The Megyn Kelly Show - Media and Dems Turn Against Biden and Harris, and Hunter's Gun Charges, with Rich Lowry, Peter Schweizer, Dave Aronberg, and Mike Davis

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.740 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.040 It's been a busy week here for The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:18.760 Our interview with former President Donald Trump continues to make headlines and generate a ton of interest.

00:00:24.120 Be sure to check it out if you haven't already on youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly, or you can listen to it via audio on the SXM app, which I love.

00:00:33.960 Can I just take a moment? I'm not like, of course, I have a relationship with Sirius, but I have to tell you, separate and apart from that relationship, I love the SXM app.

00:00:42.160 You can go back if you want to hear. Sometimes I want to hear what the lefties are saying.

00:00:45.420 You can go in there and type in Morning Joe. Up it pops. You can hear what their lead was this morning.

00:00:49.500 If you want to hear what happened on C9, if you want to, if you're sitting doing your makeup and you want to like listen to Fox News or something, you can do it.

00:00:55.620 It's all right there. And you don't need a cable subscription. And, or if you want just music, it's all good. It's all there. I love it.

00:01:02.740 It's how, if I want to listen to the podcast and I haven't had the chance, I'll go back. I'll listen to it on Sirius XM.

00:01:07.780 It allows you to fast forward. All right, sorry. That's it. I'm not actually getting paid for this.

00:01:11.580 It's extra from my already existing relationship. But I just wanted you to know it's awesome.

00:01:16.660 Also, there's Apple, there's Spotify, and so on.

00:01:19.500 We begin with this. President Trump told us that while Joe Biden's age should not be an issue, his competence very much should be. Take a listen.

00:01:29.000 Now that Joe Biden's in the office, there was just a poll out.

00:01:33.340 77% of Americans say that Joe Biden at age 80 is too old to be president. Are they right?

00:01:40.840 No, not for the reason of old, because I have many friends that are in their 80s.

00:01:44.740 I have friends, Bernie Marcus, that are in their 90s and they're sharp as a tack.

00:01:49.080 Just, I mean, I would say just about what they used to be.

00:01:52.820 No, not old. He's incompetent.

00:01:55.160 He's not too old. He's incompetent.

00:01:57.640 And age is interesting because some people are very sharp and some people do lose it.

00:02:02.700 But you lose it at 40 and 50 also.

00:02:05.400 But no, he's not too old at all. He's grossly incompetent.

00:02:10.980 And it seems a lot of top Democrats and key figures in the media are now beginning to turn on not only President Biden, but also Vice President Harris, that they want, we think, the entire ticket to be changed.

00:02:25.220 What's happened over the last few days, right?

00:02:27.660 What's happened?

00:02:28.220 It appears to be significant because we're watching a revolt almost in real time against the Democrats 2024 ticket.

00:02:36.420 Joining me now to discuss it all, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review.

00:02:41.160 Rich, welcome back to the show.

00:02:43.500 Thanks for having me.

00:02:44.700 Congratulations on the Trump interview.

00:02:46.940 Thank you very much.

00:02:48.240 And I don't know if you heard it.

00:02:49.800 A lot of people think that's natural talent.

00:02:52.120 And of course, there is a lot of natural talent, but it takes so much preparation to just each of those questions to be up.

00:02:58.220 Up to speed with any interviewee, but especially the former president.

00:03:02.620 Yeah, that's for sure.

00:03:03.420 I mean, exactly, exactly, especially with Donald Trump.

00:03:05.480 And I mean, all the credit on that goes to my team for, you know, getting me the facts so that I'd be armed.

00:03:10.160 I was saying this morning in an interview that all the like I had no nerves going into that interview, even though Donald Trump can be, you know, intimidating and formidable.

00:03:19.260 I had no nerves because all of the work had been done.

00:03:22.280 You said in the interview, it's like, I know exactly what you do now.

00:03:25.040 It's it's filling your brain with the right information.

00:03:27.040 That's the real challenge.

00:03:28.220 And that takes place in the weeks and and, you know, in our case, a month and a half before.

00:03:32.740 So thank you.

00:03:34.240 All right.

00:03:35.100 Have you noticed it?

00:03:36.040 Have you seen what's happening?

00:03:37.160 Like there's been a noticeable shift in the way the Democrats are now talking about Biden, Harris, not just Biden, Biden slash Harris.

00:03:44.360 I'm not going to say it started with David Ignatius at The Washington Post and his piece saying they should not run, saying neither one.

00:03:52.540 He wasn't saying Biden should go.

00:03:53.900 He was saying they both need to go.

00:03:55.540 She had her opportunity.

00:03:56.660 She hasn't connected with the American populace.

00:03:59.180 That wasn't the first thing.

00:04:00.820 But I mean, it's the first in a several day cascade of hits on them because you've got that.

00:04:07.400 Then he had a couple of there's been some pieces in the news.

00:04:10.460 And then there's been person after person talking about how she necessarily might not be the running mate.

00:04:18.540 I'm going to show you a couple of things here.

00:04:19.740 Let me start with this.

00:04:22.260 CNN's Daniel Dale, the favorite fact checker of Donald Trump and only Donald Trump.

00:04:26.560 I mean, literally, like only Donald Trump and sometimes RFK Jr. decided to emerge with one on Joe Biden's lies.

00:04:35.860 Listen to this.

00:04:36.760 Not six.

00:04:37.960 This president has a pattern at this point of either inventing or embellishing stories about his own past, his biography.

00:04:45.500 He did it three times in one speech last month alone.

00:04:49.540 He claimed he had witnessed a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh when he actually showed up about six hours later.

00:04:54.760 He claimed that his grandfather had died just days before he was born himself at the same hospital.

00:05:00.380 In fact, his grandpa died more than a year before in a different state, not not the same hospital.

00:05:04.600 And he also repeated a favorite false story that I and others have debunked over and over again about a supposed conversation with an Amtrak train conductor he was friends with who was actually deceased at the time.

00:05:13.400 The conversation would have had to take place previously in his presidency.

00:05:16.240 He claimed at one point he'd been arrested during a civil rights protest when in other versions of the story, he just said an officer had taken him home from a protest.

00:05:23.940 He said he had visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where worshippers were killed in a 2018 match shooting.

00:05:29.580 In fact, he had actually spoken to the rabbi, but never but never went.

00:05:33.180 He said that he used to drive a tractor trailer, used to drive an 18 wheeler.

00:05:36.900 Never happened.

00:05:37.820 The White House later clarified he used to drive a school bus at one point for as a job briefly school bus, of course, not an 18 wheeler.

00:05:44.940 This is an unfortunate pattern that keeps coming up again and again with Joe Biden.

00:05:48.060 It is unfortunate, Rich.

00:05:50.720 Very unfortunate.

00:05:51.800 Glad they finally caught on.

00:05:54.780 Yeah.

00:05:55.240 So first of all, my apologies if there's some mowing sounds.

00:05:58.220 I live in the suburbs here.

00:05:59.340 I have a very nice office with with big windows and there's an industrial strength mower circling.

00:06:05.100 Wait, can I tell you something?

00:06:05.980 What you need is an Abigail Finan because she is like the little neighborhood policeman here.

00:06:11.260 If that happens, she literally runs out and yells.

00:06:13.080 She hides in the bush.

00:06:13.980 She's like, could you be quiet for just for the next 45 minutes?

00:06:16.720 Bye.

00:06:18.460 So, look, it's just it's it's unavoidable.

00:06:22.040 You can't ignore it.

00:06:23.960 You can't hide it.

00:06:24.780 That accounts both for the David Ignatius column that kind of set off this this little media spiral about Joe Biden.

00:06:32.000 And it's why even the CNN fact checker has to notice.

00:06:36.580 And Biden is just a classic blow theater.

00:06:40.880 You know, he tells the stories over and over again.

00:06:43.100 And I find myself doing this in speeches sometimes.

00:06:46.720 The story, it never gets worse, right?

00:06:48.820 A story never gets less interesting with the telling.

00:06:52.060 And he's such a talker.

00:06:53.700 He's such a self glamorizer.

00:06:55.700 This is just what he does.

00:06:57.420 And over 40 or 50 years, every story basically is going to become false or he's going to convince himself of things that aren't true because it makes for a good line.

00:07:06.160 Did James Williams get fired from his role as NBC nightly news anchor for less than this?

00:07:11.100 I mean, it's like they had him in a couple of whoppers.

00:07:13.800 But this is exactly what he got fired for.

00:07:16.000 And yet you have a serial fabulist at the top of the government.

00:07:18.900 I want to talk about the more of the cascade.

00:07:21.640 That was one example.

00:07:22.340 I've never seen CNN do that before on on Biden.

00:07:26.560 So that's CNN and The Washington Post with that David Ignatius piece, which, by the way, is well worth our viewers time.

00:07:32.040 You should go back and just Google it and read it.

00:07:33.700 It's pretty good.

00:07:34.840 It's pretty powerful.

00:07:36.260 I like him.

00:07:36.780 He's a lefty, but he's I like Ignatius.

00:07:39.020 Anyway, here's a couple of other examples.

00:07:41.840 So after the Ignatius piece, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, who used to be a Republican, now says he's an independent, he sounds like a Democrat, comes out with the following admission, top five.

00:07:53.480 When it comes to Joe Biden, people say, man, he's too old to run, isn't he?

00:07:58.340 I mean, he's not going to he's not really going to run.

00:08:00.700 When I say every discussion, I don't mean 99 percent of the discussion, every discussion.

00:08:06.280 We got it.

00:08:07.240 I asked Reverend Al if he was hearing it all the time on our show this past week.

00:08:11.660 He's hearing it as well.

00:08:13.280 Democrats off the air will say Joe Biden's too old.

00:08:17.320 Why is he running on the air?

00:08:20.160 They won't say that.

00:08:23.280 Hmm.

00:08:24.320 I mean, it's absolutely true.

00:08:25.940 I've had I've had that experience.

00:08:27.460 There's a high level Democratic aide who I was on a show with.

00:08:32.360 And when the camera was off, I was like, I think he could.

00:08:35.320 I don't want this to happen.

00:08:36.280 You know, God forbid.

00:08:37.300 But he could die on the steps of Air Force One.

00:08:39.540 Literally, you know, it's a hazard to him to go up and down those big steps.

00:08:42.860 And she's like, yep.

00:08:44.420 But she you know, she wouldn't go on air and suggest any any such thing now that they have

00:08:49.160 them using the shorter steps, which I think is wise, you know, going directly into the

00:08:52.500 underbelly of the plane.

00:08:53.620 But this is I'm not a Democrat.

00:08:55.360 Obviously, I don't spend a lot of time with Democrats.

00:08:57.220 But just in my brief interactions with Democrats, what Scarborough is saying is that is exactly

00:09:01.960 right.

00:09:02.320 There are all these whisper conversations.

00:09:03.800 There are all these conversations off air.

00:09:05.220 But you don't hear it publicly.

00:09:06.840 And it's partly because they feel stuck by his choice of Kamala Harris.

00:09:11.600 And that's why the Ignatius column, you know, it's one thing to convince Joe Biden not to

00:09:15.800 run again.

00:09:16.300 I think that'd be very hard to do if he's dead set on doing it.

00:09:19.980 But how are you going to do the twofer?

00:09:22.700 You know, how are you going to get him out and Kamala Harris out?

00:09:25.440 And he admits like the Kamala Harris thing, promise her a Supreme Court, you know, nomination.

00:09:30.160 But what's the guarantee?

00:09:31.300 You know, another Democrat is going to win in 2024.

00:09:33.700 Why would you agree to that?

00:09:35.360 And if she's all at all aggrieved, you know, it could turn off some Democrats.

00:09:40.200 And if they're running against Trump, you know, it looks like it's going to be 16, it's going

00:09:44.600 to be 20 again.

00:09:46.020 It's going to be really close.

00:09:46.960 And you wouldn't want to make that risk.

00:09:49.200 So I think that that's the main thing that's bunched them up.

00:09:52.680 That's made them feel trapped.

00:09:53.900 Is Joe Biden made the worst vice presidential selection in probably a century?

00:09:59.160 He did.

00:10:01.440 And the Democrats know it.

00:10:03.660 It's not just people like you and me who are more on the right who can't stand this

00:10:08.400 person.

00:10:08.880 I mean, it's funny to hear Charlie Cook talk about his deep loathing for Kamala Harris.

00:10:13.740 But it's not just those of us who are more right leaning.

00:10:16.600 The left doesn't like her either.

00:10:18.120 And the polls show it.

00:10:20.100 And now extraordinary, extraordinary moments on CNN as the anchors over there start probing

00:10:28.080 what they accurately sense is a serious weakness on that ticket.

00:10:32.340 Yes, him.

00:10:32.840 We discussed that.

00:10:33.560 But also her.

00:10:34.580 She's not getting a pass.

00:10:36.540 I think it was yesterday and it was Wednesday.

00:10:39.680 This is is it Anderson Cooper with Nancy Pelosi getting questioned on whether Kamala Harris is

00:10:47.140 the best running mate for Joe Biden.

00:10:50.460 Is Vice President Kamala Harris the best running mate for this president?

00:10:54.240 He thinks so.

00:10:55.260 And that's what matters.

00:10:56.760 And by the way, she.

00:10:58.080 She's very politically astute.

00:11:00.060 I don't think people give her enough credit.

00:11:02.140 People don't understand.

00:11:03.020 She's politically astute.

00:11:04.040 Why would she be vice president if she were not?

