The Megyn Kelly Show - Kohberger's Shocking Plea Deal, Diddy Red Flags, and Trump vs. Elon Again, with Arthur Aidala, Matt Murphy, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke

00:00:00.580 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:00:12.060 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Wow, there's a lot happening

00:00:16.580 right now. A new feud has just broken out between President Trump and Elon Musk over

00:00:21.100 the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. This time Trump considering deporting Elon. Okay, that's

00:00:25.760 not going to happen, but obviously they're feuding again. Elon really hates the Big Beautiful Bill.

00:00:30.460 But guess what? It looks like at this hour, noon east, on Tuesday afternoon, it looks done.

00:00:37.940 It's scary to say it. It looks like he's got it. John Thune is telling, well, Chad Pergram of Fox

00:00:45.940 News, who is always right, is reporting that John Thune has the votes. You recall Rand Paul's not

00:00:51.620 going to vote for it. Tom Tillis is not going to vote for it. Andy's going to retire. And that means

00:00:57.340 the Republicans can lose one more and still get this through because that would bring them, if they

00:01:02.120 lost three, down to 50. J.D. Vance would cast the tying vote for 51, which is all you need on what's

00:01:08.340 called reconciliation, which is what they use to get through budget bills. It's much more than a

00:01:13.880 budget bill. It's Trump's entire agenda. It either goes through or it doesn't go through. And so they

00:01:20.060 could afford to lose only one more Republican senator. They were looking at, of course, Collins

00:01:24.820 and Murkowski, Maine and Alaska. They spent all night last night trying to persuade Murkowski to

00:01:30.680 come over as a yes, giving her special little grants for Alaska. But then the Senate parliamentarian

00:01:36.760 struck them down saying that you can't stuff this stuff in here. It's not straight.

00:01:43.060 It's not it's not part of a budget bill. And I can't approve it as part of this bill if it's not

00:01:46.920 part of a budget. And so she keeps doing that to them. And then Murkowski was seemed to be out

00:01:54.860 and they've spent the morning trying to get her back in. And it looks like they have her back in.

00:01:58.380 Look, the guys from National Review are going to be here in a minute and we're going to get to all

00:02:01.220 of that. This is very, very big deal if this gets through today. And we'll we'll go there. But as we

00:02:07.140 wait for actual news from Capitol Hill, we're going to start with legal news. All right. We are

00:02:14.400 watching first all the developments in the trial of Sean Diddy Combs. The jury is deliberating right

00:02:19.860 now. They have been for the past three hours today. They sent a fifth note to the judge. They

00:02:25.560 started deliberating yesterday at eleven thirty and they left at five. Plus they had lunch. They

00:02:31.000 haven't really been in there that often or that that long. And they've already sent five notes to

00:02:35.060 the judge. We're going to break down what it's what it may signal from this jury. But we begin

00:02:40.300 today with a stunning development in the criminal quadruple murder case against Brian Kohlberger,

00:02:47.460 the man accused of killing four college students in Idaho. Late yesterday evening, prosecutors sent a

00:02:54.740 letter to the family members of the victims telling them Kohlberger has accepted a plea deal. According

00:03:02.200 to at least some of the families, they feel blindsided by this deal. Kohlberger's murder trial was set to

00:03:09.340 begin in August. But now it has all come to an abrupt, unexpected end. And I don't blame these

00:03:17.060 families for feeling. Shocked and disappointed that they don't they actually don't want this.

00:03:24.920 They wanted the death penalty. They think the case is open and shut. They want to see cross

00:03:31.340 examinations and see the case tested and have what happened fully fleshed out in front of a jury

00:03:38.060 in a way that you'll just never get. Now you'll just never get. They didn't think they needed his

00:03:44.420 plea to get to a guilty verdict and they feel like they were not consulted. It is now likely that some of

00:03:52.440 the major questions in this case, like why, why he did this will never be fully known. According to

00:04:01.680 the letter sent to the families, Kohlberger will be sentenced to four consecutive life sentences

00:04:06.500 on the murder counts life without the possibility of parole. So he will never see the light of day.

00:04:12.440 But the family of Kaylee Gonsalves, they had been pressing prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

00:04:18.320 They had actually pushed to expand the state's capital punishment rules to allow executions by

00:04:22.700 firing squad. That is the kind of justice they wanted. From the very beginning, this was a case

00:04:29.900 that captured the nation's attention in its brutality, its unique.

00:04:38.340 What's the word? Indifference to human life. And this show has been following it from those early days.

00:04:47.120 It is hard to describe just how heinous this crime was, but journalist Howard Bloom, who writes for

00:04:54.420 airmail, has tried. These are passages from an article he wrote in January, 2023, just a few months

00:05:01.080 after the murders that took place in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022 in the college

00:05:07.500 town of Moscow, Idaho. Bloom writing quote, in the heavy quiet of the new Sunday morning, four young

00:05:15.360 corpses, all students, all students, all friends were found hacked to death in their beds in a pale

00:05:21.740 clappered house, little more than a stone's throw away from the heart of the university campus.

00:05:27.160 There was so much blood. It has seeped through the wooden floors and run down the building's gray

00:05:33.300 concrete foundation in jagged red rivulets. And when police arrived, Bloom continued,

00:05:40.700 a cluster of young people, university students, presumably were milling outside the open front

00:05:46.380 door. And yet they were exceptionally quiet. They were not merely subdued. They seemed stunned as if

00:05:53.580 drained by a deep and intense shock. When the three mystified officers approached the front door,

00:05:58.960 someone in the crowd, it would later be shared, muttered a single plaintiff word, dead.

00:06:04.700 And Bloom wrote about this, about the officers who were first to arrive on the scene. Quote,

00:06:11.600 Sergeant Shane Gunderson would confess to others. He was unprepared for the strong smell of blood

00:06:17.540 that rose up in his nostrils. The moment he walked inside the coroner who had once been an emergency room

00:06:23.860 nurse in an earlier stage of her life would describe the scene and press interviews as chaos, lots of blood.

00:06:30.240 Few others would even attempt to put into words what they saw. There are moments cops will tell you

00:06:36.200 that are too profound, too unnerving to be experienced in the present. The victims that night

00:06:44.700 were Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, both 21 years old. They were inseparable best friends since the sixth

00:06:52.960 grade. They died together in the same bed. Also Zanna Kurnodal and Ethan Chapin, both 20 years old.

00:07:02.260 They were girlfriend and boyfriend. According to a recent Dateline special, Ethan Chapin appeared to be

00:07:08.860 the last of the four to be murdered. Sources close to the investigation telling NBC he was believed to be

00:07:14.180 asleep in bed before his death and that Kohlberger carved his lower legs with a blade.

00:07:20.980 Two roommates survived that night. The house had six roommates in all, six sleeping there,

00:07:28.560 and they were expected to testify at trial. You remember they did not call the police until the

00:07:34.140 next morning around noon, or they called friends who called the police, even though this had happened

00:07:38.540 at 4 a.m. And there has been a lot of speculation about what they would testify to, whether they would

00:07:43.920 be helpful or whether they are just so far gone as a result of this whole thing that they wouldn't be

00:07:50.000 of much use. There is no word yet on how they feel about this plea deal, but you can surmise,

00:07:54.800 I'm just going to guess, they're both very relieved. According to that Dateline special,

00:08:00.160 which was so explosive, it caused the defense to move for the trial to be delayed, saying they just

00:08:06.620 took too much of the prosecution's cases been aired and shared against the gag order. And it's stunning

00:08:12.880 and it's all terrible for Kohlberger. By the way, the judge did not grant that, but the Dateline

00:08:18.200 special had a lot. And according to it, Brian Kohlberger in November, 2022, this is right around

00:08:23.900 the time of the murder, had searched the internet for information about infamous serial killer Ted Bundy

00:08:30.080 and made a number of searches for pornography with the keywords drugged, sleeping and passed out.

00:08:36.900 And then after the murders, he took this creepy selfie. Look at this for the listening audience is

00:08:43.820 him wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt. It's like identical to an infamous shot of Ted Bundy.

00:08:52.500 He, he looks so creepy and it, it's, it comes on the heels of another one. He took that morning

00:08:58.500 the morning after the murders where he was in a white button down shirt in front of a shower,

00:09:05.080 looking as pasty and pale as a human being can be while still alive. And this bizarre smile

00:09:14.020 into the camera, which seems to, with a thumbs up almost to be telegraphing, I did it.

00:09:20.860 He looks almost proud of himself. And now he says to us all, I did it. I did it. When first arrested,

00:09:33.460 when dragged into court, he refused to say the words, not guilty. He refused to speak, which will

00:09:40.640 have the judge enter a plea for you. And the judge said, okay, so it's not guilty. And assent was

00:09:45.760 indicated. And that's what plea was entered. So he has been denying that he did it all along,

00:09:51.040 as you know. And now today we learn he's prepared to walk into court tomorrow, Wednesday, which has

00:09:57.960 also shocked the families because they don't all live right in this area. They need time to get there,

00:10:03.680 to get plane tickets, to show up. We'll see if that gets extended and say, I did it. I committed

00:10:10.500 quadruple murder. The plea deal requires him to waive his right to appeal. There is a hearing again

00:10:16.500 right now scheduled for tomorrow, but Kaylee Gonsalves, his father, who I believe is the only

00:10:21.360 one to speak out so far. Uh, Steve is hoping the judge will not sanction the deal. He's guilty. We

00:10:30.580 all know he's guilty. There's more than enough evidence, but, um, it's tough. It's tough to put a

00:10:37.420 community through this. And, uh, it could be bad for, um, reputations and business identities and,

00:10:44.540 and, and there's fallout, but, um, this isn't the will of the victims. I ask your audience,

00:10:54.400 if anybody knows, um, judge Hitler, reach out to him and ask him to put his foot down and not accept

00:11:01.560 this offer, it doesn't reflect anything in Idaho. This is not justice. We had an outsider come to

00:11:09.880 our community, kill our kids in their sleep while they're getting a college education, doing

00:11:14.120 everything that they should do. And we don't have the courage to hold him accountable. No plea deal.

00:11:20.280 Let's go for this guy. A hundred percent. Let's do it.

00:11:23.340 Hmm. A news nation with Ashley Banfield last night, uh, joining me now to discuss it. Arthur

00:11:30.400 Idala and Matt Murphy, Arthur's a managing partner at Idala Bertuna and Caymans and hosted the Arthur

00:11:35.760 Idala power hour on AM seven nine 70 in New York, Matt, former homicide prosecutor and author of the

00:11:41.800 book, the book of murder. Matt has prosecuted several high profile serial killers, including the

00:11:46.580 case of Rodney L. Keller, who was known as the dating game killer. We've talked to Matt about that

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00:12:59.800 with expert help from tax network USA. Guys, welcome back to the show. This is, this is grave.

00:13:07.820 I mean, it's pretty shocking, Matt. I mean, you spent your whole career as a prosecutor putting

00:13:12.800 away guys like Brian Kohlberger. What do you make of Steve Gonsalves's strong statements against this

00:13:20.300 saying we weren't told we found out on Friday that they might be talking to him about a plea. The next

00:13:26.020 thing we got was a letter on Sunday with an email attachment saying it was, it was done. We didn't have

00:13:33.220 meaningful input and we don't want this. Well, it's, uh, very sad. First of all, it is a, um, uh,

00:13:43.940 this should never happen. Frankly, Megan, you should never have such a disconnect with the family,

00:13:49.800 whether or not you do a plea or not is a separate issue than the family being informed and being

00:13:56.140 afforded an opportunity to come to court and express their views. Uh, this is, uh, squarely in what's

00:14:01.900 known as Marcy's law or the crime victims bill of rights. And what you see in California, this is

00:14:07.200 actually enshrined in the constitution where victims have a right to be heard and they have

00:14:12.600 a right to be present for all significant proceedings. So, well, the, the reasons they give

00:14:19.220 are, are good. I mean, they're, they're well articulated. They explain, um, the appellate process

00:14:26.040 and how that goes on for years, but the disconnect of the family is, uh, it's a, it's a tragic element

00:14:32.540 to this. Now, what's interesting is only the Gonzalez family is talking, which makes me think

00:14:36.900 maybe the other families were on board, but it seems like such a short period of time. The turnaround

00:14:42.560 is, um, I'm really kind of surprised by that, that they apparently heard from the defense very

00:14:48.680 recently, like within the last couple of days. And then they turn this thing around and the plea is

00:14:54.160 supposed to get out tomorrow. Well, the Gonzalez family is saying that they can't even get up there

00:14:58.120 in time. So they're asking for the court to delay it, which could actually delay it. But I expect

00:15:02.760 that this Lee will go through. Right. Because they don't want to do anything. It's going to jeopardize

00:15:07.540 the words. I did it coming out of this guy's mouth. Arthur, you used to be a prosecutor. You've spent

00:15:12.440 more recent years as a defense attorney. Um, is this guy is Brian Kohlberger. It, when pleading

00:15:19.020 guilty, going to have to allocate in a way that would tell us everything that would answer any of

00:15:25.700 our questions, or are we more likely to get a guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. Goodbye.

