The Megyn Kelly Show - Left Losing Meme War, Chelsea Clinton's Pod, and How AI Helps Scammers, with RealClearPolitics Hosts and Eric O'Neill

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:00:12.220 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Thursday.

00:00:17.080 It's day two of the government shutdown. Is it already backfiring on the Democrats?

00:00:21.980 The White House is warning that mass layoffs in the federal government are imminent,

00:00:26.280 but the Dems seem more concerned about calling Trump's AI videos racist.

00:00:31.760 They really want you to think that he's a racist and his videos are racist.

00:00:36.400 That's the takeaway. That's what they want you to go home with. How's that working?

00:00:41.000 Here now for a reaction to all of today's news, our buddies from the Real Clear Politics podcast,

00:00:46.700 which you can also hear on Sirius XM. Tom Bevin, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics,

00:00:52.560 Carl Cannon, Washington bureau chief for Real Clear, and Andrew Walworth, chief content officer.

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00:01:53.280 Megan. That's SelectQuote.com slash Megan. Guys, welcome back. Great to be with you.

00:02:00.140 Now, I just want to give you a little tease. Yesterday, we ran a soundbite, and my team,

00:02:04.900 when we finished the show, said, oh, we have a longer, better version of that soundbite where

00:02:09.840 this particular person goes on more about the subject. And I said, this is perfect because I

00:02:16.840 really want to save that for Andrew. So just, I'm not even going to tell you who it is.

00:02:23.420 Just know that's coming your way today. Great to have you back. Okay. So let's start with shutdown

00:02:30.040 Orama. I love the sombrero thing. It's highly amusing. The Democrats don't know what to do in

00:02:39.320 response. And so they decided, I guess, to do some sort of a marathon on their YouTube channel.

00:02:47.960 Okay. So in the early hours of the shutdown, Hakeem Jeffries put on his YouTube channel a rotating

00:02:54.760 cast of Democrat House members and influencers to try to keep like a marathon going of it's the

00:03:01.800 Republicans' fault, not the Democrats' fault. And this is how that went. Politico, which is not

00:03:08.680 exactly averse to Democrats, writes, at times, just a few dozen viewers were watching. On YouTube,

00:03:17.660 Democrats peaked at around 1,000 viewers. The, the, had the feel of a throwback, throwback telethon

00:03:25.120 with none of the charisma or surprise. Jeffries at one point said, y'all, I ain't scared. I'm from

00:03:32.420 Brooklyn. Okay. The live stream featured four frontline Democrats of the 26 who are in competitive

00:03:40.540 districts, missing stars on the Dem side, like AOC and Jasmine Crockett. A possible tell, writes

00:03:48.160 Politico, that they see some risk in participating in something like this. Democrats were not able to

00:03:54.960 field live programming for three hours in the middle of the night, despite an internal email

00:03:59.000 desperately seeking participants. The White House, meantime, began live streaming a roughly

00:04:04.420 three minute clip of various congressional Democrats in other times speaking out against

00:04:10.440 previous shutdowns. And the viewership on that absolutely dwarfed Jeffries' views. So it doesn't

00:04:18.600 seem to be going very well. Carl, I'll start with you. Thoughts on where it is now, 24 hours in.

00:04:24.200 Well, the Democrat strategy is a little mystifying. They said that they were closing the government

00:04:29.720 because they wanted to guarantee healthcare for people, the most vulnerable people. I wouldn't

00:04:35.960 say American citizens, but I don't want to get into that just yet, but the most vulnerable people

00:04:40.760 living in the United States. That's what they said. And then when it happened, their messaging was

00:04:47.000 the Republicans shut down the government. And so, you know, when people are arguing with your thesis,

00:04:52.460 they don't get to your point because I think swing voters will say, wait a minute, weren't you

00:04:56.500 bragging about you wanted to shut it down? Wasn't there a vote in the Senate and all the Democrats

00:05:01.740 voted to shut the government down? So I think that this trying to score, they're trying to score

00:05:07.460 cheat points on blaming the Republicans without, which interfered with their larger message of why

00:05:12.400 they were doing it. Yeah. Tom, I don't know. So far, he's right. Exactly. That like,

00:05:18.180 they're not getting their message across. What I'm seeing is Sombrero and them getting hammered

00:05:23.760 pretty much at every turn on why they're trying to fund healthcare for illegals, why they're cutting

00:05:28.780 federal pay cuts or paychecks in the name of healthcare for illegals. I think that's right.

00:05:34.220 And the, the, one of the most interesting things about politics over the last few years,

00:05:40.080 Megan, is that Democrats don't know how to mean they can't mean. And, and Republicans and Trump in

00:05:45.920 particular, and the MAGA folks have mastered the art and they continue to do it. So they do this

00:05:52.860 sombrero thing. And then Hakeem Jeffries comes out with this indignant, you know, I'll say it to my

00:05:58.220 face or whatever. And then they put a sombrero on that. And they, and that because it's become a

00:06:02.820 running gag now that everybody is in on, it seems like, except for the Democrats who are busy yelling

00:06:09.540 that this is racist. There was just one where they put a sombrero on JD Vance and he was talking

00:06:15.660 and sort of Spanglish about how he can't compromise. He can't negotiate with the,

00:06:20.600 with the Democrats because they're quote, retardo. I mean, it's, it's this funny thing that has

00:06:28.080 happened here where the Democrats, and you're right. They tried this, like they tried this

00:06:32.940 telethon thing. They can't get any views that way. They did this. I don't know if you saw this

00:06:36.800 cringy video of like the, the Republican Democrat kiddies trying to explain the shutdown. I mean,

00:06:41.680 it was like, it was so bad. So bad. And so they, they really seem to be just sort of flailing

00:06:47.760 about. And, and the question is, okay, well, you know, how much is this going to hurt them

00:06:52.460 politically? And, you know, or are we just living in two completely different information

00:06:58.160 bubbles where, you know, the left thinks the Democrats, you know, they're, they're, they're

00:07:01.940 with them. And the right is obviously with the Republicans. And, and so there is, there's very

00:07:06.820 little political damage that can, that can come from this. On the other hand, you know, I, they're

00:07:13.240 definitely not helping themselves, I don't think. And, and they are, I, I think it's clear to everyone

00:07:19.520 that they are the obstacle to opening the government. And so they will pay a political price, but it's

00:07:24.900 just a question of, you know, how much will they pay? Just, just before we came to air, Andrew, I saw

00:07:30.860 a clip of Jake Tapper cross-examining Hakeem Jeffries in, in an not so friendly, mildly friendly

00:07:38.500 way, but it was all about here. Here's the provision right here that shows this will provide

00:07:44.700 healthcare for illegals. The thing you're arguing over, like, I know you say it's not true, but

00:07:48.240 here's the provision. So, I mean, even on the left-wing channels now, you're getting the right-wing

00:07:53.880 narrative because it happens to be true. So any journalist who honestly wants to talk about

00:07:59.840 this is going to have to raise the provision that they're arguing over, which indeed will

00:08:04.780 provide coverage for illegals and healthcare. Yeah, it's, it, you know, it's a complicated

00:08:10.720 topic, obviously. It really comes down to redefining what an illegal is. That's what the real argument

00:08:20.280 is about here. About 6% of the people who are on Medicare are what they call non-citizen

00:08:28.920 enrollees. And these are legal residents, but they're not full citizens. So what the

00:08:34.400 GOP is trying to do is they wanted to exclude some of these now lawful immigrants. These are

00:08:39.860 like Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans who have been given protected status under Biden. So

00:08:45.160 Trump wants to revoke that. So that's really what the fight is over. It's over who qualifies

00:08:50.580 as illegal residents. And Dems, they want to keep these groups and let them remain legal

00:08:58.080 residents. The White House wants to reclassify them. So, you know, it is interesting. We sort

00:09:03.860 of have this discussion about the memes and stuff like that. But if you dig a little bit

00:09:07.520 deeper into what they're talking about, it's, it's just a little more complicated.

00:09:12.720 Well, I mean, what I see is we passed the big, beautiful bill. We had these debates. The Democrats

00:09:18.720 lost. The Republicans won and passed it. President Trump signed it into law. And now the Democrats

00:09:24.300 want to remove a chunk of it in order to fund the government. No, I think that's absolutely

00:09:28.880 true. I think, I think the Democrats did vote for this and, and, uh, no, no, but they didn't

00:09:33.640 vote for it, but they didn't vote for it. There were not Republican votes that have passed.

00:09:38.940 So Megan, it's not so much that the Democrats are being hypocritical. They're just saying we

00:09:43.400 never signed up for this and we're still going to resist it. Right.

00:09:46.780 Yeah. But it's, I mean, the law has, like, how do you hold up funding for the government

00:09:50.520 by saying we need to undo your legislation? You have to undo your legislation that you just passed

00:09:56.020 in order for us to just fund the government, which is something you have to do every year.

00:09:59.820 Well, you can see why that's not a great talking point. So instead they just say Democrats,

00:10:03.920 they just say Republicans are lying. And this is every half the senators have put out, you know,

00:10:09.780 Sheldon Whitehouse put out a thing. I, the Democrats, Republicans are just lying about this. And then

00:10:14.600 somebody went on, on Twitter, I I'm supposed to call it X, I guess, and put, put the provisions

00:10:21.120 from his home state right there next to his statement. And the other thing is that there's

00:10:26.080 two other aspects to it. One is money's fungible. Medicare is paid by the states. If they're,

00:10:31.200 if the federal government's giving them money for something else, and then the states are using it

00:10:34.260 for that, you can't say that no money is going to people who aren't citizens. And the other

00:10:39.420 part of it is that Democrats in 2019, you remember this, Megan, I forget who it was. One of the

00:10:45.580 moderators asked them during the debate, and it was this huge cast of characters led by Joe Biden.

00:10:50.100 Do you favor?

00:10:50.540 Well, we haven't.

00:10:51.440 Oh.

00:10:51.840 It was Savannah Guthrie.

00:10:53.220 Here, let's play it.

00:10:53.900 So I'm remembering this right. Yeah. And they all raised their hand.

00:10:56.980 Here it is.

00:10:57.440 All right.

00:10:59.220 Raise your hand if government, if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.

00:11:04.120 Yes. Everyone's hand is up. Every single Democrat candidate has raised their hand that their plan

00:11:13.940 would provide cover for illegals. And my point here is that they've gone in six years from bragging

00:11:18.780 about this policy. And I, I can defend that policy. I could give you a New Testament explanation why it's

00:11:24.220 a really good policy. They've gone from six years from saying that's what they believe in,

00:11:28.300 to saying if you say that's what they believe in, you're a liar. And it's, it, we do need an

00:11:35.680 independent media to point this, that these are not compatible.

00:11:38.800 No, you're right. This is Al Franken, you know, former comedian, former senator on X. Is J.D. Vance

00:11:45.500 a liar or just woefully ignorant when claiming that Democrats want to give health benefits to

00:11:51.200 undocumented immigrants? And then you look at that soundbite, how many of you would fund healthcare

00:11:57.320 for illegals? Literally every hand is up, every single one. It's just, the proof is everywhere.

00:12:03.140 They're not going to convince people on this. Instead, they're doing cat memes, like Tom points

00:12:08.540 out. We should show it just so people can see this is the Democrats fighting back. This is supposed to

00:12:13.600 reflect, I guess, some level of swagger. It's SOT 18.

00:12:18.200 Republican and Democrat kitties cannot agree on what should be funded. Democrat kitties want you to

00:12:23.080 have healthcare. Republican kitties do not. Republican kitties control the Senate House and

00:12:27.500 the White House. So they're using that to cut your healthcare and give money to billionaires.

00:12:32.860 Democrat kitty tries to negotiate, but Republican kitty keeps running away. He has a vacation to get

00:12:37.920 to. Uh-oh, suddenly the money you pay for your health insurance has tripled. Thanks, Republicans.

00:12:43.760 Oh my God. And then the Republicans' response was simply one picture of the Democrat kitty

00:12:50.220 with the sombrero, the mustache, and the little, what are they called? That little instrument that

00:12:57.840 you shake? Maraca. It's a maraca. Yeah. Little maracas. I think they were, I think they were trying

00:13:02.980 to reach their coveted demo of childless cat ladies with that video. That's what that,

00:13:07.940 that explains why they- Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift.

00:13:10.520 No, by the way, just, just for the record, if you remember that primary, every Democrat also

00:13:18.640 raised their hand, and this was a big deal during that primary, uh, Castro, who's running for

00:13:24.020 president, they wanted to decriminalize border crossings, right? They all, it was a yes or no

00:13:28.440 question. They all raised their hand for that too. And you remember not too long ago, Bernie Sanders

00:13:32.680 gave an interview where he said, and I posted something on this at the time because it jumped out

00:13:38.200 to me. He was asked a question about illegal immigration. He said, well, nobody wants,

00:13:42.820 nobody wants an open border. That's silly. We've, Democrats have never wanted that. And it's like,

00:13:47.440 they're trying to rewrite history here. They absolutely, obviously, uh, were for this leading

00:13:53.980 into 2020. They were for it the entire time Joe Biden was president. Not a single Democrat stood up and

00:13:58.160 said, Alejandro Mayorkas, what you're doing is wrong. Uh, Joe Biden, what you're doing is wrong.

00:14:03.480 They just denied it. They said it wasn't happening. They said, you know, all of these various things to

00:14:07.840 excuse and allow this policy to continue. And now they won't take accountability responsibility for

00:14:13.760 it. Okay. So now what we have is a media that understands those facts as you just laid them out.

00:14:20.960 And so instead of doing more of what we did see Jake Tapper try to do today to his credit,

00:14:26.340 we're getting a deflection into those memes are racist, that Trump is a racist. Why are we seeing

00:14:34.300 a sombrero? Just not, just totally not getting that America has moved on from those days. We are

00:14:40.200 just no longer willing to forget our sense of humor. I speak on behalf in particular of all Irish

00:14:45.680 Americans. Um, there's nothing we like more than making fun of one another. And, um, this is a

00:14:51.860 sampling of what we've been seeing on the airwaves top four. What does that shameful man do? Something

00:14:58.000 that draws a sombrero and a mustache showing this video that Donald Trump put out this fake video.

00:15:05.840 It is absolutely disgusting. Say it to my face. Trump is continuing to post racist and bizarre AI

00:15:14.620 videos. Not going to play that. It is the ugliest, possibly the single most demented thing he has

00:15:20.500 ever done on social media. I'm not going to play the whole video because we don't find it

00:15:24.800 meets our standards. So we're the news. We're not going to tell you what it, what it is.

00:15:28.920 Hateful kind of bigoted, uh, doctored image. You'll have a very easy time finding it,

00:15:34.060 but you won't find it on this program. I am not going to use this hour to show that kind of Trump

00:15:39.820 filth and depravity. They don't get it. Like Tom, it's better to be in on the joke. It's better

00:15:50.320 maybe to give it an eye roll, be like classic Trump, but they're really, the Democrat media

00:15:55.780 is doing this because they're much happier just leveling accusations of racism than getting down

00:16:01.520 to the honest truth about what's in this bill and why the Democrats are objecting to it.

00:16:05.380 I think if it really was, I, I think if it really was racist, they would show it. I think they know

00:16:11.680 it's not racist and it's, and that it's funny and that their audience might actually, they might

00:16:16.140 actually laugh at it privately or secretly and be like, you know what? That's actually kind of

00:16:20.200 funny. Um, so they just describe it as this depraved, you know, I mean, Lawrence O'Donnell,

00:16:24.880 come on, please. The most depraved thing ever Trump's ever done. Tom, if you say it's depraved

00:16:30.000 and filthy, then you're reading, then your watchers on MS music, Oh, I got to see this. And they call

00:16:34.840 it up. That's true. You're going to see it may be in bad taste. It's not depraved. It's not

00:16:39.620 the single most demented thing that Donald Trump has ever done. You know, when, when,

00:16:45.780 when, who was it that made fun of JD Vance and he like leaned into it and laughed about it. Right.

