly sending the message
01:06:09.260 to these foreigners that, hey, you're getting what you're paying for.
01:06:13.800 Okay, so clearly that was the deal where Joe Biden kind of blessed it.
01:06:18.160 Hunter went over there and worked it and sold it, and ultimately Joe Biden pardoned Hunter
01:06:24.160 Biden for all of it.
01:06:25.900 And you do point out in the book that there's a reason that pardon, that sweeping pardon he
01:06:29.340 gave his son.
01:06:30.220 After all the protestations, I will never pardon Hunter, I'm not pardoning Hunter.
01:06:34.500 And then all the Democrats saying, we believe him, we believe him, it's not going to happen.
01:06:38.620 He did pardon Hunter, pardon Hunter.
01:06:40.460 And you say there's a reason it went back to January 1st, 2014.
01:06:43.280 Yeah, that's when he was really ramping up his foreign business dealings, including with
01:06:49.360 Burisma.
01:06:49.940 That arrangement started in early 2014 and was made official in about April or May when
01:06:55.680 Hunter Biden was added to the board after Devin Archer, the business partner, sort of paved
01:07:00.200 the way and got on the board first and brokered the introduction.
01:07:04.140 And it's notable.
01:07:05.400 It's not just like, you know, at the time that I wrote the book, it was sort of like it was
01:07:09.860 just me connecting dots.
01:07:12.580 But eventually the prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case essentially suggested that there
01:07:19.120 is a potential charge for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, interestingly
01:07:25.060 not connected to his work in Ukraine, but rather to his work in Romania for a different oligarch
01:07:31.380 that they could bring.
01:07:33.400 They, of course, did not bring that.
01:07:35.080 But they were sort of hinting at that, I think, probably to extract a guilty plea.
01:07:40.400 But it's hard to ignore that when you look at the way that the pardon was framed.
01:07:45.740 It's hard to ignore that the prosecutors are suggesting that there might be a potential
01:07:49.320 FARA charge and that the pardon was sort of chronologically situated to cover the activity
01:07:56.620 that would be the basis for such a Foreign Agents Registration Act.
01:08:01.080 Back to the earliest foreign interference that he was doing back to when Joe Biden was VP.
01:08:06.300 And we'll get to Romania because you've broken some news there, too, which is kind of shocking.
01:08:10.060 But let's just stay with Ukraine since we started with it.
01:08:12.440 You report Ukrainian prosecutors.
01:08:14.120 Now, people generally know this story.
01:08:15.540 But just as a refresher for those who haven't been thinking about Hunter Biden in Ukraine blissfully
01:08:19.580 for the past year or so, Ukraine was corrupt, is corrupt.
01:08:24.660 And at one point when Joe Biden was vice president, he went over there and said, and he bragged publicly
01:08:31.360 that he said, you better fire this corrupt prosecutor or I'm not giving you this billion dollars
01:08:36.440 that we committed to give you.
01:08:37.920 And remember, he said at the Council on Foreign Relations, son of a bitch, they did it.
01:08:42.040 So they fired this allegedly corrupt prosecutor.
01:08:44.720 Well, it stunk to high heaven because we would later find out that prosecutor was investigating
01:08:49.300 corruption in Ukraine, including at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board
01:08:55.100 Joe Biden's son, Hunter, sat for this do nothing position for which he wasn't qualified.
01:09:00.300 So it was like, wait a minute.
01:09:01.800 Are you doing this because you want to clean up corruption in Ukraine?
01:09:04.300 Are you doing this because you want to do your son a solid?
01:09:07.040 And he's already introduced you to some of the officials running Burisma.
01:09:12.120 And the connections between the Bidens and this company have gotten uncomfortably close.
01:09:17.100 You point out in the book, Ukrainian prosecutors were investigating Zlochevsky, the founder of
01:09:22.640 Burisma for corruption and bribery.
01:09:24.800 Zlochevsky started paying prominent foreign politicians to try to diffuse those investigations
01:09:29.620 and clean up his reputation, not only in Ukraine, but internationally.
01:09:34.020 Zlochevsky's top American recruit was Hunter Biden, while then VP Joe Biden was overseeing
01:09:40.500 Ukraine policy.
01:09:42.380 Buying Hunter's loyalty, according to this thinking, would mean buying favor
01:09:46.880 from his father's government.
01:09:49.180 Hunter Biden was offered a seat on the Burisma board for $1 million a year in salary.