00:15:33.440 Yeah, I was, Megan, I was just involved in a case where I was representing the victim's families

00:15:38.380 and, um, he actually went to trial and even at the trial, they can see on videotape, they could see him

00:15:46.460 doing it, but there's zero motive, zero motive. And the family asked me, and I did go to the

00:15:53.200 prosecutor and to the defense attorney and say, look, if you tell us why this happened, we'll,

00:15:58.800 we'll, as the victim family asked for less time than 25 to life, which is the maximum here in New

00:16:03.760 York. And the guy refused to do so. And this family is the anniversary whose death was yesterday.

00:16:08.280 Um, this family is guys in jail, 25 to life. And they have no idea why he was executed. And that

00:16:15.760 may be the hardest thing for the family members. And it's the same thing here. It's obvious that

00:16:22.020 this guy did it. Um, but they want to know why I will say though, that family members who have to

00:16:29.420 sit through this and, and both of, you know, there are often autopsy pictures that are shown and you

00:16:35.500 hear the description and how people died. And that's, you know, when you're a family member,

00:16:40.020 you're sitting there, you're hearing about your 21 year old, gorgeous daughter and how she met her

00:16:44.980 death. It's, it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. The, so he's not going to have to go

00:16:51.640 through it bit by bit, Matt. No, he'll just, he'll just do, he'll just do the honest date at this time

00:16:57.280 where you're at this location. Yes. And did you cause the death by this person? Yes. And did you

00:17:01.280 cause the death by using a knife? Yes, I did. And did you intend to cause the death at that time? Yes.

00:17:06.900 That's it. But let me ask you this, cause Matt, you've dealt with these serial killers before.

00:17:11.700 Uh, and I, I mean, I, I think that's, that's fairly, it's fair to say that was the road this

00:17:15.920 guy was on. I mean, he committed four in one night and was obsessed. I absolutely think so. Yeah.

00:17:21.440 Um, I mean, this is, this is all hallmarks and he's sorry, sorry, Megan. I don't want to step on.

00:17:25.440 I was just going to say that these guys, these serial killers, they do like to talk. I mean,

00:17:29.540 it historically, they want to be celebrated. I'm sure this is another problem. The family will have

00:17:35.480 whatever attention he's likely to get for the rest of his life. But on the upside, he might,

00:17:40.880 he might actually explain why he did what he did at some point.

00:17:44.600 Well, there's a narcissism to these guys that is off the charts. You know, I mean, this is truly the,

00:17:50.120 this that's the psychopathic personality. It's almost a spectrum where we all like narcissism

00:17:55.120 or the narcissist is a, is a buzzword these days on social media, but the psychopath is the extreme

00:18:01.280 version of that. The problem is art is exactly right here. Um, it's called a factual basis.

00:18:06.160 When you do a plea, um, you know, it's literally on this time with unlawful intent, I entered the

00:18:13.280 home and caused the death of it's very, very sterilized. And part of the power of these guys

00:18:19.800 that you so often see is he's going to get off, I think on the pain that he's caused those families.

00:18:25.700 And you see that over and over again with serial killers like this. And I think that, um, if I had

00:18:31.320 to, if I had to bet Megan, I would bet he never says a word because he knows that it's still inflicting

00:18:37.680 some degree of suffering to these, to these, the families of these poor kids, them not knowing.

00:18:42.680 And again, art is absolutely right. A lot of times the families, they just want to know the answer

00:18:47.140 why, but in a case like this, um, I don't think any answer that Koberger would, could even give

00:18:53.640 it would be satisfactory to anybody. He did it probably because he, he wanted to do it.

00:18:58.500 And, um, and it's one of the great questions in, in criminal law, like what makes these guys tick?

00:19:03.480 What makes serial killers want to slaughter innocent people? Um, you know, and I, I'm, I'm with art.

00:19:08.520 I also do some, uh, some victim representation in California. It's called Marcy's law.

00:19:13.340 And I've shared that experience with him. Um, like art's exactly right. Uh, families want that answer,

00:19:18.940 but with a guy like Koberger, they're probably just never going to get it outside of a trial.

00:19:23.640 Which I don't think we're going to see. But you know, it's interesting regarding the narcissistic

00:19:28.680 part of it. He really won't be a household name the way like Casey Anthony is. And because his,

00:19:35.880 correct me if I'm wrong, Megan, but I believe we were going to cover his trial because it was going

00:19:39.260 to be televised, right. For like weeks. So when those cases get televised, Jody Arias and, and

00:19:46.520 obviously OJ is the biggest one of all time, you know, he would have been much more of a known guy

00:19:54.800 than kind of going off quietly with a quickly and, and, and, and it will be over. So it, it,

00:20:01.760 it does fly in the face of like, if he really wanted, if this was what he wanted to do, it'd be

00:20:07.100 become this famous dude going through the trial is, is, uh, is a, is a sick thing to say,

00:20:13.800 but it's a really good way to get your name out there. And that's now has gone by the way.

00:20:17.860 So there's something interesting on this front. Uh, I'll tell you, um, Howard Bloom, who's been

00:20:22.180 doing great work reporting on this from the beginning, um, sent me a note this morning

00:20:26.240 saying he's hearing that a large part of the reason Kohlberger cut this deal was to protect

00:20:30.720 his parents. His father would have been called to testify about what was said during that cross

00:20:36.620 country trip. They took together. You remember after the murders, the dad flew out there on,

00:20:40.780 I think it was December 4th. The murders were December, November 22nd overnight into the 23rd.

00:20:46.100 And, um, the dad traveled cross country from Washington state back home to the Poconos in

00:20:51.040 Pennsylvania with him. And on top of that, we learned this in the dateline schedule that at 6

00:20:57.680 AM the morning after the murders, Brian Kohlberger called his mother and spoke with her for nearly an

00:21:02.820 hour. This is the first time hearing it was the mother. I knew he had called home and spoke with his

00:21:08.040 mom for nearly an hour. He did not want his mother to have to testify about that call or his sister

00:21:13.000 about confronting the father with her suspicions that Brian may have done it. I don't know, Matt. I

00:21:19.900 mean, does a sociopath, a psychopath like this have feelings for his dad or his mom? Is that possible?

00:21:27.360 You know, we hear the term anthropomorphizing, which is when people start attributing human emotions to

00:21:33.260 animals. And in a way, a guy like this, um, I think that what he's really worried about Megan

00:21:38.180 is he's in Idaho and he could actually be executed for this. And I agree with art. The evidence in

00:21:44.140 this case is overwhelming. Um, and especially those little things like those little selfies and things

00:21:49.080 like that. He was going down as defense, he knew he was going down. And I think fundamentally,

00:21:53.120 um, the, the psychopath, the one human they actually care about is themselves. And, and I think that

00:22:00.500 that's what motivated him. I don't think a guy like Koberger actually cares about too many other

00:22:04.740 people. And I think that in that, that that's a nice speculative sort of human interpretation of

00:22:10.640 that. I think that he was worried about it literally in the state of Idaho's own neck more than it's

00:22:15.060 what his family would go through. That's my take on it. You know, it's interesting though. And I was

00:22:19.640 thinking about this this morning, preparing to come here, if I'm him, right, I don't like to

00:22:24.860 acquaint myself to being him, but I would want to do some, uh, investigation as what life is like

00:22:32.400 with life in prison. If it is like, it is like with the federal guys, like the world trade set of

00:22:37.620 bombers and stuff where you're just in a cage, basically 23 hours a day. And, and every third day

00:22:44.960 you get to go out. But the rest of the time you're in this still this little cage and yeah, maybe

00:22:49.560 you get a radio and you get a book. I don't know. At his age, when I want to live the next

00:22:54.300 50 or 60 years like that, or would I rather prefer euthanasia? It'll take 10 years before

00:22:59.040 they actually put a needle in his arm or shoot him or whatever they're going to do out there.

00:23:02.900 But, you know, living in a cage is for, for 50 or 60 years. That's rough. I mean, I, I speak

00:23:12.300 to criminal defense. No, it's not right. Exactly. I mean, I, well, I don't know. I would like

00:23:17.640 to figure out, I would like to see if I'm him, I want to know, well, what's my life now?

00:23:22.220 He may be going to a facility where there's college education, there's a barbershop, there's

00:23:28.180 a dentist. I mean, prisons are small communities, right? They, they, they have to.

00:23:32.600 That you, you, you're, you're raising a very good point. Cause what are we debating right

00:23:35.820 now in California? Whether these Menendez brothers should be let out. Oh, they were young

00:23:41.140 when this happened. They had an abusive dad, you know, like now with the red, with the benefit

00:23:46.300 of all this hindsight, shouldn't we let them out of prison? And you know, that when, when

00:23:50.580 there's no death penalty, the odds of us getting in 20 years, Matt, oh, you know, he was young.

00:23:57.000 He had autism spectrum disorder as if that makes people murder for innocent victims that, cause

00:24:02.980 they're already playing that card on the defense team. You know, he had some disorders where he

00:24:06.820 saw visual snow. Really? We should, there should be some sort of a mercy afforded his way that

00:24:12.720 as long as he's still breathing, that's still out there as a possibility.

00:24:18.740 Well, you're absolutely right. And you and I've talked about the Menendez brothers before,

00:24:22.180 and that's exactly what we saw there. They, they received lifestyle possibility of parole,

00:24:26.920 and that turned out not to be lifestyle possibility of parole, right? So you're absolutely right,

00:24:33.500 Megan. And online on this, um, there are a lot of conspiracy theorists that the prosecution even

00:24:38.460 noted in their justification letter that they submitted publicly. That was so weird. That was

00:24:42.980 very weird. It, and it, it really is. That's the nightmare for the family. But again, um, you know,

00:24:50.300 the, the appellate process and art touched on this, the appellate process in especially going through

00:24:56.180 the ninth circuit, which is where my eight death penalty cases are now kind of rumbling through. Um,

00:25:01.600 you never really have any finality for the family, but there is a cathartic aspect, Megan,

00:25:07.560 that a lot of people don't understand. Unless you're in the situation of, of, of having a loved

00:25:13.980 one that's been murdered, it's very difficult to really understand their need for justice and

00:25:18.920 need for answers. And for a lot of family members, having the community come in and say,

00:25:23.840 we understand that there's a long appellate process, but your loved one was so valuable.

00:25:28.160 And you, Mr. Defendant are so terrible that you deserve to die for what you did, whether you're

00:25:34.180 ever executed or not being a separate question that can be really good for families. And it sounds

00:25:39.640 like the Gonsalves family really wanted that. Um, maybe some of the other family members didn't,

00:25:44.600 or other families didn't. And that's something that you deal with from time to time on death

00:25:48.620 penalty cases. You'll have a family member that's adamantly opposed to the death penalty for whatever

00:25:53.040 reason, but it ultimately it's the prosecution's call, but it should never come as a surprise to

00:25:58.660 the family. This should be in the loop. And I don't, I don't know what happened here.