00:16:52.020 And as I said earlier, what, what the Democrats have done here and Hakeem Jeffries and the media,

00:16:56.820 they've allowed, I mean, you should, you just showed four or five of those clips,

00:17:00.700 the Trump war room and some of the MAGA folks, they put sombreros on every single one of them,

00:17:05.540 including they put a sombrero and mustache on the, on the Hispanic Congresswoman that was

00:17:09.940 complaining about it being raised. So they've turned this into a running gag. That is that most

00:17:16.040 of the country I think finds, they may find it, uh, in, in bad taste. They may think it's childish,

00:17:24.240 it's juvenile, but, uh, I think most people think it's, it's either pretty funny and they get a laugh

00:17:30.940 out of it or it's kind of harmless. Um, but they certainly don't think as I, I don't know what

00:17:37.140 percent of the country lines up with Lawrence O'Donnell and thinks it's the, it's the worst

00:17:40.820 thing that's ever happened to the country in the history of, of the, you know, America.

00:17:44.720 Yeah. You don't think it's the single most demented thing that this president or any has ever done

00:17:48.920 here, here to your point, uh, and I'll place for you, Andy is, um, a C-SPAN caller calling in. I mean,

00:17:56.100 the C-SPAN, it's not exactly known for its levity, but here we go. Uh, shot six. I called

00:18:01.900 Akeem Jeffries last night and I thank her on left him a voicemail. And I wanted to know where he got

00:18:08.080 the sombrero from. Cause I wanted to buy one too. Cause I thought he looked good in it. It's just a

00:18:13.060 joke. See, nobody can take a joke no more. This country is so, uh, evil in so many ways

00:18:23.180 that nobody can take a joke anymore. You do not think that is funny. A mariachi band,

00:18:31.740 uh, Trump playing all those, uh, instruments and Akeem Jeffries, that, that is funny. Come on.

00:18:40.640 He speaks for us all, Andrew, but that's a real, like a regular person just calling into C-SPAN to

00:18:46.840 say, would you lighten up? And then it's perfect to see the C-SPAN anchor like, oh my God, he wants

00:18:52.240 me to laugh at the sombrero. I can't definitely cannot laugh at the sombrero. Oh, I liked the,

00:18:58.560 the JD Vance. He said, I will make a solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the

00:19:03.560 government, the sombrero memes will stop. I think, uh, you know, that, um, I do think a couple of

00:19:12.040 things. One, it, it, it makes me a little nostalgic for the days of when we were all bemoaning the fact

00:19:17.600 that Twitter had, had ruined political discourse and that, you know, 126 characters or whatever it

00:19:23.040 was. I mean, now we're talking about memes as if that's the heart of political discourse. And I

00:19:29.340 think, unfortunately, that is sort of at the heart of our political discourse right now. And, um, I think

00:19:34.560 that's kind of sad in a way. Um, but I also think that the Democrats have just, it's like Lucy and the

00:19:41.420 football. I mean, don't they, why do they sort of rise to the bait so quickly on something like this?

00:19:46.380 And it sort of deflects them from making arguments that they, you know, that they could be making,

00:19:51.620 I suppose. Um, because now they're arguing about this and they look like they, A, it looks like they

00:19:57.380 can't take a joke. Uh, it, it, it doesn't advance their argument. You can't beat, uh, Trump when it

00:20:04.860 comes to social media, you shouldn't even try. Um, and I haven't seen anybody, uh, on the left who

00:20:11.820 comes close to Donald Trump in, um, in terms of just sort of a, an understanding of, of how you

00:20:17.860 use this new medium in this new era. And he, you know, he's just redefines what political discourse

00:20:25.020 is. Um, and we may not like it. We may, you know, think, oh my gosh, I wish we were arguing about over

00:20:30.780 op-eds in the wall street journal and the Washington post, but we're not, um, this is where we are. And,

00:20:36.040 um, he's the master of it. Um, so it's like, they're very upset that he's exploiting Mexican

00:20:42.460 culture in order to make his political point. But, you know, I am old enough to remember

00:20:47.720 taco trucks everywhere, which they said was an acronym that stood for Trump always chickens out.

00:20:55.140 That was before we bombed Iran. Um, but that's what they wanted to say that he would always chicken

00:21:00.460 out on his threats. And they love to see the little taco trucks show up everywhere. I think we

00:21:06.000 have a little montage of that. Democrats trolling Trump with the taco truck, the DNC parking this

00:21:12.920 truck outside the Republican national committee in DC to talk Trump with his new wall street

00:21:17.760 nickname taco, which means Trump always chickens out a reference to the many times that he has

00:21:23.640 retreated from his trade war threats, right? Promising something and then lowering them without

00:21:28.400 a negotiation. The truck obviously featuring an image of Trump as a chicken. This is the white

00:21:33.940 house says Trump has sent out letters to major U S trading partners and they have demanded their

00:21:38.360 quote unquote best offers by the end of the day tomorrow. Credit once again, to Western lensman who

00:21:44.900 finds the best stuff, but that this is all over the place. They thought that this is wonderful,

00:21:49.180 a wonderful thing to do, Carl, back when it was making fun of Trump. But now that it's making fun

00:21:53.060 of a Democrat, it's racist. Well, you know, this is the, I once told this to George Stephanopoulos

00:21:59.980 when he was working for Bill Clinton in another context, Megan, but the difference between someone

00:22:04.620 who laughs at his enemies and a person who laughs at himself is the difference between a bully and a

00:22:09.980 person with a sense of humor. And, you know, we talk about people on the left aren't funny anymore,

00:22:14.860 but that wasn't always true. I mean, the funniest guy on the left was Al Franken,

00:22:17.780 who you mentioned earlier. Um, then he decided he was, he was going to run for Congress and Al

00:22:24.120 Franken spoke at the white house correspondence dinner twice. And the first time he was really

00:22:28.460 funny. He was not in politics. Then he poked more fun at Republicans, but also some at Democrats.

00:22:33.460 Then he decided he was going to get into politics. He had later ran for Senate of Minnesota. And the

00:22:37.820 second time he wasn't funny at all. Hyper partisanship is almost by definition, not funny. And so

00:22:43.580 there's a, this thing where JD Vance retweets the things, making fun of him, of the, the memes

00:22:50.100 poking fun at him. That's actually an essential point here. You know, um, you know, in we're,

00:22:55.600 we're in baseball playoffs, Megan, are you a Yankee fan? Cause I, I hesitate to bring up this

00:22:59.880 sport. Okay. Well, I'm not, but let's argue about that another time. Well, I mean, I have no choice

00:23:04.640 because the Mets didn't really have a great year. That was my dad's team, but I know enough to know

00:23:09.360 they stunk up the joint this year. All right. Well, but here's the, now we're in baseball

00:23:13.160 playoffs. There's a phrase in baseball. It's really apropos to this. It's called rabbit

00:23:16.240 ears. You have rabbit ears. And what it means is when somebody is ragging on you, you get

00:23:20.800 mad, you get red in the face. You, you can see it bothers you. Well, if you do that in

00:23:24.920 baseball, if you show you have rabbit ears, you will subject yourself to unmerciful teasing

00:23:29.120 and hazing. And, and, and so people tend to be stoic or laugh along with it. This is, I,

00:23:35.100 I saw Hakeem Jeffries sort of showed that he had rabbit ears and I don't mean that in any

00:23:39.620 kind of, um, I'm just talking about this baseball phrase. And, and, and so he assured that they

00:23:49.920 would keep doing it. And I just, you know, that's such an elemental thing. You'd think

00:23:53.540 he'd know that. Um, can I make one more comment before I, I don't mean to monopolize, but you

00:23:58.260 showed that C-SPAN clip that, that guy not laughing is John McArdle. He's a great young journalist.

00:24:03.660 He has a terrific sense of humor, but at C-SPAN, they were taught by Brian Lamb. They can't

00:24:08.800 laugh at stuff like this. And I found this out myself when Brian had me on his show,

00:24:13.660 his book show to, about my book. And he's, it was a book about, uh, presidents. And he said,

00:24:19.760 you know, you say good things about presidents in this, every president in this book. And I said,

00:24:24.840 yeah, but you'll notice Nick, Richard Nixon's not in there. And it's supposed to be a laugh line.

00:24:29.820 You're in a studio alone with the guy. And he doesn't even crack a smile. He's a poker face. And I

00:24:34.600 finally had to say, Brian, that's a joke. And he still didn't laugh. He goes, yes, I see. So

00:24:39.360 that's, that's the C-SPAN way. It explains a lot about C-SPAN's ratings.

00:24:44.580 Well, I wanted to spend them. I love those people.

00:24:45.700 Just make sure you give the audience absolutely nothing to connect to. That's what's most important

00:24:49.840 is that you show zero humanity. That's our business model.

00:24:52.860 I'm trying to defend C-SPAN. And we're sticking to it.

00:24:54.840 Well, as long as we're on the subject of TV programming, back to the telethon

00:24:59.640 over on Hakeem's YouTube channel, Tom, by 9.55 PM, they had Don LeMond on there. This is how

00:25:08.040 desperate they got for anyone. So Don LeMond gets on there and asks, uh, what's next? The former CNN

00:25:15.740 host, again, this is political writing, turned independent creator asked of representative Ayanna

00:25:21.220 Presley, Democrat of Massachusetts. How can the people watching, what can they do? Politico finishes

00:25:28.800 with just 122 people are watching. So you've got Don LeMond sitting there with a member of the squad

00:25:37.120 and they garnered, this isn't at four in the morning either. This is at 9.55 PM. They garnered

00:25:43.140 less than 130 people in their effort to turn the narrative. I would say this. If I were advising

00:25:51.900 Hakeem Jeffries, I don't know exactly how to land it, but I think the next move should definitely be

00:25:56.880 him at a Mexican restaurant, actually wearing a sombrero, maybe doing a dance. And then at the

00:26:04.760 end saying like one line that he wants people to remember about what this dispute is really about.

00:26:09.820 Like it's all in good fun. I'll be the first to make fun of myself. I think I look good in this

00:26:15.460 hat. I'm not sure about the mustache, but what I don't look good in is being surrounded by people

00:26:21.660 who don't have their healthcare. And that's actually what I'm fighting for. Something like that.

00:26:25.580 That's a good ad. I like that.

00:26:27.260 I think it's too late for that. I think if he had done that originally, uh, but he's already been into

00:26:33.120 overdrive. And so to do that now would be almost seen as capitulation and that he had lost,

00:26:38.600 but if he'd done it proactively, I agree with you, Megan. Can I just say one other thing,

00:26:43.580 which, which your, your lead in brought to mind, it is, and I rag on the media quite a bit on our

00:26:50.640 show. That's one of my favorite parts of your show, which I listen to every day. It's the rare

00:26:57.000 podcast. I don't miss. I appreciate that. And we are kindred spirits in that way. And,

00:27:01.840 and so you'll appreciate this line. It is one of the most, one of the most satisfying

00:27:05.820 things, uh, about the new era that we're in here is that so many of, of the media

00:27:15.800 grandstanders and scolds. And I'm thinking of Don Lamont. I'm thinking of Jim Acosta. I'm thinking

00:27:22.860 of Joey Reed are now in their basements, getting like 50 people viewing their shows when they used

00:27:29.180 to be, you know, Jim Acosta used to be, you know, grandstanding in the white house.

00:27:33.140 Remember you ripped that microphone out of that young intern's hand in the East room. I mean,

00:27:37.840 this guy was the biggest asshole, uh, who, who ever lived. And now he's in his basement doing,

00:27:44.000 you know, a show to 10 people. So that is ultimately, uh, I mean, that, that is just

00:27:50.600 very, very satisfying. And what you mentioned, you know, Don Lamont being on with like five people

00:27:55.280 watching, trying to help the Democrats out. Um, what can people do? What can all 100 people

00:28:00.800 watching do? We'll give them their marching orders, representative Presley. I feel like

00:28:05.360 that's how bad things have gotten that she's not even one of the stars of the squad. She's like

00:28:10.580 third tier squad. And so look, they don't know what to do. And I don't, so how does this end you

00:28:15.360 guys? You know what I mean? Who waves the white flag first? What will it take? Because now they're

00:28:21.080 saying technically, if, if things go forward without any change on October 15th, the troops are

00:28:27.020 going to lose their paychecks and then shit gets real. So what, what happens, Andy, do you think

00:28:32.500 to bring this to a close? Oh, I think the Democrats cave. I think it's, uh, there's no doubt in my

00:28:38.740 mind that at some point they'll have to, there'll be, there'll be some sort of negotiation worked out

00:28:43.740 where they're going to discuss this, uh, between now and the end of the year. Uh, but they'll say

00:28:48.620 that, uh, you know, uh, we've, we've got enough concession, good faith concessions from,

00:28:52.880 uh, Republican leadership that, uh, we're going to continue these discussions and a couple of the

00:28:58.580 Democratic senators, uh, will, uh, hive off. I don't think that, uh, uh, Chuck Schumer will vote

00:29:04.960 for, uh, this bill though. I think he will be a holdout. He's under a lot of pressure under a lot

00:29:10.080 of pressure, but they'll, they'll, they'll find the votes. What is it like six votes, uh, Tom, that

00:29:14.660 they need something like that. So that, that's what I think happens. The one thing that I'll say about

00:29:19.200 this shutdown too is it's, it's the most, it's the strangest shutdown. It is a partial government

00:29:24.360 shutdown. We should, we should say that, but everything is open. I mean, they didn't close,

00:29:28.820 uh, the Smithsonian. They didn't close the national parks. The VA is open. Social security checks are

00:29:34.600 going out. Um, the post office works. So, you know, a subtle message of this shutdown, I think

00:29:40.760 to the American people is, Hey, maybe, you know, maybe we shouldn't take these shutdowns so seriously

00:29:45.740 in the future. I personally, and I said this on the program the other day, I'm so tired

00:29:49.560 of covering shutdowns. Uh, it seems like every two years, it goes and goes and goes. And, and only

00:29:56.960 rarely do they actually get to the point where they shut it down. So at least, at least this time

00:30:00.800 we've got a shutdown to talk about. Yeah. Some drama. There's some drama, but even the drama is,

00:30:06.200 is kind of a non-drama because I think for the average American person, you know, they're not

00:30:11.820 failing it. How does this affect them? I'm checking. The one place, the one place where

00:30:15.400 it is being felt is at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Oh yeah. That, that one guy.

00:30:21.800 There's one dude sitting there by himself, not producing. Right. Not producing the reports.

00:30:27.220 What if that one guy produced better numbers, Andy, than the whole deal?

00:30:29.680 Can't you see him there? I guarantee you that guy's there by himself going,

00:30:33.720 da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

00:30:36.800 Why do I have that song stuck in my head all day these days? He's got nothing to do.

00:30:41.060 Yes. I agree with you. I think, wait, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they need five,

00:30:44.760 right? Because they had three Dems cross over to help, but they lost Rand Paul. So that once

00:30:49.680 they lost Rand Paul, that left Republicans with 52, then three Dems came, so they gave him 55. So

00:30:53.860 they need five more Dems to vote on this in order to get it. You could be right. Because you're right.

00:31:00.920 Rand Paul says he won't vote for it. So he won't vote for it. That's for sure. All right. So that's

00:31:05.460 what I think. And I see your point, but I think the Schumer thing, the Schumer thing is very

00:31:09.740 interesting to me because he was the one who caved the last time. Then he took all this guff

00:31:14.720 for caving and he caved for good reasons. I mean, he saw that president Trump was going to exploit the

00:31:20.820 shutdown as he's now threatening to do. He's saying, I'm going to lay off a bunch of people.