00:11:06.420 Do you think she is the best running mate, though?

00:11:09.880 She's the vice president of the United States.

00:11:11.620 How people say to me, well, why isn't she doing this or that?

00:11:14.140 I said, because she's the vice president.

00:11:15.980 That's the job description.

00:11:18.940 You don't do that much.

00:11:20.320 Oh, my God.

00:11:22.640 Secondhand awkwardness.

00:11:24.760 It's so awkward, Rich.

00:11:26.360 People need to watch that clip live.

00:11:27.800 You need to see her body language and the attempt to move the Botox eyebrows severely Botox.

00:11:33.540 She needs to lighten up just a little.

00:11:35.360 Right.

00:11:35.860 As the he thinks so.

00:11:37.700 He thinks so.

00:11:38.640 And the awkward pause and smile at the end.

00:11:40.680 It's funny about how politicians who aren't necessarily very honest, there are certain things they just find it difficult to lie about.

00:11:48.100 Right. The easiest thing for her to do out there, the exit ramp and the off ramp is, yes, Anderson, of course she is.

00:11:54.080 But she couldn't bring herself to say it because she deeply feels it's not true.

00:11:59.200 So so she she couldn't say and the reason Kamala Harris, you know, it's not great political skills that made her vice president United States.

00:12:06.180 The fact that Joe Biden promised to select an African-American woman and had about three plausible choices and she was the best one.

00:12:13.320 And so he limited his choices and he went with her and, you know, her poll numbers are what you'd expect if someone was associated with a major scandal or had been the champion, a personal champion for some deeply unpopular policy initiative

00:12:28.700 that went down the toilet the way Hillary Clinton was when she was first lady with Hillary care.

00:12:33.820 Neither are true of Kamala Harris.

00:12:35.780 Neither. She's you know, she's supposedly the in charge of the border.

00:12:39.080 She's not. You know, that's on on Joe Biden.

00:12:41.200 It's just people don't like her.

00:12:44.320 And that's not a thing that's reparable.

00:12:47.980 And they keep trying to, you know, every once in a while, you'll see an article pop up about how it's because she's a she's a diverse woman.

00:12:54.600 That's why it's the racist, misogynistic trend in American politics.

00:12:57.800 But it's the Democrats don't like her either.

00:13:00.040 I mean, and they're the ones and we all know that they have racist tendencies in too many instances.

00:13:04.180 But my point is simply that you can't blame it on these crazy ass MAGA, you know, deplorables who just are, you know, what they say about them.

00:13:14.820 It's their people, too.

00:13:16.100 Nobody likes her.

00:13:16.940 She doesn't have a strong constituency.

00:13:18.660 And so it happened again.

00:13:20.360 So Jamie Raskin goes on with Jake Tapper and Tapper, to his credit, taps into the same vein.

00:13:27.800 Look what happened.

00:13:29.500 It's a pretty simple question.

00:13:31.400 Do you think Kamala Harris is the best running mate for President Biden?

00:13:35.140 Yes or no?

00:13:36.140 I mean, I don't know what else I can say other than she would be an excellent running mate and an excellent vice president.

00:13:43.260 I don't know whether President Biden has named his running mate.

00:13:47.520 We're going to go through that process.

00:13:49.000 You could say, yes, I think Kamala Harris is the best vice president and the best running mate for President Biden.

00:13:55.200 So I've not seen any public opinion polling.

00:13:59.140 You know, you might be a stronger vice presidential running mate than her or me or anybody else.

00:14:04.840 But I will tell you, as a matter of substance and public policy, she'd be an excellent choice.

00:14:11.500 Oh, my God.

00:14:14.300 So that's a little more lying because he's like, oh, she'll be excellent more than Nancy Pelosi did.

00:14:19.240 But unconvincing, right?

00:14:20.540 Because he clearly doesn't believe it.

00:14:22.700 And the would be, you know, if she is the running mate and he hasn't selected a running mate, how much more obvious can you be?

00:14:29.900 So obviously, they're deeply uncomfortable with her.

00:14:32.560 And again, these are again, these are two things that are demonstrable to everyone.

00:14:36.300 You don't need to run ads about it.

00:14:38.560 Joe Biden is too old to do it again.

00:14:40.420 And she she's deeply unpopular.

00:14:43.840 It's crazy to watch him.

00:14:44.960 Well, I haven't seen any opinion polls.

00:14:48.740 What?

00:14:49.520 I mean, and Tapper was exactly right.

00:14:51.300 You could say yes.

00:14:52.000 What do you mean?

00:14:53.120 You do know what to say.

00:14:54.640 The answer is yes, because she is second in command right now.

00:14:59.220 So like the answer is, why are you why would you even be asking me that she's she's his number two?

00:15:04.080 He said he's going to run again with her.

00:15:06.140 Of course, she's the best.

00:15:07.280 Like it should be vice.

00:15:09.100 It should be Joe Biden's problem if he later tries to kick her off.

00:15:13.040 So what what is this telling us, though?

00:15:15.280 Like what are the it's no accident that Pelosi and Raskin, these two top Democrats are both out there right now,

00:15:21.180 trying to create some distance between themselves and her.

00:15:24.400 Are they actively getting ready to push her off the ticket and they're going to save him and sub in somebody else because that makes him more attractive because no one wants her.

00:15:34.640 So we all know if Joe Biden continues in the way he's been, she has a fairly decent chance of taking it.

00:15:40.660 Like, is that the play?

00:15:41.440 Yeah, I just think it speaks to the fact that they know she's unpopular.

00:15:47.100 They know she'll be a drag on the ticket.

00:15:49.200 They know this will be a big part of the argument.

00:15:51.060 Look, Joe Biden is quite old.

00:15:53.880 Maybe he makes it through a second term if he's reelected.

00:15:56.160 But Kamala Harris has the greatest chance of sitting vice president, becoming president of the United States since Harry Trump.

00:16:03.560 I mean, FDR was deeply ailing in 1944.

00:16:06.940 The same is not true of Joe Biden now, but he is in this decline.

00:16:11.420 So they're uncomfortable with it.

00:16:13.400 But would they can they act on it?

00:16:15.480 I just think it's so hard.

00:16:18.280 And the way to go is not dumping her.

00:16:22.480 The way to go is to convince Joe Biden not to run again.

00:16:24.920 And I don't know whether you can do that, what the mechanism for that would be.

00:16:29.900 And the reason they're not going to do it is because they're they're afraid if he steps aside and you have a competitive primary, Kamala might win or someone to the left of Joe Biden might win.

00:16:41.240 And it'll be even a worse matchup against Donald Trump.

00:16:43.900 I think it was the ladies of The View the other day that who are expressing concern that he'll lose the black vote or at least a considerable chunk of it if he tries to sub out Kamala Harris, you know, live by the sword, die by the sword.

00:17:00.240 You want to make identity politics your thing?

00:17:02.100 Great.

00:17:02.320 You're stuck with her.

00:17:03.000 Sorry, because the the buzz and it wasn't just Rick Grinnell who said this on our show last week, is that if he subbed somebody in, it would be Gretchen Whitmer from the state of Michigan.

00:17:16.220 She's a woman, but she's a white woman.

00:17:18.760 So the concern that they were expressing was that some segment of the black voting population in the Dem side would hold it against Joe Biden.

00:17:26.180 Maybe that's true.

00:17:27.360 She's unpopular with all groups.

00:17:28.800 I don't think that there's some black woman constituency behind Kamala Harris.

00:17:33.000 But there might be some.

00:17:34.420 And given the numbers, Rich, I mean, you saw the Quinnipiac poll yesterday had Trump up one over Biden.

00:17:40.680 We've seen a few polls.

00:17:42.020 Trump's up one.

00:17:43.100 Some Biden's up one.

00:17:44.360 But it's very, very tight.

00:17:45.600 Very, very tight in that hypothetical matchup.

00:17:47.820 I realize these things get decided more by those critical swing states than by national polling like this.

00:17:53.200 But my point is simply he can't afford to lose the votes.

00:17:56.040 So subbing her out is not without risk.

00:17:58.040 Yeah, I don't know how attached African-American women feel to her, but it does not make sense given where the Democratic Party is on identity politics.

00:18:09.980 This would be inherently a racist choice, right?

00:18:12.280 That's what they argue about everything else.

00:18:13.640 And maybe partisan considerations would win over, sorry about the noise, the ideological arguments there.

00:18:20.160 But it also, it's just, it doesn't happen very often because it just speaks to a chaos, a certain chaos, a certain incompetence.

00:18:27.140 You know, and Trump was mentioning that in the clip you played at the top of the hour here.

00:18:31.560 And that it would be admitting I had this really important decision, the decision that is routinely characterized as the most important one a presidential candidate would make in 2020.

00:18:43.360 And I blew it such that I had to jettison her what I hope is halfway through.

00:18:49.520 The quote, my team just forwarded it.

00:18:52.000 It was from Sonny Hostin, quote,

00:18:53.300 I would be very careful, President Biden, about getting rid of Kamala Harris because we will not support you.

00:18:59.200 If Biden gets rid of Kamala Harris and inserts someone else, he will lose the black vote.

00:19:04.820 A panelist asked, even if it's another black woman, answer, we are not interchangeable.

00:19:11.120 It's kind of like I said, live by the sword, die by the sword.

00:19:16.200 Enjoy your little battle.

00:19:18.540 Enjoy your battle.

00:19:20.340 Right.

00:19:20.520 He said he set it up this way.

00:19:22.920 That's what Dr. Phil always used to say.

00:19:24.420 Your life is the way it is because you set it up that way, President Biden.

00:19:29.160 Yes, a trap they made for themselves.

00:19:31.400 You know, he did this.

00:19:32.260 It was an identity politics choice and he can't get out of it or be very hard to because of identity politics.

00:19:37.180 Meanwhile, we just had some passing references to who who really which party has the racist Senate.

00:19:42.860 Right.

00:19:43.320 And the answer is, well, both.

00:19:44.440 I mean, there are it's not like anybody's immune from finding a few racists in their party.

00:19:47.940 But the Democrats and their obsession with race and, you know, it's been well documented.

00:19:53.600 None more so than in Joe Biden's case.

00:19:56.400 I mean, the list of racist and racist adjacent things that that man has said is stunning.

00:20:02.380 It's like a Santa's scroll.

00:20:03.740 And you can add to that a comment he made just the other day when he was speaking.

00:20:10.420 Where was he when he said this, you guys?

00:20:13.840 I don't see the Indian.

00:20:15.560 This wasn't the Indian thing.

00:20:17.020 He was in Maryland.

00:20:18.620 No, this.

00:20:19.600 Listen.

00:20:20.180 Sorry.

00:20:20.520 Sorry.

00:20:20.820 Listen.

00:20:21.140 Listen.

00:20:21.860 I know.

00:20:22.820 Listen to how he characterizes African-Americans, Hispanics and veterans.

00:20:27.520 We've seen record lows in unemployment, particularly and I've focused on this my whole career, particularly for African-Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans.

00:20:38.640 You know, workers without high school diplomas.

00:20:42.000 Oh, my God.

00:20:46.120 You know, he didn't mean it that way.

00:20:49.120 He didn't mean it that way.

00:20:50.060 But it's just I'm sure he's he's he's such a poor talker now.

00:20:53.840 And then also some of these things he says that just I'm very tone deaf on racial issues.

00:20:59.580 He is, you know, he's a creature of the 1970s.

00:21:02.300 You know, that that's the environment he grew up in.

00:21:04.520 And he spoke he spoke about things differently.

00:21:06.820 And he still has that that tendency.

00:21:09.520 So I tend to, you know, give him a pass on this stuff.

00:21:11.800 But it's doesn't make it any less painful to.

00:21:14.820 I don't give him a pass.

00:21:16.220 I don't give him a pass.

00:21:16.920 We've had Victor Davis Hanson on who's got something close to a photographic memory.

00:21:19.840 And he'll give you the list right off the top of his head of the 25 racist comments that Joe Biden has made.

00:21:25.940 I do believe when he says African-Americans and Hispanics, veterans, you know, the ones without high school diplomas.

00:21:32.860 That's what he means.

00:21:34.260 Blacks don't graduate from from high school and neither do Hispanics and neither do veterans.

00:21:39.740 I believe that.

00:21:40.560 Now, I will say this.

00:21:41.960 The White House tried to clean it up by in the transcript adding the word and and.

00:21:46.840 And so the transcript is African-Americans, Hispanics, veterans and veterans and there are two people of unappreciated importance in this White House.

00:21:59.900 One is whoever's in charge of the transcripts.

00:22:02.000 Right.

00:22:02.260 Just changing what the president says on the fly.

00:22:05.920 The other who is whoever was in that Easter bunny outfit, who was shepherding Biden around at the Easter egg roll, which turned out to be like a sign of things to come.

00:22:17.300 He really needs that bunny at every single event.

00:22:20.040 Now, telling him who's going to call on, telling him when to stop and very importantly, ushering him off stage in the right direction.

00:22:27.820 What about you miss the signer?

00:22:29.260 You know, the person who does the sign language has to interpret what the hell Joe Biden is saying.

00:22:32.660 Oh, yeah.

00:22:33.180 When he's saying it.

00:22:34.800 Poor person.

00:22:35.400 It's tough duty.

00:22:36.580 It's tough.

00:22:37.080 I mean, hopefully they have a running transcript of the prepared remarks.

00:22:41.180 There is a question.