01:09:54.360 He then joined the board in the spring of 2014.
01:09:58.540 And you write about how he had an expensive cocaine problem, mostly private schools for
01:10:02.640 his daughters, expensive tastes, and he needed to fund the Hunter Biden lifestyle.
01:10:07.320 But this whole business of cleaning up Zlochevsky's reputation and thus Burisma's reputation would
01:10:16.360 have tentacles throughout America, like Hunter, the vice president's office, law firms, PR firms,
01:10:25.360 all of which Hunter was connected to and seems to have unleashed on cleaning up the reputation
01:10:31.360 of Burisma so Hunter could get his cool mill.
01:10:35.080 Yeah, I mean, it was a very sophisticated reputation laundering campaign and sort of protection
01:10:40.700 campaign where they were seeking to get out of trouble from Ukrainian prosecutors, as well
01:10:46.060 as U.S. Justice Department officials and State Department officials who were encouraging Ukrainian
01:10:50.980 prosecutors and British prosecutors at one point to investigate Zlochevsky.
01:10:56.240 And what's most interesting, at least an important and interesting bit of context here, is like
01:11:02.360 what Zlochevsky was being charged with or Zlochevsky's background.
01:11:06.420 He was a part of this authoritarian government in Ukraine before 2014 that was toppled by mass
01:11:16.180 street protest and with the encouragement of the U.S. government.
01:11:20.380 And Zlochevsky had been a minister in that government and ended up, he was a minister in
01:11:26.840 the agency that oversaw gas and oil licensing.
01:11:33.980 And lo and behold, a company that he started was awarded all these very lucrative licenses.
01:11:40.080 And so he leaves the government and becomes a billionaire rather quickly as a result of being
01:11:46.180 able to essentially privatize some of these state assets.
01:11:49.220 That is like a quintessential oligarchic corruption pattern of the sort that the U.S.
01:11:54.700 government and Joe Biden, both when he was vice president, before that as a senator, and
01:11:58.840 then when he was president, decried as anathema to democracy.
01:12:04.940 So, you know, they would have reason to be, they, Burisma, would have reason to be concerned
01:12:10.120 that this would be something over which they would be targeted.
01:12:13.140 And in fact, they were.
01:12:14.760 And Hunter Biden was in the middle of this campaign to get them out of trouble.
01:12:20.520 Now, on the prosecutor, there is, I think, still some debate about the reasoning for both
01:12:26.840 the prosecutor, you know, the U.S.
01:12:28.960 wanting the prosecutor to be gone and Joe Biden pushing for it.
01:12:32.620 You know, there is question about whether he was actually investigating Burisma or whether
01:12:37.540 he was just using the threat of an investigation to essentially elicit bribes from Burisma.
01:12:43.760 I can say, based on my reporting.
01:12:44.620 Right, he actually may have been corrupt.
01:12:46.420 Yeah, I mean, and, you know, big surprise that someone in the Ukrainian government would
01:12:51.380 be corrupt.
01:12:52.500 But either way, Burisma was happy when he was fired under pressure from Joe Biden because
01:12:59.380 they thought correctly that they would be able to deal in a more open, transparent way with
01:13:04.800 his successor.
01:13:06.420 And in fact, they were able initially to do so.
01:13:08.820 And they ended up getting what they wanted, which is the dropping of these cases by the
01:13:13.380 subsequent prosecutor.
01:13:15.660 Can you speak to these, like the PR group and the law firms?
01:13:20.840 You talk about, write about this group, a consulting firm called Blue Star Strategies.
01:13:25.880 Now, this is a Democrat Party-linked consulting firm here in America.
01:13:30.920 These are both former Hillary people, the Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano.
01:13:40.120 These are, you tell me, who are they?
01:13:42.180 And why is some American consulting firm called Blue Star Strategies at all getting involved
01:13:48.620 with Burisma?
01:13:50.680 Well, yeah, they are a Democratic consulting firm.
01:13:53.080 They worked in the Clinton administration, actually, at the same time that Hunter Biden
01:13:56.840 worked in the Clinton administration and the Commerce Department.
01:14:00.560 And they set up this firm that essentially worked with international interests, oftentimes
01:14:07.060 that were sort of being targeted by prosecutors in their own countries or sometimes international
01:14:12.360 prosecutors and sometimes by the U.S.
01:14:13.960 And that's what happened here with Burisma.