00:31:24.480 I'm going to stop funding already. This is like the today's story of the shutdown, but he's already

00:31:28.460 saying, um, we're withholding 18 billion in funds from New York's, uh, New York city, second Avenue

00:31:33.680 subway and gateway tunnel projects. The latter of which connects New Jersey and New York, New York area

00:31:38.420 lawmakers are very, very angry at that. He's, um, canceling nearly 8 billion in funding for energy

00:31:46.140 programs that he characterized as part of the left's climate agenda. The cuts will impact 16 states,

00:31:51.480 all of which voted for Kamala Harris. Um, he's, this is like funding for energy infrastructure

00:31:58.140 projects in places like New York, California, elsewhere. So this, this is not going to be good

00:32:03.460 for Democrats. This is not going to be good for blue state voters. He's not going to lose many

00:32:08.180 Republican voters with these moves. So like he's ratcheting up the pressure. And that brings me back

00:32:14.440 to Chuck Schumer, who I think is normally somebody who understands he needs to behave rationally,

00:32:19.720 that those results are going to hurt Dems more than they're going to hurt Republicans, but he can't

00:32:26.120 do it because this is already being put on him. And he's worried about, um, the AOC polls. Like there

00:32:36.040 was just a poll last time around that showed her absolutely crushing him. Trying to see if I have

00:32:41.140 it in front of me. It was showing her crushing him in a head to head matchup. And yeah, she had 55%. He

00:32:47.520 had 36%. This is back in March when it comes to, um, the 2028 democratic party primary for us Senate.

00:32:56.400 So he's, he really got to worry because the, his, you know, the, do the Democrats want him to cave

00:33:01.740 or don't they? They're trying to label this, the Schumer shutdown, which he doesn't like.

00:33:06.320 What, what does Schumer do? Well, you can see him just imagine the, the caucus meeting where he

00:33:12.120 gathers all these Democrats. Cause he, you're right, Megan, he's a rational guy. He knows, but he's like,

00:33:16.760 okay, we need a few Democrats, but I can't be one of them. So you guys are going to have to vote for

00:33:21.760 this and help me out because there's no way that, that, that he can do it. Um, I agree with Andy,

00:33:27.560 I think eventually, and we didn't even mention the fact that, you know, Russ vote at OMB. I mean,

00:33:33.000 they're about to start firing people and that's going to, I think, enrage the Democrats and, and also

00:33:39.720 hurt them. So, um, so I think, I think there will be enough Democrats that are going to,

00:33:45.460 they're going to come up with some sort of try face saving maneuver and open the government back

00:33:50.820 up and claim that they won when they actually didn't and hope their base buys it and then move

00:33:55.840 on. Yeah. I just want to show you this one soundbite of, uh, Chuck Schumer on CNN. He was on with John

00:34:00.480 Berman who asked him about the Schumer shutdown and look what happened. Every Republican who's gone on

00:34:08.060 TV, the last 12 hours or so has called this the Schumer shutdown. What do you say about that name?

00:34:21.280 Senator Schumer, can you hear me? I can't hear. Senator Schumer, can you hear me?

00:34:28.160 I don't think Senator Schumer can hear me right now. Maybe the government shut down

00:34:31.700 audio on Capitol Hill. Hmm. Or could he? Tried and true method of avoiding a, I've got technical

00:34:38.880 difficulties. Well, Mike Johnson was very, Mike Johnson was blunt about it. He said that

00:34:44.540 Schumer had shut down. He thought it was irresponsible to shut down the government

00:34:48.500 because of personal considerations. And he was saying that because of what you're saying, Megan,

00:34:53.000 because, um, he's expects to be challenged in a primary. He, he went along with this and it,

00:34:59.000 it, it begs the question. So if he's not really the Democrats leader in the Senate,

00:35:03.420 reminds me of that old cartoon. I think it was Pogo. Maybe someone will remember, uh, the crowd

00:35:08.420 is marching by and the guy says, Oh, there they go. I must follow them for, I am their leader.

00:35:13.440 Um, and it makes you wonder. So who, yeah. So who is the Democrats leader in the Senate then? If it's

00:35:19.140 AOC, she's not even a Senator. That would be a kind of a new wrinkle in American politics.

00:35:23.680 Oh, well, listen to this. So, uh, Pelosi gave an interview on Capitol Hill and AOC came up.

00:35:29.820 It's always interesting to me to watch Nancy Pelosi talk about AOC. Cause you know,

00:35:33.100 underneath she can't stand her. So she's always got to maneuver, but she's very deft at maneuvering.

00:35:37.920 So you get like, how does she maneuver? Here's how that went. It's out 12.

00:35:42.240 It was a thought from the Republicans that AOC is directing this. And she said that senators are

00:35:47.580 welcome to go to her office directly. Is she, is she driving that?

00:35:51.140 Why are you saying such a ridiculous thing? I'm just quoting what AOC said. She said go to

00:35:56.120 her office directly. Do you think there's any credibility to that? She is not directing this.

00:35:59.960 She's wonderful. She's a real, uh, team player and the rest of that. You started by saying

00:36:06.860 Republicans say that she's directing this. She is not how King Jeffries is. And, uh, this takes a lot

00:36:14.380 of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus in terms of, uh, the point of view. And that's what

00:36:22.000 this is. She's an articulate spokesperson for her point of view. Oh boy. First of all,

00:36:29.240 you're not allowed to refer to a black or Brown person as articulate. We learned this

00:36:33.260 that's considered racist. So somebody needs to tell. Megan, she's over 80. She gets a pass.

00:36:41.140 And what, it was an interesting dodge and weave. What, like what, what? It's not, I mean, she's,

00:36:47.700 she's fine. She's talented in her own way. She's a real team player. Yeah. Exactly the opposite of

00:36:54.740 what Nancy Pelosi actually thinks. Wait a minute. Did you miss that though? She said that, um,

00:36:59.720 Hakeem Jeffries is the Senate majority leader, the Senate minority leader, not Chuck Schumer.

00:37:05.640 Yeah. Well, and also who's directing, do we really want to pin this on Hakeem Jeffries? Hakeem

00:37:10.560 Jeffries is directing this like, great. Great to have the admission. It's you guys. And it's at

00:37:15.940 Hakeem's direction. Now we know exactly who to blame in the next primary. Um, AOC was on MSNBC,

00:37:22.660 MSNOW, MSNOW guys. And, um, what's her messaging, right? Cause this is all

00:37:29.140 a proxy fight for the next political election. So everybody's trying to stake out their territory.

00:37:35.760 And that piece of it, I am enjoying. I think I speak for all of us there. Here's, here's that

00:37:40.000 with Chris Hayes. And I want to just ask you straight up, like, are you planning to primary

00:37:43.960 challenge him? Do you think that's why he's doing this? This is so not about me in this moment.

00:37:52.360 This is about people being able to insure their children. And I will say, cause I saw some senators

00:38:01.620 speculating about this and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, oh, well, if we have

00:38:06.720 this shutdown, it's because of AOC. Well, if that's the case, my office is open and you are free to walk

00:38:12.820 in and negotiate with me directly. Because what I'm not going to do is tolerate 4 million uninsured

00:38:18.860 Americans because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are,

00:38:25.720 are, are dying because they don't have access to insurance.

00:38:29.880 I'm in charge. That's what she was saying there. Nancy Pelosi doesn't know shit. I am running this

00:38:36.680 thing. Come right in my door. I love that. I thought it was great. I mean, my door is open.

00:38:43.960 You come negotiate directly with me. Forget all these other folks. Honestly, I don't think she's

00:38:48.220 going to primary Chuck Schumer. I think she's going to run for president. Do you really?

00:38:52.800 I do. I do. I think she's going to be, uh, she's going to give it a good hard look. And,

00:38:58.200 and I think old enough, Tom, she will be just, she will be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She'll be just

00:39:03.100 barely. I mean, it makes me sad. Cause I, I think about how, how young she is and like Charlie,

00:39:10.080 Charlie was 31 when he was killed. We all knew Charlie Kirk was going to be president one day.

00:39:14.360 He, he actually only had another four years to wait before he could have even tried for it. I

00:39:19.860 mean, he's absolutely would have been more skilled than AOC, not, not as legislatively experienced,

00:39:25.840 but more experienced in life. And when I think of somebody as young as that actually going for it,

00:39:30.800 it makes me miss Charlie even, even more. Cause you know, what an, what an opportunity that would

00:39:34.360 have been to, how fun would it have been to watch like two young guns like that go at it in the

00:39:38.900 debate? Oh my God. It's so sad. It will never be sorry. I took a side turn there, but it is

00:39:45.640 interesting to see AOC stepping into a leadership position there guys. Yeah, no. And I think,

00:39:50.500 I think you saw there in that clip why she's effective. I mean, she doesn't take the Trump

00:39:55.360 bait. She, she, she sort of, you know, went directly to the issues she cares about or talks about

00:40:00.880 framed it in this extreme way and said, you know, come to my office and talk to me. It was pretty

00:40:06.260 forceful. So, you know, people should not underestimate AOC. I think, I think that yes,

00:40:13.080 she's young and she's brash, but, but she's, I think she's shown that she is where the future of

00:40:19.500 the democratic party is. It's her and mom, Donnie. I mean, that all the energy in the party is on the

00:40:24.920 left. And I think that, that I'm not so sure Schumer will want to run again. I mean, it may not be

00:40:32.800 that the fear of being primaried is so great that he may, he may retire. That, that, that's my.

00:40:38.580 She, she is T minus two minutes from getting a sombrero. Yes.

00:40:45.860 You know, it would be interesting to see how she, how she would react to that. Yeah. I would be,

00:40:52.280 because she's herself. I don't think she'd laugh at herself. I don't think she'd take it well.

00:40:55.940 Yeah, probably not. They're already calling her abuelita online because of her extra. She put on

00:41:02.480 a few pounds. I think she looks better now, actually. I'm not going to touch that. Good

00:41:09.300 Lord. That was not the special thing we had saved for you, Andy. Okay. That comes later. Well,

00:41:17.680 all right. So what do you see, Tom? Andy says it will, it will end with the Democrats caving and,

00:41:22.380 and soon. Is that your prediction? Let me just get sooner in the distant future. No, soon. Soon.

00:41:26.680 I think when, when, when they start firing federal employees, um, yeah, I think it's going to come

00:41:32.160 soon, sooner rather than later. Last time was 30, last time was 35 days. And I don't think,

00:41:37.740 um, the justice department people military, I think after two weeks that they don't get paid. I don't

00:41:43.180 think asking, you know, a million Americans to work without pay is going to, is going to go down in

00:41:48.640 either party. I think that the Trump administration will give a little bit enough for the Democrats to

00:41:54.320 be able to say, okay, we'll do a clean CR and we'll push this down the road. I'm, I'm thinking

00:41:59.460 right. Not 35 days, between two and three weeks. Maybe by Columbus day, something like that, which

00:42:06.840 or native indigenous people's day, whatever, whatever holidays. Do you know when she was in fifth

00:42:14.900 grade, I think it was, or was it no seventh grade, seventh grade, they asked the kids to argue

00:42:19.200 whether we should keep Columbus day or change it to indigenous people's day. My daughter was the

00:42:24.780 only person who said we should keep it. And the teacher sided against her. Unbelievable. Um,

00:42:30.660 do you remember when they tore that statue down in Baltimore and like Christopher Columbus,

00:42:35.580 like threw it into the Baltimore Chesapeake Bay, into the Harbor. And Nancy Pelosi was asked about it.

00:42:40.980 And she said, Oh, well, you know, people do things that, you know, it happens. And, but I found that

00:42:45.820 her brother was like, when he was mayor was at the inauguration of that statue and spoke very highly

00:42:51.120 of it. And she grew up in, so, so, you know, sometimes nobody has a sense of history anymore.

00:42:57.680 Have you guys seen the new statue of Tina Turner?

00:43:01.880 Ooh, no, I did see a thing of that. Yeah.

00:43:05.680 Terrible. We'll drop it in for the YouTube audience, but I don't even know where they put it

00:43:09.240 up, but they put it. I mean, I appreciate the, the goal, you know, to honor Tina, which yes,

00:43:14.920 right on. We should like one of the great diva icons of all time here in America and worldwide,

00:43:21.060 but it was so bad. It took like her hair. I don't know what they did to her hair. They tried to get

00:43:27.160 that great hair she had on the cover of what's love got to do with it. It was kind of spiky and

00:43:31.880 cool. And they made it just terrible and kind of flat and weird. I, it was, it did not do her

00:43:37.260 justice. It wasn't quite as bad or phallic as the MLK Memorial thing with the arms and the huggy.

00:43:44.220 We didn't go to that place. It wasn't R rated, but it was just a fail on every level. Okay. Now I want

00:43:50.480 to shift gears though, because we're talking about sort of what the fight between the Dems and the

00:43:53.780 Republicans and is it proxy for, you know, the next election or at least the Democrats primary race.

00:43:58.680 And I want to look at team GOP because what's happening right now is Trump is advancing his

00:44:05.900 placement on his number one issue, the issue on which he is pulling the best. And that is crime

00:44:12.600 that New York times Sienna poll that came out earlier this week showed crime is his number one

00:44:16.740 issue. And that's post the saber rattling about sending troops in places, the actual sending in

00:44:23.400 troops to Washington DC and to a lesser extent LA to support ice. And now he's sending troops to

00:44:30.160 support ice in Portland, Oregon. And he's sending a bunch of troops down to, um, Memphis, Memphis,

00:44:39.180 Tennessee that's allowed. And that's the biggest we've seen yet because it was invited by the

00:44:44.560 Republican governor. Um, and that's, that's how, you know, the system works. It's fine for him to send

00:44:49.960 troops if requested by the state governor. And so this Republican governor did it. They're worried

00:44:54.700 about Memphis, which is Democrat run and Stephen Miller, who just throws the best fastball went

00:45:02.240 down. They all went down there. Pam Bondi was down there. Stephen Miller was down there. Pete

00:45:05.320 Hegseth was down there. They were like, we've got you Memphis. This is on, it's a partnership.

00:45:09.800 We love you. We're going to make sure there will be no block on which residents feel uncomfortable

00:45:15.480 or unsafe to walk. Here's a little bit of Stephen Miller. All we ask from you is to show up at roll

00:45:23.100 call every single night with your brothers and sisters in the federal government and to go out

00:45:28.700 and get the criminals off the street. And if you do that, I pledge to you, we will liberate this city

00:45:35.360 from the criminal element that has plagued it for generations. This is not just a strategy shift.

00:45:40.660 This is an attitude shift. We are not going to live in an environment anywhere where there is a

00:45:48.020 street that belongs to a criminal, where there is a neighborhood that belongs to a gang, where there

00:45:53.500 is any physical space anywhere that belongs to anyone other than the law abiding citizens and families

00:46:00.200 of Memphis. The idea that there is a square inch of block in this city where a citizen doesn't feel

00:46:07.300 safe is unacceptable. This is Memphis. This is the United States of America. And all that bullshit

00:46:13.760 is done. It's over. It's finished.

00:46:19.800 So good. I have to think, you know, the, your average voter is feeling the shoot it into my veins

00:46:25.720 in response. Like who would be against that? Seriously, Tom, who would be like, I, I prefer the murderers.

00:46:32.100 Yeah. Look, I think crime is, is an important issue. It's one, it was part of the last election.

00:46:40.740 It's going to be part of the coming elections. And I think you mentioned Trump. It's one of his best

00:46:45.360 issues now. You know, I think Stephen Miller is, is, he may not be the best messenger, I think,

00:46:53.960 uh, because he's one of the big bogeymen on the left for, um, so, you know, that I know you like

00:47:01.440 him, Megan, but, um, but I think the message itself is, is hard to disagree with. The question

00:47:08.100 is how you go about doing it. Right. And we've had this discussion in Chicago and other places. It's

00:47:11.980 like, is it sending in the troops? Is it sending in the national guard? Or is it, you know, letting

00:47:16.680 local law enforcement do their job and supporting them and helping them. And there is some nuance in the

00:47:21.940 polling data on that, but there's no question that this idea, Democrats are losing on the idea that

00:47:27.380 in Chicago, for example, that, you know, everything's just fine and we should tolerate

00:47:33.340 a certain level of, of crime and homicide and lawlessness. Um, you know, we know perfection's

00:47:39.340 unattainable, but that doesn't mean we have to let 500 people get killed by, you know, get murdered

00:47:44.240 every year in the city of Chicago or 300 or whatever the number is, even though it's gone down.