00:22:42.200 You mentioned the Easter bunny of who's really in control and whether Joe Biden like who the hell is telling him what to do, because he's the he's the commander in chief.

00:22:49.480 He's the leader of the free world.

00:22:50.640 He's the president of the United States.

00:22:51.720 And yet you get comments over and over and virtually every appearance.

00:22:55.080 Now they're inadvertent.

00:22:56.200 They appear like this one.

00:22:57.780 Take a listen to SOT2.

00:22:58.640 Let me close with this.

00:23:00.740 There's a lot more I know we could talk about.

00:23:02.400 I wish I had a chance to take all your questions, but I'm going to get in real trouble if I do that.

00:23:08.100 Trouble with whom?

00:23:09.440 Who's the boss of you?

00:23:11.040 It's a pattern.

00:23:12.020 You've heard it as many times as I have.

00:23:13.660 Right.

00:23:13.880 They won't let me call on you.

00:23:16.100 Here's my list of the people I'm allowed to call on.

00:23:19.320 It's embarrassing.

00:23:21.520 Yeah.

00:23:21.920 So, I mean, he's he's stage managed.

00:23:24.200 He has to be stage managed.

00:23:25.660 Now they they won't, as I think, you know, the Trump interview, there's no way Joe Biden

00:23:30.100 would sit down and do that kind of interview.

00:23:32.300 He just wouldn't be capable of it.

00:23:33.700 Clearly, at least the people who are in charge of making such decisions don't think he's

00:23:37.940 he's capable of it.

00:23:40.440 So one of my colleagues joked, I now forget his name.

00:23:43.080 But when the first White House chief of staff resigned, it's like, this is huge.

00:23:46.600 This is the first president to resign, you know, in the middle of his term in memory,

00:23:51.980 because obviously whoever is the chief of staff at any given moment has to be the most

00:23:56.340 powerful chief of staff that we've had in decades and decades.

00:24:01.820 Now, I think, you know, the basic policy mix, it reflects where Joe Biden is.

00:24:06.800 But if he has trouble getting off the stage, he's he clearly needs more help in other areas,

00:24:11.260 too.

00:24:12.400 Hmm.

00:24:13.240 I want to tell we're going to have Peter Schweitzer on in just a bit.

00:24:15.840 And he's an expert on all the stuff around Hunter Biden.

00:24:18.820 But I want to get your take on the news yesterday.

00:24:21.120 I listen to you, of course, you know, on the editors and I listen to you and Andy every

00:24:24.400 Friday.

00:24:24.940 Looking forward to today's drop.

00:24:27.880 But I'm curious what your reaction was yesterday to finally David Weiss, who seems very much

00:24:33.760 he seems a lot closer to being a Hunter Biden defense attorney than an aggressive prosecutor,

00:24:39.540 announces that he's bringing three gun charges against Hunter moments before the statute of

00:24:45.440 limitations expired.

00:24:46.480 He if he was going to do it at all, he had to do it right now.

00:24:49.900 And, you know, the messaging from the by administration is, see, it's a fair DOJ.

00:24:55.540 You see, they'll go after anybody who breaks the law.

00:24:59.400 Yeah.

00:24:59.560 So as as Andy, sorry, as Andy McCarthy, my colleague, former prosecutor, obviously, just

00:25:06.940 says this, this is a one paragraph indictment.

00:25:10.580 And the idea that's taken years, and you're up against a statute of limitations to do this,

00:25:16.740 a completely uncomplicated charge is absurd and just goes to how every possible consideration

00:25:23.700 has been given to Hunter Biden in this case and in this matter.

00:25:28.960 And the only reason we got here is because the plea deal was was so unprecedented and generous

00:25:36.860 to the defendant, to the accused, that it fell apart upon his first contact with a judge.

00:25:44.740 And that's why Weiss finally had to charge this case.

00:25:48.880 But the biggest thing, though, is, you know, end of the day, this is a crime.

00:25:54.060 Yes, he should be charged.

00:25:55.600 But this is not the main thing.

00:25:57.680 The main event is what James Comer and Republicans have been on.

00:26:01.040 It's the influence peddling business and Joe Biden's role in it.

00:26:05.340 And Weiss has let all that stuff, or at least a lot of it, when when Joe was vice president,

00:26:11.720 he's let the statute of limitations lapse on on it.

00:26:15.100 So even if there are crimes there, if they're uncovered, it's just it's just too late.

00:26:20.740 And in part is because it was a deliberate, slow walk to avoid anything uncomfortable involving

00:26:27.080 Hunter and especially his dad.

00:26:30.040 I mean, that was really one of my biggest takeaways and sitting across from Trump for an hour and

00:26:33.760 20 the other day.

00:26:35.000 There's zero chance Joe Biden could have done this.

00:26:37.160 I don't think he's physically, mentally capable of doing it at all.

00:26:42.220 And Trump, well, look, maybe he's not quite as on point as he was when he was 47 versus 77.

00:26:50.020 He like his memory, he would you'd ask him a question and he'd give you something that wasn't

00:26:56.440 totally responsive.

00:26:57.240 And you'd be like, all right, did he is he going to answer my point?

00:27:00.100 And he he'd land it.

00:27:01.680 He'd come back to it.

00:27:02.480 He'd say like he wanted to say what he wanted to say.

00:27:04.400 Then he'd give you an answer on your point.

00:27:05.780 He was on point, even though he you know, people say he rambles.

00:27:09.580 It's really just he wants to say his points.

00:27:11.900 That's that's what he gets out of the interview to get his message.

00:27:14.640 Yeah, there is.

00:27:16.100 Biden can't do it when he's in front of a teleprompter.

00:27:19.340 Rich has it all written out for him?

00:27:21.780 I mean, if this thing goes forward as it looks like it's going to go forward, Trump v.

00:27:25.560 Biden, I realize Trump's it four times indicted.

00:27:28.760 Biden's in a ton of trouble.

00:27:31.880 He there's no way he can have a general election debate.

00:27:36.180 No way.

00:27:37.460 Yeah.

00:27:37.940 And nine o'clock at night standing there for an hour and a half.

00:27:40.600 Yeah.

00:27:40.780 It's really hard to believe.

00:27:41.880 Now, you know, you might have already excused.

00:27:43.540 Oh, I'm not going to be on a debate stage with a convicted felon or with an insurrectionist

00:27:48.060 or whatever it is.

00:27:49.180 But as I mentioned to you, I met with Trump for lunch at Bedminster two months ago or so

00:27:56.500 now.

00:27:56.780 I occasionally talk to him.

00:27:58.260 We have obviously, you know, we're not best best buddies, given given what kind of things

00:28:02.780 we've been saying about him.

00:28:04.560 It was off the record.

00:28:06.360 But just struck by the sheer personal force of this guy.

00:28:11.480 He's a big figure, right?

00:28:12.660 He's a celebrity.

00:28:13.360 I don't want to sound like a fanboy.

00:28:14.520 Obviously, I'm not, but that's just that's key to his his political potency over the

00:28:20.920 last five years.

00:28:21.580 And Joe Biden, I haven't been invited at lunch to the lunch at the White House, but clearly

00:28:25.340 doesn't have it.

00:28:26.760 You know, so that just goes to a really important quality that people look for a president's

00:28:30.340 strength, sheer strength.

00:28:32.740 And Biden's going to be hurting on that metric.

00:28:36.540 Also, the economy.

00:28:37.780 There's a poll the other day.

00:28:38.840 There's been a lot recently.

00:28:39.800 So I forget which one it was.

00:28:41.040 Had Trump leading by something like 10 points on the economy.

00:28:45.200 And usually, most presidential years, that's that's the issue.

00:28:49.200 Right.

00:28:49.500 And he could be in Rikers.

00:28:51.220 And if he's leading Joe Biden by 10 points on the economy, there's some serious chance

00:28:56.940 he would win.

00:28:58.160 And I think, you know, all this is kind of dawning on the Democrats, which circling back

00:29:01.580 from what we're discussing at the beginning.

00:29:04.420 This is this is a reason why they're they're freaked out.

00:29:07.660 Well, I just gosh, I can't imagine how we'll elect a president without having any general

00:29:17.580 election debates.

00:29:19.120 I don't know that the American and given the concerns about Joe Biden's age, already 61 percent

00:29:23.520 of the American people think he's too old.

00:29:25.820 Well, no, it's higher than that.

00:29:26.800 That's a 61 percent.

00:29:27.900 77.

00:29:28.700 Yeah, it's 77 net net.

00:29:30.760 Yeah.

00:29:31.020 And 61 percent of Democrats feel that they can't basement him.

00:29:35.800 They can't do it this time.

00:29:37.740 He's it's not going to work to say I won't be across from an insurrectionist.

00:29:41.720 The media is starting to smell blood in the water and their loyalties to the Democratic

00:29:47.680 Party, I think, are making them say he needs to get turfed out now, now, now.

00:29:53.280 Otherwise, we're going to lose to this guy.

00:29:54.800 So I just I don't think he's going to get the pass that he got the last time.

00:29:58.120 Now, if a new dem subbed in, they would they'd start to run cover again.

00:30:03.220 But there's no that's one of the thing.

00:30:05.240 And Ignatius, I think, pointed it out when I saw him in an interview the past couple days

00:30:08.320 saying there's no clear air apparent.

00:30:10.240 That's that's one of the problems.

00:30:11.420 That's why there's some resistance.

00:30:12.860 Who is it?

00:30:13.940 It's not like the white knight in shining shining armors right there.

00:30:17.920 Of course, Gavin Newsom would love to do it.

00:30:19.480 But everyone knows he runs California.

00:30:21.700 This is not a slam dunk.

00:30:22.940 Right, right.

00:30:24.660 Yeah.

00:30:25.260 And going back to identity politics to the heir apparent is Kamala Harris, right?

00:30:29.640 I mean, formally, that's the vice president is always assumed to be the heir apparent.

00:30:35.040 But there's a problem there.

00:30:36.600 And are you really going to substitute in the Kendall, you know, for this African-American

00:30:40.760 woman?

00:30:41.280 That'd be really hard.

00:30:42.340 And although, you know, this is well spoken.

00:30:44.600 I think it speaks well with him.

00:30:45.840 He's willing to go anywhere.

00:30:46.920 I don't know whether you've had a long form sit down with them, but he's on Fox a fair

00:30:51.900 amount and he's very, very confident and charismatic.

00:30:55.140 But, you know, California is different.

00:30:57.460 He's way out there on the cultural issues that are major Democratic vulnerability.

00:31:01.280 I think it's easier for the Democrats to be far to left on economic issues rather than

00:31:05.600 cultural ones.

00:31:07.180 And, you know, the personal background, it's, you know, maybe it's OK against Trump or certainly

00:31:11.920 it's been OK against California, but in California.

00:31:15.440 But some of that stuff would litigate and not not play well.

00:31:19.340 So, you know, I think the play would be some boring, you know, Mark Warner from Virginia,

00:31:23.920 someone who's just boring and conventional, non-threatening and can't be made or made

00:31:27.800 radioactive.

00:31:28.700 But nominating someone like that is is is difficult.

00:31:32.800 Just to win a major presidential nomination this day and age, you need to excite people.

00:31:38.580 OK, now, meanwhile, something interesting is happening on the Republican side, and that

00:31:43.500 is this buzz.

00:31:44.600 I'm sure you've heard it, too, about Glenn Youngkin and whether he's going to come in

00:31:48.720 as the white knight.

00:31:50.380 He's the governor of Virginia.

00:31:51.820 He's the one who ran in his little fleece vest.

00:31:53.960 And the saying was fear the fleece, the fleece, because he was this sort of quiet, mild mannered

00:32:00.020 candidate who those famous suburban moms could like, who was MAGA friendly, but not totally

00:32:06.660 tied to Trump in a way that became problematic for some candidates in those midterms.

00:32:10.100 So they many Republicans think he can do it.

00:32:13.180 He can be he can be the DeSantis that we thought DeSantis was going to be.

00:32:16.320 And I'm getting more and more buzz about this from my, you know, well-connected Republican

00:32:20.880 friends.

00:32:22.000 And a couple of things are interesting that that are happening there.

00:32:25.300 He pardoned that dad.

00:32:28.860 Smith is his last name in Virginia, whose daughter was sexually assaulted.

00:32:33.900 Yeah.

00:32:34.100 And Loudoun County was sexually assaulted in the restroom by a boy wearing a skirt.

00:32:38.480 And then he was called a liar at that school board meeting where the head of the school

00:32:42.260 was saying that's never happened.

00:32:43.760 He got mad.

00:32:44.860 Some woman got in his face, tried to call him a liar.

00:32:47.300 Anyway, he got arrested for his disorderly conduct there and convicted.

00:32:50.720 It was crazy.

00:32:51.440 They won't prosecute any crime down there in Virginia, but this guy gets prosecuted.

00:32:54.880 And so Youngkin pardoned him.

00:32:57.820 It's kind of interesting.

00:32:58.960 Could have been for local politics.

00:33:00.320 Could have, could have, because he's in this tight battle for the state legislature there,

00:33:04.200 the Virginia House of Delegates.

00:33:05.400 There's a hotly contested race there.

00:33:07.840 And, um, but it could have been more long, I mean, long range planning.

00:33:12.700 I don't know.

00:33:14.060 Uh, and then, and now there's an interesting race in Virginia that I wanted to ask you about

00:33:18.640 because I've been told, okay, by people who may be in a position to know that Youngkin

00:33:24.600 is waiting to, he basically wants to get control of the state legislature there in great numbers

00:33:32.220 by Republicans and then he'll go, then he'll announce.