01:14:16.080 They were brought in by one of Hunter's partners with assistance from Hunter Biden.
01:14:20.740 And he was involved in the recruitment of Blue Star and the signing of that deal between
01:14:25.880 Burisma and Blue Star.
01:14:27.420 And what they did was both on the PR front trying to essentially cleanse Zolchevsky's reputation,
01:14:34.700 but they also, importantly, reached out to their contacts in the U.S. government during the
01:14:41.260 Obama-Biden administration to try to get them to back off of Zolchevsky and back off of U.S.
01:14:48.220 support for this prosecution.
01:14:50.000 Now, that would seem to be the kind of thing that would trigger a requirement to register
01:14:54.800 under this Foreign Agents Registration Act as a foreign lobbyist.
01:14:58.020 They did not do that in real time, despite questions from me and others in the press and
01:15:04.320 Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson about why they hadn't done so.
01:15:08.020 Ultimately, at the same time that Hunter Biden was being investigated by the Justice Department
01:15:13.360 for his foreign business, Blue Star was also investigated, and they retroactively registered
01:15:18.980 as foreign agents, which to me seems like sort of a tacit admission that they skirted the
01:15:25.340 law in the first place.
01:15:26.580 But they got a deal under which the prosecution was dropped.
01:15:30.360 There would be no charges as long as they filed this registration, which they did.
01:15:34.100 But even the name, like Blue Star, it just reminds me of the Blue Horseshoe Loves whatever
01:15:39.660 from Wall Street, you know, just has this feel to it of like, oh, it's meaningless and therefore
01:15:45.420 it's hiding something they don't want us to know.
01:15:48.040 Do they deny any of this, Ken?
01:15:50.140 Do these two gals deny that they were, you know, taking money after having been hooked up
01:15:56.300 with Burisma through Hunter and his pal to cleanse Burisma's reputation so that it could
01:16:03.960 get this prosecutor off of its back and, you know, smooth sailing with the U.S. government?
01:16:09.960 They don't exactly deny it.
01:16:11.480 The way they frame it is that they were just seeking information.
01:16:14.940 They wanted to know why the U.S. government had this negative view of Zolchevsky and of Burisma,
01:16:20.300 and they wanted to, like, help correct the misperceptions in Washington about this guy.
01:16:25.680 So that's the way that they would frame it.
01:16:28.740 Very, very benevolent.
01:16:29.620 So now it wasn't just Blue Star, this consulting firm that Hunter brought in to cleanse Burisma.
01:16:36.200 Again, this is how he was actually earning his million dollars a year.
01:16:39.080 It was not for any oil and gas expertise.
01:16:41.620 It was to work his dad to bring in this consulting firm to work the American public's perceptions
01:16:47.020 and the perceptions of the Obama-Biden government.
01:16:50.060 And then this law firm, which is just everywhere, David Boies' firm,
01:16:54.760 he also brought in, and he was of counsel to that firm.
01:16:58.840 And you actually point out, I mean, talk about your other conflicts of interest.
01:17:02.460 Hunter Biden had a couple of roles in connection with Burisma, and one was as a lawyer, right?
01:17:09.780 Was that the Burisma deal?
01:17:11.160 Initially, he was sort of brought in through Boyce Schiller.
01:17:15.720 But when he joined the board, he sort of handed off the legal portfolio from Boyce Schiller to another lawyer there.
01:17:22.940 And ultimately, a different firm was brought in to sort of run the effort to try to get the Ukrainian prosecutors to back off.
01:17:30.920 And that firm was Cravath.
01:17:34.900 I'm forgetting the rest of the names there, but Cravath is the first name.
01:17:38.580 Yeah, there you go.
01:17:39.900 And the lawyer who they had, who, again, it's very symbolic and important that they're choosing this particular lawyer.
01:17:47.880 There's a guy by the name of John Beretta who had worked in the Obama Justice Department in a rather senior role.
01:17:55.420 And so he comes in, and he's basically like advertising to the Ukrainian prosecutors, like, I worked in the Justice Department, and now I am here on behalf of this company to help resolve this situation.
01:18:09.400 And so, again, it's like the signaling that carries so much weight in – I mean, it carries so much weight everywhere, but particularly in these foreign countries where there's, like, less of a clear line between, like, the government and the allies of the government who are on the outside.