00:47:48.800 Shot at. Yeah. When it's gone down from where it was a couple of years ago, that still doesn't mean

00:47:53.200 it's acceptable or that we, we should be, uh, accepting of that. And I think that is a very

00:47:58.760 common sense message that does resonate pretty wide and pretty deep. What do you make of it, Carl?

00:48:05.740 Well, I think breaking the cycle of crime in these cities is a noble goal. Um, I just, but when I hear

00:48:12.780 first of all, Stephen Miller and on one side and JV Pritzker on the other, I haven't heard anybody say

00:48:18.860 an idea that will help, you know, the Democrats, Tom's point out the Democrats are losing on this

00:48:23.840 issue because they're pretending that if you're, if you have 700 people killed in your town and the

00:48:29.040 next year you have 690 that you're doing good work, that's just, yeah, people think that's insane.

00:48:36.340 The Democrats actually sound like they're defending violent crime. But when Trump just says,

00:48:41.360 we're going to send the national guard and clean up these streets, well, okay, but then what? How,

00:48:46.080 how long do you keep people incarceration? Do you build new prisons? How do you, how do you break

00:48:49.720 the cycle where people in some of these neighborhoods would rather join a gang than join a church? It's a

00:48:55.060 very complicated problem. And it seems to me, Democrats and Republicans need to work together

00:48:59.340 to solve it and not just hurl empty, goofy talking points at each other. Well, Stephen Miller was

00:49:04.960 predicting that businesses, quoting here, and investments are going to pour in and Memphis will be

00:49:10.780 richer than ever before. That could happen. That could happen. It happened in New York after

00:49:15.460 Rudy Giuliani cleaned it up with Bill Bratton. If you bring safety to a town, you are increasing the

00:49:23.140 likelihood of investment and businesses popping up. And if they can get that going in the, in the time

00:49:28.160 that they've agreed to have the troops there, which remains unclear to me as of now, that, that actually

00:49:32.380 could begin to turn Memphis around. And once you show the people how they could be living, as opposed to

00:49:36.740 how they were living, that the standard is raised, you know, the demands are going to be higher for

00:49:40.980 how they have to continue on. So this is a glimpse and it could be a really valuable one. All right,

00:49:47.040 stand by. We've got to take a quick break. We will be right back with the guys from Real Clear Politics.

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00:51:16.560 We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever to cower, to hide,

00:51:26.780 to go silent is not the answer. And all I can tell you is there is no fucking way I am canceling

00:51:33.540 one stop on this tour. Not one stop. I'm going. I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to

00:51:42.960 say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're going to make it safe for me.

00:51:46.940 We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you. We're going coast to coast and

00:51:52.420 do something really important, which is say what's true and what's real to honor him.

00:51:58.700 I really now more than ever would love to see you all face to face. God, I would love to see you face

00:52:04.080 to face. I need to see you face to face. I am doing this tour and I would love for you to join

00:52:11.540 me. Megan Kelly dot com for the tickets. Back with me now, Tom Bevin, Carl Cannon and Andrew

00:52:21.000 Walworth of Real Clear Politics. So Kamala Harris is having her moment in the sun. I heard you guys

00:52:28.480 talking about this on your show and she's in a great mood and she actually has reason to be. Her

00:52:34.320 books are selling fast like wildfire. 350,000 copies sold so far, which is actually really good. I

00:52:42.040 actually can't wait to see when she hits the New York Times bestseller list if she has the little

00:52:46.720 asterisk next to her number, which not everybody knows, means that you used bulk sales to get there.

00:52:54.020 Or bulk sales are basically a way of saying, here's $50,000, go buy my book. And some very

00:53:01.980 prominent authors, not my husband, but authors you would know, do this. Always look for the asterisk

00:53:08.520 to see whether they've done that. But in any event, obviously she's got a lot of book sales. And here's

00:53:13.400 just a little sampling of how she's sounding these days. This is her on TikTok Tuesday evening. Her big

00:53:19.960 event was Monday, but this was posted on Tuesday. 30. It's not 30. I have had the experience many

00:53:26.320 people have had or will have had this experience of walking into a room and being the only one that

00:53:32.380 looks like you or has had your life experience. And my request of you is that when you walk in that room,

00:53:41.920 you walk in that room, chin up and shoulders back, knowing that we are all in that room with you and

00:53:52.120 you are not alone. And you carry the voice of so many people who are proud that you are in that room

00:54:01.440 and expect your voice to be strong.

00:54:06.860 She can't do it. She cannot do it. She's desperately trying to be Oprah and she can't be Oprah. And as

00:54:13.780 it turns out, Oprah is kind of a psychopath. I'm going to do a piece on this at some point. Honestly,

00:54:18.500 we were raised by wolves. Those of us who watch that show religiously, I figured it out at 54.

00:54:23.200 In any event, Kamala Harris is not even as good as the fake Oprah, nevermind the real one. And

00:54:28.500 I don't know, you guys, you seem to be very bullish on her newfound confidence

00:54:32.700 and think that this, this sales number is going to encourage her to actually run again.

00:54:38.700 I mean, I'll start with you on that, Andrew. Do you believe that?

00:54:41.740 Yes, I do. Absolutely.

00:54:44.280 Why? I mean, I love it. I want it, but why?

00:54:46.700 I think, well, all politicians operate inside a bubble and in her bubble, this is reinforces the view

00:54:56.720 that, you know, she's, she's still anointed and she will go forward. And I think she will run

00:55:03.420 again. I think the Washington Post though had a great, they, they, they said her book tour is even

00:55:08.640 less compelling than her campaign. I think sort of describes it. It's been, it's been a shock to me.

00:55:15.400 I, I will say this. I have not read the book. I've read the excerpts that were in the Atlantic

00:55:20.040 and I've read about it. And it does seem there's some juicy tidbits in the book and maybe it's a

00:55:25.540 better book than, than we expected. Uh, in that regard, it doesn't seem like it's a great campaign

00:55:31.520 book. Uh, so I do expect a second book before she runs, uh, especially because this one's been such

00:55:37.340 a hit. Um, so yeah, no, I think she's running. I think the camp campaigns on, and I think she's

00:55:43.060 gunning for those, uh, people who will be on the dais, uh, with her in the first, uh, debate right now.

00:55:48.860 In the book, she goes, she goes after them, you know, sort of one by one. I don't think

00:55:53.540 Republicans could ask for more because you have this terrible candidate who now has this artificially

00:56:01.000 inflated sense of self because whoever wrote that book for her managed to make it juicy enough that

00:56:06.440 people want to buy it. Even people who don't like her are buying it because they want to hear her,

00:56:10.320 you know, sling all the mud at these other Democrats. So this is inflated her to the point

00:56:16.060 where she actually thinks she can do this, which she definitely cannot puts her back in

00:56:20.980 the primary, which now we're going to get to see the info. Now we're really going to get to see

00:56:24.660 them go after each other. Pete Buttigieg is going to be like, how gay am I, Kamala? You know,

00:56:28.780 you're, you're the bigot, right? Everybody she took aim at Josh Shapiro, um, all of them,

00:56:34.800 Tim Walls, who knows who's going to be up there next door AOC. And it's going to be the free for

00:56:39.960 all that we've wanted. And God, I mean, I don't think I'm a good enough person for God to actually

00:56:45.360 make her the nominee again. And for us to have that race, but I might be, I don't, I mean,

00:56:50.480 I'm pretty good. So I don't know, Tom, Carl, what do you guys think?

00:56:52.700 Can you imagine they're going to be on to, on the debate stage and Pete Buttigieg is going to say,

00:56:58.620 you know, that little boy was me, Kamala. He's going to be, you know, do a t-shirt. It would be

00:57:07.840 awesome. Um, look, I do think this is, and by the way, you know, I, I do think this is

00:57:15.040 somewhat, I just, I find it hard to believe that she is selling out all these places. I mean,

00:57:21.980 again, she's coming to Chicago. I said this on our program the other day, she's coming to our show

00:57:25.640 or coming to Chicago on, I think the 11th of October. And I was like, Oh, it's on a Saturday.

00:57:30.900 I'll go check the tickets. You could barely get in the door for over a hundred dollars. And people

00:57:35.360 were paying the average ticket price was like five or $600. If you want to set up, it was like three

00:57:40.160 grand or something. I mean, it was like, who are all these people? I think there's a certain level

00:57:44.660 of AstroTurfing going on here. It is bulk sales of the book. I think. Tom, you are obligated to

00:57:50.680 go see her. And here's why I'm going to remind Megan. She listens to our socials. She'll remember

00:57:55.380 this. You said the tickets cost more to see, um, Kamala Harris than to go to the Cubs game.

00:58:01.900 Yes. Somebody took you to the Cubs Padres game yesterday. So now you have to go to.

00:58:06.660 That's true. That is true. Do it for all of us. In your pocket. And you know what, Tom,

00:58:11.160 you can put it on your expense account. Yeah. Well, thank you, Carl. I appreciate that.

00:58:14.940 Yeah. No, but I do think, I do think one of the. Bust out your iPhone, get one of those expensive

00:58:18.280 tickets, sit up by the front, bust out your iPhone. And if you could shout out a question,

00:58:22.300 that would be amazing. Like, um, I don't know, ask her to do one of her accents.

00:58:27.260 No, but I do think one of the, one of the side effects of this, especially if it is not all organic

00:58:33.820 and there isn't this sort of, you know, groundswell of support for Kamala Harris, which I,

00:58:38.680 I really do doubt. Um, that, but one of the, one of the side effects of that is going to be,

00:58:43.980 it's, it is reinforcing this idea among her and her team that my gosh, people really do want to

00:58:49.860 hear from Kamala. They do still like her and, and want to see her, you know, run again. And, and so I

00:58:56.760 think that may end up being one of the practices. I don't think by the way, even if she does run,

00:59:02.260 she's not going to win the primary. I just don't see how she could possibly do that.

00:59:06.080 You already have your candidate. You said it's AOC. You said she's going to run.

00:59:10.000 I think she's going to run too. I think 28, I think 2028 is going to be a free for all on the

00:59:14.440 democratic side. I think you've got, when, when does 2028 get started? Not January 1st,

00:59:20.480 2028, but like, when does it get started? The race started, it started a month ago when Gavin

00:59:24.740 Newsom said he was running. It's on right now. There's a shadow, there's a shadow primary that's going on

00:59:30.200 right now. And she went back into her book and we, I think I'm making this up. So, and put that

00:59:38.340 thing about Gavin Newsom texting her, um, when she asked for his endorsement and Gavin held a press

00:59:44.160 conference about it and said kind of puckishly, well, I'm, I was one of the first people to endorse

00:59:48.000 her. I endorsed her within hours of that text. I'm sure that's in the book too. Well, he knew it

00:59:53.260 wasn't, as Andy pointed out. So it's on right now. They're running.

00:59:57.400 I actually thought that was the most respect I've had for Gavin Newsom where he didn't call

01:00:02.540 her back just for the listening audience who hadn't heard. She said when, um, in that period

01:00:05.920 after Biden passed the baton to her, she was trying to garnish support so that nobody else

01:00:09.900 pushed for an open primary. It was just going to be hers to run with. She was calling all these

01:00:13.500 dams, like back me, back me, endorse me. And she said with Gavin Newsom, she called him and, uh,

01:00:18.600 she got a responsive text that just said hiking.

01:00:21.900 We'll call, we'll call back. Yeah. He was, he was one of the first, he was one of the first to

01:00:28.460 come out and back Joe Biden to the hilt immediately when this whole thing, after, after the debate

01:00:34.820 happened, because he knew that if he didn't, it was, it was his best chance of, of winning and

01:00:41.300 becoming the next nominee. If Kamala Harris did, you know, she's his ultimate rival. And so he was,

01:00:46.700 he was pretty clear about which side he was on right from the, from the jump.

01:00:49.980 Yeah. The ultimate tell that she's running will be when she starts her podcast. That seems to be

01:00:55.940 the thing you have to do, right? So is Megan running for president?

01:01:00.580 No, I, I am, I really am. I'm a better person than I thought I was because there's no way God

01:01:05.840 would give me these gifts. Otherwise, if Kamala Harris starts a podcast, I promise to personally

01:01:12.020 promote it every day. I will personally wrote, we will be on that like white on rice. We will be

01:01:18.680 making sure we monitor every word she says. She can title it unburdened. Yes. Perfect. There you

01:01:23.780 have it. And we, she can do all in-depth specials on her school bus fetish, her Venn diagrams.

01:01:30.160 Venn diagrams. Yeah. Don't forget the Venn diagrams. The duality.

01:01:34.680 Yeah. Maybe underestimating her. She's still, listen, the, the, the alchemy here is, and I'd like,

01:01:40.600 and I like your theory on it, Megan. We don't have one. These halls that she's selling out,

01:01:45.260 if she had announced previously to this book that you could come here for free,

01:01:49.740 they wouldn't have been sold out. So now people are paying exorbitant amount of money. So what,

01:01:53.560 what is going on? How is that? Yeah. Or are they getting paid to, to go there? Is there some

01:01:59.940 donation being made to some group they belong to? And then they're being sent over there. I mean,

01:02:05.000 that, that campaign had $2 billion and they're, they're used to finding a way to, to fill seats

01:02:09.400 with people who didn't otherwise want to be there. Same idea as, as bulk book sales, right?

01:02:15.080 You buy a bunch of tickets and hand them out. Yeah. Look guys, I, I, I, I want to, I will

01:02:21.280 entertain that possibility. However, I will say this, that book is on track to be one of the 10

01:02:26.560 bestsellers of the year. I don't think you can do that all through sales like this. I mean,

01:02:31.200 if these trends continue, it's going to be a legitimate bestseller. Andy, you're so naive.

01:02:35.720 No, you, you, he might be right because Steve Krakauer is telling me that at least on,

01:02:39.980 on week one, she didn't have the asterisk. So either they are legit individual sales or she found

01:02:46.000 a way around it, which also I don't put past her team. I mean, they've, they've found you would

01:02:51.060 have to have a way of showing fake popularity if you're running Kamala Harris's campaign. And let's

01:02:57.320 not forget, this is the same team largely that ran Joe Biden's campaign and actually tried to make

01:03:02.600 him look alive. I mean, an even greater challenge four years earlier. And then again, when he ran

01:03:07.800 for reelection. So like these are, you know, they're talented people. They couldn't get the

01:03:10.900 ball over the end zone, but like they are talented people. All right. But now you raise the issue of

01:03:15.080 starting a podcast, Carl, and that leads me to my next two subjects. We're going to get to Michelle

01:03:22.280 Obama. That's for you, Andy. But first we're going to start with Chelsea Clinton, Chelsea Clinton. Oh,

01:03:29.700 excuse me. Dr. Chelsea Clinton. Yes. She's pulling a Jill Biden and insisting that we call her Dr.

01:03:38.900 Chelsea Clinton now because she has her PhD in like international studies or something. But her

01:03:45.460 podcast is not about that at all. It's, it's about taking down the Maha movement to put it in a much

01:03:53.100 sexier way than she did. She's, she's sick of the lies. And so Dr. Chelsea Clinton is starting a

01:03:59.460 podcast called That Can't Be True. Here is the trailer. It's not 37. Is it just me or are things

01:04:06.340 actually really weird right now in the world of public health? Every day brings another confusing

01:04:11.540 headline or far-fetched claim, not to mention the cuts to cancer research, to women's health research,

01:04:17.000 brain research, to the dismantling of the suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ plus kids. People's

01:04:23.980 lives are at risk. Welcome to That Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on

01:04:32.960 issues impacting our health. I'm Chelsea Clinton, an advocate, author, investor, teacher, and most

01:04:39.100 importantly, mom, navigating this insane time right alongside you. I hope you'll join me and a group

01:04:45.780 of trusted experts as we shine a light on what's real, what's not, and why it matters.

01:04:53.500 Who in the world is going to listen to this? Who is saying I need more Chelsea Clinton in my life?

01:05:00.140 If only Chelsea Clinton would advise me on the day's news, especially the Maha movement.

01:05:06.100 What? She has zero expertise that will help her advise on this. She's not a real doctor. And really,

01:05:12.360 she's the ultimate Nepo baby, which people can't stand. So explain to me why this is being born.