00:26:01.680 They've been the unofficial spokesman for the, for the families in a way, because we've heard from

00:26:06.100 Steve Gonsalves more than anybody. And also his wife, uh, Maddie Mogan's parents, I have not spoken

00:26:11.660 as much. Ethan Chapin's parents have spoken and seem, this is just my impression. Like they seem like

00:26:19.900 they're in a kinder, gentler place, not with respect to the defendant, but just they're more

00:26:23.480 focused on their son and who he was and trying to keep who Ethan was in our minds that, and,

00:26:29.360 and Steve Gonsalves, totally understandably, I think I'd be more like him is, you know,

00:26:34.180 he means business. He, he wants a conviction of this guy on a death penalty case. And, um,

00:26:40.960 Xana Cronotl, I haven't heard anything really money much from her parents. So I don't know that we

00:26:44.920 will hear much. And then there's the other two witnesses who I know. I mean, the one witness

00:26:48.840 seems to have been a kind of a mess, you know, the one Dylan Mortensen, who was there and made

00:26:55.280 eye contact with him. And then later kind of was like, I don't know what I saw and didn't call the

00:27:00.100 cops. And they've been, you know, subject to a lot of speculation. That's been not flattering

00:27:05.080 because people can't understand what took you eight hours. You were on the internet, you were on

00:27:09.300 social media, like any of us can really ever understand what these girls went through. Anyway,

00:27:13.960 the point is I'm sure there's mixed, mixed amongst the families and the prosecution thought, you know,

00:27:19.420 a bird in the hand. Um, I do want to mention the conspiracy thing that Matt just mentioned.

00:27:24.480 The prosecutor cited concerns about conspiracy theorists and supporters of the defendant in

00:27:30.400 their explanatory, um, offerings as to why they did this. Um, that there are sadly, as many have

00:27:38.000 experienced, there are individuals out there who believe in conspiracy theories about this case,

00:27:43.280 believe the defendant to be innocent or support the defendant in some way. And this is something

00:27:51.480 the prosecutors, Arthur factored in to why they wanted to settle the case.

00:27:57.920 Look, Maggie, I, you know, it's still fresh in my blood, right? I mean, we've worked to our

00:28:02.240 advantage, but in the Weinstein trial just now, um, you know, one of the jurors just said, look,

00:28:07.080 I'm not deliberating. I I'm being intimidated by other jurors and I quit. And that for that one

00:28:12.540 count. Now they had reached a verdict on other counts. That one count went out the window.

00:28:17.140 You just talked about, there's been five notes in the P Diddy trial. Who knows what's going to go

00:28:21.560 on there. And you and I could, Matt, we can rattle off examples of trials that you think are going to

00:28:26.260 go in the right way. And then they go in a different direction or they, they blow up. The prosecutors in

00:28:31.940 the Luigi case here in New York, uh, are probably wondering, I mean, this guy got more birthday presents

00:28:37.920 and money. And I mean, he executed a man in cold blood in the back and people are supporting him.

00:28:43.940 So as a prosecutor, look for life sentences. And I understand what you're both saying about

00:28:49.240 it can still be overturned in 30 or 40 years. But when you have a guarantee, you are, you're able to,

00:28:56.760 and the communication should have been a hundred times better than allegedly it was between prosecutors

00:29:01.940 and the victim's families. But you have a guarantee that this kid is not getting out, even in the best

00:29:06.900 case scenario for decades and decades, guaranteed, guaranteed decades and decades and decades as a

00:29:12.540 prosecutor, I think it's the responsible thing to do to accept that plea. And I, I assume the judge

00:29:18.300 is going to do the same thing. Yeah. Can I weigh in on that just for a second, Megan? I, um, I hate that

00:29:23.200 they did that, to be honest with you. I hate that they, that they empowered those, those fools that

00:29:27.140 think there's a conspiracy. I don't like that at all. And I think that, um, I don't disagree with

00:29:32.080 what Archer said at all. Um, but you strap this case on, you don't give the, some conspiracy theorist

00:29:38.060 online behind their keyboard, the power to influence a freaking plea. That was a mistake that makes them

00:29:43.820 look terrible. I think that, you know, that may be what was actually going on in their head, but

00:29:48.160 that's why you're a frigging prosecutor. You put the case on and you disprove those people

00:29:52.920 because the evidence in this was truly overwhelming. And I mean, I really, um, that's what kind of hit

00:29:59.680 me when I read that line. That was, they shouldn't have included that the family should have been

00:30:04.120 better informed. Art's absolutely right. This guarantees it. He's also waiving appeal as a part

00:30:09.060 of this deal, which is no small thing, but, um, I just, I, I didn't like that. I, and I, and I,

00:30:15.260 I know it probably struck art the same way. This is a small, it's a small County. They've only done

00:30:20.160 nine, I think nine death penalty cases. Um, there's nine, eight or nine people on death row

00:30:24.840 in all of Idaho, um, which means it speaks to a lack of experience on this type of case.

00:30:29.620 And, um, I was really, really, I've been rooting for the prosecution this entire time.

00:30:34.240 I was very disappointed to read that. And I was heartbroken by the Gonzalez,

00:30:38.480 Gonzalez, Gonzalez statement. And look, when you're, when you're a pro that's, you take the heat,

00:30:44.400 you put it on, you win with evidence, you follow the law and you convince everybody to the contrary.

00:30:48.560 You know, but the thing is, I think what they're afraid of is like having one nut job on the

00:30:53.480 jury. You know, all you need is one. Right. And then that sneaks on. And, and, you know,

00:30:57.340 that look what it's the federal court. There's basically no jury selection. So it looks like,

00:31:03.060 I mean, their first note in that case, I know we're going to go there in a second. It was like,

00:31:06.360 there's someone in here who doesn't, can't comprehend what the situation is.

00:31:10.600 I know, but that could happen in any case.

00:31:12.240 Brian Enten of News Nation, who broke this news, he broke this news yesterday. Um, and he's been

00:31:16.820 covering this from the beginning, sent out the following. He said, my personal feeling is from

00:31:20.760 the beginning, Idaho has not wanted to deal with this case. To your point, Matt, he says from

00:31:26.360 university of Idaho, taking ownership of the house and tearing it down also over some of the family's

00:31:31.280 objections, including Gonsalves to the initial judge passing the case on, he bounced it over to

00:31:36.800 this other judge, uh, to the gag order, which was very controversial amongst the families. How can

00:31:41.240 they not speak about their loved ones being murdered and constant annoyance with any attention

00:31:46.960 the case gets? And, you know, he seems to be saying that, that just your point, Matt, yes,

00:31:53.820 they really didn't want to do this. They're not used to doing this. It's not like your big jurisdiction

00:31:58.060 in, uh, Los Angeles and orange County. I think it was right. It it's, it's a smaller town. They

00:32:03.580 haven't done a lot of this. They may have felt uncomfortable and I don't know, you know,

00:32:07.740 they may be cut from a different cloth altogether. You know, it's not like New York where Arthur

00:32:12.800 practices were like, unfortunately there are a lot of murders and there's a lot of death and

00:32:17.400 destruction. And as a New Yorker, it's not like you don't care, but you get a little immune to it.

00:32:22.660 It's not exactly that way out in Idaho. And I'm sure there was a reluctance if they could get out of

00:32:28.420 this to go forward anyway. Yeah. I mean, look, you're, if you become a fighter pilot, um, fly the jet

00:32:36.420 and shoot the missiles, you know, you become a doctor, you become a surgeon, you know, you don't

00:32:41.500 shy away from the big operation. I, I, and I agree with everything you just said, Megan, it's true.

00:32:47.280 And I, but Brian makes some great points. Um, he really does. It's, it's, there've been a lot of

00:32:53.120 things that I interpreted as, as I'm being very careful because they don't want to screw the case

00:32:57.160 up on appeal. The ninth circuit is, is historically very, um, you know, the appellate scrutiny is intense,

00:33:04.100 uh, especially on death penalty cases. Uh, but you know, I, I was very disappointed by this, to be honest

00:33:10.520 with you. I haven't made that obvious at this point. I mean, look, I, I would think Megan, if, if the

00:33:16.220 Luigi Mangione defense team went into the prosecutors and he's facing the death penalty here in federal

00:33:21.260 court and said, okay, he'll take life without parole. I'm guessing the U S attorney is going to be

00:33:26.060 like, okay, I've department of justice is going to say, okay, I don't think, I don't think you take that

00:33:30.780 risk with the 12 jurors and you don't know exactly what they're going to do.

00:33:35.260 Mm-hmm. The, um, one thing I wanted to point out is that they revealed that the defense went to the

00:33:41.520 prosecution and said, please make us an offer. It was not the prosecution afraid to go forward.

00:33:48.080 It was good old Ann Taylor, who's been bluffing a good game and trying to get endless delays of this

00:33:54.380 case. So her client could live another day, uh, who finally went in there, waved the white flag.

00:33:59.660 As we all knew she had to, they have this guy dead to rights. They have his DNA on the knife sheath

00:34:07.700 that was used to hold the murder weapon. They have him throwing away his garbage in Ziploc baggies that

00:34:14.740 he was depositing in the neighbor's trash back in the Poconos so that his DNA couldn't be easily

00:34:21.480 discovered by cops who were already three steps ahead of him. They have his car circling the murder

00:34:27.640 house in the moments leading up to the murder, his phone going off just for the time that the

00:34:33.580 murder was committed. Then going back on returning to the crime scene the next day, his internet

00:34:38.520 searches. He looked for the K bar knife to replace the one he had clearly lost after committing the

00:34:43.980 murders. He ordered, uh, overalls of the kind he, we now know he had earlier testified would help

00:34:49.840 somebody hide the blood and cover up having committed a crime. I mean, they had him dead

00:34:55.080 to rights. He had no shot. And Ann Taylor did the right thing for him. I think personally,

00:35:00.660 the only thing that could stop this thing from actually happening tomorrow is Brian Kohlberger

00:35:05.180 himself. Cause Howard bloom has been reporting that he has been the holdout on taking a guilty plea that

00:35:11.960 there might've been a rift developing between attorney and client on this. And there was some

00:35:17.880 rumbling about whether Ann Taylor, the lawyer was thinking of a maneuver to eat, like somehow have

00:35:23.160 him declared incompetent or do something to get around his holding out. And it looks like eventually

00:35:28.540 she got to him and maybe to Howard's reporting, she at least used the hell that his parents were

00:35:34.940 going to have to go through, you know, to try to give him a hook out. Go ahead, Matt.

00:35:41.200 Yeah. That's all right. Everything you just said is correct. But, um, ultimately it's the

00:35:47.300 prosecution's decision. So we, we never offered to plead our death cases. Like there was one that,

00:35:53.780 that we dealt, um, uh, my James, the Tory ship case, and that was the DA's call after new mitigating

00:36:00.380 evidence came forward and the DA decided to give to him. Other than that, the defense can't force

00:36:05.320 this. So he can come in and ask for a deal. He can certainly has the right to plead guilty and then

00:36:10.200 go into the penalty phase and determine what the appropriate sentence is. But this is under,

00:36:15.060 this is controlled by the prosecution and they decided to do it. And, um, the family wasn't on

00:36:22.360 board. So, um, ultimately it's their call. Uh, they don't have to accept that, that offer from

00:36:28.800 the defense. You can plead guilty, but the death determination or LWOP is something that, um,

00:36:35.220 ultimately it's, it's, it's the prosecution's call to agree to that or not. So this is a deal.

00:36:40.540 I just, I just want to make sure though, do we know that all family members were not on board or

00:36:46.180 no, we don't know how the other three feel. Right. We, no, it's a good point. It's a very

00:36:50.500 good point. You know, I don't mean to step on you, but, and, and let me just tell you something though,

00:36:54.320 to your point earlier, Matt and Megan, in the case, I just tried the prosecutors flew literally all

00:37:00.900 over the world to talk to witnesses, to put somebody in jail. Okay. This is to me, that rises

00:37:06.900 the same level here. If these prosecutors needed to get on a plane this past Saturday to go speak

00:37:12.020 to the deceased family, to let them know, look, you're not making the call. This is the elected

00:37:16.240 prosecutor. They're making the call, but we want to let you know why we're doing it and what the

00:37:21.160 reasoning is and what are they deserve. They definitely deserve that. And if that did not

00:37:26.740 happen, we don't know if it did or it didn't, but it sounds like it didn't at least with one family

00:37:30.540 member, then shame on that. Because when you're making such a big decision, it is their decision,

00:37:35.180 but you got to hold hand. You got to have bedside manner. You should have a psychiatrist or a social

00:37:40.820 worker or someone. I mean, I mean, this is such an enormous tragedy. You can't just be like, here's,

00:37:47.520 I mean, if they found out via email, that's beyond disgusting. I mean, that is beyond disgusting that

00:37:54.660 you open an email. Oh, by the way, yeah, that final thing is gone and we're just going to give them

00:37:57.980 life. Bye-bye. Come back tomorrow. Yeah. You got 72 hours. I mean, I'm hoping that that is not

00:38:04.300 actually what took place. And there was a lot more personal interaction between the

00:38:08.800 prosecutors. I don't know. This Steve Gonsalves has been pretty reliable. Um, and he's, he's

00:38:13.140 revealed a lot. That's, that's been proven out. I can't imagine he's lying about that. That's poor

00:38:17.380 man. He said, we were treated as the opposition from the very beginning, from the very beginning.