01:18:24.680 And John Beretta and Hunter and Bluestar, they all sort of, like, take advantage of this perception that they are kind of unofficially carrying the implementer of the government, and that gets them taken seriously and helps their clients.
01:18:41.900 I mean, I hear you on – we may have had a couple of motivations for getting this prosecutor fired, right?
01:18:50.180 He may actually have been corrupt, and the Obama-Biden administration may have actually wanted him gone, but it sure does seem convenient that after Hunter Biden worked very hard – he didn't work very hard for many things, but he did work very hard to clean up Burisma's reputation and get this prosecutor fired.
01:19:07.240 With an outside consulting firm in the states, with lawyers in the states, Cravath Swain – you don't hire them unless you're really willing to pay for good results, like, that's a huge, very well-respected firm.
01:19:16.980 And through working his own dad, suddenly the prosecutor was fired.
01:19:22.620 While they're lecturing the whole world about corruption.
01:19:25.740 I mean, Joe Biden, like, he – we could spend all day playing soundbites of him saying Ukraine really needs to root out corruption.
01:19:34.420 They really need to root out corruption.
01:19:36.140 And he was the point person for the Obama administration on making sure that happened.
01:19:41.240 Meanwhile, his son is running around trying to run cover for one of the most apparently corrupt organizations there.
01:19:48.160 Yeah, and, you know, their argument at the time – not at the time, but because of the time, this, as you noted, was not really covered with the sort of degree of intensity that you would typically think that, like, a high-level conflict of interest scandal involving a top U.S. official would be.
01:20:06.380 But after the fact, when this became an issue, the Biden folks' argument was, you know, Joe Biden wasn't aware of this.
01:20:13.380 He wasn't aware of what his son was doing beyond saying – you know, beyond being alerted by news stories that he had joined the board and telling him, I hope you know what you're doing.
01:20:21.760 Well, we see from this CIA, this memo where the Biden folks are telling the CIA not to disseminate a memo that really does point out this sort of conflict of interest here, or at least the double standard and the perception of a double standard that, like, no, in fact, they were aware of this.
01:20:44.180 And Joe Biden was aware of this, and he didn't want others in his government to be made aware of it.
01:20:50.080 So, you know, whether or not he was actively involved in pushing out a prosecutor because it would benefit his son or his son's client, or whether it just so happened that it benefited the Burisma, you can't argue that he wasn't aware of this potential conflict of interest.
01:21:09.140 And even if you could argue it –
01:21:11.460 Although he did – wait, hold that thought.
01:21:13.100 He did argue it many times, just as a refresher for the audience.
01:21:16.900 Hannity Show put together this montage back in the day, Sop 55.
01:21:20.180 Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?
01:21:27.820 I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.
01:21:30.500 I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period.
01:21:38.780 And what I will do is the same thing we did in our administration.
01:21:43.060 There will be an absolute wall between personal and private and the government.
01:21:48.640 Do you stand by your statement that you did not discuss any of your son's overseas business dealings?
01:21:53.740 Yes, I stand by that statement.
01:21:55.100 I did not know he was on the board of that company.
01:21:58.520 I've never discussed my business or their business, my son's or daughter's.
01:22:02.760 I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine.
01:22:06.640 Did you lie about never speaking with Hunter?
01:22:09.300 Did you lie about never speaking with Hunter?
01:22:12.040 No, I didn't.
01:22:12.920 Go ahead, Ken.
01:22:14.480 Yeah, I mean, so clearly he did know that Hunter was on the board of this company and the people around him knew.
01:22:21.820 And the people around him and possibly him himself did not want others in the government to be sort of aware of this and sort of focused on it as a potential problem that undercut the U.S.'s effort to fight corruption around the world.
01:22:37.340 You know, the other thing that's sort of notable on that front is like this memo that was circulated or that they attempted to circulate that the Biden folks blocked from circulating came right as this effort by Biden to force out the prosecutor was heating up.
01:22:55.880 And as Blue Star's effort to kind of get to get the U.S. to back away from the prosecution was really at its apex.
01:23:04.640 So, like, this was the moment when people in the government should have been aware of this.
01:23:08.900 And, in fact, we do know that there were some people in the government who were aware of it and were deeply troubled by it and tried to flag it for the vice president himself.
01:23:17.140 And we're told that he just doesn't want to hear it right now at the time.
01:23:20.740 I mean, this is – I'm not making light of this.