00:33:36.580 And it's a tight timeline because that, that vote, I think is the beginning of November

00:33:41.620 and he'll miss the opportunity to get on certain state ballots for the primary.

00:33:46.660 If he waits until this Virginia house vote, this Virginia, um, is it the house of the Senate?

00:33:53.420 I forget what's, what's in play, but in any event, what do you make of this whole theory?

00:33:57.080 And are you hearing the same things?

00:33:59.300 Yeah, I've heard the same thing.

00:34:00.060 I was talking to someone yesterday, maybe who's meeting with donors in New York.

00:34:04.440 I was like, what, how's it going?

00:34:05.780 What are people thinking?

00:34:06.620 And I was like, nah, it's not, nothing.

00:34:08.340 This, uh, this is an anti-Trump Republican, nothing good, but, but Youngkin, maybe Youngkin.

00:34:13.180 And I just, I just, I'm admirer of his.

00:34:15.640 I think he ran a great gubernatorial, uh, campaign against a really talented politician

00:34:20.640 who ended up stepping on it in an important couple of ways, Terry McAuliffe, but, um, late

00:34:26.220 entrance that they never, it never works missing.

00:34:30.400 Once you're skipping states, cause you're not filed in those states, how's that going to

00:34:35.660 work?

00:34:36.140 And then, you know, although I think he ran a great campaign as a really competent and

00:34:39.880 likable guy, is he electric?

00:34:42.340 You know, is he an electric candidate potentially?

00:34:45.020 I don't think so.

00:34:46.420 And then finally, what, what we need, you know, this really struck me during the first

00:34:51.100 debate in August, what you need is someone so dominant on that stage without Trump there

00:34:56.360 that he or she is not just going to do well or do a little better than everyone else.

00:35:00.920 You need someone to be so dominant.

00:35:02.960 They suck away the support basically of everyone else on that stage and they get to 30 or 40.

00:35:09.100 And then you can, you can think about this being a competitive race.

00:35:14.160 Would Youngkin do that?

00:35:15.060 I mean, no one's done it so far, right?

00:35:16.680 That's currently in the race, but DeSantis would collapse to zero and Nikki would collapse

00:35:20.780 to zero and the vague and Tim Scott cause Youngkin's in the race.

00:35:24.100 I just, I just can't see it.

00:35:25.780 So I understand the race has not developed to my liking, right?

00:35:29.860 Um, but that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge reality.

00:35:33.440 And this just seems like wish casting.

00:35:35.880 So maybe, you know, maybe in Iowa where Trump's a little softer and you have people saying it's

00:35:39.940 more open than it seems, maybe something happens there.

00:35:42.700 I don't discount that, but the national polling is just, it's just screaming.

00:35:47.380 This is not a competition, right?

00:35:48.960 This is very much like the Biden RFK junior race by this number, slightly better against

00:35:54.820 RFK junior than Trump's are just to DeSantis, but they're not that far apart.

00:35:59.920 Hmm.

00:36:00.760 Okay.

00:36:01.260 In Virginia, all 40 seats in the Virginia Senate and all 100 in the house are on the ballot.

00:36:06.080 Republicans hold a slim majority in the house.

00:36:08.340 Democrats narrowly control the Senate, uh, strategists on both sides agree that each

00:36:12.920 chamber is up for grabs.

00:36:14.360 So the, the hope by Youngkin is that the Republicans hold the house, increase their margin and that

00:36:22.000 they take over control of the Senate.

00:36:23.920 And then he could really push his agenda or any Republican, uh, in his, in the governor's

00:36:28.860 seat could push a Republican agenda.

00:36:31.220 Uh, so we'll see.

00:36:32.300 I mean, I'm, I've heard it from a lot of people's, I don't know who, who knows, uh,

00:36:37.200 we'll see.

00:36:37.940 Rich Lowry, always a pleasure.

00:36:39.200 Have a great weekend.

00:36:40.380 Thanks so much.

00:36:40.820 You too.

00:36:42.060 Okay.

00:36:42.460 When we come back, we're going to turn to some legal stories in particular, uh, this Hunter

00:36:47.400 Biden indictment news.

00:36:49.300 And we'll talk about some of the mainstream media's reaction to my Trump interview is

00:36:53.160 saying that he quote confessed, he confessed in our interview, uh, that we aired for you

00:36:58.420 yesterday.

00:36:58.820 What do you think Dave Ehrenberg, Mike Davis, join us next.

00:37:06.960 Joining me now, Mike Davis.

00:37:08.700 He's the founder and president of the article three project, which defends constitutionalist

00:37:12.860 judges and the rule of law.

00:37:14.260 Also with us, Dave Ehrenberg.

00:37:16.160 He's the state attorney for Palm beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.

00:37:20.780 They are normally with us on Trump indictment days.

00:37:24.080 That's become a thing.

00:37:25.000 It's like a pattern or regular appearance, a schedule for them.

00:37:29.100 But today they are here for a couple of, uh, well, there's a bunch of legal stories to

00:37:33.420 get to.

00:37:33.700 We'll get to Trump.

00:37:34.360 Uh, but I want to start with Hunter Biden guys.

00:37:37.400 Thank you so much for being here.

00:37:38.520 Appreciate it.

00:37:39.120 So let me start with you, Mike.

00:37:40.600 Uh, the, the DOJ, the Trump or the Biden defenders are out there kind of saying, see, this is

00:37:45.700 fair.

00:37:45.940 It's a fair DOJ because they've brought three felony counts against Hunter Biden.

00:37:50.380 He got a gun while he was an active addict and he lied about it on the application that

00:37:56.880 amounts to basically three felony charges.

00:37:58.920 They're saying he could spend between 10 and 25 years in prison.

00:38:02.860 My God, if anything, this is unfair treatment versus what the average civilian would get.

00:38:08.820 How do you see it?

00:38:10.600 I would say, don't be fooled.

00:38:12.200 This is the same, uh, uh, Democrats picked Delaware U S attorney, David Weiss, who has

00:38:19.300 been covering for the Bidens for years.

00:38:22.600 He let the statute of limitations expire on very serious tax charges.

00:38:27.400 He buried evidence deemed credible by the Pittsburgh U S attorney that Joe Biden may have

00:38:34.540 taken a $10 million foreign bribe from Burisma and changed American policy.

00:38:39.420 This David Weiss is the one who came up with this secret sweetheart, uh, uh, plea deal with

00:38:46.180 Hunter Biden, with this, uh, with this backdoor pardon for all these crimes.

00:38:51.040 Remember what they're doing here.

00:38:52.420 They are charging Hunter with this gun charge.

00:38:55.800 He's not going to spend a day in jail.

00:38:58.040 They're going to let this, uh, criminal, uh, process work its way, uh, through the presidential

00:39:03.740 election until November, November 5th, 2024.

00:39:06.740 And then either Joe Biden will pardon his son and maybe himself, or David Weiss will come

00:39:13.320 to another sweetheart deal.

00:39:14.580 Maybe another plea agreement where there's no jail time.

00:39:17.580 And in the meantime, they're going to protect the Bidens, particularly Joe Biden from congressional

00:39:22.940 subpoenas because then the Biden white house, president Biden himself, Hunter, the Biden justice

00:39:29.280 department, they're going to say, sorry, we can't cooperate with you Congress because there's

00:39:34.540 an ongoing criminal prosecution and ongoing criminal investigations and other matters.

00:39:39.280 And Hunter Biden, uh, the second he's pardoned or the second he gets a plea agreement, uh,

00:39:46.680 where, where he doesn't face criminal liability anymore, he no longer has his fifth amendment

00:39:51.720 rights.

00:39:52.120 So they're not going to pardon him now.

00:39:53.800 They're not going to do a plea agreement now.

00:39:55.120 They're going to wait until this impeachment inquiry is done.

00:39:57.440 They're going to wait till after the presidential election.

00:40:00.160 Hmm.

00:40:00.920 All right, Dave, what do you, what do you think of it?

00:40:03.680 Well, it's good to be back with you, Megan.

00:40:04.960 And my friend, Mike, uh, first off, is it Weiss or Weiss?

00:40:07.980 I wish I was.

00:40:08.480 I think it's Weiss.

00:40:09.640 I think I was, I was giving Mike a pass.

00:40:11.200 I'm pretty sure it's Weiss.

00:40:13.480 Trust the Ehrenberg to know the difference between Weiss and Weiss.

00:40:16.380 So yes.

00:40:17.020 Okay.

00:40:19.880 I do agree with Mike that I do not believe that Hunter Biden will spend a day in jail.

00:40:24.840 I agree with him on that.

00:40:26.100 And it is ironic because I think this prosecution was motivated in part by the DOJ trying to show

00:40:32.240 that, look, we're even handed, this is not a weaponized DOJ.

00:40:35.600 Look, we're even going after the former vice president, current president's son.

00:40:41.120 But in trying to make everyone happy, they made no one happy.

00:40:44.460 The left is infuriated because this charge, this gun charge is rarely charged, rarely invoked,

00:40:50.660 especially when the gun is not used for another crime.

00:40:52.940 And then the right, which thinks that Hunter Biden is the head of some international criminal

00:40:57.460 conspiracy, is thinking this is small potatoes.

00:40:59.240 So they've made no one happy here.

00:41:01.240 I would say this about the weaponization thing.

00:41:03.760 I think when you add this to the fact that John Durham stayed on and was allowed to file

00:41:10.040 his charges, the fact that the DOJ didn't file charges against Matt Gaetz, who was a big

00:41:14.120 MAGA guy, the fact that DOJ Merrick Garland took the side of Donald Trump over E. Jean Carroll

00:41:19.520 for a long time.

00:41:20.400 And now you have this.

00:41:21.440 I do think there's a very compelling argument that there is no weaponization of the DOJ.

00:41:25.380 But of course, that's something that's going to live on in the right wing ecosphere.

00:41:30.020 Can you just expand on what you just said about E. Jean Carroll?

00:41:33.980 That's the woman who accused Trump of rape in the Bergdorf Goodman changing room.

00:41:39.660 Sure.

00:41:40.220 The Department of Justice had a policy that they were going to defend Donald Trump against

00:41:44.500 E. Jean Carroll because Donald Trump was president.

00:41:47.320 And since even though this didn't happen while he was president, the defamation occurred, his

00:41:54.460 defamation occurred while he was president.

00:41:56.740 And so the DOJ took the policy that they were going to defend, pay for the legal expenses

00:42:01.540 of Donald Trump against E. Jean Carroll.

00:42:04.280 And when Merrick Garland took over, he continued that policy.

00:42:08.100 He said, yes, we will continue to defend Donald Trump.

00:42:11.280 Only much later did they change their policy.

00:42:14.100 But for a lot of us, it was like, wow, how can you say they're weaponizing DOJ when they're

00:42:18.260 backing Donald Trump over E. Jean Carroll?

00:42:21.160 Can I just ask you a follow up on that?

00:42:22.540 Do you know, I know this was a story, but it's, you know, many moons ago, whether they

00:42:27.000 did the same for Clinton when he was the sitting president and got accused by Paula Jones, the

00:42:30.440 thing that got him on all the trouble for lying under oath.

00:42:32.600 Did the DOJ defend him in that?

00:42:34.940 Was that the DOJ's lawyers?

00:42:36.840 I don't remember what the, it's a long time ago.

00:42:38.780 I don't remember what happened there.

00:42:39.740 But I can tell you when it comes to this case, Donald Trump's defamation occurred, alleged

00:42:46.140 defamation, well, it was proven to be defamatory.

00:42:48.700 It occurred while he was president, but it didn't involve his presidential duties.

00:42:53.380 It involved statements he made before he was president.

00:42:55.760 So I don't know.

00:42:56.740 It's a good question about Clinton and DOJ.

00:42:59.060 But to me, I thought it was the wrong move by DOJ to defend someone who was making statements

00:43:04.240 based on something that had nothing to do with his presidency.

00:43:07.040 Right.

00:43:07.200 Outside the scope of his duties.

00:43:09.340 I don't know, Mike, there's a lot of evidence.

00:43:11.360 I mean, this is Dave's making the sort of more liberal case for why the DOJ is fair and

00:43:16.340 fair and balanced.

00:43:17.280 There's a lot on the other side of that ledger, however, like indicting a former president

00:43:23.780 twice on charges that none of us can totally understand other than the obstruction case

00:43:28.760 like that.

00:43:29.260 I that I get and we could go down the list.

00:43:32.720 I mean, do you is there any merit to what Dave's saying in terms of like, yeah, they

00:43:36.740 didn't go after Matt Gaetz and they did go after Hunter and they defended him on E.

00:43:41.380 Jean Carroll and so on.

00:43:42.500 This is the most politicized and weaponized Justice Department that I've ever seen, even

00:43:49.060 more so than the Obama Justice Department.

00:43:51.760 Remember, they are indicting a former president and a leading presidential candidate for the

00:43:58.060 first time in American history on bogus on a bogus legal theory.

00:44:03.340 Jack Smith's legal theory on January 6th is bogus.

00:44:06.360 It is not a crime to object to a presidential election.

00:44:11.180 It is specifically allowed by the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

00:44:15.660 It is not a crime to twist arms politically.

00:44:18.480 That is allowed by the First Amendment.

00:44:20.060 If it were a crime to object to presidential elections, Democrats would be in jail for objecting

00:44:25.120 to Republican wins in 1968, 2004, 2016.