00:38:23.160 And, um, this just coming, all it says, this is from Brian and again, news nation reporting that,

00:38:28.680 uh, Ethan Chapin's family will be in court tomorrow and does support the plea deal.

00:38:34.120 That doesn't surprise me. As I said, that's the one other family that we've heard from a bit.

00:38:39.040 They're very focused on Ethan and everything I've heard them say has been trying to get us to

00:38:43.300 remember what their son was like. He was a triplet and, uh, his two other siblings, I think,

00:38:48.200 go to the same university. Can you imagine? Okay, let's move on. Cause we only have another 10

00:38:52.560 minutes or so on. I want to get to what's happened in Diddy. They've been in there. I mean,

00:38:56.260 we have almost more questions than we have jurors now or numbers of deliberation of ours. Um, five

00:39:01.840 questions. They're very interesting. What the hell's going on with juror 25? Just to, as point

00:39:08.520 of clarification, the jurors have their numbers from Wadir. So it's not that they have 25 jurors

00:39:13.840 like they have their numbers. It doesn't mean there's 25 jurors. There are eight jurors, eight

00:39:17.120 men, sorry, 12 jurors, eight men, four women. And this guy's one of them. And the note out to the

00:39:22.840 judge yesterday was we have a juror number 25 quoting here who we are concerned. Cannot,

00:39:29.340 cannot follow your honors instructions. After conferring with the lawyers, the judge sent back

00:39:35.560 in a note saying, do it, do it, do it anyway. Like saying, uh, I reviewed your note. Uh, I remind

00:39:43.440 every juror of their duty to deliberate and their obligation to follow my instruction in the law with

00:39:47.460 that instruction in mind, please continue deliberating. And they did. What does that mean?

00:39:51.860 This guy, veterinarian, 51 Hispanic, PhDs in macroeconomics and something else, nuclear molecular

00:39:58.900 biology, I think, um, uh, has a domestic partner who's male and who is a graphic designer lives in

00:40:05.640 New York, goes to the opera, watches nature documentaries argue may or may not be climate

00:40:10.440 change. They said, and, uh, I don't know. I don't know what to make of this. He doesn't sound like

00:40:14.940 somebody who can't speak English, who can't understand things. He definitely can follow

00:40:21.140 the instructions. So what do you glean from this? Matt, I'll start with you.

00:40:25.440 Well, um, first of all, it's the worst nightmare for any prosecutor when you've got a, a, a comment

00:40:31.820 from the foreperson right away and note to the judge that somebody is not deliberating. My guess,

00:40:37.140 Megan, just, um, from a whole bunch of jury trials and a lot of speculation since they didn't

00:40:42.120 give us anything else is it sounds like he went back and announced his verdict. If I had to guess,

00:40:46.300 he went back and either said, I don't want to talk. I don't want to deliberate. This guy's guilty or

00:40:50.700 this guy is, I'm not convicting no matter what that, that'd be my guess. He came in and very

00:40:55.220 strongly announced an opinion at the very beginning, which prompted the foreperson to say, Hey, you got

00:40:59.900 to deliberate, dude, we got to talk about this. That's my guess. Um, and I know, I know getting notes

00:41:06.060 like that, uh, art and I both probably have PTSD for many years of doing it. Um, from the defense

00:41:11.100 side, that's, uh, you love seeing that from the prosecution side, you, you have a problem right

00:41:17.760 at the outset. So hopefully they, they straighten him out. Well, in, in federal court, unlike in many

00:41:25.120 state courts in federal court, it's not as right. It is not as big of a problem as it is in the state

00:41:31.480 court because the judge has the power. I did all this research yesterday. The judge has the power

00:41:37.700 to call that particular juror out, not asking about what's going on specifically in the deliberation

00:41:43.560 room, but he, the judge can make an inquiry. And if the judge determined that this juror cannot

00:41:49.480 be a fair and impartial juror for whatever reason that didn't come out in voir dire, or I'll give you

00:41:55.200 any other example. He gets deathly ill and can no longer deliberate in federal court. The judge has

00:42:01.140 the jurisdiction to rule that a criminal defendants can have a fair and impartial trial and a verdict

00:42:08.040 with just 11 jurors. He can dismiss this juror for good cause and have 11 jurors deliberate.

00:42:16.080 Trust me, the judge doesn't want that. The prosecutor does not want that because it creates appellate

00:42:20.200 issue, but there are appellate cases on point that says the judge has tremendous leeway at the end of a

00:42:26.760 long trial like this where so many resources have been spent. If a juror is unavailable or unable to

00:42:33.220 be a fair and impartial juror at that point, the judge can dismiss them and 11 jurors can go forward

00:42:38.400 and reach a verdict. I think they've got an alternate. What do you make of Matt's theory? Because I had the

00:42:43.280 same reaction as Matt did. Somebody saying my mind's made up. There's no point in deliberating. I'm

00:42:48.700 never moving off of insert verdict here. What is that what you're, I mean, we have no idea what we're

00:42:54.400 talking about. The audience should know we are all totally speculating, but that's the fun of waiting

00:42:58.660 for a jury. That's what we do. Go ahead. I'll just speak for myself and I'm usually wrong. I mean,

00:43:02.780 I just did this and we had, I don't know, a dozen notes, 15 notes and I, you know, know where,

00:43:07.800 what they're doing. But the juror is allowed to go in there and say, listen, I listened intently to

00:43:13.800 all the evidence. I don't need any readbacks. I focused, I listened to every second and I think he's

00:43:20.300 not guilty of all counts. And, you know, I'll sit here and you guys can talk all you want,

00:43:24.700 but there's nothing you're going to tell me that the witnesses didn't tell me a direct examination

00:43:29.200 or I learned a cross-examination that's going to change my mind. They're allowed to, you know,

00:43:34.640 you're allowed to do that as a juror. You can't say I'm not going to find him guilty because he's

00:43:39.740 a black man. And I think black men have been so demonized in society. So that's what my verdict

00:43:45.720 is. You can't do that because now you're not finding a verdict based on the evidence,

00:43:49.680 which is what the judge's instructions are. But if you say, I listened to all the evidence

00:43:53.780 and here's my verdict and, you know, I'm not going to be threatened or beat up or convinced

00:43:58.680 otherwise, he's allowed to do that. I was afraid when I heard that note that it was someone who

00:44:03.920 didn't have the intellectual capacity because in federal court, as you guys know-

00:44:07.840 That's not this guy's problem.

00:44:09.340 Right. There's not a lot of heavy voir dire in jury selection. The lawyers don't get to speak to the

00:44:14.100 jurors in jury selection in federal court. So sometimes you don't realize there's a screwball in there

00:44:18.700 based on a questionnaire that they filled out. But yes, it does not sound like he has the background

00:44:23.660 where he can't. And it seems like maybe that ship has sailed. I mean, it's almost, you know,

00:44:28.320 it's the next day and they haven't sent back any notes like this guy's a big.

00:44:31.820 That's right. Now they're deliberating. But now they sent out a question asking if I don't have the

00:44:38.420 exact wording in front of me, but basically asking if a person has drugs and gives them to another

00:44:44.300 person because the other person asked for them, is that possession with intent to distribute,

00:44:51.260 which is what he's charged with, is one of the many predicate acts for the RICO count. It's not

00:44:55.560 a separate charge. I mean, I think we can all agree the answer to that is yes. It is. That is

00:44:59.580 your toast. The answer is yes. So substantively, the answer back to the jury is basically good for

00:45:05.500 the prosecution. But they didn't answer back to the jury like that, Matt. They just said the judge is

00:45:10.120 so annoying. I'm sure the jury's feeling it. He just said, oh, you have a question about my

00:45:13.760 instructions? Please consult my instructions. And he did not add any other color to it.

00:45:18.740 And then the most interesting note, that to me at least suggests, because if you look at the

00:45:22.480 verdict form, I don't know how they're going after this. Because if you look at the jury instructions,

00:45:25.960 they talk about the predicate acts and they may just be going through the jury instructions. If you

00:45:29.580 look at the verdict form, it starts with RICO, guilty or not guilty. And only if they check guilty

00:45:35.900 do they go on to have to consider each one of the predicate acts, including a possession with

00:45:40.620 intent to distribute. So if they're just going off the verdict form, then that might tell us that

00:45:44.500 they're on a guilty for racketeering. But if they're going off the jury instructions,

00:45:48.740 then they might just be kicking around all the predicate acts before they get to guilty or not

00:45:52.460 guilty on RICO. But anyway, there's some cause for hope from both sides. And then they get to the

00:45:57.800 really interesting one, which was today, where they asked about testimony. They want testimony sent back

00:46:04.080 into, uh, the jury room. And it's, it's interesting. They wanted Cassie, uh, hold on. I'm trying to

00:46:10.720 find, I have so many notes on my phone about the big, beautiful bill. I'm trying to get back to the

00:46:14.680 relevant texts. Uh, they wanted Cassie Ventura's testimony. I can't find it. Um, they wanted

00:46:21.560 and Danielle Phillips, sex, Daniel Phillips, right. They wanted information about what happened at the

00:46:28.280 hotel intercontinental, which is where she was beaten in the middle of a freak off and dragged back in

00:46:33.200 there. Uh, all of that would seem potentially to be good for the prosecution. But again,

00:46:37.760 we don't know crap. Your thoughts on it guys. Well, I, you know, having just done a two month

00:46:44.160 trial and these notes, Harvey trial, just in case people are wondering now, it didn't go Arthur's

00:46:49.340 way, but he did a great job at the, well, it kind of went my way. We beat the two top counts. We did

00:46:54.580 all right. It's up to the sentencing. We could go, if the judge sentences him the way he should be

00:46:58.820 sentenced, then we went from 23 years to a lot better. And he can see the light at the end of

00:47:02.840 the day, at least in New York. Anyway, um, what we ended the day with after all the notes would come

00:47:08.060 in was who the F knows like who the F knows. I mean, I've tried more cases that I can count

00:47:13.200 and I've been so wrong so many times. And then, you know, we get to talk to jurors sometimes

00:47:18.280 afterwards. And when they, when you hear from them, why they ask certain questions, you're just like,

00:47:24.420 wow, I really don't know what I'm doing. Like there's thinking it's so many, they're looking

00:47:29.620 at things in such a different way than we do as lawyers because they're electricians and school

00:47:34.200 teachers and school bus drivers. Okay. But wait, I don't mean to cut you off, but I do want to get

00:47:38.980 to like what they're asking about. Cause I think it's, it's somewhat telling. Okay. The first one is

00:47:42.840 Cassie Ventura's testimony regarding the internet internet or intern, whatever intercontinental,

00:47:47.240 um, her testimony concerning the events at con and those that immediately followed via USA Today.

00:47:54.100 Here was that testimony in part, a former assistant Mia. Uh, she had testimony that in

00:47:59.400 20, 2012, she witnessed a discussion between Combs and Cassie Ventura escalate at the premiere of the

00:48:04.940 Brad Pitt film, killing them softly during the con film festival claim. She saw Combs grit his teeth

00:48:09.980 while digging his nails into Ventura's arm, eventually insisted that Ventura leave, which she

00:48:15.540 did at the festival. Ventura testified. She got into an argument with Combs. He accused her of taking

00:48:20.140 drugs from him. He kicked her off the boat. They were staying on. She testified. She returned to

00:48:24.000 the U S on a commercial flight, trading seats with another passenger because she didn't want to sit

00:48:27.060 next to him, but he switched to ended up next to her. At that point, he pulled up the freak off

00:48:31.860 video on his computer, which she thought he deleted, played them on his laptop while others were around.

00:48:37.020 She worried he was going to embarrass her and release them. I felt trapped. How'd you get out of

00:48:40.780 this? How do you get out of this situation? Ventura testified when they landed in New York,

00:48:44.860 they went to dinner. Combs told her he wanted to have a freak off. So they did. That was that one.