01:23:22.400 At the time, his other son, his older son, Beau, was fighting brain cancer that ultimately cost him his life.
01:23:29.380 And so, you know, there is, I guess, a human argument, and you could understand why he wouldn't want to be troubled with, like, what his other son was doing.
01:23:37.660 But it implicated U.S. foreign policy and the ability of the U.S. to take the moral high ground in calling out and fighting corruption, which was, again, a key part of, like, the Biden doctrine in foreign policy.
01:23:51.500 Yeah, you have to do your job.
01:23:53.400 You're the vice president of the United States.
01:23:55.100 It's very sad, the personal tragedy that happened with Beau Biden, but you have to do your job.
01:23:59.780 That's not a job you can phone in.
01:24:02.580 So, if you need to take a leave of absence because of, you know, a massive health problem in your family, then that's what you do.
01:24:07.380 But you don't just say, don't bother me with massive corruption my other son is engaged in that's compromising the United States of America.
01:24:15.080 Do you think this is why, when you started to report this story more aggressively or at all, because if you were, in 2019, they came at you so hard?
01:24:25.660 It's very normal to see hit pieces like that on MSNBC against people like me.
01:24:31.420 It's not normal to see it against people like you.
01:24:34.860 But obviously, you struck a nerve.
01:24:37.060 Yeah, I think that they recognized that this was a real issue and one that they wanted to get ahead of.
01:24:44.960 And it wasn't just them coming after me or other reporters.
01:24:48.740 I mean, we saw it most acutely with the Hunter Biden laptop.
01:24:52.560 And when the New York Post wrote about it in the run up to the 2020 election, the way that the Biden campaign was able to marshal all these former intelligence officials to essentially shout it down and encourage successfully the social media companies to suppress the spread of the link to the New York Post story.
01:25:11.800 And any other reporting or commentary about the Hunter Biden laptop really does show the degree to which they recognize that this was a problem, even as they sort of pretended and tried to brush it off as like, oh, no, this is either Russian disinformation or this is like a Rudy Giuliani spin.
01:25:31.640 And, you know, to the point that I was trying to make, maybe not super articulately in that clip that you played from MSNBC, was that Rudy was, in fact, kind of muddying the waters in a way that made it more difficult to discern what the facts were and what the real problems were with having, you know, a close family member of the former vice president and potential future president, you know, working for corrupt.
01:26:00.400 I mean, interest that the US government had determined were corrupt in places that were of critical geopolitical importance to US national security priorities.
01:26:11.480 OK, but now I am I have it on very good authority that it's only the current president who targets his media foes and folks in the media who make him unhappy.
01:26:20.380 I seem to be gleaning that he wasn't the very first to do this, Ken.
01:26:25.160 I mean, it's a different approach. I take your point. But but yes, the Bidens were effective and, you know, maybe there is something to be said for the idea that they were, you know, the Democrats are more accustomed to being able to, like, work with the media and therefore taking like a less adversarial, publicly adversarial approach and sort of working the back channels.
01:26:47.600 But here is an example where the effort to work the back channels because they did, you know, work to sort of shape our coverage and maybe discourage our coverage before it ran.
01:26:59.300 And then after it ran, they reacted in this very aggressive way that you saw play out there with that digital ad.
01:27:05.800 Did you ever get rattled? Like, did you ever think, oh, God, because the book reports that what's her name?
01:27:12.920 Kate Bedingfield. She wrote a separate letter to the executive editor of The New York Times accusing you of an egregious act of journalistic malpractice, spreading Russian propaganda.
01:27:21.780 That's their favorite go to. Then the Biden team provided the letter to a CNN reporter who published it.
01:27:27.700 Andrew Bates, who literally lied every other sentence.
01:27:30.640 Another Biden aide blasted your reporting on Hunter's work for Burisma as historic malpractice and then called you a coward.
01:27:39.480 Then we saw that Biden campaign produced that video that we just played, impugning you by name.
01:27:45.520 You write in the book, this is the type of media targeting for which Trump rightly drew criticism lately.
01:27:52.760 You I mean, the to me as a reporter, this would tell you you're right over the target.
01:27:58.420 But I don't know. Was The New York Times rattled at all by this?
01:28:02.360 The New York Times definitely had my back and the executive editor at the time, Dean Becke, publicly defended, you know, my reporting and me and sort of justified or validated the reporting as being like significant and something that we were going to continue.