00:44:30.260 If politicians can go to jail for being jerks, just about every politician in Washington besides

00:44:36.280 my former boss, Chuck Grassley, the nicest man on the planet, would be in prison.

00:44:40.760 This is definitely a politicized and weaponized justice system.

00:44:44.820 Just look at what they're doing.

00:44:45.820 They're going after President Trump.

00:44:47.700 They're going after President Trump's top aides, disregarding 250 years of executive

00:44:53.060 privilege, going back to George Washington.

00:44:55.960 They're going after January 6th protesters, these goofballs who got out of control on January

00:45:02.100 6th at a lawful protest permitted by the National Park Service and turned into a riot.

00:45:09.020 Yeah, you should charge the people who trespass.

00:45:11.160 Yeah, you should charge the people who were violent, but to charge them with insurrection?

00:45:15.800 How many insurrectionists get to the floor, the Senate floor of a nation's Capitol and

00:45:21.920 walk through velvet ropes and follow police direction and take selfies and don't burn down

00:45:27.020 the damn place?

00:45:28.160 And at the same time-

00:45:28.800 Look what they did to Kavanaugh, right?

00:45:30.340 Yeah.

00:45:30.760 I mean, that's one of the things that's been coming to mind.

00:45:32.940 What they did to Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill looked a lot like that, minus the violence,

00:45:37.680 it's important to say.

00:45:38.700 Yeah, I was the staff leader.

00:45:39.860 I sat behind Chairman Chuck Grassley during those proceedings when you had paid protesters

00:45:44.840 in the audience and then their senators, like Kamala Harris, disrupting the proceedings the

00:45:51.420 entire time, threatening senators, disrupting the committee hearings, disrupting the floor

00:45:56.920 votes, chasing senators, trespassing and chasing senators in non-public areas and threatening

00:46:03.300 them.

00:46:03.660 Remember the famous video of Jeff Blake, the Arizona Republican senator, being chased into

00:46:10.220 an elevator and looking like he's ready to pout and cry.

00:46:13.520 I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable, the double standard.

00:46:16.360 Look what they're doing to parents outraged because their kids are getting raped in the

00:46:21.780 Loudoun County schools and the superintendents lying about it and covering it up and moving

00:46:26.780 the rapist from one school to another so he could, he or she or whatever the hell that person

00:46:31.320 is, can rape another person.

00:46:33.060 Look at what they're doing to Christians.

00:46:34.760 And by the way, that case was used as an example, Dave, by Merrick Garland in his DOJ memo about

00:46:43.400 why these parents were potentially domestic terrorists.

00:46:47.380 That, I mean, that memo is, that's case closed as far as I'm concerned in terms of their bias

00:46:52.020 and the fact that they've been politicized.

00:46:53.940 But I'll give you the chance to respond.

00:46:56.180 Well, Megan, do they really call the parents domestic terrorists?

00:46:59.520 I read that memo.

00:47:00.620 I didn't see the direct phrase.

00:47:03.080 I thought that it was a lot more nuanced than that.

00:47:05.880 Did he really call them domestic terrorists?

00:47:07.980 Yeah, and we'll pull it up.

00:47:09.100 They likened the parents to domestic terrorists.

00:47:11.140 Yes.

00:47:12.420 All right.

00:47:12.640 Well, I'd love to see it because I've seen, I thought I read the memo and I read it a different

00:47:16.940 way.

00:47:17.120 But yes, please pull it up.

00:47:18.840 One thing that I want to say about the charge against Hunter Biden, just to go back to the

00:47:23.680 charges, is that the statute under which they're proceeding, this gun law, is about to be thrown

00:47:29.140 out as unconstitutional.

00:47:31.000 It's thrown out by the Fifth Circuit, an appellate court, as unconstitutional.

00:47:35.060 And so it's hanging on by a thread.

00:47:37.040 And I think that's the best defense there for the defense saying, hey, this thing isn't even

00:47:40.700 a legitimate statute.

00:47:42.020 And then you have the lying on the forms.

00:47:44.100 Those two charges will go away if the underlying statute goes away, because the lying would

00:47:49.760 be immaterial if there is no underlying statute.

00:47:52.200 So this is not a great case.

00:47:54.660 And there's a thinking that if if I disagree with you, it's not a great case.

00:47:59.100 That's why people are mad on the right.

00:48:00.660 The great case was the tax evasion and the underlying corruption and possibly foreign

00:48:04.560 agent registration act.

00:48:05.980 Just before we go to break, my crack team, New York Times, 1994, the Justice Department

00:48:12.220 today threw its weight behind President Clinton's claim that the sexual harassment suit he is

00:48:16.180 facing from a former Arkansas clerical worker should be put off until he leaves office.

00:48:19.980 They did defend him on this.

00:48:21.340 In a brief to be filed with a federal court in Little Rock, the Justice Department will

00:48:24.340 argue that the president is immune from civil suit while he's in office to allow the sexual

00:48:27.420 harassment suit to go forward.

00:48:28.400 The DOJ argued could irreparably interfere with the president's performance of his official

00:48:32.000 duties.

00:48:32.560 The 25 page legal argument from the Department of Justice was obtained from the lawyers of Paula

00:48:37.380 Jones.

00:48:37.900 So they were involved in that case as well.

00:48:40.680 I knew it.

00:48:41.100 I remembered it.

00:48:41.620 The little brain, the little hamster sometimes runs on the wheel.

00:48:44.200 Nice and fast for a Friday.

00:48:45.980 Mike and Dave, stay with us.

00:48:47.120 We'll get into impeachment and Trump next.

00:48:53.040 I want to talk to you about the Trump interview on Wednesday.

00:48:56.240 We aired it yesterday, Thursday, and the media went nuts with it.

00:49:01.540 I mean, it was actually very interesting to see what different people did with it.

00:49:05.500 You know, there was kind of something in there for everyone.

00:49:08.060 Core MAGA loved certain parts.

00:49:09.800 DeSantis fans love certain parts.

00:49:12.680 And of course, the left loved the discussion about the criminal indictments.

00:49:16.720 And I'll tell you something funny in just a second about something that happened on MSNBC

00:49:21.940 that kind of amused me.

00:49:23.180 But I begin there with Lawrence O'Donnell, who did, I think, 20 minutes on this at least.

00:49:28.620 I don't know.

00:49:28.820 My team watched it.

00:49:30.180 And he had on Andrew Weissman.

00:49:33.440 Can I tell you, I've never heard Andrew Weissman actually speak before.

00:49:35.580 I only read about most of my news I get via, you know, reading it.

00:49:40.020 I've never heard him speak before.

00:49:41.540 Very odd way of speaking.

00:49:43.740 And then there was Neil Katyal, former Solicitor General.

00:49:46.960 And the other guy was, I don't know this other guy.

00:49:50.040 He's constantly on there talking about how Trump is the devil.

00:49:53.840 Morris, Brandon.

00:49:54.980 I can't remember.

00:49:55.680 You'll know him, Dave.

00:49:56.980 Brandon Moss.

00:49:57.360 Bradley Brown?

00:49:57.820 My team son.

00:49:58.960 Moss.

00:49:59.560 They're saying.

00:50:00.060 Oh, yeah.

00:50:00.840 Moss.

00:50:01.020 There's a reason I'm taking time to say their names.

00:50:07.080 I'll get to it.

00:50:08.040 But here's their reaction to a piece of that interview.

00:50:13.280 Let's listen to more of Donald Trump's testimony today, not under oath, in his own defense.

00:50:22.140 I'm allowed to have these documents.

00:50:23.800 I'm allowed to take these documents, classified or not classified.

00:50:27.400 And frankly, when I have them, they become unclassified.

00:50:32.380 People think you have to go through a ritual.

00:50:34.160 You don't.

00:50:34.800 At least in my opinion, you don't.

00:50:37.320 But it's even beyond that.

00:50:38.840 Because the Presidential Records Act allows you to do as president, only as president.

00:50:45.480 When you hear these interviews with him, and I feel like these interviewers almost have to issue him Miranda warnings now before he does these interviews, because he just keeps confessing.

00:50:54.760 He has to be able to put forward this cockamamie legal theory he's got about what the Presidential Records Act lets him do.

00:51:01.500 And he's going to take that all the way to the Supreme Court.

00:51:03.980 Basically, Trump's defense that you just heard is a defense to the crimes of which he's charged, the way that bleach is a defense to COVID, Larry Lawrence.

00:51:13.920 I mean, it's just ridiculous.

00:51:15.420 So they had a bit of a field day with it, Mike Davis, saying he confessed on camera.

00:51:25.680 And if you watch a longer clip, saying, in fact, a bunch of pundits on the left said this will be played in court.

00:51:31.580 Do you have a different view?

00:51:32.760 Well, first, I'm just very happy that Neil Katja made it out of the desert.

00:51:38.980 He was at a music fest and got stuck in the mud.

00:51:43.300 And he posted on Twitter how it, you know, the agonizing eight hours that he had to walk through the mud to get out.

00:51:50.300 So, I mean, it reminded me of people, like people in East Palestine and, you know, people in Maui.

00:51:56.080 It was just devastating for Neil that he had to walk for eight hours.

00:51:59.000 But I would say this, they mocked this legal argument.

00:52:03.360 Now, it's the same legal argument that the President Clinton used in the Clinton software case, and he won, right?

00:52:10.740 Under the Presidential Records Act, any document created or received by the president or his staff is a presidential record or received.

00:52:20.280 And that includes agency records not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, classified records from the CIA, the DOD.

00:52:29.460 These are subject to the Presidential Records Act.

00:52:32.440 And under the Presidential Records Act, the president has access to his presidential records any time he wants.

00:52:39.100 And under the Clinton software case, the mere fact that President Clinton took eight years of highly classified audio recordings, 79 tapes of his presidency, including discussions with foreign leaders, including discussions with his national security aides, clearly born classified, the most classified materials possible.

00:53:00.220 The mere fact that President Clinton took them with him when he left office and did not turn them over to the bureaucrats at the National Archives makes them presidential records.

00:53:10.080 And it doesn't matter whether they're classified or not.

00:53:12.320 That's why former president, that's why Congress gives former presidents federally funded staff with security clearances, secure office space, secret service protection.

00:53:20.320 I can see Dave actually wincing as you're talking.

00:53:27.380 He does not agree. Why?

00:53:30.640 First of all, it's a real feat to get out of the mud walking eight hours.

00:53:35.940 And, you know, that's not easy.

00:53:37.520 So props to Neil Katyal.

00:53:39.520 That's the Burning Man Festival.

00:53:41.880 So, number one, Megan, before I forget, just one thing.

00:53:45.960 When you said in the previous second, you said the Department of Justice defended Clinton when he was president.

00:53:50.540 Correct. They did it while he was president.

00:53:52.920 The difference is that Merrick Garland was defending Donald Trump after he was president, after he was no longer president.

00:53:58.540 So I think that's the difference.

00:54:00.080 That's just one little thing.

00:54:02.040 If I can go back to what my friend Mike was saying.

00:54:05.940 Yeah.

00:54:06.400 You asked the right question.

00:54:07.780 It was an excellent interview all around.

00:54:09.760 And you asked the right question, because when when former President Trump was saying that the Presidential Records Act essentially gives him immunity here, you said, but you had a subpoena and then you didn't comply with it.

00:54:21.520 So it's still obstruction.

00:54:22.560 The obstruction is obstruction.

00:54:24.320 It doesn't matter that you were president.

00:54:26.480 If you refuse to turn over documents in response to a subpoena, that's a crime.

00:54:31.400 Willful retention of documents is a crime under the Espionage Act.

00:54:35.800 So I think what the former president is doing is talking about something that he's allowed to do, access the documents under the Presidential Records Act.

00:54:44.080 But once he's no longer president, he cannot keep those documents any more than he could keep Air Force One.

00:54:50.360 And even if you say, as Mike says, he can still keep them once you receive a subpoena to get them back, you can't keep them.

00:54:56.940 You have to turn them over or else it's obstruction.

00:54:58.680 That's I mean, that's where the president's the weakest on the obstruction, because I've we've been debating this for how long now, guys, you know, all of us since since the Mar-a-Lago raid about whether he had the right to the documents to begin with.

00:55:11.800 That's one question.

00:55:12.760 And then irrespective of whether he had that right, whether he needed to turn them over once he got a subpoena.

00:55:17.840 I mean, I've got tons of documents in my files here.

00:55:20.040 I have an unquestioned right to all of them.

00:55:23.520 But if somebody serves me a subpoena, if the Fed served me a subpoena to turn them over, I have to.

00:55:28.400 The question of ownership, is it now irrelevant?

00:55:31.260 It's irrelevant.

00:55:31.980 It's not about ownership.

00:55:32.920 It's about is it responsive to the subpoena or isn't it?

00:55:35.620 A judge has to issue the subpoena.

00:55:38.060 This is the full power of the court saying, turn it over.

00:55:41.520 And I have to.

00:55:43.180 And then we'll argue about what the other issues are.

00:55:45.400 But that's the problem for him, Mike, is that the allegations are that when faced with that subpoena, whether he had the rights to the documents or not, he didn't comply.

00:55:56.220 He kept the documents.

00:55:57.620 That's why the feds found.

00:55:59.120 I know they only made an issue out of 30 of them, but some hundred documents that still had the markings classified on them when they raided Mar-a-Lago.

00:56:07.340 I would say this.

00:56:08.340 There is no criminal component to the Presidential Records Act.

00:56:11.360 Right.