01:05:20.440 Before I do that, Megan, I'm not going to embarrass this reporter by mentioning his name on air today.

01:05:26.960 He works for me. But he once referred to Jill Biden as Dr. Biden in a story.

01:05:33.040 It's Philip Wegman, isn't it?

01:05:35.460 I pulled him into my office. And I said, he said, why am I here? I said, we're going to talk about Dr.

01:05:42.920 Jill. He said, okay. I said, let me ask you something. If you were having a stomach ache and

01:05:49.340 you needed it, would you let her take your appendix out? This is an old newsroom thing for my youth.

01:05:55.320 He said, no. I said, then she's not a doctor.

01:05:57.600 Right on. And honestly, I'm not going to run down Chelsea Clinton. I covered her parents.

01:06:04.840 I love her dad. I knew her when she was 13, but she's not Dr. Chelsea. That's not happening

01:06:11.140 in our pages if you're listening, Phil Wegman. I'm sorry.

01:06:14.080 God bless you. I knew it was Phil. I knew it. I could tell. He's so respectful of everybody.

01:06:18.940 It's what we love and hate about him. I do find this very annoying. And I do think

01:06:24.840 Chelsea Clinton's time in the national spotlight has come and gone. She is one of the most annoying

01:06:30.940 people on X. She's constantly defending the Clinton Foundation. Like it's, you know, the squeaky

01:06:37.180 clean organization. Her parents lied to us that it was. And she took over this whole graft and we're

01:06:43.140 supposed to look at her and pretend Tom, like she's some sort of an authority. Why again? Why like

01:06:49.420 she's basically Hunter Biden in a dress and without the drug addiction?

01:06:55.520 Well, listen, the idea that she's going to use trusted experts to fact check

01:07:04.360 information about all the, you know, handle all the misinformation that's out there,

01:07:11.280 particularly as it pertains to public health is just, it's like,

01:07:15.420 she's, she's swimming in the wrong direction, I think. And, and clearly had she launched this

01:07:22.760 podcast, you know, five years ago, is there any question about what she would have said about

01:07:27.140 masks and vaccines and shutting down schools for the benefit of those kids? And, you know, I mean,

01:07:32.980 it's like, come on, I, I think this will appeal to a small section of, of, you know, the democratic

01:07:39.920 party or people who are violent fans or whatever. But beyond that, I'm, I, I just don't understand

01:07:46.780 the, the appeal of this at all. I mean, is it lost on anyone that her mother is all over the news

01:07:54.540 right now for having launched the plan to take down the Trump presidency and the Trump campaign

01:08:02.860 before he was president by falsely alleging that he was a Russian stooge, that her mother was the OG

01:08:10.920 inventor of disinformation to advance her own political career. And now Chelsea Clinton wants

01:08:17.600 to be underdog to save the day by combating disinformation being put out by the Trump

01:08:23.120 administration. And in particular, the Maha strain, please. I've got a great subject for you to

01:08:28.420 start with Chelsea. It's very close to home. I can guarantee you get the exclusive. I mean,

01:08:34.220 it's like the elephant in the living room, Andy. Yeah. Well, it's, uh, it's being produced by the

01:08:40.660 Clinton foundation too. That should, we should point that out. When you say who wants to listen to this,

01:08:44.460 it doesn't really matter because basically this is a vanity project. It is funded almost, uh, I think

01:08:50.660 if it isn't entirely funded by the Clinton foundation, it's, uh, the Clinton foundation is claiming,

01:08:56.000 uh, is the producer for it. Um, you know, she, she has a master's degree from Columbia in public

01:09:02.360 health. So just to give her some, some, you know, uh, credence in this, uh, uh, you know, to talk

01:09:09.520 about this issue, I don't hold it against her that she's not a doctor that she wants to talk about

01:09:14.320 this. I do think she shouldn't call herself a doctor if she's talking about medical issues. I find

01:09:18.780 that really misleading. And, um, you know, I would, I would, I would urge her to stop doing that because I

01:09:25.140 think it, it, um, it hurts her credibility, uh, to the extent she has anything on the topic.

01:09:30.360 Um, she did have a podcast earlier. It was called, um, uh, well, I forget the name of it,

01:09:35.840 but she, she tried this once before, uh, that podcast ended. So we'll see what happens with this

01:09:41.280 one. She's tried a lot of things in life. She's been, um, you know, a network. She said her title

01:09:47.780 she's an investor. And yeah, remember she's been an investor. She's on the board of a couple of media

01:09:53.680 companies. Um, uh, she's on the board of the Clinton, uh, foundation. Uh, so, you know, this

01:10:00.380 is just the latest, um, career, um, for her. And, you know, maybe this will work out as well as the

01:10:07.280 other ones did. Nothing seems to last more than a couple of years. Do you dare me to tell a

01:10:11.160 heartwarming story about Chelsea Clinton? No, I have no desire to hear her. I can't stand her,

01:10:16.780 but I was enjoying listening to Andy trying to like deftly navigate, not saying anything too

01:10:22.500 negative about her. Um, no, I think she's a very, as Trump would say, nasty lady. Uh, I really can't

01:10:28.120 stand Chelsea Clinton. And there's a reason she's failed at all those things you listed.

01:10:31.080 She really isn't an attractive person in any way. I'm not speaking of her outside though. I mean,

01:10:37.640 I've got thoughts on that too, but she's not an attractive person. I think she's ugly on the

01:10:41.340 inside and it projects. Actually, Megan, that really leads perfectly into my story. I'll make it brief.

01:10:47.160 All right. Okay. So I was doing pool duty and when Clinton was, Bill Clinton was president,

01:10:52.160 we were at Martha's vineyard, we went to a party. He had a party for the press on the last day and

01:10:57.460 to bring your family. So I brought my kids and my daughter, Kelly was 10 and Rush Limbaugh had said

01:11:04.780 something nasty about Chelsea that she was ugly. She was 13 or 14, you know, and had braces and was

01:11:09.840 kind of awkward the way teenagers are. And even for Rush Limbaugh's fans, it was too much. Anyway,

01:11:14.800 she sweeps into the party and my daughter, Kelly turns and looks at her and says, that's Chelsea.

01:11:22.180 And then she says, I had no idea she was so beautiful. And I put that in my pool report and

01:11:29.140 Clinton called me, said, I appreciate what you wrote. And he should have. That's my story.

01:11:35.860 That's a nice story about your daughter. Your daughter is very generous in her approach to

01:11:42.360 other people. Unlike your host of this particular podcast that you're on right now. She's a nasty

01:11:48.100 person. I'm sorry, but she is. I mean, she's pretty hateful. I can see directly where she gets it. And

01:11:52.900 there's a reason she's failed at everything. And I have to say, like, you can't just launch a podcast

01:11:57.740 and expect people to come. Like you actually have to have done something. The reason you guys have a

01:12:01.880 successful podcast is because you have spent your lives immersed in politics. You actually have

01:12:07.120 expertise and you know, everything about the subject that you speak about all day. I've spent

01:12:13.420 the past 30 years of my life, either practicing law or in journalism too, which is why I cover politics

01:12:19.000 and law the way I do. So people understand that when they listen to you, like really, what is she

01:12:23.960 going to talk about her husband's investments, the graft at the Clinton foundation, her one year on the

01:12:29.440 Today Show that was a nightmare, her master's degree, which as far as I can tell is the only

01:12:33.960 experience she's had with public health. Good luck. And here's the other thing. In order to resonate

01:12:38.680 in the podcast world, you have to have like an interesting personality. You actually do. You

01:12:43.640 either have to be like clever or nice or controversial or something, you know, just naturally, because if you

01:12:50.040 fake it, they'll know that too. She's none of those things. She's a bore. She's a snobby,

01:12:54.580 snotty, nasty, bore. That's how I feel. And so it's not going to go well. Okay.

01:13:02.240 How do you really feel, Megan?

01:13:05.880 Sometimes you really find exactly the words that you want to describe what you're describing.

01:13:11.100 Okay. That leads me to Michelle Obama. Okay. We ran the soundbite of her yesterday, guys,

01:13:20.800 speaking of people who are on podcasts that are failing. And, uh, it was this pod, it was this

01:13:26.120 soundbite all about how she can't stand Barack Obama. It's like every soundbite from her is about

01:13:33.680 how little she likes him and can stand him. And she was talking about how she was talking to a

01:13:38.160 relationship therapist on her show and, and was like, I have to save my commentary during the day

01:13:43.920 if we see each other at lunch, because we don't do anything now. And so when I see him at, you know,

01:13:48.380 we can't talk over the line, like save it for dinner because otherwise we'll have nothing to

01:13:52.060 talk about when we get to dinner. So we get to dinner and all I'm really thinking as I sit there

01:13:57.500 looking at him is I can't stand the way you chew. It drives me crazy. The way like this,

01:14:05.380 there's like true contempt for the guy. And you wind up feeling really sorry for Barack Obama. You know,

01:14:11.980 like you, you can see why the guy is afraid of her. Anyway, my team informed me that there's more

01:14:17.860 and that we needed to play. And I think, uh, it's not 31, Lauren, you correct me if I'm wrong,

01:14:22.480 but here we go. You really go there. And then do you really say, because how many times do you,

01:14:29.380 somebody asks, what are you thinking about? And you're like, well, let me make up a thing because

01:14:33.780 I don't want to actually tell you what I was thinking about right now, which was like the way you're

01:14:38.600 chewing makes me want to smack you upside the head. That's why guys don't want to have an edge.

01:14:44.440 That would be an edge. And that would be really interesting. You could like open something up

01:14:48.700 there in a big way. Why does your chewing annoy me so much? Hearing another person chewing is you're

01:14:53.880 hearing the essence of who they are, their otherness, their bodily functions. It's good to know

01:15:00.660 because the girls and I are very irritated with the way Barack chews.

01:15:04.560 So the girls too, everyone hates him at the table. This poor man sits down every night to

01:15:12.000 nothing but contempt. And somehow Michelle Obama thinks this is going to make her super relatable

01:15:17.240 by always talking about how much she loathes her life partner and husband, the former president of

01:15:24.140 the United States, Barack Obama. So you tell me whether we were sold a bag of goods by a media that

01:15:30.320 for years wanted us to buy them as like America's it couple and like the example of modern love and

01:15:38.640 how it can be done and you can have it all. And we all want to be Michelle and Barack.

01:15:45.540 Well, uh, empty nesting is hard. I think that's, that's one thing you can take away from this,

01:15:51.680 right? You know, she, she talks about this, that their, her kids aren't there. So they've got

01:15:58.620 nothing else to talk about. Um, so I, you know, I, I, I'm afraid to say, I bet that's a little bit

01:16:04.940 more relatable than you think. I think that there are a lot of wives who feel that way about their

01:16:08.960 husbands, um, and, uh, hate the way they chew. Um, I always think of it this way. I think that

01:16:15.920 everything that your spouse does that drives you crazy, you are doing at least the same to them.

01:16:21.320 So that's just part of the, the, um, the equation of being married. I think the other thing I'd say

01:16:27.180 is that if they don't, if they have nothing to talk about, maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones,

01:16:30.760 but not nothing. My husband does drive, drives me crazy. Literally nothing. Like I, I really enjoy

01:16:34.620 him. Oh yes. He's a pleasure to spend time with. He's good looking, smart. I sit across the table

01:16:39.540 from him, kind of dreamy eyed and we've been married almost 18 years now. So I think Michelle Obama's

01:16:44.920 and it's fine if you have an occasional complaint, of course that's human, but all she does

01:16:50.660 is complain. It's so bad. Andrew Walworth that I did a whole spoof on her, which we labeled Megan. Oh,

01:16:58.320 and, and I think I nailed it here. We pulled that back up just in case you missed it with

01:17:01.900 your busy schedule. Here it is. People ask me all the time. They want, they want my advice.

01:17:07.700 And so they ask me what, what is marriage? What does it mean? And I tell them it's, it's about

01:17:14.460 misery. I tell people and folks think that this is harsh. It's like, you're going to have a bad

01:17:20.180 decade. And when you have a bad decade or two, what you need to remember is it's not you. It's

01:17:31.180 your husband or your children. That's who's to blame. If you choose to have a traditional marriage

01:17:37.980 and you have kids, let me tell you the years of one to 13 will be bad.

01:17:44.800 And don't be surprised. People say, Oh, it's a bad week. It's a bad day. No, no. We're talking

01:17:50.240 decades now of bad marriage that you definitely need to blame on someone else.

01:17:58.440 Nailed it.

01:18:00.240 Pretty good.

01:18:00.940 It's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah.

01:18:02.760 Spiking the ball in the end zone. I have one for you, Tom Bevan, before you get too comfortable.

01:18:05.940 Stop 32. Okay.

01:18:08.700 I'd get into the, how do you put up with men? And let me tell you what Barack did. And,

01:18:13.360 you know, and she'd always say, you know, no one's perfect. She used that example. She said every

01:18:20.620 year, it was almost like she had to renew her faith in her marriage. So I think that helped me not

01:18:27.880 walk into my marriage with completely unrealistic expectations that this man that I was going to

01:18:34.880 marry was going to be my all and everything forever and ever. Amen. That's just not, you know,

01:18:41.540 the way it works.

01:18:42.640 That's one of the reasons why I try to be honest. People look at our marriage as the ideal, you know,

01:18:49.140 because in, in, in Instagram world, you know, you see two loving people doing a hard thing in the

01:18:56.820 world, you know, always on stage, giving each other a hug after a big speech and making it look

01:19:03.540 easy and making it look easy. And a lot of young people could look at that and go, I want a marriage

01:19:07.620 like Michelle and Barack. Right. And it's like, well, let me, you know, let me talk about what

01:19:12.560 marriage is, you know, cause it's even when it looks good, even when it's great, it's hard,

01:19:19.080 you know, it's very easy to quit on a marriage. She's so unhappy. She's so unhappy. She's never

01:19:28.280 said a nice thing about like, she gives 30 terrible comments and then 31. She'll remember she needs to

01:19:34.460 say something mildly complimentary because she's making them look bad, but she defaults almost

01:19:38.960 immediately back to how miserable they are, Tom. Yeah. I mean, there are two, two thoughts that I

01:19:45.760 have. One is, you know, we live in an age of oversharing and she seems to be oversharing here,

01:19:51.480 uh, in, in exquisite detail about her marriage issues, which, you know, especially someone of

01:20:00.480 her stature and, and who, who has the sort of status that she has. Um, you know, if you can't say

01:20:07.900 something nice, you better not say anything at all. I would say number one, number two,

01:20:11.420 she seems like she has a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like she, she feels bad that her marriage

01:20:16.820 is portrayed as this ideal when it's not. And, and so she feels guilty about that. It seems like,

01:20:22.580 and she wants people to know, and look, marriage is hard. I mean, that's, that's sort of obvious to

01:20:28.340 everyone, but it shouldn't be, you know, as hard as she makes it sound. I mean, she does make it sound

01:20:35.200 like she's, she's miserable and it's a struggle. And, um, you know, while people have their

01:20:42.020 difficulties in marriage, this seems like something, something a little bit more than that.

01:20:47.380 To me, this plays right in to leftist narrative, Carl, that we've been hearing more and more.

01:20:54.100 JD Vance tried to get to get at it, perhaps not as articulately as he would have hoped for the

01:20:58.600 childless cat ladies comment, but the Democrats have been leaning in to marriage sucks and children

01:21:07.180 suck. And staying a straight single lady is really the best way. You're not burdened by a man. You're

01:21:16.840 not burdened by these annoying children who the entire one through 13 period will be miserable

01:21:21.840 raising. I mean, that's like, that's the other thing. Like, can you imagine like saying that about

01:21:25.700 your children? One through 13 was terrible. It was like, I've heard mothers say that like,

01:21:31.020 you know, the first year was rough or age two that, you know, they're kind of a terror one through 13.