00:48:48.940 Uh, her testimony regarding freak offs with Daniel Phillip and Daniel Phillip was this escort who said

00:48:56.620 she Ventura asked him, forgive me audience to urinate on her. She was the one who asked me to

00:49:04.260 do it. She asked me if I'd done it before. She told me to do it. I was doing it wrong because they both

00:49:08.660 told me that also said he witnessed Combs become violent with Ventura, leading him to experience

00:49:14.600 erectile dysfunction for the first time said, uh, my thoughts were, this is a man with unlimited power.

00:49:19.860 Even if I went to the police, I might still lose my life. He testified. He heard Combs slapping

00:49:24.460 Ventura behind closed doors and her screaming. I'm sorry. Before she ran out nude to Phillip and

00:49:30.620 jumped in his lap. Um, he said he asked her why she stayed with him despite the real danger of doing

00:49:36.900 so. I, none of this is really is great. This is not great for Sean Combs guys. Your thoughts.

00:49:44.340 No, you don't want to hear. I mean, you're the defense attorney and you hear this in the courtroom

00:49:47.640 and you hear some of these readbacks, you know, it's, it's, it's not fun. And your instinct is you

00:49:52.220 want to jump up and you want to say something. You want to object. You want to counter argue

00:49:55.280 and you're not allowed to do anything except just sit there. So it's, yeah, it's not a good time.

00:50:00.540 It's not a good time.

00:50:01.260 It also sounds Megan, like they're working through the sex trafficking. And what's interesting legally on

00:50:05.000 that is remember sex trafficking is both a predicate for the Rico charge and also a substantive charge

00:50:10.100 in its own right. But that requires force, fraud or coercion. So that's, those are pretty broad terms.

00:50:18.700 And it seems to me that goes right to that, to that issue. Are we talking about force? What is

00:50:25.060 she afraid of? What's he making her do? So, you know, the, I think the encouraging thing for the

00:50:29.980 prosecution in this is it appears like they're, they're taking their tasks really seriously.

00:50:34.740 And then they're methodically going through the evidence, which is always something that you want

00:50:38.360 to see after a long case like this. He's, they want to hear the part about him threatening her

00:50:43.140 with the freak off video. The part about the escort hearing Diddy hit her behind closed doors and how

00:50:51.280 scary he was. I mean, I I'd be worried right now if I were the defense, but again,

00:50:54.840 that's coercion that goes to, that goes to the coercion Matt was just talking about.

00:50:59.060 Yeah. There you go. We don't, we just don't know, but we'll be going live on our YouTube feed. As soon

00:51:03.200 as we have a verdict and hopefully Arthur and Matt will be with us guys. Thank you. We'll be right

00:51:07.520 back with Rich Lowry and Charlie Cook. Since president Trump was sworn in, his administration

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00:52:26.700 nine, eight. Big news. The big, beautiful bill has passed in the Senate. That is a huge deal. Um,

00:52:37.680 that's, that's music to the ears of president Trump. Three Republican senators voted. No Tom Tillis of North

00:52:43.840 Carolina, soon to be retired. Rand Paul of Kentucky, no surprise there. And Susan Collins of Maine.

00:52:52.260 Okay. Uh, Murkowski got on board at the end and, uh, vice president JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.

00:52:58.660 The bill will now head back to the house where speaker Johnson is expected to attempt to pass it

00:53:03.760 by the self-imposed July 4th deadline. You remember he was on this show last Wednesday saying

00:53:09.540 they really wanted to deliver that to president Trump by independence day. So he could sign it.

00:53:13.380 Um, on July 4th, that may or may not happen because the Senate changed it a fair amount in the house.

00:53:18.860 There are some more house moderates who may need to be assuaged. So they might not be able to move

00:53:23.260 quickly, but this thing's going to pass. President Trump is going to get this. I don't know that he

00:53:27.080 gets it by Friday, but he should be heaving a sigh of relief today. Um, instead he's having some fun

00:53:32.500 touring alligator Alcatraz, which is a thing now. Maybe you've heard of it. It's a new migrant detention

00:53:37.660 center in the Everglades because of course it is joining me now to react to all of this and more

00:53:43.220 rich Lowry, editor of national review and Charles CW cook, senior editor and host of the Charles CW

00:53:48.620 cook podcast. Go become an NR plus member, or you too could be headed to alligator Alcatraz.

00:53:55.340 They have powers. You don't even want to know about guys. Welcome back. Hi there. It's so perfect,

00:54:00.860 right? For the Trump presidency. Of course we now have an alligator Alcatraz. Why didn't we think

00:54:06.280 to write that into the script more on that in a second? Let's start with the big news, Rich.

00:54:11.960 It passed. It got it through the Senate. It's not done, but it's all but done. I mean,

00:54:16.320 do you disagree? It's getting done. Yeah, it'll get done. I'm with you. I don't know whether it'll

00:54:21.060 get done by Friday. It's a bit of an artificial deadline, but whether it's Friday or a couple of

00:54:25.960 weeks from now, much more rapid timetable than I would have expected. I thought they would have gone

00:54:30.780 through this agonizing for months and we'd be, you know, the day before Thanksgiving or whatever.

00:54:34.960 So this is happening sooner. But also the way it's happening, not surprising. A lot of people

00:54:40.020 not particularly enthused by this. They know it needs to pass. They know it'd be a debacle if

00:54:44.020 they didn't extend these tax cuts and let them expire and be arguably the largest tax increase

00:54:49.760 in American history. Murkowski, who was the final vote, they got over the finish line there. It says

00:54:55.160 she's not happy with it. She hopes there'll be changes. But exactly the same thing will happen in

00:54:59.500 the House, whether it's exactly this version or it's a version they changed some more and send back

00:55:03.180 over to the Senate. There'll be, you know, three or four holdouts. It'll be on the floor. No one

00:55:08.080 will quite know, you know, whether they're going to get it. Trump will get on the phone with a couple

00:55:12.160 of these members, tell them to jump the cliff off the cliff. They will jump off the cliff. Afterwards,

00:55:16.460 they'll say, well, you know, I wasn't happy with everything, but it'll get done. Legislatively,

00:55:21.220 this is basically all that's getting done. But it was an absolute, absolute necessity. Would

00:55:25.880 have been debacle if it failed and it's succeeding.

00:55:28.600 And just to reiterate, the Trump tax cuts were for everyone, everyone, the down, like the lowest

00:55:35.760 earning taxpayer all the way up to the highest earning taxpayer. The right, the left wants to

00:55:40.220 say this is all about the rich people, fat, fat cat tax cuts. But and yes, rich people got tax cuts

00:55:47.480 too. But the if you pay taxes under Trump's tax cuts, you got them. You got your taxes cut and they

00:55:54.140 were about to go up. So that's what they were trying to stop with this big, beautiful bill,

00:55:58.900 making the tax cuts permanent. Charlie, it's not been without drama because what what the Republicans

00:56:06.280 need to worry about now is the Democrats are going to spend the next year and a half saying

00:56:13.300 they cut Medicaid. They took health care away from poor, starving Americans to line the pockets of the

00:56:21.920 Elon Musk's of the world. You guys have a great piece up on how that's a lie. And there's been a lot

00:56:27.260 of subterfuge with the Medicaid piece of Obamacare right now on National Review, which people should go

00:56:34.720 read. But your your thoughts on the political messaging around the Medicaid reforms that Republicans

00:56:39.200 say these are reforms to stop waste, fraud and abuse.

00:56:42.280 Well, the first thing I would say is if you go back to 2017, forget this bill for a moment,

00:56:49.440 the Democrats, along with the media, lied about the 2017 bill to such an extent that by 2019,

00:56:57.780 the American public had really been misinformed to an astonishing degree. And the New York Times,

00:57:04.640 which had been complicit in the lie, ran a piece titled Face It, You Probably Got a Tax Cut. You can go

00:57:11.220 read that piece still online. And it's just an amazing piece of hackery because what it says in

00:57:16.240 effect is we've lied for two years about what the bill did. Everyone believed us. And now we're going

00:57:21.440 to run a fact check, lambasting them for having believed us. So I expect the same thing will happen

00:57:28.540 here. And I have a lot of problems with this bill we can talk about if you like. But with the Medicaid

00:57:32.300 part, the word cut really isn't correct. First off, it's a reduction in the rate of growth, which is not

00:57:43.600 the same thing as a cut. Second, if you look at the amount that Medicaid grew from about 2019 onwards,

00:57:52.980 you will see an explosion in spending. So to take the Medicaid expenditures, not even back to 2019

00:58:03.460 levels, but just to slow the rate of growth, the idea that that is going to be some massive

00:58:11.080 cut to the health services that Americans get is crazy. Not to mention that a lot of the reforms that

00:58:22.660 are being looked at here have to do with people who shouldn't be on Medicaid in the first place.

00:58:29.660 And so the people who suffer the most when you fill the roles of Medicaid with those who don't need

00:58:35.480 Medicaid are the people who do need Medicaid. In fact, some of the changes that have been proposed

00:58:41.460 here were endorsed by that right wing fibery, the Barack Obama 10 years ago. So this is demagoguery.

00:58:47.640 The second side of it, as you mentioned, which is that to pay for the tax cuts for billionaires is

00:58:53.120 also not true. The 2017 tax cuts did obviously cut taxes for rich people, but rich people pay all the

00:58:59.240 taxes. So that seems fair. They also cut taxes for everyone else. What has changed about this bill

00:59:03.700 compared to the 2017 baseline is that Social Security recipients and people who make tips will

00:59:13.120 be paying less in taxes. I don't like either of those provisions, but it's ridiculous to suggest

00:59:17.080 that they benefit billionaires. So we've seen what they did in 2017. They're going to do it again.

00:59:21.640 I think Republicans just have to hold their noses and push this through for the good of the treasury.

00:59:28.960 We're just getting a sound of Trump in reacting to the passage in the Senate of his big,

00:59:33.640 beautiful bill. Do we have a cut, you guys? It's actually cut. We're just getting it in.

00:59:36.800 Yeah, here it is. Oh, thank you. Wow. He's an alligator. Alcadrez.

00:59:47.100 Of course he is. You know, I'm waiting, listening to these wonderful words and they are music to my

00:59:52.840 ears, but I was also wondering how we doing, because I know this is prime time. It shows that

00:59:57.600 I care about you because I'm here and I probably should be there, but we do care. Thank you very much.

01:00:03.620 Okay. So he's got many important things to do. One thing that's different between this version,

01:00:09.640 Charlie, you may not be aware. And the one that was passed in 2017 is they've added back in the

01:00:14.140 salt deduction. I don't know if you, if you've heard about Charlie hates the salt deduction,

01:00:20.880 which helps people really in the tri-state area who have very high state taxes. And he's a Floridian

01:00:26.000 and rightly feels he should not be subsidizing our terrible tax policies by allowing these write-offs,

01:00:32.560 but some of them got put back in thanks to some House Republicans whose support they really

01:00:38.320 needed. Was that your least favorite thing about the bill, Charlie, or what's your least favorite?

01:00:44.100 Well, that is by far and away my least favorite thing about the bill. Yes. I think it's really

01:00:48.440 unfair as a matter of law, but I also think that it is poor conservative policy to pass a big subsidy

01:00:55.400 for profligate blue states. You just saw this Mamdani guy in New York is probably going to be

01:01:01.980 the next mayor. There's zero reason that people in Florida or Texas or Tennessee or Wyoming or

01:01:07.840 wherever should be paying more for the same federal government purely because blue states can't get

01:01:13.360 their act together. The other part I don't like, and I understand the politics of it, but is the

01:01:18.400 social security tax reduction because we have a huge problem with our entitlements. And mathematically,

01:01:27.040 there's no difference between reducing taxes on social security recipients and increasing the cost

01:01:32.700 of social security. This is however much it costs, you know, 40 billion, 50 billion a year, half a

01:01:38.020 trillion dollars over 10 years, perhaps. That is the equivalent of increasing social security payments

01:01:42.800 by that much, which may or may not be a good idea in a vacuum. But we're now spending a trillion

01:01:47.500 dollars a year on debt repayment. I mean, our big problem is entitlement. So I think this is really

01:01:52.060 truly irresponsible. Those two things together, I would not have done. Rich, I have to mention this,

01:01:59.400 that Dan Crenshaw tried to get a piece into the BBB defunding any money for trans medical procedures,

01:02:10.560 whether it's for minors or for adults on the federal dollar. Like you can't use Medicaid or Medicare

01:02:17.000 or state funds to fund these procedures. And I love that he tried to do that. And I tip my hat to him

01:02:24.420 for trying. He tried hard. It got taken out of the reconciliation bill by the mean, awful Senate

01:02:32.700 parliamentarian who gets to strike things from the bill that she doesn't think really are budget related.