00:56:11.560 And so what was the criminal predicate for this subpoena?

00:56:14.960 Right.

00:56:15.440 And that's the issue is if it's an unlawful subpoena.

00:56:17.180 OK, but if there isn't one.

00:56:18.320 So, yes.

00:56:18.720 So take it.

00:56:19.380 So let's say for argument's sake, there wasn't one.

00:56:21.580 They failed to state a crime that would have justified that subpoena.

00:56:26.020 What does that do?

00:56:26.960 What does that mean?

00:56:28.320 Well, I mean, it means the subpoena is not lawful.

00:56:31.080 And so that the issue is, is if you're issuing an unlawful subpoena because there's not a criminal predicate, how can you obstruct justice for an unlawful subpoena?

00:56:39.240 There's a 2019 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel that is binding on the executive branch.

00:56:46.340 It is the Office of Legal Counsel is the general counsel for the executive branch.

00:56:50.760 And this was during the Mueller probe.

00:56:52.340 And essentially, this OLC memo says you can't obstruct justice into investigations of non-crimes with very few exceptions.

00:57:00.800 So if they are investigating the non-crime of a former president having his presidential records, which is allowed by the Presidential Records Act, how can you obstruct, how can Trump have obstructed justice by being a jerk and not responding to the subpoena when the subpoena was issued pursuant to a non-crime?

00:57:20.700 Right.

00:57:20.980 Why didn't you would think of something?

00:57:22.800 Dave's a prosecutor.

00:57:23.940 He's a prosecutor.

00:57:24.800 What's the answer to that?

00:57:25.740 Do you agree with that?

00:57:27.600 No, I don't.

00:57:28.560 And I think Mike may be conflating the search warrant with the subpoena.

00:57:31.700 The search warrant, yes, you need to have evidence that there's a crime there.

00:57:35.640 But when you send out a subpoena, that's different.

00:57:38.260 I mean, how else would the government get these nuclear secrets back just by asking politely?

00:57:43.000 They did that.

00:57:43.860 So if you can't send out a subpoena to require them to be turned over, how else could you ever get them to be turned over?

00:57:49.980 Well, what's the predicate crime?

00:57:51.960 I mean, you think the government could just issue subpoenas to American citizens without an underlying crime?

00:57:57.740 I mean, that seems like a problem.

00:58:00.580 There has to be an underlying crime, and there's not an underlying crime.

00:58:03.260 We carve out exceptions for the president of the United States.

00:58:05.580 Okay, wait, let him answer.

00:58:06.240 This is interesting.

00:58:07.100 I would say the underlying crime, if you need an underlying crime, it would be the violation of the Espionage Act, the unlawful retention.

00:58:13.660 Once you're no longer president, you can't keep nuclear secrets.

00:58:17.280 And so that's the underlying crime.

00:58:19.780 And if you say, well, that statute doesn't apply, well, they have a good faith basis to believe it does.

00:58:24.560 And I would submit that because of national security reasons, you don't need to have the crime.

00:58:29.220 If someone has some sensitive documents that they will not turn over, you can send them a subpoena.

00:58:34.000 But regardless, either way, he got the subpoena and he admits that he just thought he didn't have to respond to it.

00:58:40.300 So that's where he's really in a lot of trouble because obstruction is the big whammy here, punishable about the 20 years in prison.

00:58:46.240 It is the big whammy.

00:58:47.040 It's definitely where he's most vulnerable.

00:58:48.700 Here's the thing that I continue to struggle with.

00:58:52.320 And you guys know for since the Mar-a-Lago raid, I've been doing a good faith search to try to understand whether I believe Mike's arguments, which are strong, and I get it.

00:59:00.900 And you're one of the smartest people I know, Mike, or whether I agree with you, Dave, and more Andy McCarthy, who are on the other side on the Presidential Records Act.

00:59:08.360 You know, a judge eventually is going to decide this, and that person's opinion and the appellate court's opinions will be more important than my own.

00:59:14.920 But, you know, what Andy McCarthy's been writing all along is that the Presidential Records Act and the Clinton sock case say you can take with you personal, personal papers, a diary, which is what Clinton was working on with an author.

00:59:29.340 And those papers were to advance his diary.

00:59:33.560 But you don't get ownership of the CIA's briefings, their documents, of the FBI's documents, just because they came to you as president.

00:59:42.800 They don't become yours.

00:59:44.120 They remain the documents of the people, your personal documents, your notes that are made for your diary, but not necessarily even your notes on those documents if it relates to the business of the government.

00:59:53.120 That would still be the people's.

00:59:54.820 That's his argument.

00:59:56.660 This is why I asked Trump this follow-up question in SOT 16, which was also played at length over on the, you know, other channels.

01:00:03.460 Watch.

01:00:06.620 I am covered 100%.

01:00:09.660 I got it.

01:00:10.120 There's a dispute about that, about whether presidential.

01:00:13.280 You can dispute it.

01:00:14.180 Just so my audience doesn't.

01:00:15.080 I don't think there's any dispute that I'm covered under the Presidential Records Act.

01:00:18.460 Well, you're covered, but it's not clear that it allowed you to take all those documents.

01:00:22.160 You can't say.

01:00:22.720 It says what it says.

01:00:24.540 You're allowed.

01:00:25.360 Do you believe that every CIA document that came to you as president was automatically yours to keep, no matter what?

01:00:30.300 I'm not going to answer that question.

01:00:31.940 So that's the dispute.

01:00:34.980 What did you make of that, Dave?

01:00:37.020 That was brilliant.

01:00:38.220 I mean, really, Megan, if you want to do a part-time role in my office as prosecutor, we'd love to have you.

01:00:44.880 I might.

01:00:45.820 I might.

01:00:46.180 But you asked the right questions, and you can tell by the former president's comments saying, I don't have to tell you, or I don't want to tell you.

01:00:53.440 Whatever that response was, that's when he knew you had him back to a corner on that one.

01:00:58.320 What did you make of that, Mike?

01:01:00.880 Look, I mean, all you have to do is look at the statute.

01:01:03.600 Look at what it says.

01:01:04.660 It's any document created or received by the president or his White House staff.

01:01:10.180 There is a carve-out for agency records, but those are agency records that are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, right?

01:01:17.920 Classified records are not.

01:01:19.680 And why do we think that a president can be trusted with our nation's most sensitive documents and secrets, but the second he leaves office, we can't?

01:01:31.500 I mean, that's absurd.

01:01:32.940 Of course he can look at his presidential records.

01:01:35.140 If you look at-

01:01:35.600 Another question for you.

01:01:36.160 That's a good point, but I want to ask you a quick other question.

01:01:40.020 Vice President Pence has said there was a process for declassifying documents in the Trump White House, and that we followed it a few times.

01:01:47.360 And he could remember a couple of instances in terms of what they did to declassify.

01:01:53.280 So, Trump is now saying, when I have them, they become unclassified.

01:01:59.180 That's what he's saying.

01:02:00.440 That doesn't square with the White House actually going through steps to declassify documents from time to time.

01:02:07.340 If everything, if he had a standing order, as his White House did claim, and when he got, as he, as his people claimed, his lawyers claimed, he had a standing order to declassify, you know, when he shipped it off to Mar-a-Lago, literally nobody has any record of it.

01:02:21.360 Vice President Pence didn't know about it.

01:02:23.160 John Bolton, former National Security Advisor, didn't know about it.

01:02:26.160 His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, didn't know about it.

01:02:28.000 The chief of staff prior to Mark Meadows didn't know about it.

01:02:30.640 So, Mike, how does that, how does any of that square?

01:02:32.580 If the president's going to go in there and say, I just thought it with my mind, there didn't have to be any, quote, ritual, is what he said.

01:02:37.880 They just became declassified instantly upon my receipt of them.

01:02:43.280 It's going to be hard to square that with the fact that they did take steps to declassify certain documents along the way, no?

01:02:48.500 The classification argument is irrelevant.

01:02:50.960 It doesn't matter whether these documents are classified or not under the Presidential Records Act, right?

01:02:56.180 Under the president, of course, there are classified presidential records.

01:02:59.380 There are a lot of classified presidential records, and he's allowed to access them anytime he wants under the Presidential Records Act.

01:03:06.340 That's why Congress gives former presidents federally funded staff with security clearances, secure office space, secret service protection.

01:03:13.420 But actually, what Trump is arguing, even if it were relevant, whether it's classified or not, he is correct.

01:03:19.640 Under the Clinton software case, the judge said that the mere fact that President Clinton took these highly classified 79 tapes, eight years of his presidency, highly classified audio recordings of his presidency, the mere fact that President Clinton took them and didn't turn them over to the librarians at the National Archives, deems them personal under the Presidential Records Act.

01:03:44.840 You may think that that decision is wrong, but guess what? That is the controlling decision for former presidents.

01:03:50.660 It's really the only one that's, you know, at close to on point.

01:03:54.400 It was at the federal district court level, so it hasn't been tested up on appeal.

01:03:57.960 This will be.

01:03:58.700 I mean, one thing those guys said over there, one of them said, was Trump's defense is really going to rise or fall in the courts, like with the judges, as opposed to in front of juries, because this discussion you guys and I are having right now is going to happen in front of the people who count.

01:04:14.520 You know, you know, the judges, you know, the judges, the appellate court judges and probably ultimately the Supreme Court.

01:04:18.900 So at least in that lane, the juries may wind up proving irrelevant.

01:04:23.740 Wanted to get to one other piece of it.

01:04:25.460 Just to clarify, I asked Trump about this document he was allegedly waving around.

01:04:30.680 This is a significant part of Jack Smith's case against him.

01:04:33.880 He said that Trump had an Iraq attack, sorry, Iran attack plan that was drafted by Mark Milley to attack Iran and that he was waving it around people at Bedminster like, ha ha ha.

01:04:45.480 Look at this.

01:04:46.040 I wasn't the warmonger.

01:04:47.100 Mark Milley was the warmonger.

01:04:48.360 He's in the paper saying I'm I want a war.

01:04:50.580 Look what this lunatic said to me.

01:04:52.260 He wanted to attack Iran.

01:04:53.300 And here's the document showing it.

01:04:54.780 It's classified.

01:04:55.960 I could have declassified it as president, but now I can't.

01:04:58.520 Well, Jack Smith's made a big deal out of it.

01:05:01.200 We've heard the tape.

01:05:01.920 There was a tape that mysteriously got leaked to CNN.

01:05:04.920 Gee, wonder how that happened from this imparted impartial DOJ.

01:05:08.120 Anyway, we heard it.

01:05:09.960 So I asked him about it and he kind of tried to wiggle on what he told Brett Baer, which was there was no document.

01:05:17.960 I had newspapers.

01:05:18.940 I had magazine articles, but there was no document.

01:05:21.320 First, I'll show you the exchange I had with Trump on it yesterday.

01:05:23.600 We've all now heard the audio tape of you post-presidency showing third parties some sort of document that you're describing as secret.

01:05:35.380 Allegedly, it was a Department of Defense Mark Milley plan to attack Iran.

01:05:39.560 Now, this is at a meeting right here at Bedminster, where we are now.

01:05:42.060 You later told Brett Baer in an interview that you had no document that day, only newspapers and magazines.

01:05:48.240 But we hear you on the tape.

01:05:50.300 We hear you saying, quote, look, this was him.

01:05:52.580 This was the Defense Department and him.

01:05:54.520 It's highly confidential.

01:05:55.780 This is secret.

01:05:56.760 This was done by the military and given to me as president.

01:05:59.720 I could have declassified it.

01:06:01.160 Now I can't.

01:06:02.060 This is still a secret.

01:06:03.600 Now, why would you describe a newspaper article as highly confidential and still a secret, saying as president you could have declassified it, but now you can't?

01:06:12.420 Let me just tell you something.

01:06:14.100 Number one, I did nothing wrong because I come under the Presidential Records Act.

01:06:18.160 Let's get to my question.

01:06:19.520 Why would you be holding up a newspaper saying this is still secret?

01:06:24.180 I'd have to look at it.

01:06:25.200 I could declassify it if I were president.

01:06:26.400 I would have to look at it.

01:06:27.860 But that's what you told Brett Baer.

01:06:28.880 You told Brett Baer that that was a newspaper or a magazine.

01:06:30.580 I could have declassified it.

01:06:31.580 But no, I also told Brett Baer, as I remember, I don't know, it was a long time interview.

01:06:35.700 Will you tell me what were you waving around in that meeting?

01:06:37.120 I also told Brett Baer that it wasn't a classified document.

01:06:41.640 What were you waving around in that meeting?

01:06:43.480 Because it certainly sounds like it was an attack plan.

01:06:44.240 I'm not going to talk to you about that because that's already been, I think, very substantiated and there's no problem with it.

01:06:50.740 It hasn't been substantiated.

01:06:51.960 Jack Smith says it was the attack plan.

01:06:53.840 And you told Brett Baer.

01:06:54.820 Let me tell you.

01:06:55.820 Here we go again.

01:06:57.360 I'm covered by the Presidential Records Act.

01:06:59.800 I'm allowed to do what I want to do.

01:07:03.360 You guys are both laughing as you watch that.

01:07:06.060 Just for the record, here is what he told Brett Baer.

01:07:09.220 And you were recorded saying that you had a document detailing a planned attack on another country that was prepared by the U.S. military for you when you were president, the Iran attack plan.

01:07:19.020 You remember that?

01:07:20.620 Ready?

01:07:21.140 You were recorded.