01:28:17.760 You know, we did continue it. And it was it was interesting because it did not.
01:28:23.140 You know, I think much of the I can say like much of the mainstream media either sort of shied away from it or was like more measured in in in their approach to it.
01:28:34.100 And of course, that's changed quite a bit after Biden dropped out of the race and Democrats sort of blamed him for costing them a chance at beating Trump in 2024.
01:28:44.660 And now it seems as if there's much more of an appetite to scrutinize the Bidens.
01:28:49.800 Mm hmm. Well, I mean, good for you for doing exactly that.
01:28:53.360 I want to talk about what happened in Romania, but let's just take a quick break first and we'll be back with Ken Vogel.
01:28:58.620 The book is Devil's Advocate. Check it out. You can preorder it right now.
01:29:03.340 A lot of juicy stuff in there and you should know about it.
01:29:05.500 Why why the hell should we be paying for this kind of corruption going on by these officials who are glomming on to the person who's actually in power and which officials are allowing it?
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01:32:30.580 We absolutely have to keep talking.
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01:32:38.940 This fall, Megan Kelly is taking her show live to cities nationwide.
01:32:43.440 To go silent is not the answer.
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01:33:37.420 Back with me now is Ken Vogel.
01:33:39.860 This is his first interview for his brand new book, Devil's Advocates.
01:33:44.180 The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests.
01:33:52.940 The book is out next week.
01:33:54.300 You can preorder it right now and be in on the know.
01:33:58.200 Ken, what happened with Hunter Biden and Romania?
01:34:02.060 Yeah, this is one that is a pretty similar fact pattern, actually, with what happened in Ukraine,
01:34:06.580 which is that there was a Romanian oligarch, a real estate developer, extremely wealthy,
01:34:12.500 who was being prosecuted by prosecutors in Romania in connection with what they allege was a corrupt land deal
01:34:20.080 in which he had, again, bought land from the state.
01:34:24.480 You know, Romania was a communist country.
01:34:27.000 Sensing a pattern.
01:34:27.200 Right, and so he was able to get what prosecutors allege was a real sweetheart deal from the state
01:34:33.840 to buy this, like, very coveted land, and he built a massive development on it,
01:34:40.240 including, you know, a mall and offices and commercial, other commercial properties,
01:34:46.360 and he ended up renting, under a long-term lease, part of the land to the U.S. government
01:34:53.100 to build the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest here.
01:34:56.060 So he's being prosecuted, and who does he reach out to to hire to help him navigate this prosecution
01:35:03.140 but Boyce Schiller and Hunter Biden, and Hunter Biden goes over to Bucharest with a partner at Boyce
01:35:09.920 Schiller, and he meets with the U.S. ambassador under the Obama-Biden administration to Romania,
01:35:16.100 and they talk about this case, and they sort of eventually follow up about, you know, their concerns
01:35:22.400 with it, essentially seeking the help of the U.S. government in backing away Romanian prosecutors
01:35:28.740 from this case.
01:35:30.220 Well, as if that wasn't enough, Hunter Biden is also working to develop a land deal with this
01:35:35.900 Romanian developer and a Chinese-linked company, not just linked, but a company that was regarded
01:35:42.040 as like a pivotal cog in the Chinese Belt and Road economic influence campaign to essentially
01:35:50.040 create this joint venture that would include Hunter, his partners, the Romanian developer,
01:35:55.160 and the Chinese that would own this land.
01:35:58.500 So you would have, and in so doing, they thought that this might sort of diminish the appetite
01:36:04.140 of the Romanian prosecutors to pursue this case because the real estate developer would
01:36:09.420 have less interest in the land, and they would cut a deal with the state that would pay them.
01:36:14.140 But the end result, if this were to have gone through, which it didn't, was that would have
01:36:20.060 been that Hunter, the Romanian, and the Chinese would co-own the land around the U.S. embassy,
01:36:27.500 if not the land itself on which the U.S. embassy was built, you could see why that could cause
01:36:33.280 national security concerns, and it did.
01:36:36.120 One of Hunter's partners at the time, Tony Bobulinski, actually raised this concern to
01:36:41.940 the Romanian real estate developer and said, hey, we need to make sure that the embassy is
01:36:46.760 not included in this transaction.
01:36:49.320 It never got far enough for that to actually be an issue where they were spelling out which
01:36:54.660 specific parcels were involved and which weren't.