01:02:38.680 Okay. So that's what I have to say to her, but she took it out and then he convinced the Republicans to

01:02:46.140 put it back in and force the Democrats to object to it. It got taken out a half an hour before they

01:02:54.500 voted on it. I think the parliamentarian was back and took it out again, or at least that's how it

01:03:00.800 appears. But the reason I'm raising all this is to give credit where it's due because we, we wanted

01:03:07.420 that in there and it was worth trying for. And also because Dan Crenshaw posted about his attempt to do

01:03:13.520 this on X. And then, and I was reading the thread and this is just like, this is a, an AI story.

01:03:20.760 Then someone named pinch Billy who goes by pinch Billy responded. I ain't reading that shit because

01:03:27.140 he wrote this long post about what he'd done and then said, and then brought in grok, which is

01:03:32.540 X's AI it's X's chat GPT. And often if you're confused, confused about a post on X, you just say

01:03:39.980 at grok, what does this mean? And it'll answer you. So he said, at grok summarize his post as a pirate

01:03:45.980 trying to run for Congress. Talk about, talk about how he lost his eye. I'm sorry, but here's,

01:03:53.660 oh, I know we love Dan Crenshaw and we don't make fun of that, but I'm just saying this is this guy's

01:03:57.660 version of his ask. He writes grok writes. I made these. I be captain bill, a pirate running for

01:04:05.600 Congress with a peg leg and a patch over me. I I'm making him Irish lost me. I in a fierce cannon

01:04:10.560 blast during a raid on a merchant ship. I a badge. Oh me wild days. Now about that land glubber

01:04:16.520 Crenshaw's post, he's pushing to ban taxpayer gold for transgender treatments, claiming it's a waste.

01:04:22.220 Some say it's fair healthcare backed by sawbones like the AMA saving lives and coin in the long

01:04:27.340 run. Others cry foul saying it's experimental and steals from other needs. The house passed a bill

01:04:32.680 in May, 2025 to cut Medicaid funding for it. Both sides got points, but I'm skeptical. Oh, any side

01:04:39.480 claiming absolute truth vote for me and I'll seek the real treasure. Fairness. This is incredible.

01:04:45.520 Like what, what is happening? He, it actually did write a post explaining. Yeah. It's not bad.

01:04:52.740 Yeah. AI is coming. Maybe not for your job, Megan, you're, you're replaceable, but Charlie and I,

01:04:58.240 what we do for a living, right. You know, AI is, AI is getting there. I don't know. Maybe,

01:05:02.800 maybe it's already surpassed, but good for Dan Crenshaw. This is a, a, a wholly righteous effort.

01:05:07.980 I mean, there, there are parliamentary rules about what you can get into these reconciliation bills,

01:05:11.740 but just what Charlie was saying about Medicaid and how it's not really a cut. It's, it's just,

01:05:16.640 you know, slightly reducing the, the heightened levels from Obama and Biden. There's just this

01:05:21.280 ratchet effect that the left always uses fiscal matters, cultural matters. You know, they push

01:05:26.660 on all fronts. They, they radically increase spending and it's like, why don't we just reduce

01:05:30.860 the rate a little bit? It's like, how could you be cutting the, the, the, uh, this federal

01:05:34.580 important priority or, you know, they, they do trans surgeries and trans bathrooms and trans sports.

01:05:40.300 And you're just like, maybe, maybe guys shouldn't compete against. Why are you waging this culture

01:05:44.600 war? You're Neanderthals, you're reactionaries when they've actually radically, um, advanced their

01:05:50.360 ball. And we're just saying, let's, let's bring it. We'd like to totally reverse it, but let's bring

01:05:53.980 it a little back a little bit. And we're haters and reactionaries. So you guys, I mentioned this,

01:05:59.720 Rich, have a great piece on NR today. You should go become an NR plus member. It was written by

01:06:03.480 Michael Cannon and it was posted this morning at six 30. This is how I spent my morning. Um,

01:06:08.480 and it's talking about how Medicaid works since Obamacare. And it's really calling out Tom Tillis,

01:06:14.380 who's like trying to cloak himself in glory. Like I, I held the line against Medicaid reforms that are

01:06:21.120 going to hurt people. And it calls that out as utter nonsense talking about how states like North

01:06:27.560 Carolina have engaged, engaged in a scam against the federal taxpayer on Medicaid for a long time

01:06:33.620 since Obamacare. And he talks about how in it's a joint program, Medicaid, not to bore the audience

01:06:39.040 to tears, but basically the state and the feds cooperate on these Medicaid programs and the feds

01:06:45.240 invariably pay far more than the states do. But in North Carolina, he points out that, um, what happened

01:06:51.840 was I'm trying to get to the actual numbers here. He said for every $1 a state puts towards Medicaid, Congress

01:06:57.840 matches it with something between $1 and $9. Congress will contribute if the state

01:07:03.620 sacrifices something to fund its own program. Already. He writes, this is a boon to state

01:07:08.800 officials. If they raise taxes by $1, inflicting $1 of political pain, Medicaid lets them hand out

01:07:15.080 two to $10 of political goodies. The difference comes from taxpayers in other states. Little wonder

01:07:22.740 Medicaid spending has doubled since 2013. Then he writes about how in North Carolina, they came up with

01:07:29.200 the deal to make that $1 also not come from North Carolina taxpayers. It was like this big sort of

01:07:36.260 ruse that they engaged in so that the federal taxpayers from other states were paying all of

01:07:42.180 their Medicaid expenses. And now Tom Till is like, I will hold the line. We will not screw the Medicaid.

01:07:48.240 It's like, why am I paying for the healthcare in your state, sir?

01:07:53.560 Yeah. It's another scam, just like salt. And we have entitlements that are driving this country into

01:07:59.320 the debt ditch. And the last thing the federal government should be doing is incentivizing

01:08:04.180 more entitlement spending. But that's exactly what this does. And, you know, Elon, obviously he's

01:08:09.620 popped his head back up. He's very harsh about this, this bill. And I think in broad gauge,

01:08:15.080 he's right. This bill does not seriously grapple with the deficit problem or the debt problem.

01:08:20.340 If Republicans had 20 more votes in the House, we might've made much more progress on that,

01:08:24.880 but we don't, unfortunately. But at least this is some small step towards reining in

01:08:30.600 an entitlement. And it's been difficult to get, even that's been difficult to get over the finish line.

01:08:35.840 I'll get to the Elon thing in one second, but I will say that the reason Tom Tillis

01:08:39.740 is now retiring and the reason everyone came along except for Susan Collins, that the Rand

01:08:46.700 Paul thing wasn't a surprise to anybody, um, is the following. Uh, I'll give you Harry Enten

01:08:51.220 on CNN earlier. Okay. So we're going to look at the strongly approved number. So this isn't just

01:08:57.600 Republicans who like Donald Trump. This is Republicans who love Donald Trump and he's up

01:09:03.440 like a rocket. Look at this in July, 2017, the strongly approved was 53%. That's pretty good.

01:09:08.020 But look at where he is now. 63% of Republicans strongly approved of the job that Donald Trump

01:09:14.620 is doing about five months into his presidency. Republicans love Donald Trump the way that

01:09:21.020 Americans love Disney world. The bottom line is 63%. That is a huge, huge base. And of course,

01:09:28.140 it's just part of a Republican base in which about 90% of them overall approve of him, including

01:09:32.900 the somewhat approves as well. I mean, that's the thing, Charlie, there's, there was a political

01:09:37.540 reality in that Senate overnight and this morning, and now it's going to be staring them in the face

01:09:43.420 in the house that if Trump turns on you, his sway with Republican voters, which of course

01:09:49.840 is what's key, um, is just too great to meaningfully combat. Yeah, that's true. I'm not sure that's

01:09:56.920 a particularly good way to run a constitutional Republic though, given that the issues here are

01:10:02.400 about the federal budget, not whether we like Donald Trump. And I actually think Tom Tillis

01:10:07.120 is completely wrong on the Medicaid issue like you do, but there has to be some room between I like

01:10:14.120 the president and I want to evaluate independently what Congress and the president want to do with

01:10:20.740 legislation. So I think as a general rule, the way that we have begun to turn the president to the Pope

01:10:28.240 is a bad thing. But yeah, uh, Trump has a lot of sway and if he turns on a given member, then that

01:10:38.420 member usually caves till this hasn't. So he's retiring Thomas Massey in the house, uh, hasn't

01:10:46.340 caved either. He's not retiring, but he is being primary. So I guess we'll see what happens when

01:10:51.700 somebody in the early indications are not great for him. The early indications are that's true.

01:10:56.180 I'd be interested. Yeah. Although 52% of people said they were undecided. So I wonder which way

01:11:03.400 they'll break. House districts are also a little bit different than entire states. It's probably

01:11:08.380 easier in some respects to hang on as a house member in a unusual part of the country than it

01:11:14.360 is if you're being elected. Let me just interrupt you and get you to get you to a related point that

01:11:19.000 you've been making that I'd love for our audience to hear. And that is, you know, you're, you're,

01:11:23.460 what you're saying here is, okay, yes, Trump is very powerful within the Republican party,

01:11:28.440 but we do have a constitutional system and people need to live by it. And you've been making a similar

01:11:33.420 point in response to some of these Supreme court rulings that I know we both like. And I agree

01:11:38.440 with you. Like we talked last week about the ruling on Friday on how these national injunctions,

01:11:44.380 um, that, that district court after district court, you know, issues have been struck down basically

01:11:51.540 by the Supreme Supreme court saying these are inappropriate. A federal district court judge

01:11:54.900 does not have this power over the executive and left alone without more. That really does empower

01:12:01.880 the executive branch. And we may feel fine about that. Some of us while president Trump is in there,

01:12:07.200 but he won't be in there forever. You can, God forbid, get a Kamala Harris in there.

01:12:11.960 Who's super newly empowered too, by that ruling. And your point is maybe now would be a great

01:12:18.000 time for Congress, since GOP controls both branches of it and the white house to enact a law that reduces

01:12:25.800 the overall power of the president consistent with the way the founders envisioned this country working.

01:12:33.760 Yeah. And I think there's a paradox or what looks like a paradox here. Cause I think the court largely

01:12:38.620 got the decision you referenced, right? I also think there are some cases pending about presidential

01:12:44.420 power that ought to be decided in the president's favor, Humphrey's executive, for example. The

01:12:49.240 problem is if the court does that, but it doesn't also restore power to Congress or more reasonably

01:12:56.480 in the interim, Congress doesn't take power back that it has. Then what you've ended up with is a

01:13:03.160 system in which the president's all powerful. If you look through a lot of our laws, this has been

01:13:08.080 true since the new deal, but it's got worse and worse and worse in the last 30 years. They have lines in

01:13:14.080 them that say things like the secretary shall, or in the judgment of the secretary, or in the opinion

01:13:18.680 of the president. That's not really lawmaking. Sometimes that's necessary, but that's not

01:13:23.920 lawmaking. Congress should be filling in those judgments and those opinions, but it isn't.

01:13:29.700 And so my worry with this decision last week is that if the lower courts aren't going to get

01:13:35.720 involved and issue nationwide injunctions, which I think are problematic, and the president's going to

01:13:41.700 make up the law, as we have seen sometimes with Trump, but we saw really week in, week out with

01:13:46.600 Joe Biden, then you end up with a situation in which the president can say, for example, he's going

01:13:53.420 to try and spend half a trillion dollars on student loans that he's not allowed to do. A Congress that

01:13:59.140 doesn't step in and fix that, and a court system that is slow, and that case works its way up to the

01:14:05.620 Supreme Court. And in the meantime, maybe the president spent, you know, $200 billion without

01:14:10.260 Congress. So Congress really does have to get its act together. And I know that this sounds like a

01:14:16.560 partisan point, because the Democrats say this when there's a Republican president, and the Republicans

01:14:23.420 say this when there's a Democratic president. But if we wanted to, Congress could get together,

01:14:28.520 both parties, and just take away a lot of presidential power that it has willingly deferred.

01:14:33.280 It should do that, but it hasn't done that. So I just hope that decision, which I think was right

01:14:37.760 legally, doesn't end up with yet more presidential authority that can't be checked by the other

01:14:43.520 branches. It's not going to happen under President Trump. I think we can all agree. Like, maybe if you

01:14:47.000 had a John McCain in there and a Democrat-controlled Congress, something like that would be possible.