01:07:21.980 It wasn't a document.

01:07:22.760 OK.

01:07:23.060 I had lots of paper.

01:07:24.400 I had copies of newspaper articles.

01:07:26.500 I had copies of magazines.

01:07:27.920 I know.

01:07:28.220 Brett.

01:07:28.840 There was no document.

01:07:29.940 That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things.

01:07:36.060 And it may have been held up or may not.

01:07:38.240 But that was not a document.

01:07:39.520 I didn't have a document, per se.

01:07:41.220 There was nothing to declassify.

01:07:42.620 These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.

01:07:45.560 I mean, you know, just so you guys know this, the audience, I don't ask these questions without doing my homework.

01:07:55.660 Like, especially sitting with the president, the former president, or at a presidential debate, I do not go in willy-nilly and try to make shit up.

01:08:03.840 I was trying to get to the bottom of it.

01:08:05.280 I think somebody probably has advised him now, Dave, stop talking about that.

01:08:09.820 Like, I think probably all of us would have said, Mr. President, stop talking.

01:08:13.880 Don't, like, when you get to the subject of the indictments, just say, it's bullshit.

01:08:17.820 It's election interference.

01:08:18.960 That's all I'm going to say, because they're trying to get me.

01:08:22.460 Megan, this is why the documents case is the strongest case against Trump.

01:08:26.000 Because his only defense is that he had declassified the documents.

01:08:31.700 But when he is on that recording saying, I can't show you this because I didn't declassify it.

01:08:37.820 I need to declassify it, that ends that defense.

01:08:40.880 And it really doesn't matter what he's waiving.

01:08:42.520 He can be waiving his golf scores.

01:08:44.660 It doesn't matter because it shows what he knew about the declassification process and that he had not completed it.

01:08:52.640 Interesting.

01:08:53.260 Go ahead, Mike.

01:08:54.960 Again, whether it's classified or not under the Espionage Act, if you look at them, that's not the relevant inquiry.

01:09:02.580 That's a factor that you can look at.

01:09:04.860 But think about this.

01:09:05.760 Let's say at the worst case scenario that President Trump actually had Milley's war plan, which do they have the documents?

01:09:13.240 I don't know if they even have those documents.

01:09:15.060 It seems like they do.

01:09:16.100 The amended, the superseding indictment suggested that they did that they did find it.

01:09:20.520 And just FYI, Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, had his book in the ghostwriter's first draft, said he saw it.

01:09:25.820 The ghostwriter saw the document at Mar-a-Lago in Trump's.

01:09:28.400 I'm sorry, in Bedminster, in Trump's office.

01:09:30.640 Then they removed that.

01:09:32.260 And Mark Milley said he took it out because he just couldn't believe it.

01:09:35.120 But now he sees it differently and he does believe it.

01:09:36.740 Sorry.

01:09:36.960 Go ahead.

01:09:37.840 What I would say is this, is that he's having an off-the-record discussion with a reporter and he's flipping a document in front of the reporter.

01:09:46.460 Did he give the document to the reporter and let the reporter read the document?

01:09:50.700 Or did he flip it in front of the report, right?

01:09:53.320 And so that's a key thing that you have to look at.

01:09:55.860 And that's something that will have to be figured out at trial.

01:09:58.580 If he's flipping a document in front of a reporter and the reporter can't read the document, how is he revealing national security secrets to a document?

01:10:06.100 It looks like he's showing off a trophy, a prize.

01:10:09.220 Megan, can I add something to that?

01:10:11.360 Yeah, go ahead.

01:10:11.660 He's not being charged with dissemination.

01:10:13.880 He's being charged on the Espionage Act with unlawful retention.

01:10:17.400 So whether he showed it to the reporter or not, he's not being charged with the dissemination of that document.

01:10:22.680 The power of that recording is, as I was saying, is the fact that he knows the declassification process and he knows he didn't do it.

01:10:30.340 But again, under the Presidential Records Act, he's allowed to have his presidential records.

01:10:35.540 It doesn't matter whether they're classified.

01:10:37.400 But Mike, then why didn't he just say to Brett Baer, yes, I had the Iran attack plan.

01:10:42.180 I waved it around.

01:10:43.300 Didn't show it to anybody.

01:10:44.440 But that was the Iran attack plan.

01:10:45.860 I had the right to have it.

01:10:48.160 He showed up.

01:10:48.980 But guess what?

01:10:49.440 It doesn't matter whether you think what you're doing is lawful or not.

01:10:52.880 It's it's what's the law?

01:10:55.220 Why did he say that to me yesterday?

01:10:56.900 Why did he say I'm not going to tell you I'm not going to answer that?

01:10:59.920 He's not a lawyer.

01:11:00.780 I don't know.

01:11:01.240 I mean, I'm not advising him on this, but I would say that he shouldn't be talking about this stuff.

01:11:05.860 That's why he should keep his mouth shut.

01:11:07.840 I mean, listen, I'm happy he spoke to me.

01:11:10.220 But stop asking.

01:11:11.120 Well, I know.

01:11:12.900 I mean, look, it's not my obligation not to ask.

01:11:14.760 Right.

01:11:15.000 It's his obligation to say, I know where the lines are and I'm not going to cross them.

01:11:19.020 But I do think, you know, there's a question about is he trying to do jury nullification?

01:11:22.440 Because that's actually what Neil Katyal was saying, that he's trying to do jury nullification,

01:11:26.700 just get his defense out there, trying to muddy the waters a little bit so that people

01:11:30.260 just have it in their heads.

01:11:31.240 Like, wait a minute.

01:11:31.960 Isn't there a question?

01:11:32.620 Maybe he didn't do it.

01:11:33.580 I think at the end of the day, at the end of the day, President Trump knows that these

01:11:38.780 cases are going to be decided by the American people on November 5th, 2024, regardless of

01:11:44.300 what happens in the courts.

01:11:45.820 And so I think that he's running for president on November 5th, 2024.

01:11:50.220 And that's why he's making these political public arguments.

01:11:53.400 Go ahead.

01:11:53.980 And I agree with Mike.

01:11:55.000 Yeah, I agree with Mike on that.

01:11:56.360 I think his best defense on the Mar-a-Lago documents case is to get elected president

01:12:00.960 again and then tell the DOJ to call it off or to get jury nullification, where he's got

01:12:06.720 a very favorable jury pool.

01:12:08.460 Four out of the five counties that it's going to pull from are red counties in the 5th of

01:12:12.360 the Swing County.

01:12:13.520 And he's got a judge.

01:12:14.040 This is your neighborhood, so you know.

01:12:15.840 Yeah, it's my backyard.

01:12:17.460 And the judge there, Judge Cannon, although she gave a ruling favorable to Jack Smith just

01:12:21.940 yesterday or two days ago, but she has given the former president a lot of favorable rulings

01:12:28.180 up to this point.

01:12:28.940 So I think he thinks he's got a favorable judge, favorable jury pool.

01:12:32.200 And if he can push this out as far as possible, he'll get away with it.

01:12:36.240 All right.

01:12:36.760 Now, here's what I wanted to say about the Lawrence O'Donnell segment.

01:12:41.060 So they went on.

01:12:42.280 It was I mean, it might have gone on longer than 20 minutes.

01:12:44.200 I have no idea.

01:12:44.740 I don't have the stomach to watch that.

01:12:46.060 But went on and on and on.

01:12:48.640 They played so many clips from the interview.

01:12:50.940 You know what?

01:12:51.420 It never came out of Lawrence O'Donnell's mouth.

01:12:55.580 My name.

01:12:57.540 Thanks to the Megan Kelly show in a Megan Kelly interview.

01:13:00.380 Megan Kelly show aired this today.

01:13:02.060 You can you can use my clips.

01:13:03.500 We put them out to everybody.

01:13:04.380 We didn't say don't touch our clips.

01:13:05.780 We said you can use them.

01:13:07.340 Fucking credit the show.

01:13:08.500 Right.

01:13:08.740 They put it.

01:13:09.200 Sorry.

01:13:09.800 Sorry.

01:13:10.280 I try not to swear in front of you guys.

01:13:12.060 But they put it in a chyron and that was it.

01:13:14.840 He never said it.

01:13:16.480 Never said it.

01:13:17.360 Which is what reminded me of this Muhammad Ali.

01:13:20.840 Click.

01:13:22.360 Why don't you call me my name, man?

01:13:24.900 Well, what's your name?

01:13:25.820 You told me your name was Cassius Clay a few years ago.

01:13:28.300 I never told you my name was Cassius Clay.

01:13:30.260 My name is Muhammad Ali.

01:13:32.000 And you will announce it right there in the center of that ring after the fight if you don't do it now.

01:13:36.860 Acting just like an old Uncle Tom.

01:13:39.680 Another Clyde Patterson.

01:13:41.100 I'm going to punish you.

01:13:42.080 Tell me something.

01:13:42.980 You ain't got the back on me, man.

01:13:44.700 Don't call me the Laca Tom.

01:13:46.060 That's what you are.

01:13:46.940 I'm on the tongue.

01:13:47.980 Back on me, man.

01:13:49.440 Back on me.

01:13:52.260 Then he beats him down in the ring.

01:13:54.280 And in the middle of the fight, he says to the guy, say my name.

01:13:58.240 Say my name.

01:14:01.280 Rude.

01:14:01.740 It was rude.

01:14:02.640 That's all I'm going to say.

01:14:03.400 I won't make you comment on Lawrence O'Donnell.

01:14:05.280 See, it doesn't hurt if you say it.

01:14:06.600 Lawrence O'Donnell.

01:14:07.080 That's fine.

01:14:07.600 They can handle the saying of the name of somebody who they might not like.

01:14:11.440 Quick update before we go.

01:14:12.780 Timeline of the Garland Exchange and domestic terrorists.

01:14:16.120 First, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden White House suggesting,

01:14:20.140 quote, the threats and acts of violence at school board meetings might be, quote, domestic terrorism.

01:14:24.920 Then Garland responded by directing his agency to review strategies to address the harassment and the threat.

01:14:31.320 FBI's counterterrorism division.

01:14:34.080 Hello.

01:14:34.320 So then created a, quote, threat tag based on Garland's memo.

01:14:38.980 Then the National School Board Association later admitted there was no justification for some of the language in that letter.

01:14:44.480 In a Senate hearing, Merrick Garland hit back and said the language in that letter was not contained in his memo.

01:14:50.360 But he said he has no plans to rescind his memorandum and said the School Board Association's concerns were justified.

01:14:56.280 Senator Grassley then said to Merrick Garland, the last thing the Justice Department and the FBI need is a very vague memo to unleash their power, especially when they've shown zero interest in holding their own accountable.

01:15:08.260 So interesting.

01:15:09.440 You guys are great.

01:15:10.260 Thanks for being here.

01:15:12.080 Thank you.

01:15:12.820 Mohammed Megan.

01:15:13.340 Mohammed Megan just took down David.

01:15:14.940 That was great.

01:15:15.560 All right.

01:15:16.280 Hey, took down David.

01:15:18.140 No, don't don't screw up my my future role as a junior prosecutor, Mike.

01:15:23.900 Come on.

01:15:24.220 Stop that.

01:15:24.880 That's true.

01:15:25.300 That's true.

01:15:25.800 Never mind.

01:15:26.660 Mike, good to be with you.

01:15:27.700 Thank you, Megan Kelly.

01:15:30.780 Thank you.

01:15:31.680 Great to see you, Dave Ehrenberg.

01:15:33.200 You too, Mike Davis.

01:15:34.140 To be continued.

01:15:34.800 Have a great weekend.

01:15:36.040 Up next, Peter Schweitzer is here.

01:15:37.720 He's an expert on all things Hunter.

01:15:39.080 We'll get into it and we'll talk about the impeachment.

01:15:44.600 Joining me now for more on the Hunter Biden indictment and impeachment inquiry into President Biden is Peter Schweitzer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and host of the Drill Down podcast.

01:15:55.600 Peter, welcome back to the show.

01:15:56.560 So let's just kick it off with what you think of the Hunter Biden criminal charges on the gun charge alone.

01:16:02.700 Well, I got to tell you, Megan, it's a little bit like a criminal who robs a bank and they get pulled over and charged with a speeding violation.

01:16:11.060 I think the gun charge is real in the sense that he did violate that law, but it's the least important and least interesting, I think, of all the legal challenges that Hunter Biden faces.

01:16:21.820 I also think it's the charge that he's most likely to get sympathy from a jury on.

01:16:27.020 Basically, I made this one decision.

01:16:28.940 I didn't sign this form correctly.

01:16:30.640 I've got this this gun that I shouldn't have gotten.

01:16:35.080 So to me, it's it's it's pretty weak tea.

01:16:38.240 And, you know, behind all of it is you have a prosecutor in this case that has been reluctant to really do anything with regards to Hunter Biden.

01:16:46.280 So I don't think the indictment has much meaning at all.

01:16:49.980 I think most of the action we're going to see is on the congressional side with the Oversight Committee and, of course, now with the new powers through the impeachment process.

01:16:59.160 Yes. Yes. OK, so the impeachment process. Let's talk about what's happening there.

01:17:03.740 The White House reportedly they're not worried. They're not worried about this at all.

01:17:08.760 There's a long report today. I think it's in Politico talking about how they've had lawyers looking at this for months now.

01:17:13.560 They knew something like this might be coming.

01:17:15.120 They're very armed to defend and they put out despite the fact they're not worried at all.