01:36:57.500 But again, a concerning fact pattern that just shows how his pursuit, Hunter Biden's
01:37:04.320 pursuit of foreign paydays was in some ways at odds with the foreign policy of the United
01:37:10.320 States that his father, as vice president, was pushing.
01:37:14.060 We're talking with Ken Vogel, the brand new book out by Ken next week.
01:37:17.980 You can preorder it right now.
01:37:19.120 It's called Devil's Advocates.
01:37:22.140 One of those advocates is Rudy Giuliani.
01:37:25.500 And how widespread was his behavior?
01:37:28.960 And what was it?
01:37:30.700 Yeah.
01:37:31.220 I mean, the thing that's so interesting about Rudy is he went after Hunter Biden.
01:37:36.240 In fact, he encouraged Trump to go after Hunter Biden to highlight Hunter Biden's foreign business
01:37:40.560 dealings as a political cudgel and in some ways effectively, in some ways ineffectively,
01:37:47.260 as we discussed.
01:37:48.160 But the reason why he was so well versed in sort of the way that this foreign influence
01:37:54.820 business worked is because he himself had worked at the same space.
01:37:59.340 In fact, he had worked at it in ways that directly overlapped with the ways that Hunter Biden had
01:38:04.840 worked in it, including on behalf of this same Romanian real estate developer.
01:38:09.600 So the story there is that Hunter Biden eventually sort of passes off this legal work for the
01:38:16.920 Romanian real estate developer to Louis Free, a family friend, the former FBI director, family
01:38:21.940 friend of the Bidens and the former, and also a close friend of Rudy Giuliani.
01:38:27.720 So Louis Free is working this case on behalf of the Romanian developer.
01:38:31.880 And when Trump gets into office, Louis Free brings in Rudy Giuliani to write a letter to
01:38:37.520 the Romanians calling out some of the elements of this anti-corruption prosecution.
01:38:42.640 So it's sort of it's more than a little ironic then that Rudy would sort of come after Hunter
01:38:48.240 Biden over his work in the foreign space when he himself had worked at the same space, in
01:38:52.300 some cases on behalf of on behalf of or with some of the same people.
01:38:56.360 You know, it does remind me of how like if you want to figure out how a hacker is likely
01:39:00.640 to get into your network, you've got to go work with a hacker and have somebody explain
01:39:05.980 it to you. And that's how some of these like hacker criminals keep themselves out of jail.
01:39:10.560 They cut a deal to like work with the FBI to show them how it's done.
01:39:14.260 Not say suggesting it's exactly a parallel, but yeah, it makes sense to me.
01:39:18.680 How widespread is this? I mean, like, is it just these guys or is it not just these guys?
01:39:24.920 No, I mean, it's very widespread. And in fact, like the the point about the parallels or the
01:39:29.820 points of connective tissue between Hunter and Rudy in this case are important because
01:39:36.100 it shows that this is a very bipartisan thing. Sure, the foreign interests are looking for people
01:39:41.540 who have connections to the party in power, but they're also looking for connections like across
01:39:46.600 the government. So you see these strange bedfellows types of situations like in Ukraine, where Paul
01:39:53.040 Manafort is working on behalf of the authoritarian president who employed the guy Zolchevsky who
01:40:00.260 started Burisma, who hired Hunter Biden. That was the pro-Russian Ukrainian president who got ousted
01:40:05.600 thanks to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's State Department. Yeah, I mean, the U.S. was certainly
01:40:10.680 behind. It was certainly supportive of the of the street protests that led to his ouster. But
01:40:16.060 Paul Manafort was trying to keep him in power. And so how does Paul Manafort go about doing that?