01:14:53.660 But we're on a freight train toward more and more presidential power. And maybe, hopefully,

01:14:57.400 that'll cause us to be really careful in selecting the next guy or gal. Okay, keeping forward, going

01:15:05.120 forward. Elon still hates the BBB. He's not shy about it. He's been saying a lot, like, if this

01:15:12.660 thing passes, I'm forming the Save America Party, I think it is, the America something party, the very

01:15:18.440 next day, and also threatening to primary anyone who votes for it, which means every Republican

01:15:25.120 rich. I mean, speaking of rich, he is, but that's a lot of money to primary every single Republican.

01:15:33.400 Hold on, I'm going to set that up for you. Yeah. And now Trump gets asked about some of the

01:15:38.940 antagonism by Elon and says this at the White House this morning before he went down to Florida.

01:15:42.740 Yeah. It's not 33.

01:15:43.860 Are you going to deport Elon Musk?

01:15:46.760 I don't know. I think we'll have to take a look.

01:15:49.660 Are you going to deport him?

01:15:50.520 We might have to put Doge on Elon. You know what Doge is? Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon.

01:15:58.520 Wouldn't that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies, Peter. But Elon's very upset that the EV mandate

01:16:06.260 is going to be terminated. And you know what? When you look at it, who wants? Not everybody wants an

01:16:12.200 electric car. I don't want an electric car. I want to have maybe gasoline, maybe electric,

01:16:17.580 maybe a hybrid, maybe someday a hydrogen. If you have a hydrogen car, it has one problem,

01:16:23.640 it blows up, you know? So I'm going to give that one to Peter. I'm going to let Peter start the law.

01:16:34.640 Even Charlie's laughing at that one.

01:16:36.580 He's funny. He's funny. He's the funniest president we've ever had. It's just true. I don't know why

01:16:41.420 people who don't like him can't admit this. He's hilarious.

01:16:45.640 It's so rich.

01:16:47.320 Yes, of course. Ask about deporting Elon. He's going to say, of course, yeah, we're looking at it,

01:16:52.360 right? That's what he says about everything. He's not going to deport Elon. And look, Elon is a genius.

01:16:58.280 He's just not a genius at politics. And there are a lot of reasons for having a man crush on Donald

01:17:03.000 Trump the way he professed to have, to be very enthusiastic about electing him last year,

01:17:07.240 to be jumping on stage and burying his midriff, all that. But one of them was not the conviction

01:17:13.300 that Donald Trump would deal with the debt or seriously reform entitlements, which is a necessary

01:17:19.580 step to dealing with the debt. He just occasionally mentions he's going to do it, but it's clearly not

01:17:24.720 a priority. And he's been very explicit that he's not going to touch entitlements, which makes it

01:17:29.040 a fiscal impossibility, a mathematical impossibility to deal with the debt. So Elon shouldn't be surprised

01:17:34.720 by what happened here. Maybe he's going to form a party, but the idea that they're just a bunch of

01:17:42.000 people on the sidelines who are really into entitlement reform and deficit reduction, they're

01:17:48.040 going to go out and primary all these guys and put the fear of God in them, is never going to happen.

01:17:53.120 He does not have anything like the political clout that Donald Trump does. And going back to the

01:17:58.680 Harry Enten point about how popular Trump is among Republicans, there have been other Republican

01:18:02.900 presidents who are popular among Republicans, although there might be a unique bond here.

01:18:07.580 But what's different is if you're a Tom Tillis and you crossed some conventional Republican

01:18:12.300 president in the past, that president might be PO'd at you, might in private let it be known that he's

01:18:17.880 upset with you. He might put his political consultants to work to defeat you in a primary in a year or two.

01:18:24.300 What's different with Trump, he instantly wields his power. He blasts you in public.

01:18:28.780 A lot of the Trump-friendly media picks up on it. They'll blast you as well. And you'll go to a

01:18:35.000 town hall the next day, like the next day, and like two-thirds of your voters will hate you,

01:18:39.460 right? Who wants to deal with that? No one wants to deal with that. And maybe if you're unique and

01:18:45.540 have, John McCain may have been this, Susan Collins certainly is, where you're kind of in a non-red state

01:18:52.140 and have a real distinct brand and different political base, you can survive that Trump

01:18:57.820 onslaught. Otherwise, you're not. You're just not. So you can do what Tillis did, vote against it,

01:19:02.400 but you are either going to have to be, you will likely be defeated in a primary or take the easy

01:19:06.340 way out and retire. So this is a unique form of presidential power, which goes to the hold he has

01:19:12.640 among Republicans and his willingness to wield it in a blunt force manner immediately.

01:19:19.560 There is a bug in my studio that's been harassing me the entire, I apologize. It's like, if you

01:19:26.380 can't, I'm not having a fit on the air. I'm trying to get, yeah, you're exactly right about all of

01:19:32.260 that. And I think, you know, eventually Elon will come to terms with the fact that this is going to

01:19:36.180 pass. It has to pass. Trump's entire presidency depends on this passing. But I understand his

01:19:41.740 frustration because he got sent in there to go doge-fy the federal government and he really

01:19:46.760 couldn't. He tried, but there were so many roadblocks with given the way our administrative

01:19:51.480 law works and, you know, how you're really kind of not allowed to fire certain people or touch

01:19:56.020 certain things. It was incredibly frustrating for those of us who are rooting for him. We had dinner

01:20:00.600 last night with, um, a friend of ours from Argentina and he was telling us how much Argentinians

01:20:06.340 love Javier Malay and how, you know, inflation was out of control. He was saying in Argentina,

01:20:11.660 you'd go to a store, it'd be closed on a random Wednesday at two o'clock in the afternoon.

01:20:17.600 And you'd say, why are you closed? When they opened back up and they said, because we didn't

01:20:21.180 know what the inflation would be today or whether we could afford to like be in business today,

01:20:25.620 selling goods with the, with the prices as they are. That's how Argentina was before he got there.

01:20:31.760 Yeah. So he, they love Javier Malay and he was able to go in there with his chainsaw

01:20:36.700 and start slashing all these government agencies in a way you just can't do here,

01:20:41.700 given the way we're set up and how many layers of bureaucracy there, there are between you and

01:20:45.960 meaningful cuts. And I think Charlie, when I look at Elon's comments today, cause he,

01:20:50.160 one of his comments is response to that. Trump thought was something like I'm going to with,

01:20:55.140 I'm going to restrain myself right now. I, I am restraining myself from responding. So that's good.

01:21:02.580 He's doing that, but you can feel his frustration. I think his determination to

01:21:06.680 actually make real cuts to government spending is real and it's next to impossible.

01:21:14.220 Yes. Elon Musk is a genius. He's a genius in the great American tradition of genius. He is

01:21:22.320 extremely strange, which is usual among geniuses. In fact, many American geniuses, especially in the

01:21:31.640 his invention realm, uh, are also awful people, which I'm not sure Elon is, uh, but he is a very

01:21:39.500 strange, brilliant, eccentric American genius. And his genius is not in politics. It's in other

01:21:47.080 things. And in fact, it's in things that very often make understanding politics quite difficult.

01:21:53.600 One of the famous stories I was taught in college about American politics was Jimmy Carter with an energy

01:22:00.640 bill. And Jimmy Carter had some expertise in energy. And he thought when the time for the energy bill

01:22:06.740 to be written came up, that he would just look at the country and its energy needs. And they would

01:22:13.980 all sit around as experts and they would work out what to do. And then they would go to Congress and

01:22:18.440 everyone would say, wow, what a brilliant bill. And they pass it. But of course, that's not how it

01:22:23.020 worked. People had different political opinions. Some people were irrational. Others didn't want

01:22:28.800 this or that plant in their state. Uh, energy prices had fluctuated in one part of the country

01:22:34.440 and not another part. There were things going on in the Middle East. And Carter became very,

01:22:39.180 very frustrated by this because fundamentally he didn't understand politics. And I think that's true

01:22:43.980 of Elon Musk as well. It is simply not the case. I wish desperately that it were, but it is simply not

01:22:49.960 the case that there is this great mass of people in the American middle who are desperate to reform

01:22:54.520 entitlements or fix the budget. They might tell you if asked that they are worried about the deficits

01:23:00.800 and they are worried about the debt as they should be. But then you have to do the what to do about it

01:23:06.600 part. Some of them want to cut taxes. Some of them want to raise taxes. Some of them want to cut

01:23:11.020 spending. A lot of them might say they want to cut spending, but then it's what gets cut. Oh, could we not

01:23:15.540 cut foreign aid? Well, actually foreign aid is not too much of the budget. Okay. What is? Well,

01:23:19.740 defense is some of it. Let's cut that. Oh, so you don't want us to be as strong as we are now actually

01:23:23.660 on second thoughts. Well, let's cut social. Uh, not that Medicaid, not that Medicaid. We just cut

01:23:29.180 slow the rate of growth. Now we don't want to abolish the department of education. Now we don't

01:23:35.640 want to do that because that school's right. And then what happens is you get back into exactly the

01:23:40.000 same political fight that we've all been having for 50 years. You can't just create a third

01:23:44.680 party that's going to solve this. The reason that we have our two parties and are full of people who

01:23:51.120 have different views within them. The reason there's a left wing of the democratic party and

01:23:54.620 a more moderate wing of the democratic party. The reason that there is a MAGA wing of the Republican

01:23:58.660 party and then the me wing, which is, you know, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, uh, is that Americans have

01:24:05.440 strong political opinions. They can't agree among themselves. So Musk can't solve this in the way that

01:24:10.240 he can solve, say a rocket's trajectory where he sits with the most brilliant people he knows

01:24:15.780 and they do all the math and physics on a piece of paper. It's just not how politics works. It's

01:24:20.500 how a lot of very smart people think politics ought to work, but it's not how politics does work. So

01:24:25.520 no, he's not going to do this. What he should do if he wants to change politics is invest. And this

01:24:33.240 will take 20 years and a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of frustration. He should invest

01:24:37.560 in persuading people within the Republican party that they should side with him. And success would

01:24:44.820 look like another 10, 15% of Republicans being open to Elon Musk's ideas over 20 years. That's,

01:24:52.460 that's how slow this sort of thing, um, occurs, but you know, third party, it's not gonna, not

01:24:59.200 gonna do it because you can't circumvent our political realities. It really is fair to say,

01:25:04.040 you know, he's a genius and quite a few lanes, but not the political lane. And who would expect

01:25:09.100 that? You know, it's like, I know all about news. I know a lot about news. I know how to deliver news

01:25:13.560 in a compelling way. I can't find my way without a map or a GPS to save my life. Literally. I had,

01:25:20.460 and also had to Google how to boil an egg. So some of us have our distinguished gifts in certain lanes

01:25:27.820 and it doesn't necessarily mean it translates rich. Yeah. There's a Winston Churchill story where he told

01:25:32.500 his wife once that he was going to boil an egg and she's like, Winston, you can't do that. And he

01:25:36.100 said, well, I've seen it done. And he ended up not being able to do it. Um, but the thing that's

01:25:41.420 different, we talked about this on, on the editors a while ago is if, if I think if you told the average

01:25:47.140 political consultant, I want you to run Tesla, or I want you to run SpaceX, they say, I can't do that.

01:25:53.040 I got to find someone who really knows it and I'll get that person to do it. Whereas successful

01:25:58.640 business people very often think they can just jump in and, you know, address the deficit,

01:26:02.880 which, which Elon was going to do with Doge. They can fix politics. They get, have this genius

01:26:06.980 workaround idea, just having no idea what they don't know. And I, I share your, I was rooting for

01:26:12.880 Elon the way you were on, on Doge. Share your frustration wasn't more successful, but the

01:26:17.560 obstacles were all predictable. They're saying, you know, Charlie just outlined a lot of them.

01:26:21.400 There's things we've, we, we've all known about and dealt with our entire adult lives.

01:26:25.400 Who care a lot about this. And he just seemed totally unaware of it. Right. And, you know,

01:26:29.860 it's like, well, how do you figure out where like, you know, you need the dreamer, right? You need

01:26:34.420 the dreamer to come in and say, we're trying something new. We're good. We're, we're not

01:26:38.480 giving up where we can do it. You can't get rid of those people. Those people are important to

01:26:43.000 change, but same result, different day. You need, you need unreasonable people to change things.