01:21:35.800 That's basically the whole thing other than high school. Anyway. So this is like, we've been

01:21:40.420 featuring, we've been featuring on the show, like articles. There was one in New York magazine about

01:21:44.980 my husband sucks and he smells bad and I can't stand him and marriage blows. And, you know, we're still

01:21:49.880 married, but I'm not enjoying. I think she thinks it's kind of cool to, to talk this way

01:21:55.240 about her partner. You know, you may be right, but you also may be giving her too much credit.

01:22:01.200 This doesn't look like a lot of thought went into it. She seems to be just unburdening herself

01:22:07.320 to use a word, just sort of venting about things. I mean, bodily functions. Are she going to start

01:22:15.300 talking about farts next? I mean, I don't, I don't understand what she's doing and I don't understand

01:22:23.400 why she's doing it. You know, uh, in, you know, uh, Miller's crossing my favorite gangster movie,

01:22:29.020 the Gabriel Byrne character says people do things for a reason, but what is her reason here? And

01:22:35.100 you're, you're giving her a reason, you know, the politics of the modern democratic party, but

01:22:38.900 that this seems more emotive than that and less thought. Or maybe it's just a worldview,

01:22:44.540 right? Maybe it's just a worldview, like something that's built in, like her worldview that happens

01:22:48.520 to align with what's happening on the democratic side, where it's just, you're, you're negative

01:22:52.660 about the things that make you happy, that should make you happy. Well, that's like that old bumper

01:22:57.220 sticker, you know, annoy a liberal, work hard and be happy. Um, what, but what's the source here?

01:23:03.460 What is the real source of her resentment? This guy seems actually from a distance. We don't,

01:23:08.560 you know, you don't know. He seemed pretty easy to, easy to get along with. No, Donald Obama,

01:23:13.240 pretty easy guy. Doesn't yell. Nor would we even know her name if she didn't marry this guy.

01:23:17.700 I was going to say, I mean, she's got the house in Hawaii, the house on Martha's Vineyard,

01:23:21.600 the house in Chicago. I mean, um, they, they seems like if they really didn't like each other,

01:23:27.040 they wouldn't have to spend this much time together. There we go to their separate houses,

01:23:31.140 right? There's the wall worth we've been waiting for. He always drops in with the hammer. He's got

01:23:35.900 the velvet glove and then the hammer drops eventually. Go ahead, Tom. But I make it. I think

01:23:40.360 you pointed out the most interesting thing about that clip was, was what she said about kids. Like

01:23:45.060 she did not enjoy being a mother for the vast majority of, of her kids. Lifetime.

01:23:51.060 She hated the white house. She hates her marriage and her children.

01:23:54.760 It doesn't sound like she enjoys being married at all. And, and, you know, I've got five kids and

01:24:01.240 my wife and I talk about this because our youngest now is a freshman in high school, which was a real

01:24:06.900 problem. You know, we're like, where did our babies go? Like, but every, every stage has,

01:24:11.100 has wonderful moments and wonderful aspects to it. Um, for her to be able to look at her two kids

01:24:18.700 and say, yeah, one through 13 is terrible. I mean, that, that really is revealing. And it does reveal

01:24:23.300 a lot about her, her worldview and, and how she views what happiness looks like to her. And it clearly

01:24:30.820 doesn't look like having kids. And it clearly doesn't look like this particular marriage that

01:24:35.380 she's in. Maybe it's another marriage, but it ain't this one. Well, how about, I haven't heard her talk

01:24:38.820 about what she loves. Like she spent a little time practicing law, right? I've never heard her

01:24:43.280 to be like that. That was it for me. I loved being up there, making an argument or being a junior

01:24:47.680 associate or whatever. Nothing. Like there's, she never talks about like that one period of her life

01:24:52.340 where she was really happy. I think she had a miserable childhood. She clearly wasn't raised to

01:24:56.800 like, understand that happiness really can be a choice, you know, looking on the bright side,

01:25:00.920 finding a way to laugh at life's challenges. And like, she's, she's sort of like,

01:25:05.880 who's the character in peanuts pig pen. Who's got the cloud over them all the time. Like she's just

01:25:10.360 walking around with that dark cloud. And yet she's chosen to launch a podcast that's supposed to be

01:25:16.700 about like life and life's issues and getting Michelle Obama to like give you life advice.

01:25:23.800 And in promoting it, she went on, I think it was Amy Schumer's podcast. And she was like,

01:25:26.740 people line up to hear from me. They wait in line to hear what I have to say. And this is what they

01:25:31.740 get. Like Dower, Debbie Downer, Dower, Michelle, I don't have a tail. And I, my husband smells bad,

01:25:41.380 Carl.

01:25:42.360 Well, how about, how about she, one to 13. How can you not love four-year-olds? Now we've all

01:25:47.600 had them. Four-year-olds is the perfect age. Perfect age.

01:25:51.900 Yeah.

01:25:52.160 I would give anything to be able to go back and do it over again.

01:25:54.980 Me too.

01:25:55.420 But the other thing is, I mean, the idea that at 13, things get better. Most people at 13,

01:26:00.460 I have three daughters. They were great throughout and I would not trade a day of any of it, but

01:26:06.900 you know, about 13, 14, that's when, that's when it gets challenging. I mean, you know,

01:26:11.980 And she didn't even have boys, Andy.

01:26:13.120 One to 13 was a cakewalk. Yeah.

01:26:14.640 She didn't even have boys.

01:26:15.260 You know what she was talking about? You know, when they turn 14, that's when they really start

01:26:19.560 to get independent. So that's when they needed her less and therefore were not as annoying to her.

01:26:25.520 It's like, maybe motherhood wasn't for you. I like, I'm, I'm not sure, but the, the veil is

01:26:30.980 getting dropped inadvertently or advertently by her on this podcast every day. And the picture's

01:26:35.780 not so pretty. All right, guys, a pleasure. I love getting to know you this way. It's always

01:26:40.280 interesting and love the pod.

01:26:43.160 Thanks, Megan.

01:26:44.260 Thank you, Megan.

01:26:44.860 All right. We'll do it all over again soon. Okay. We've got something interesting for you

01:26:48.720 up next, a guy who caught the biggest spy in modern American history, a guy who is spying

01:26:57.500 for the Russians. And my next guest was like the guy who went undercover working under him

01:27:03.380 to nab him. And he's got a warning for all of us on our online activities.

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01:29:29.560 We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever.

01:29:36.400 This fall, Megyn Kelly is taking her show live to cities nationwide.

01:29:41.180 To go silent is not the answer. I'm going. I'm going to stand on these stages, and I'm going to

01:29:46.960 say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're going to make it safe for me. We're

01:29:51.100 going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you, and do something really important, which is

01:29:56.140 to say what's true and what's real. And I would love for you to join me.

01:30:00.060 Megynkelly.com for the tickets.

01:30:01.480 You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it

01:30:08.200 all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy,

01:30:15.200 talk, podcast, and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

01:30:18.360 Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com

01:30:26.500 slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply.

01:30:35.060 Joining me now is a national security strategist and former FBI counterintelligence operative who

01:30:41.440 wants to warn all of us on the dangers of cybercrime and how we can protect ourselves. Eric O'Neill

01:30:47.880 began his career in FBI counterintelligence as an undercover operative. He's best known for his

01:30:53.740 role in capturing the notorious spy, Robert Hansen. In 2001, O'Neill helped capture Hansen,

01:31:01.140 who was an FBI agent at the time spying for the Soviet and Russian intelligence for over 20 years.

01:31:08.740 The case was such a massive story. It turned into a Hollywood movie. Of course, actor Ryan

01:31:14.120 Philippe starred as O'Neill in the 2007 thriller called Breach. Watch.

01:31:20.260 I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. If the guy doesn't drink,

01:31:24.060 goes to church every day. Faith, family, country. Those are the things that matter.

01:31:29.360 Come to admire him, I say. Yes. Respect him? I never cared about making headlines. Wanted to make

01:31:35.340 history. He's a traitor, Eric. Started spying for the Russians in 1985. Good news is you're in the

01:31:43.820 middle of the biggest case we've ever run. The damage he's done to the U.S. government is in the

01:31:51.340 billions. It might be years before we truly know how many deaths he's been responsible for.

01:31:56.100 Why don't we just arrest him? Can't do that. Director wants him caught in the act.

01:32:00.700 What if he's smarter than I am? He spent the last 20 years out thinking Russian spies. He's smarter than

01:32:07.540 all of us. So good. He has spent years in national security and cybersecurity, but even he fell for a

01:32:14.920 scam disguised as a reputable speaking engagement. Well, he's now out with a new book. It's called

01:32:20.620 Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime, Security Tactics, Cybersecurity Tactics to Outsmart Hackers and Disarm

01:32:29.040 Scammers, which you can pre-order right now. Eric, welcome to the show. This is the book,

01:32:33.900 Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime. Get yours right now so you can have the best of the best advise you on

01:32:39.560 how not to be a victim. And it's sad because these criminals can get right into our homes.

01:32:44.720 They can get right into the palm of our hand thanks to our iPhone when we think we're just

01:32:48.800 doing something innocent like responding to an email or making a purchase. And before you know it,

01:32:53.080 you're interacting with a dark web criminal. You're exactly right, Megan. And first of all,

01:32:58.780 it is wonderful to be on the show with you. And I can't imagine a better place to launch this book.

01:33:02.820 And it looked really good in your hands, by the way. The colors are just right.

01:33:06.880 They really are.

01:33:07.440 Yes, you are exactly right. See, the big misconception about this massive growing crime,

01:33:13.800 I mean, cybercrime right now is the biggest growing business on earth,

01:33:17.040 is that attackers aren't using some sort of computer to get into your computer. What they're

01:33:22.720 doing is they're using what's called social engineering to attack us, you and me. And that's

01:33:29.040 spycraft. That's traditional espionage in a modern environment to come after our data.

01:33:35.680 Like what? Explain social engineering.

01:33:37.960 Right. So social engineering. So many people think someone's using some sort of malware and

01:33:43.820 it's computer to computer. But instead, what they're doing is they're using texts, email,

01:33:49.500 DMs on social media now in order to fool you into doing something you shouldn't.

01:33:53.980 So, for example, and you set this up, when I was almost compromised by this cybercrime gang,

01:34:02.640 they sent me an email inviting me to speak at this exceptional speaking event in Cape Town,

01:34:09.200 South Africa, at the Hillsong megachurch. And it was this incredibly carefully designed scheme

01:34:16.280 to get me to trust and to get me to do something I shouldn't do, which was literally just send the

01:34:21.580 money. And they almost got me at the last minute. I realized this is too good to be true and did a

01:34:27.280 little bit of double checking, which I should have done in the beginning. And it would have saved me

01:34:30.640 a lot of pain.

01:34:32.180 Wow. I know that you are pointing out that they're getting very sophisticated now and trying to fool us

01:34:37.840 by using AI, too, to mimic voices if they have access to them of your loved ones. I couldn't help

01:34:46.160 but think of the time we were almost scammed. And we ran this as an episode one year. We did a whole

01:34:50.660 week on fraud. And what happened was just briefly, my mother-in-law, God rest her, we lost her this

01:34:57.620 year. She received a phone call from someone claiming to be her daughter, my sister-in-law,

01:35:04.220 claiming to have just been in a car accident where she'd been arrested because she allegedly

01:35:09.460 got in a fight with the cops and her partner got in a fight with the cops and they were going to jail

01:35:15.100 and they needed to be bailed out and they needed her to wire money to the courthouse right away and

01:35:19.080 then gave her a courthouse number. So it sounded like legit. But here is a clip of my mother-in-law

01:35:24.760 telling that story.

01:35:26.880 She said that she was in jail on a drunk driving charge and that I needed to get talked to somebody

01:35:40.760 that she had a telephone number. She just said, I'm so scared. I'm terrified. And I asked her

01:35:52.440 where Brad was. And she said, well, he's in jail too.

01:36:02.820 The sophistication of this whole thing, Eric, was downright disturbing. We caught it at the last

01:36:07.900 minute, same as you. I've seen that scam many different times. It's used in a number of

01:36:14.180 different ways. So that's one of them. There's a car accident. I'm in jail. You need to pay my

01:36:19.560 bail. And normally what happens is the next person you talk to is the public defender, right? Who's

01:36:25.960 saying, if you don't pay, they don't get out. There's another one though.

01:36:30.000 Yes, that happened.

01:36:30.580 Which is, yeah, exactly. The public defender. And then the idea there is they want to put pressure on

01:36:36.700 you. And what they'll say is, if I hang up the phone, then your daughter will spend the next

01:36:41.800 week in jail. If you can't pay right away, I can't get her out, right?

01:36:45.600 That's what they said. They did it on a Friday. They're like, we're going into the weekend. She's

01:36:48.840 going to be stuck there.

01:36:50.000 Exactly. So that pressure causes you to not think, to not take a step back and think, wait,

01:36:55.760 could this be real? Because what they don't want you to do is say, hold on a minute and then try to

01:37:00.820 call your loved one and see if it's real or not. The other way that this scam works very often is

01:37:06.600 you get a call from a family member. And what they'll do is they'll actually look at social

01:37:11.220 media to find out when that person is on vacation. Then they'll use AI to clone their voice. And it just

01:37:16.800 takes five seconds of some clip off social media to clone the voice. And what they'll do is they'll

01:37:23.420 call as your family member and say, mom, I'm, uh, you know, I'm in Panama or I'm wherever they're

01:37:29.540 on vacation. And I was mugged. I lost my wallet, my phone. I'm using somebody's phone at the hotel.

01:37:35.480 I can't even pay my hotel. I need you to quickly wire me a thousand dollars or they're going to

01:37:39.580 kick me out on the street. And this gets everyone. I know so many family members have been hit by this.

01:37:44.580 In this scam, it was somebody pretending to be my sister-in-law and just, she said she broke her

01:37:49.420 nose and that's why she sounded a little different. She didn't explain why she sounded different,

01:37:52.680 but she did lay the foundation just in case Jackie had any questions. But you're saying now people are

01:37:58.200 taking your voice from your Insta or your online posts, you running it through an AI machine and

01:38:03.560 making it say things like I'm stranded because they've seen that you're in Panama or on your

01:38:07.700 socials. And they use that against it. Let's face it. It's usually an unsuspecting grandparent or

01:38:12.480 elderly person who has zero clue. This is even possible. Now my team tells me you guys have put

01:38:18.460 together this technology with a deepfake of yours truly promoting spies, lies, and cybercrime. Let's

01:38:27.420 take a look. Right.

01:38:29.340 Spies, lies, and cybercrime is the only book you need to read to keep yourself safe from

01:38:33.280 every kind of cyber attack. Okay. That did not fool me at all, but it could fool somebody very old.

01:38:39.580 That deepfake right there took me about two minutes. I just grabbed the first image of you

01:38:45.600 that popped up in the red dress because it goes with the book. And then what I did is I just ran

01:38:50.460 it through a suite of software that animates your image. And I didn't clone your voice. I just picked

01:38:57.380 a stock voice that was close to yours. I didn't want to clone your voice without asking permission,

01:39:01.340 but you can see how fast you could do something like that and maybe fool some people online.

01:39:06.940 And this has been used by disinformation campaigns. Joe Biden's voice was cloned. They've cloned

01:39:14.480 Trump's voice. They've had pictures of Trump, if you remember, when he was going through all those

01:39:21.500 court cases in orange jumpsuits and people thought that he had been arrested. AI can cause a lot of chaos

01:39:28.580 if it's in the wrong hands.

01:39:31.160 So how on earth are people supposed to protect against this? And then we have to talk about the

01:39:35.940 dark web too, because that's scary. Oh, certainly. So how do you protect against this? Well, AI,

01:39:42.220 as you saw with that video, it's choppy. That's not a good one. There are much better ones. If you

01:39:47.780 take some time, like I have cloned myself and used it on stage where I came across and then had an

01:39:53.980 argument with myself and it really scared people in the audience because they're like, which is the

01:39:57.560 real Eric. And you can do a few things. One, you have to be able to take a step back and take a

01:40:06.780 breath sometimes before you take an act. The attacker is going to try to make you do something

01:40:11.640 that you don't feel right doing, like send a wire for $1,000 or a quick payment. They put pressure on

01:40:18.000 you even when they use AI. So you need to not succumb to the pressure and take a breath.