01:40:22.000 Well, he brings in Tony Podesta, a prominent Democrat with close ties to the Biden to the
01:40:27.720 Obama administration through his brother, John Podesta. He brings in Tad Devine, a Democratic
01:40:33.340 operative who had worked for John Kerry and would go on to work for Bernie Sanders. He brings in
01:40:38.440 Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman with close ties to Mitt Romney. So you see like all these
01:40:44.380 people who in the U.S. are on opposite sides of some of the most heated political fights between the
01:40:49.920 red side and the blue side. But when they're going abroad and looking to pad their pockets,
01:40:55.300 they're all in alignment on the green side. That is the side that's able to like pay them the most
01:41:00.420 money. And so what country does pay the most? I mean, it's it's usually there's this dynamic where
01:41:07.560 the ones that the foreign interests are the sort of most toxic and therefore like most, you know,
01:41:14.020 face the most problems from prosecutors at home and in the U.S. and the U.S. State Department,
01:41:19.000 U.S. sanctions. They oftentimes have the most money, often ill begotten funds, or at least that
01:41:24.640 prosecutors would say what ill begotten funds and have the most incentive to try to protect
01:41:30.060 themselves. And also they're the ones who like there's the real reputational costs for the well
01:41:36.340 connected Americans who are going to go on their payroll. And so they're eyeing it and they're saying
01:41:40.620 like, I don't know, this is like a real a client that might look really bad. So the payday better be
01:41:47.160 worthwhile. And so you see, you know, dictators in Africa. Joseph Kabila was one. He was the former
01:41:53.960 president, strongman president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, launched a huge lobbying
01:41:58.760 campaign in 2018 that I write about in the book that brought in people from across the political
01:42:04.760 spectrum and was paying, you know, millions of dollars because like that's a tough client to take
01:42:10.360 and it better be worth your while. What was there anything that really shocked you when you were
01:42:17.100 researching this book? I mean, I think it was the willingness of of Americans to sort of try to
01:42:24.520 frame a political argument in the U.S. where they would say, look, this person looks really,
01:42:30.660 really bad. And sure, they've done some terrible things, but like they're kind of it's kind of in
01:42:35.860 the best interest of like U.S. foreign policy for the U.S. to like turn a blind eye to the bad
01:42:41.980 things that they're doing in their country, whether they're human rights violations or corruption or
01:42:46.180 what have you. We're still doing that. We're still doing that. We all buy Apple phones and we we deal
01:42:51.580 with China, you know, in a corporate level and a presidential level under both presidents, you know,
01:42:55.540 most the most recent ones, notwithstanding what we know what they're doing, the Uyghurs and all that
01:42:59.920 human rights abuses over there. So I find that easy to believe. I do wonder, you know, like the
01:43:08.040 Hunter Biden laptop and how willing the media was to go along with Russian disinformation, Russian
01:43:13.140 disinformation. How much do you think that kind of thing, like the censoring of that reporting
01:43:18.580 by X, then Twitter? Well, how much of an effect do you think that had on like the American media
01:43:25.080 and understanding that we're just not going to go there? We're not going to talk about things like that.
01:43:28.860 Yeah, it's tough to know. I mean, I think it was troubling from the perspective of someone who
01:43:35.080 like is whose whole job is transparency and enforcing transparency in places where it's not
01:43:41.060 comfortable for the ruling class. And I think there were stories in there. But, you know, I think they
01:43:50.140 did ultimately get told most of them. I mean, maybe I should I should check myself a little bit.
01:43:55.400 But yeah, thanks to my side of the aisle. I should check myself a little bit because I'm still like
01:44:01.380 in this with this Romania story with the land around the U.S. embassy. Like I found about that
01:44:05.660 out about that and reporting my book. So this was well after Biden was, you know, the already or,
01:44:11.840 you know, but it was not Biden already been elected in 2020. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of
01:44:17.200 a lot of interesting information out there about this industry. And it doesn't make either side look
01:44:23.280 particularly good. No, but they should be outed, even if it doesn't make them look good. I appreciate
01:44:28.420 writing the book, Ken. I love this kind of stuff. It's the granular detail is very appealing to me
01:44:34.320 because that's evidence. Again, it's called Devil's Advocates, the hidden story of Rudy Giuliani,
01:44:40.000 Hunter Biden and the Washington insiders on the payrolls of corrupt foreign interests by Ken Vogel
01:44:47.200 of The New York Times. Thank you so much for being here. All the best.
01:44:49.720 It was a pleasure. Thank you, Megan. All right. We're back tomorrow, everybody. We will see you
01:44:53.640 then. Don't miss that. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.
01:45:08.940 Okay. Flights on Air Canada. Oh, wow. Mallorca. That's new. Oh, nice. But Vienna is a classic.
01:45:15.820 Mozart, palaces, and schnitzel. Now you're cooking. If you're hungry, deli brings the heat.
01:45:22.080 Heat? Cartagena's got sun and the sea to cool off. So does Martinique. And that French cuisine?
01:45:29.100 Book it. Yes, chef. Wait, what about Lyon? Choose from our world of destinations if you can. Air Canada.
01:45:37.680 Nice travels.