01:26:48.340 That that's certainly true, but, but it was just, it was just clear that, uh, his, his skills and how he

01:26:54.760 works, which, which have been extremely effective. I mean, world historical, I mean, uh, interplanetary,

01:27:01.380 uh, uh, historical, right. He could, he really could get us to Mars, just we're not, we're not

01:27:06.720 transferable because everyone else gets a vote. And this is the reality of living in a democracy. I

01:27:12.980 know we live in a Republic, but it has democratic components at the end of the day. And you need

01:27:17.920 unreasonable people. Unreasonable people can fix a company. They can fix maybe the defense

01:27:23.280 department. If they're appointed within it, they can fix, uh, a winter Olympic budget.

01:27:29.660 But when it comes to the elementary budgetary questions of the federal government, the rest

01:27:37.000 of the country gets a vote. Uh, and that's the bit that Elon never seemed to understand is that

01:27:42.940 I got it. I got to take it. But I got to ask you quickly, Charlie, um, you're a Supreme court

01:27:47.840 watcher and you read the opinions. Did you see the piece in Ketanji Brown Jackson's descent where

01:27:52.760 she, she had the phrase as if they're Martians from another planet.

01:27:57.820 You know what happened there in my, in my, I don't know if you agree with me on this.

01:28:01.260 She wrote alien from another planet, right? And then one of her clerks said to her, that's

01:28:05.140 offensive because she changed it to Martian. And so it didn't make any sense because Martians

01:28:11.880 aren't from other planets. They're from Mars. I I'm sure that's what happened.

01:28:14.980 You're, you're very generous. So instead the clerk made her look like an idiot as opposed

01:28:20.500 to somebody who's offensive. Okay. That was the wrong choice. All right. Stand, stand by

01:28:24.360 guys. Cause we've got to do alligator, uh, Alcatraz. We'll do that next. Are you numb to

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01:31:19.440 free. Offer details apply. Alligator Alcatraz is an immigration detention camp in the Florida

01:31:32.080 Everglades, your neighbor, Charlie, surrounded by alligators. Um, and it was put up quickly by

01:31:39.200 Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis to cooperate with the feds who need places to put the illegals that

01:31:46.740 Tom Homan is rounding up. Um, it's surrounded, it's got 5,000 beds. It will process and deport

01:31:54.080 illegals. And, uh, they say there's only one road leading in and the only way out is a one way flight.

01:32:01.540 It's not only surrounded by alligators, but by pythons and a ton of mosquitoes,

01:32:07.640 which sounds like a horse, I'd rather stay in the prison. Uh, but this seems like a good idea to

01:32:13.780 me. President Trump went down there this morning and, uh, here's the little quip that he offered

01:32:19.380 on the spot. Side 18. I think our viewers at home should know that this is air conditioned facility.

01:32:24.840 So if any of the news claims are keeping them out in the hot, humid South Florida,

01:32:28.720 that is wrong. It's probably 62 degrees to be honest. Hey, Biden wanted me in here. Okay.

01:32:34.480 He wanted me, didn't work out that way, but he wanted me in here. He's not wrong. Biden did want

01:32:45.120 him locked up forever, like, like criminal. Anyway, um, good old Ron DeSantis, Charlie,

01:32:50.620 coming up with solutions to our problems. Yeah. Um, there's nothing that prevents the

01:32:55.920 states from helping the federal government enforce immigration law. Florida has a lot of

01:33:00.240 laws of its own to that effect. And really most of the criticisms of this seem overblown to me.

01:33:09.880 They seem to revolve around the name, which is funny. And they seem to be premised upon the idea

01:33:19.760 that it's really awful to be in Florida, because if you look at the objections that, well, there are

01:33:28.400 swamps and mosquitoes and alligators and it's really hot. Well, it's not hot inside. I'm glad

01:33:34.320 they said that it's air conditioned. It's hot if you try to escape, but that's also true of the prison

01:33:40.040 that's 20 miles away from me. So unless the idea here is that we shouldn't build facilities in the

01:33:49.340 South or build them in remote areas or build them in a manner that makes it difficult for those who've

01:33:56.180 been put in them to escape, then I'm a little lost as to what's so horrible about this. Of course,

01:34:02.660 that is the objection, isn't it? The people who object to this being constructed are not actually

01:34:10.580 upset that it's 15 miles from an Indian burial ground or that it's too close to the Everglades

01:34:16.900 or that somebody once saw a swan there. They're worried that there are any deportations

01:34:23.700 whatsoever. They are people who have abolished ICE t-shirts and who go to protests and who think

01:34:28.740 that there is something intrinsically wrong without having borders in the first place. So

01:34:32.660 the objections seem overblown to me. I have a legit question for you, Rich. If you had to choose

01:34:41.240 running through a field of alligators or running through a field of pythons, which one would you

01:34:48.000 choose? Pythons. I think they're less likely to get you. Really? Yeah. But Trump has just been at

01:34:56.460 his funniest on this. He was asked about it yesterday, I think, and someone said, Mr. President,

01:35:01.720 do you want reptiles to eat the illegal immigrants? They try to escape. It's like, yeah, I think that's

01:35:06.000 the concept. And they said like the snakes are really fast. And then he said, you have to do

01:35:10.860 the zigzag thing to run away. Oh, wait, I have that part. We have that. Let's, let's play that

01:35:15.100 one. Um, that's where is it? Hold on. 20. Yeah. Saw 20. I guess that's the concept. This is not a nice

01:35:30.880 business. I guess that's the concept. If you, you know, uh, snakes are fast, but alligators,

01:35:37.500 but we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Okay. If they escape prison,

01:35:43.380 how to run away, don't run in a straight line, run like this. And you know what? Your chances go

01:35:49.020 up about 1%. Not a good thing. Z, serpentine. That's what you're supposed to do. Serpentine

01:35:56.520 if an alligator's chasing you. Apparently you're, you're not. I was listening to a Washington Post

01:36:00.860 piece about this. Charlie's the expert, but I was listening to Washington Post pieces, but

01:36:03.940 extremely derisive about the whole thing, of course. And one of its fact checks in the course

01:36:07.880 of the piece is he's wrong. This is outdated advice. You'd actually run straight when you're,

01:36:13.040 uh, when you're being chased by, by an alligator. But look, the, this is so funny. The

01:36:16.700 alliteration is great. Serves the administration's purposes a little bit in two ways. One, just

01:36:23.200 creating a deterrent effect, right? They want to get the message out. Why don't you just go

01:36:26.460 home on your own? They'll give you a thousand dollar credit or whatever it is to help you

01:36:29.800 get home on, on your own, rather than dealing with these alligators. And two, they seriously

01:36:34.580 need detention space. I mean, this, this is a serious limit on what they're doing, the lack

01:36:39.140 of detention space. So, uh, good, good on, uh, DeSantis to doing this. Other Republican governors

01:36:44.600 should do something similar. Then it also serves the catastrophic purposes of right,

01:36:49.240 the left and the media. Oh my God. You know, when I just first heard of this idea and got a little

01:36:53.940 bit of a notion of it from, from reading headlines and, and just hearing it half discussed on TV,

01:36:59.280 I thought, oh, they're dredging the Everglades to create this new facility. Maybe that is a problem,

01:37:03.660 but of course it's already, it's, it already exists, the facility. They're just building it

01:37:06.740 concrete. Yeah. On this unused, uh, air field. But, uh, as Charlie says, at the end of the day,

01:37:13.620 their objection is not the environment or anything else. It's like, they don't like deportations and

01:37:18.040 it makes it much harder to do deportations. If you don't have this kind of space.

01:37:22.240 I look forward to seeing AOC down there and like a beekeeper suit.

01:37:26.020 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weeping her eyes out.

01:37:29.680 Right. So sad about the alligator risks. Um, I will say something jumped out at me in the reporting,

01:37:34.960 which was that. Brad, Brad Lander will go down there and get attacked by an alligator.

01:37:40.800 Yeah. We'll make a whole series out of it. Yeah. That, um, we've had a record high number of

01:37:46.420 detentions. Totaling. This is, uh, for the AP more than 56,000 as of June. That's the most since 2019.

01:37:57.020 That's depressing. We've only gotten rid of 56,000 Charlie. And that's under Trump and Homan.

01:38:04.960 I mean, we're on pace to get what a hundred thousand this year. Maybe a hundred, maybe if

01:38:11.040 we're lucky, half a million in the Trump presidency out of the what? 10, 12, 20, even possibly

01:38:19.460 illegals who came in just under Biden. Nevermind those that were here before. It's like, I I'm all

01:38:25.880 for alligator Alcatraz and all that. It's just, these are teaspoons in the ocean.

01:38:29.880 They are, and it is depressing, but I would add a couple of caveats. The first thing is

01:38:36.300 there are not many people coming in and that's a huge achievement. The border is secure in a way

01:38:44.280 that it never was under Biden. Second, it is quite difficult in a free country like the United States.

01:38:51.080 It's much freer than pretty much everywhere else to stage mass deportations. Cause we have a lot of

01:38:57.800 constitutional rights. I'm not talking about the rights of people who are illegal,

01:39:01.400 who can be deported with limited due process. I just mean, as a general rule, we don't run

01:39:07.460 everything we do past the government. And that makes it more difficult to get rid of the people

01:39:12.520 who are here illegally. And the third thing is that the deterrent effect should over time,

01:39:19.400 especially if it is accompanied by changes to the law. For example, the implementation of E-Verify

01:39:26.200 would be a good idea. Encourage people who are here illegally to go home without us having to put

01:39:34.320 them in, you know, alligator Alcatraz or put them on a plane that we're paying for. One of the other

01:39:40.740 things that Biden and the Democratic Party has done other than leave the border open is give all sorts of

01:39:47.940 services to illegal immigrants and make it quite easy to be an illegal immigrant in the United

01:39:53.820 States. And the Republicans ought to prioritize reversing that. I'm not talking about being mean

01:39:59.140 to people. But if you are here illegally, it should be more difficult than it is to get a job.

01:40:04.480 It should be more difficult than it is to enroll your kids in school or to use social services. So

01:40:09.020 those sorts of changes can do a lot of the work for the government without them having to physically

01:40:12.900 put people on government planes.

01:40:14.500 It's just mind boggling to me, Megan, that 10 years now being such a harsh immigration hawk,

01:40:20.380 Trump has not endorsed a robust E-Verify system that would be mandatory.

01:40:25.540 Because of the Chamber of Commerce Republicans.

01:40:27.900 Yeah. So the problem is he's of two minds on this, right? He wants to deport illegal immigrants,

01:40:33.000 but he also has a lot of sympathy for these employers, especially in the hospitality business,

01:40:37.660 right? Something he knows a lot about that will be squeezed if it's harder to employ illegal immigrants.

01:40:43.380 So you got to decide one way or the other. And the only way to get the numbers up big

01:40:48.240 is to have more self-deportations. Because the rifle shot approach, it is teaspoons in the ocean,

01:40:54.940 as you say, very resource intensive, where someone just decides to go home. You don't have to touch

01:41:00.160 them. You don't have to detain them. You don't have to send them to Alligator Alcatraz. They just do

01:41:04.080 it on their own the same way they came in. Just to update my numbers, my trustee producers point

01:41:10.220 out that 56,000 immigrants detained, that was actually just for June. So that's good. But we've

01:41:16.240 only gotten about 139,000 total out, which is less good, but notwithstanding this effort,

01:41:22.940 you know, like unlike we've any seen before. FYI, pythons can kill you primarily through constriction,

01:41:28.520 which seems like it would take longer than for an alligator to eat you. So you assume you can just

01:41:34.320 run, run past the pythons. And it's just more if they slowly get a grip on your, your ankle,

01:41:39.540 but I still have to trust my speed to get, get through this field of pythons. Python prison as

01:41:44.840 the, as the guys at RealClearPolitics said, that's, that's less lethal than Alligator Alcatraz.

01:41:49.860 I'm glad we settled it. Thanks guys. Thank you. All right. We're on a Diddy Verdict Watch and

01:41:54.520 we'll go live on YouTube just as soon as we have that for you. Thanks for listening to the

01:42:00.940 Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 01, 2025

Kohberger's Shocking Plea Deal, Diddy Red Flags, and Trump vs. Elon Again, with Arthur Aidala, Matt Murphy, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke ｜ Ep. 1099

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