01:40:22.060 I know it sounds terrible, but one of the easiest things to do is hang up and call back.

01:40:27.360 If you feel like your daughter's been kidnapped, your son, because this is a huge scheme.

01:40:32.240 I've kidnapped your child. And this actually happened to a mother in Arizona. And I outline

01:40:37.180 it in the book. I tell the story. And she was so sure it was her daughter's voice saying, Mom,

01:40:41.860 I'm in trouble. And then this angry voice has said, I'm going to pump your daughter full of drugs and

01:40:48.520 leave her in a ditch in Mexico if you don't pay. She was so scared. But she had the peace of mind

01:40:53.960 to keep him on the phone and then have her friends start calling and calling until they

01:40:59.160 actually reached the daughter. What I do in my family-

01:41:02.740 That's the thing. Believe it or not, when this happened to us, we did not even think to call my

01:41:07.580 sister-in-law and her partner, Brad. It was so dumb. We were believing she was in jail.

01:41:13.240 Yeah. It's psychology though. They're putting that pressure on you. They put you in a pressure

01:41:17.720 situation and we don't, unless you're trained for it. And I know that you're good at pressure

01:41:23.080 situations, but for this kind of scam, you want to act to save someone. You want to act to help.

01:41:30.740 And you don't take that moment to think. And the criminals understand that psychology. They've

01:41:34.500 studied it. They've even hired intelligence officers from Russia and China and Iran to come work for them

01:41:40.720 to help inform these scams. Oh, that's crazy. That is like downright scary. I want to tell the

01:41:46.860 audience that episode is number 818 in our feed, our feed 818. And in there, it has a very fun

01:41:54.040 conclusion because before we sent any money to this guy, we finally did figure it out. Like we finally

01:41:59.300 did catch on that this might be a scam. And I tape recorded the conversation in which I knew at this

01:42:08.380 point I knew, and I still had him on the line and it has a very interesting ending. It's great. I love

01:42:13.880 this tape. We love it so much. So we played it out in full in episode 818. People should check it out.

01:42:18.320 We have a piece of that deep fake of you warning about AI avatars with yourself in an AI avatar role.

01:42:27.900 Let's watch it. It's at 19B. Hold on there, Megan. I'm the real Eric. Don't listen to this other guy.

01:42:36.020 You think you're listening to Eric O'Neill. But what if you're not? I look like him. I sound like

01:42:42.620 him. I even move like him. For all you know, I could be the real Eric. And the one sitting there

01:42:48.240 is just another fake. That's the trick with AI avatars like that other guy. They don't have to

01:42:53.700 be perfect. They just have to make you doubt what's real. One moment of hesitation, one click,

01:42:59.480 and it's too late. That is very creepy. That's a little better. So with that deep fake, I actually

01:43:07.820 recorded about two minutes of me speaking and uploaded it to the software. And then it is

01:43:14.820 animating, fully animating and saying what I type. So I just type the script and it says it. And imagine

01:43:20.920 if you're a dark web attacker who has found Eric O'Neill and then downloaded one of my speaking events,

01:43:28.400 right? Or YouTube videos and uses it to create that. And then you've got a ton to work with.

01:43:34.060 Give us some examples of some of the other stories in the book. There was one with a woman named

01:43:37.640 Jennifer that was pretty disturbing. Yes. Di Stefano. So that story right there

01:43:43.560 happened in April of 2023. This is the mother in Arizona who gets a call from her daughter. Now,

01:43:49.440 it turned out not to be her daughter, but she was sure it was her daughter. And the daughter just said,

01:43:53.820 mom, I'm in trouble. Actually, she testified in front of Congress about deep fakes and said

01:43:59.120 that a mother knows her daughter's voice. And I was 100% certain it was her. And then the next voice,

01:44:05.620 of course, comes across and says that I'm going to kill your daughter if you don't pay me. And as

01:44:11.120 they're going forward and negotiating, she's negotiating with the kidnapper who ended up being

01:44:15.380 just a cyber crime gang. They're saying, we're going to send a car to your house to collect the

01:44:20.180 money, which can happen. Sometimes this can move from cyber to physical. Now, Jennifer had the peace

01:44:26.560 of mind to get her friends to start calling her husband, her daughter, and finally connected with

01:44:31.040 her daughter. I think her youngest daughter, they were at a dance class connected with the older

01:44:34.940 daughter who was away on a trip with her husband, a ski trip. And the criminals were clever enough to

01:44:41.160 monitor the family's social media and spy talk. We call that reconnaissance. And strike when the

01:44:49.380 daughter and the husband were away on this trip. So it would be hard to contact them. It just so

01:44:54.680 happened, they got a little lucky because the mother and the father and daughter, the daughter

01:45:00.060 had gotten sick. So they were in the hotel and not skiing. Otherwise, yeah, because you usually don't

01:45:04.640 have your phone with you or even on while you're on the mountain. So I mean, tell me more about how

01:45:10.220 these criminals can come from the so called dark web. I don't understand the dark web. But just in

01:45:15.700 reading up on your book, you were talking about people go there for organ purchases.

01:45:22.000 There's the yeah, the body human purchases like what, what?

01:45:27.280 So the so the dark web to understand that here's the like really fast one minute primer on the dark

01:45:32.080 web that right now the internet just just the amount of data on the internet is a is almost 100

01:45:38.960 zettabytes of data a zettabyte is there would be so much paper in a zettabyte if I stacked it from my

01:45:44.780 feet as high as it would go, it would go past past the Andromeda galaxy. So we have 180 of those in

01:45:50.760 the internet, which is astronomical, a little under 5% of that is the dark web. And that's the

01:45:56.200 underbelly of the internet. It's a group of anonymous servers. And unless you have the right

01:46:02.260 equipment and know how you can't get there. But there is a marketplace for everything. It is

01:46:07.000 the most extreme black market on earth. In fact, I have a friend who goes down to the dark web to

01:46:13.460 look for these scams before they hit us. He calls it depravity at the touch of a button. And it is

01:46:18.760 you mentioned that the body parts bizarre where you can buy a heart and a shady doctor to transplant

01:46:25.380 it for you. That's around $200,000. You can buy eyes, which can also be transplanted the corneus

01:46:30.820 that's 2000 hands, feet are $500. I don't know why you would want that other than

01:46:35.520 yeah, yeah. Why would you buy a hand? I don't know. But people are creepy and weird. And if there's

01:46:41.320 something you want, you can buy it. But it's also the biggest arms trade, the biggest drug

01:46:46.320 trade on earth, they will literally sell you anything you want. They they put it in packages

01:46:51.120 in coffee bags and then send it through US mail to you. And unfortunately, people feel comfortable

01:46:56.280 doing this. Aren't there good guys like you, you know, when you were at the FBI monitoring

01:47:00.240 all of this and then swooping in when a deal like that is made? The FBI tries its best to monitor

01:47:06.420 they're very good. Sometimes they go in and they they kill the servers for the cybercrime

01:47:12.600 gangs. But the problem is that they have backup servers and they just come right back. Most

01:47:16.840 of the dark web sits in places that are don't have cybercrime laws and countries that don't

01:47:22.420 have extradition to the US. They also will take partitions of parts of legitimate servers

01:47:28.840 in countries all over the world. And when they get cut off, they just restore. And so just

01:47:34.280 the cost of cybercrime in the dark web, and this is the most sobering statistic I think I quote in

01:47:38.660 the book, the cost of cybercrime right now is almost 14 trillion dollars. So forget the drugs

01:47:45.940 and the human trafficking and the weapons, just cybercrime moving through the through the dark

01:47:50.280 web is 14 trillion dollars. So to give you an example of how much that is right now, the GDP of

01:47:56.160 the US is 28 trillion. The GDP of China is only 18. By next year, the dark web will surpass 18

01:48:03.080 trillion, which would make it the second largest economy on earth by GDP. Right now it's number

01:48:07.820 three. And it's more than Germany and Japan put together. Now, are those people messing with us?

01:48:13.840 Or are they just running their own criminal underworld for people who want to buy body parts? And I don't

01:48:19.720 I mean, I'm sure they traffic children like, but are they? Yes, it's the biggest human trafficking. I

01:48:24.820 take my readers in one chapter, I take my readers over my shoulder as I go down into the dark web to the

01:48:31.600 deepest, most depraved places with with my friend. And he showed me horrible sites where you can I

01:48:37.940 mean, this is gonna I mean, the kids cover your ears, but you can buy a young girl that you can

01:48:43.860 decide what hotel they're going to deliver her to and they send you a PDF instructions to build your

01:48:48.920 basement dungeon. It's absolutely horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. Oh, my God, I can't believe

01:48:55.920 that law enforcement isn't all over this. But I guess they're not always as clever as the bad guys

01:49:01.860 and knowing where to try and they do a good job. The biggest drug trade on earth was called the Silk

01:49:06.980 Road by this guy named the Dread Pirate Roberts. That's that was his online moniker. They were able

01:49:12.780 to take him down by going from the distribution, the drugs that were landing in people's hands and

01:49:17.700 backtracking all the way up to the source who had set up these online marketplaces. And then about a

01:49:23.980 year later, it all came right back. Somebody else just took up took it up. So it's very hard to stop

01:49:29.180 the the dark web because of how it's designed. And in the book, I explain exactly what the dark web is

01:49:35.280 its oranges, its origin origins, and, and kind of what you can do to avoid a lot of these dark web

01:49:43.460 cybercrime attacks. Can we talk about the Robert Hansen case for a minute? Because it's just so

01:49:48.720 interesting. So you were just a young cub at the FBI when you got put on what would become really

01:49:54.320 like the biggest espionage case in modern American history. So what happened? You were like 26 or so

01:50:01.620 right around there, you get a job working with the FBI. And how did you connected, get connected with

01:50:06.260 this? And what did they tell you the operation was? I started working for the FBI when I was 22. So I was

01:50:11.780 pretty young. I was an FBI ghost, which people still don't really understand what that is. It's an

01:50:16.780 investigative specialist, part of the special surveillance group, we would, any given day, I

01:50:21.740 would hunt a spy or a terrorist, primarily around Washington, DC. So these undercover investigations,

01:50:27.800 I was fully undercover for five years. And then suddenly, I got asked in the strangest way possible

01:50:33.920 by my boss, a supervisory special agent named Gene McClellan, to work on a case that was the most

01:50:40.240 unique case the FBI had ever run. And he shows up at my house early on a Sunday morning, wakes me up

01:50:47.940 and asked me to come outside. And you know, your boss in government never comes to you, right? You

01:50:52.840 always go to them. So I thought I was getting arrested. And I walk outside and he grins at me

01:50:58.020 because he knows, you know how law enforcement, you're always joking around, but he knows that I'm

01:51:03.480 concerned. And he says, have you ever heard of a guy named Robert Hanson? And I hadn't. And he said,

01:51:08.380 good, we want you to go undercover and catch him. And now I was mad at him, because I said,

01:51:12.640 why did you come here to tell me that? He said, because my next meeting is with the director of

01:51:17.620 the FBI, that was Willie Free. And I have to tell him whether you're in or out. And I knew it was

01:51:23.180 going to be incredibly disruptive. That day, I think I had been married three months, you know,

01:51:28.380 newlywed with my wife, I was also in law school. But you know, that was an opportunity and some

01:51:34.100 a chance to do something really incredible. So I said, yes. And I could have never,

01:51:39.300 I could have never expected what I was getting into. It was you, you go to work for him undercover,

01:51:45.580 they created like a fake bureau for him to work at, they suspected he might be the one they knew

01:51:51.760 somebody was leaking to the Soviets, but they didn't know who and then over 20 years, he was just

01:51:57.300 in the right place too many times that they started to think maybe maybe this guy was very well

01:52:02.780 respected, very well respected. And they created, I guess, a fake bureau that they wanted him to

01:52:07.880 oversee. And you went to work for him there, like ostensibly as an underling?

01:52:14.580 Right, precisely. What they, the issue with Hanson, and what I didn't know going into this case was,

01:52:21.480 he wasn't just a spy, he was the spy. He was the legendary spy that everyone in the entire

01:52:28.040 intelligence community, FBI, CIA, NSA, you have it, uh, was after a guy that was only known as the

01:52:35.220 code name gray suit. And, uh, I didn't know that going into the case, but we had been after him for

01:52:41.160 two decades, entire careers had been broken trying to catch him. And at one point the FBI went to the

01:52:47.660 top Soviet analyst in the FBI supervisory special agent and asked him to help them catch this legendary

01:52:54.760 spy gray suit. That was Robert Hanson. So he was so good at this. They asked him to catch himself

01:53:00.740 and then they built a mousetrap for him and office at the FBI. They put him in charge of information

01:53:06.020 assurance, which today would be called cyber security, gave him access to data, hoping he

01:53:11.140 would steal and drop it under a footbridge in Vienna, Virginia. And we would catch him ahead of

01:53:16.300 time. And I was put in there undercover to make sure he didn't get away with it. And it was the most

01:53:21.960 difficult thing I've ever done in my life. Did we find out why he was doing it? Was it for money or

01:53:27.020 why? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. And the question everybody wants to know because he has

01:53:33.260 steadfastly, he died in 2023. So now we'll never precisely know, but he steadfastly refused to ever

01:53:39.260 answer that question. But I'm pretty sure I know because we had so many discussions. And in fact, at the

01:53:44.780 end of the day, it turned out he was recruiting me to take over for him when he left. He began at the

01:53:51.200 FBI, hoping to be a spy hunter. And they ended up making him in his mind what he thought was a

01:53:57.180 librarian. He was a brilliant analyst. He wasn't really good at operations. And he was mad. So now

01:54:03.840 he's a disgruntled employee. At the same time, he's having all these children. He's a Catholic in

01:54:08.000 Opus Dei. And I'm a Catholic too. He would call me a junior varsity Catholic. And he's having all these

01:54:13.340 kids and he can't afford his life. And you add that angry at your employer, need money desperately,

01:54:20.100 and he chose to spy. And once he was promoted enough that I don't think he needed to spy anymore,

01:54:26.860 he could make ends meet. He continued to do it because it's what made him belong to something

01:54:32.160 bigger than him. And everybody wants that. And to Hansen, he couldn't give it up. It was the most

01:54:38.280 exciting part of his life. And so he continued and not only continued, he seemed hell bent to make sure

01:54:44.120 that he was going to be the best damn spy in history. He just gave up just some of the most

01:54:49.940 horrible secrets that have ever been given to Russia or any foreign power, including the lives

01:54:56.380 of people who were our spies, undercover operatives. And he didn't take a lot of money for it. He made

01:55:02.020 under $2 million.

01:55:02.780 Did he confess?

01:55:05.920 At the end of the day, I was able to find the information that was, I mean, you're an attorney.

01:55:11.000 I found the smoking gun in the case. It was such a perfect piece of evidence. He had actually on his

01:55:18.540 Palm Pilot, which for anyone who's younger than Gen X, is a personal data system. It was a big clunky thing

01:55:24.500 that you would open up and then you'd stab it with a plastic stick to get the data in. But basically,

01:55:28.760 it was just a big digital calendar. He had all of the information we needed to catch him encrypted

01:55:34.940 on that Palm Pilot. And I was able to steal it from him, copy it, and get it back before he was

01:55:39.780 aware it was gone. So we had a slam dunk case. He pled guilty and then spent years being interrogated

01:55:46.400 by the FBI so we could understand what he broke and fix it.

01:55:50.720 Was there a moment, Eric, and by the way, we're talking to Eric O'Neill about his book,

01:55:54.400 Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime. And many of these details are in here.

01:55:58.380 Eric's backstory and why he got interested in this. Was there a moment where, do you remember

01:56:03.020 the moment when you realized it's true? Because there had to be a beginning. At the beginning,

01:56:08.300 they thought maybe him, but you were sent in there to figure out whether this is the guy.

01:56:13.980 Was there the moment where you were like, oh my God, it's him?

01:56:18.020 Yeah. I had captured some information from him earlier. And of course, when you're undercover,

01:56:23.340 they tell you as little as they possibly can, because they don't want to put too much in your

01:56:27.840 head that you could mistakenly reveal. And now the whole thing falls apart. And in fact,

01:56:33.120 the FBI was saying, was telling me, literally, I mean, I'm going undercover to do this. Way to build

01:56:37.000 my confidence. You're probably going to be the one who screws this up. And my first job was don't

01:56:42.200 make the mistake, right? But there was a moment when I was just done with this. I was trying to get to

01:56:48.260 law school. I was trying to keep my marriage together. I was constantly in this office.

01:56:52.600 And I went to the special agent, a woman named Kate, who's played by Laura Linney in the movie.

01:56:59.740 And I said, I just want out. I really can't do this anymore. This is really disrupting my life.

01:57:05.140 And I don't think we're finding anything. And she looked at me and she said, first of all,

01:57:08.340 you can't get out. You're in. And there's no walking out of here anymore. But second of all,

01:57:13.540 that information you just found, I'm going to show it to you. And we realized that he wasn't

01:57:19.840 just a spy who had spied, but the legendary one that we'd been trying to capture since the early

01:57:24.500 80s. Someone who had given up information that led to the death of every single spy we had in the

01:57:34.300 Soviet Union between 84 and 85. He shares that with a CIA spy named Aldo Gaines. And then I felt like,

01:57:41.320 oh man, now I'm going full bore. I'm going to do everything I can to try to find the evidence

01:57:46.560 that puts him away. What was it like when you saw him arrested?

01:57:50.380 I wasn't there at the arrest because I was still undercover at the time. They didn't want him to

01:57:55.320 know that I had found any of this information. I was actually driving home and I got the call.

01:58:02.460 And I remember I got the call and they said, it's done. We got them. And I looked over at my wife.

01:58:08.240 Uh, we were driving home, I think from the Eastern shore and I, we lived right in Washington DC.

01:58:13.440 And I asked Kate, I said, can I tell Juliana? And she said, just your wife. We're still trying to

01:58:19.140 get the IO. We don't want any of this out. And I literally pulled off the highway and just looked

01:58:24.760 at her. And I said, I got to tell you something because I've been lying to her for this entire

01:58:28.560 investigation.

01:58:29.780 Really?

01:58:30.140 And I thought she was just going to get out, get a cab and that was going to be it. But she looked

01:58:34.540 at me and she said, now I understand. And gave me a hug. And I was like, I'm keeping her forever.

01:58:39.180 This is, if she can get through this, we can get through anything.

01:58:42.960 I've been, I told her that I got promoted to a computer job at FBI headquarters that was going

01:58:47.700 to let me go to law school and not miss classes at night anymore. Uh, that I wasn't going to be

01:58:52.740 working undercover anymore. And I couldn't tell her anything else. Um, I was, I was told to lie.

01:58:58.720 I wasn't allowed to tell her what I was doing.

01:59:01.500 So meanwhile, you're working on the Robert Hansen case the whole time. How long was it?

01:59:06.340 Uh, so it took, it took me about three months to find the evidence that put Hansen away.

01:59:11.060 And that was on that palm pilot.

01:59:13.440 Right. Of trying to catch him.

01:59:15.220 How was it? Was it a situation like an iPhone? I don't, I mean, I remember the palm pilot,

01:59:19.040 but I never owned one. Did you have to get in with a password? Like how, how, how did you

01:59:23.100 get into his palm pilot?

01:59:24.240 So it's, you know, if you read my, the book before spies lies in cybercrime gray day, I

01:59:28.800 actually go through this as the pivotal scene of this case, but also in the movie, uh, we tricked

01:59:35.300 him into going down to the shooting range in the sub basement. We were on the room 99 30 and the ninth

01:59:41.340 floor. And while he was away shooting and we did it with a pretext, I brought in a section chief and a

01:59:47.880 assistant director that he absolutely hated and caught him off guard. And for the first time,

01:59:52.940 he didn't reach into his bag and grab his palm pilot. And so as he left with them to go shoot,

01:59:57.960 I knew it was there. And I grabbed it, ran down three flights of steps to where we had a tech team

02:00:02.660 waiting and they copied it encryption and all, and then broke the encryption later. And then within

02:00:08.020 two weeks of that, um, we, we caught him. Now the scary thing was he goes down to the shooting range.

02:00:14.180 He takes a few shots and then he goes, he comes right back up. I think he realized he left his palm

02:00:18.620 pilot and I, I had seconds to get it back before him. Wasn't sure if I had the right pocket. And

02:00:23.760 the scary thing about that moment, I, and I, I, I, I recovered from PTSD from this moment. Uh, I was

02:00:30.980 a hundred percent sure he was going to walk out of his office and shoot me. There was no way I got it

02:00:35.120 right, but just sometimes God looks out for us. And, um, and I did. That's incredible. So now you've

02:00:41.640 devoted the rest of your life to helping the rest of us not fall victim to professional liars,

02:00:46.900 really. And that's kind of what a spy is. And it's what these cyber thieves are. And is it

02:00:51.440 something, you know, I always think it's, you know, how you get the little alerts on your phone

02:00:56.060 saying like this charge went through or that charge went through. And half the time I'm like,

02:01:00.660 I don't know what that is, but I just assume I authorized it somehow, but that's another way

02:01:05.780 they get you. Like they just get into your bank account and they just take $1 a month from Megan

02:01:11.980 Kelly, $1 a month from Eric O'Neill, $1 a month for all these people. And like, you wouldn't even

02:01:17.080 notice it, but what are some of the other clever ways that they get at us that we might not even

02:01:22.020 be thinking of? Let's talk about phones, right? Since you mentioned texts, have you ever gotten

02:01:27.800 that text that just goes, Hey, or I'll meet you at the, I'll meet you at the cookout later. Or are you

02:01:34.100 picking me up? Right. And you think this is stupid. This is a number I don't recognize. And you delete it.

02:01:40.440 Well, some people don't. A lot of people don't. A lot of people are very polite and they'll respond

02:01:44.940 and say, you must have the wrong number. I'm not invited to a cookout or I don't, I, whoever's

02:01:51.000 picking you up, you might want to get the number right. These are phishing expeditions by cyber

02:01:56.020 criminals who, who have these dark web call centers with literally people who are chained to desks.

02:02:02.080 They're, they're kidnapped and they're chained to a desk and they have to work off their commission

02:02:06.140 to be set free. And what they do is they send out these texts on these big lists,

02:02:10.220 that the attackers buy off the dark web. And they just try to see if the, if someone replies

02:02:14.700 and they're polite, and then they start these long courtships. So they can use something called

02:02:20.040 romance fraud to get you to fall in love with them. Uh, and, or finance fraud or something we

02:02:25.560 call pig butchering. And they might take weeks to become your friend before they say something like,

02:02:31.020 I need money, I'm harmed. And if they've gotten you to fall in love with them,

02:02:34.300 you might send them money. Or, uh, the other scam we see all the time, uh, that I advise people and I

02:02:40.520 talk about in the book and I tell a story about a grandfather who lost his whole pension to this

02:02:44.060 is, is, hi, I'm, you know, now that you're my new best friend, let me tell you about my job. And I do

02:02:51.500 this, this special kind of investment with cryptocurrency. And then you invest a thousand,

02:02:56.320 you give them a thousand, I'm going to help my friend. And they show you a website that looks

02:03:00.460 really slick where you're a thousand dollars has just turned into, uh, you know, $3,000 in a week.

02:03:06.660 And you're like, how is this possible? And they say, cryptocurrency is different. And then you

02:03:10.380 invest all your money with them. And you think it's legitimate until you say, I would like to

02:03:14.640 withdraw something. And they disappear. In cyber crime, we call that pig butchering because it's

02:03:20.540 based on this old Chinese art of fattening a pig up as big and big and big as you can get it.

02:03:24.880 And then butchering it for as much meat as possible. And that's literally what they're doing to people.

02:03:29.080 So when you get that text that just says, Hey, be super, super careful.

02:03:34.500 Do you ever mess with these people when you get these on your phone?

02:03:38.180 All the time. I have dragged them out for, I've dragged, I've dragged out people for months,

02:03:43.520 you know, just wasting their time. And what I'll, what I'll ultimately try to do is figure out who

02:03:48.720 they are. And, and that, um, story about the, um, the scammers who almost got me and a little

02:03:54.360 backstory. They sent me this, this brilliant scam that I was going to go speak in Cape town.

02:04:00.920 And, um, uh, and they were going to fly me first class. So I was going to fly in the pod. It was

02:04:05.620 going to be the first time I ever did that. And it was going to be my full speaker's fee. And I

02:04:09.880 looked at the church, it seats like 10,000. So I was really excited. I bought the first class ticket

02:04:15.360 for $10,000 and that's how they hook you. Cause once you're in for 10, you really want it to be

02:04:20.540 true. There's something called confirmation bias. And the more they can make you want it to be true,

02:04:25.020 the more you'll do dumb things. Then I get a call from an administrative person who works with the

02:04:30.620 church, but also the South African government that says, we need to, we need you to pay for your work

02:04:35.180 permit, your visa and your, your repatriation fee. And it was all to the tune of like a thousand

02:04:41.640 dollars. And, and apparently what they do is once you pay that it's more and more and more.

02:04:46.680 That's what got me to start thinking to, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, this must not be true. And, um, and there

02:04:51.860 were like a cast of five characters calling me and talking to me and emailing me. I called the

02:04:56.860 sophisticated. I called the South African embassy. It's incredibly sophisticated. And they said,

02:05:01.040 we don't have anything like that. And then I knew it was fake. Uh, but you know, to get back to

02:05:06.680 your original question, you don't, don't use your personal cell phones with somebody who

02:05:11.480 runs a company that does cybersecurity and competitive intelligence. I was able to identify

02:05:16.060 each of the, uh, threat actors, the bad guys in this, uh, cyber crime ring and get them all

02:05:21.440 arrested. Yeah. And I felt so good. And I did some things before that, that I don't want to talk about

02:05:27.560 because I don't want to get in trouble just to make sure I turn the screws. Uh, but then I got them

02:05:31.640 all arrested. And, uh, so I get the last laugh, but I, I tell that story on stage and I tell it right

02:05:37.460 up front in the book, because I want to be able to say that these attackers are so clever and if it

02:05:43.420 can happen to me and I'm trained, it can also happen to you. So we really need to work hard

02:05:47.980 to defend against it. Yes. I mean, I told the stories too, just about us almost being scammed

02:05:53.380 because I, I think people would be shocked that we were so gullible and my audience was shocked,

02:05:59.360 but they, it's like one thing leads to another. And with us, we believed it because Doug's mom

02:06:06.340 called him and said, she spoke to Diane. Diane had this terrible thing happen to her and Diane

02:06:11.880 needed our help. We weren't like patient zero in the, in the chain of events. So we just had to

02:06:17.800 believe Doug's mom. Doug's mom was the one who had to believe the scammer who of course is,

02:06:22.300 she was elderly and so on. And we had never heard of such a scam before. So no alarm bells whatsoever

02:06:27.620 went off for us. So you can be fooled. You know, that's why we told the jury story. Cause the more

02:06:32.540 people who hear your story and my story, the less are going to fall for it. And I just like,

02:06:36.520 that was the first I knew that they've gotten so sophisticated. Same as yours. We had multiple

02:06:40.680 actors on, on this scam and multiple phone numbers devoted to like, now you can call the court and

02:06:47.260 here's the case file. Now here's the criminal defense attorney. You can talk to him. Like they,

02:06:52.660 they knew exactly what we would be doing and they were prepared for it. And I'm embarrassed to add

02:06:57.360 that they actually wanted the payment in crypto. And we still didn't totally know that was the

02:07:03.140 beginning of the end though. You know, you shouldn't feel embarrassed because this happens

02:07:08.100 to everyone. I have friends and I never name anyone in the book who it happened to, who are

02:07:11.880 brilliant engineers. You know, one thing you can do to protect against this, especially deep fakes

02:07:18.480 when they're cloning people, when they're cloning voices is have a, what we called in the FBI sign of

02:07:24.740 life. I work counter terror. And there was always also always going to be a chance that some terrorist

02:07:28.540 group grabbed you and kidnapped you. And what I would do before I deployed was in an envelope,

02:07:33.880 I would write, military does this too, write the answers to three questions. No one knew the answer

02:07:38.140 to it was sealed in the envelope. And then if I was kidnapped, they would open the envelope and ask me

02:07:42.980 the question or ask the kidnapper the question. And if they couldn't answer, they knew I was dead and

02:07:47.200 they were just going to try to ransom back a body. You can do something like that with your family

02:07:52.180 as well. A little easier for me with my, my family, my children, my wife, we use a, the first

02:07:59.120 line of a silly poem that no one's going to guess. So if your kid is kidnapped, they can work some of

02:08:04.220 the poem and, and you know, it's real. And if they don't, then, you know, it's, it might be a deep

02:08:07.980 fake, but you would say to the kidnapper, ask her what the poem is like, ask her what our family code

02:08:13.560 word is or whatever. And if they can't repeat that back, then, you know, you're being scammed.

02:08:17.620 Right. Or if you're looking at a deep fake, cause deep, they can be video to you. So you played the

02:08:22.180 video, right? The good, the bad video of you, the good video of me, and you just type whatever you

02:08:27.560 wanted to say, ask that person. If you're talking to your daughter, you're talking to your husband

02:08:32.360 and you, you think it might be a deep fake, ask something they would only know. Like, what's the

02:08:36.560 book you asked me to read the other day? Yeah. The CEO. Because this person's only worth this fake

02:08:41.080 version is only working off of data that they called about this person from the internet.

02:08:46.160 Exactly. So something intimate, I know, don't go too intimate, but you know, the book we read,

02:08:51.380 well, what movie did we watch last week? Then the attacker's not going to know that they'll get very

02:08:55.260 flustered and they, they won't know what to say. They'll probably just hang up. Yeah, exactly.

02:08:59.920 Wow. This is so interesting. There's so many things we need to do to protect ourselves. It's in

02:09:03.540 Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime by Eric O'Neill. You guys have got to buy the book. You're right. It does

02:09:07.660 look very nice against my background. I'm so grateful that you came by. This is fascinating,

02:09:12.440 Eric. Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful discussion and I hope we can do it again.

02:09:17.260 Yeah. I want to have you back on one of our Crime Weeks and have you tell me this story in

02:09:21.120 all full detail and walk the audience through how it all went. What a great, great crime story.

02:09:26.960 Definitely. You know, I, I listened to your whole Crime Week. My, my wife and I listened to

02:09:31.080 your podcast. Actually, we love your, well, we call it Megan in the Morning. That's how we start our day.

02:09:36.060 Right. And I had listened to that Crime Week and when I was listening, I'm like, I should be on

02:09:40.040 there. And when I was talking to my team, I said, this is the, this is the podcast that I really

02:09:45.040 want to do more than any other. Well, consider yourself booked. We've got, nothing says Christmas

02:09:49.540 like crime. So we always do a week of crime when we go out for Christmas and people love it. It's

02:09:54.360 become something people look forward to. So let's get into this with it in granular detail, exactly how

02:09:59.260 we got this bastard. All the best to you, Eric. Good luck with it. Thank you, Megan. Yeah. Don't forget

02:10:05.160 spies, lies and cybercrime. Support Eric and buy this. This would be a great gift for speaking

02:10:08.980 of Christmas for like anybody in your life going into Christmas. Who doesn't want to read

02:10:12.780 about this? Like interesting spy stories and how to protect yourself and what they're doing

02:10:15.600 on the dark web. It's one of the big questions of mankind in 2025. Speaking of crime back tomorrow

02:10:22.060 with Kelly's court. And guess what's happening? Diddy gets sentenced. Don't miss that. We'll see

02:10:28.100 you then.

02:10:28.320 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 02, 2025

Left Losing Meme War, Chelsea Clinton's Pod, and How AI Helps Scammers, with RealClearPolitics Hosts and Eric O'Neill ｜ Ep. 1162

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