01:17:20.300 Not worried at all, Peter. They put out this like long talking points memo and then demanded that the press cover the impeachment story in a certain way, demanding that it is time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans covering impeachment as a process story.

01:17:35.960 Republicans say X, but the White House says Y is a disservice to the American public.

01:17:41.900 You will cover it our way or we will, I guess, get you censored or come after you.

01:17:46.720 Who knows what the threat is? And they put out like a long talking points memo on and saying these are all the things you're going to hear and all while they're why they're not true.

01:17:56.740 I'll just give you a couple. One Republican claim. Joe Biden engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign natural or national.

01:18:06.220 They say that FBI form is only the memorialization of a tip to the FBI. It's not documented proof.

01:18:14.680 And that Bill Barr looked at this very FBI form in which an informant says Joe Biden took a bribe while vice president to help out Burisma.

01:18:24.200 And they both profited that they say Bill Barr under Trump, the then AG, found this to not be supported by the facts.

01:18:34.580 I think there's more to that story. Yeah, there is, Megan.

01:18:38.200 You know, a couple of things. First of all, the White House lawyers are very confident there's nothing there.

01:18:42.980 That operates under the assumption that the Biden family has actually been honest with the White House as to what those commercial ties were and what actually went on.

01:18:52.680 They've been very confident for years repeating the statements that, you know, Joe Biden had no involvement with his son's business.

01:18:59.600 He had no knowledge of his business. He had no interactions with his business partners, all of which ended up being lies.

01:19:06.020 So they may be confident, but I am still not convinced that the Biden family is being completely candid with the Biden White House and perhaps even the lawyers.

01:19:17.220 The second thing I'd say, Megan, is, you know, what they want to say is unless you can prove that Joe Biden himself received money and essentially the standard of proof they want is videotape.

01:19:29.240 Joe Biden on videotape taking money. It's not a bribe. And that's simply not true.

01:19:35.120 All you have to do is look at the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or even look at the international bribery standards.

01:19:41.500 These were the international standards for determining the legal definition of bribery that were signed in 2011 by the Obama-Biden administration.

01:19:50.900 Both the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and those international standards say it's bribery whether the politician gets paid or whether a family member gets paid.

01:20:01.580 So it does not really matter. You don't have to prove that Joe Biden got paid for taking a particular government action.

01:20:09.480 If you can demonstrate, and I think there's already conclusive evidence of this, that the Biden family was paid for certain services to be rendered and that Joe Biden rendered some of those services, that is end of story bribery.

01:20:24.820 Every bit as much as if Joe Biden himself took the money.

01:20:28.740 That's very interesting and a very important point.

01:20:31.280 They don't need to show a payment into Joe Biden's bank account.

01:20:34.560 The payment into Hunter's is enough. And we know he got paid by Burisma over many years or many months, at least.

01:20:42.640 The other thing I wanted to mention is Bill Barr said publicly it is not true that they're now claiming that he closed it, that he found it not to be supported by the facts.

01:20:52.540 What he said to the Federalist in June of 2023 is, quote, that's not true what they were claiming then.

01:20:57.300 It was not closed down. It was sent to Delaware for further investigation.

01:21:01.960 Bill Barr did not look at this and say there's no there there.

01:21:04.600 He sent it to David Weiss to look further into the possibility that there was a bribe.

01:21:10.880 And we know from the IRS whistleblowers that the DOJ, that David Weiss's team had no interest in pursuing anything related to, quote, the big guy, Joe Biden.

01:21:21.560 Never mind Hunter Biden's alleged corruption.

01:21:23.880 They shut these guys down at every turn.

01:21:25.800 Now they claim, number two, Joe Biden, as they're saying, Republicans are claiming Joe Biden as VP got the Ukrainian prosecutor fired in order to help the company where his son served on the board.

01:21:38.140 Their response is then Vice President Biden was carrying out a policy developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, a policy Republicans also supported and saying that Republican senators echoed Biden in urging the Ukrainian president to reform.

01:21:59.720 The prosecutor general's the prosecutor general's office that it was a consensus, this guy, Victor Shokin, the prosecutor looking into Burisma, had to go.

01:22:07.800 It wasn't a Joe and Hunter operation, Peter.

01:22:10.940 Yeah. You know, it's interesting.

01:22:12.380 John Solomon's done some interesting reporting on this from a FOIA request he made at the State Department.

01:22:17.620 And it's very clear based on those documents that there was not a consensus at the State Department that the prosecutor should go.

01:22:26.220 And I think it's important, Megan, also to put into context the chain of events that are crystal clear that I think demonstrate the fact that this needs to be investigated and looked at for further information of a bribery.

01:22:38.700 And I just I want to run through a couple of points here.

01:22:42.240 April of 2014 is when Hunter Biden gets his deal with Burisma, a million dollars a year.

01:22:48.040 November of 2015, he receives an email from one of the Burisma executives saying that there is a lack of progress being made by Hunter Biden and his team.

01:23:01.020 And he says in the email, there is a single deliverable that he's asking for from Hunter Biden, and that is to close down any inquiry of Nikolai Zlachevsky, the head of Burisma.

01:23:13.920 So explicitly, the Ukrainians are saying this is what we want you to do.

01:23:18.620 Then we know, of course, in December of 2015, based on the testimony of Devin Archer, his business partner, that Hunter Biden and Burisma executives call Joe Biden to discuss having the prosecutor fired.

01:23:32.940 And lo and behold, three months later, the prosecutor is fired.

01:23:37.120 And of course, Joe Biden brags publicly that he's the one that did it.

01:23:41.280 Those chain of events to me are extremely damning because it demonstrates what Burisma was saying the services were that they wanted from Hunter Biden, which was get this prosecutor fired.

01:23:54.400 We now know, based on Devin Archer's testimony, that in fact, they did reach out and talk to Joe Biden and getting the prosecutor fired.

01:24:02.960 All of that, to me, is very, very clear cut evidence that it is warranted to look at this as a bribery investigation.

01:24:10.160 And let's also keep in mind, Megan, that it's not really a defense to say this is something I would have done anyway.

01:24:18.400 You know, my son got paid, but I would have done this anyway.

01:24:21.280 If you're on a local county council and you were going to vote for a development, but you took payoffs from the developers anyway, that's not a defense.

01:24:29.820 You've still committed a crime.

01:24:31.900 So there's a lot more to do here.

01:24:34.020 And I think what the White House's position has been one of constant retreat and the standards that they're sort of putting up are, quite frankly, ridiculous at this point.

01:24:45.320 This is amazing stuff.

01:24:46.240 This is so interesting and so clarifying.

01:24:47.960 You're the best, Peter.

01:24:49.020 John Solomon's been amazing, too.

01:24:50.640 Yes, I've been reading his reports and they're devastating.

01:24:54.380 I mean, they're just devastating.

01:24:55.260 Just to add to what you just said, this is from his timeline, prior to the moments that you were talking about when we got to the fall of 15, when the Ukrainians on Burisma were getting upset, they wanted more bang for their buck from Hunter.

01:25:08.300 So let's go back a little before the fall.

01:25:10.500 Let's go to June of 15, according to John Solomon's reporting.

01:25:13.620 Letter from Victoria Nuland at state.

01:25:15.500 She was the lead on Ukraine.

01:25:16.380 She sent a letter to Shokin, this prosecutor who would get fired, on behalf of then Secretary of State John Kerry, congratulating Victor Shokin, suggesting they were impressed about the job he was doing on corruption reform.

01:25:29.700 This is the guy who would then be fired a few months later.

01:25:31.880 October 15th, now we're in the fall, a task force made up of state treasury and justice officials had decided that Ukraine and its new top prosecutor, Victor Shokin, had made enough progress on their anti-corruption reforms for the country to receive the new $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee.

01:25:53.520 But about a month after that, in October 15th, now we're moving on to November and December, when Hunter was getting more active, getting Joe, having the meeting set up, Joe and his top advisors did an about face on Victor Shokin, contradictory to what career staff recommended, ultimately demanded his firing, which did happen in March of 2016 as a result of Joe Biden.

01:26:15.540 None of that's mentioned in the little White House talking points, Peter.

01:26:18.120 It's weird how that didn't.

01:26:19.800 Yeah, it is.

01:26:20.540 It's very, very strange, Megan.

01:26:22.200 And this is the problem.

01:26:23.980 The evidentiary trail is working against them.

01:26:26.920 You know, here's another issue that I think the committee can look into on impeachment.

01:26:31.660 And this is very black and white and very clear cut.

01:26:34.700 If you look at Joe Biden's tax returns, which, of course, you know, the 2017 tax return he would have filed in 2018, the 2018 tax return he would have filed in 2019.

01:26:44.860 He lists the income for Celtic Capri, which is his LLC, as $9.6 million in 2017 and $3 million in 2018.

01:26:55.600 So for a total of $12.6 million.

01:26:58.600 Now, when he decides to run for president in 2019, he's getting a lot of scrutiny already by some people in the press asking about his financial relationship, if any, with his son.

01:27:12.000 In 2019, he files a form with the Office of Government Ethics.

01:27:16.660 And this form is filled out by the same accounting team that had done his taxes.

01:27:21.520 In the Office of Government Ethics during that same time period for the same company, Celtic Capri, he doesn't list $12.6 million of income.

01:27:32.680 He lists only $7.4.

01:27:35.300 So there's literally $5.2 million of income missing in his more recent disclosure.

01:27:42.740 How does that happen?

01:27:43.940 How are you off by 40% on your taxes?

01:27:47.460 And my presumption would be the taxes would be the more accurate because there's a tax liability issue.

01:27:53.560 That's the very sort of question that I think the Congress needs to be looking into because it goes to this question of, was this Ukrainian money?

01:28:04.060 Was this money from China, the 10% from the big guy deal?

01:28:08.020 There was the head of CEFC had wired $5 million to Hunter Biden and said, this is for the Biden family.

01:28:14.460 Did Joe Biden get some of that?

01:28:17.400 These are all the kinds of questions that the committee needs to go through this inquiry process because the congressional committees that have been looking into this, House Oversight, et cetera, have been stonewalled completely by Team Biden.

01:28:32.560 And now it's going to be tougher now that it's an official impeachment inquiry for anybody, the banks included, to say, no, we won't comply.

01:28:39.680 Interesting, by the way, if they get a subpoena, they have to comply.

01:28:43.200 Just ask Donald Trump, you know, like what's good for the goose.

01:28:46.960 You're prosecuting him for not complying with the subpoena.

01:28:49.660 Shoes on the other foot.

01:28:51.080 Another question for you.

01:28:52.180 This is in the White House defense talking points.

01:28:54.540 Viktor Shokin, that Ukrainian prosecutor, this is the White House saying this, his own deputy, Vitaly Kosko, said that Shokin was not investigating Burisma at the time.

01:29:07.500 They cite Bloomberg, quote, Shokin took no action to pursue cases against Lochevsky.

01:29:14.180 He's the guy who was the head of he founded Burisma throughout 2015.

01:29:19.360 Kasko, this guy, this Shokin's deputy, said he had urged Shokin to pursue the investigations.

01:29:25.440 They're trying to say there's no way Burisma was going to Hunter in the fall of 15 saying, get this guy off our backs because he wasn't on their backs at that time.

01:29:39.240 This is this is just blatantly not true.

01:29:42.000 Can you explain what's happening?

01:29:42.900 I mean, this is such a lie.

01:29:44.380 This White House memo is just full of lies.

01:29:46.900 Yeah, it is.

01:29:47.760 And there's another example.

01:29:48.880 They want to say we talked to this person.

01:29:51.400 This is what he said.

01:29:52.600 Look at what Burisma said at the time.

01:29:54.640 I quoted it in my book, Secret Empires in 2018.

01:29:59.360 Burisma put out a press release at the end of 2016 saying we are no longer under scrutiny by Ukrainian authorities.

01:30:07.140 We've been given a clean bill of health.

01:30:09.380 The prosecutor's office is not looking at us anymore.

01:30:12.540 We are free to do deals overseas.

01:30:14.840 And, you know, we can now participate in some other programs.

01:30:18.040 So Burisma themselves said that they had been under investigation until the end of 2016.

01:30:24.400 So it's just patently false.

01:30:26.540 And to me, Megan, the ongoing frustration, I know you express it all the time, is where is the media with this?

01:30:33.240 I mean, they're being led around by the White House.

01:30:35.480 They're regurgitating these talking points.

01:30:38.860 The White House has consistently lied about so many things involving Hunters and Joe's financial relationship,

01:30:45.040 the financial relationship, the financial relationship with his brother as well.

01:30:49.340 And you would think they would simply look at Burisma's releases over the course of the last several years and see that this claim is just simply not true.

01:30:58.840 Yeah, there is plenty of evidence to show that the that top guy who founded Burisma was in serious trouble well prior to the time they got that prosecutor fired,

01:31:11.180 that he knew they were coming for him and he was lining up his ducks to try to get back into the good graces of everyone there, reestablish his reputation.

01:31:20.680 And that's why it appears he hired Hunter Biden, put him on the board and then began almost immediately leaning on him to try to get himself out of trouble, including with the help of Joe Biden.

01:31:32.300 And there's there's plenty of documentation on that.

01:31:34.120 So there's just like this statement by this second in command to Victor Shokin.

01:31:38.840 Well, I don't know what that guy said or didn't say, but there's a ton of evidence to show that they were under investigation.

01:31:43.900 And notwithstanding that, here is what we get from our media and Democrats.

01:31:49.840 But I repeat myself, soundbite 10.

01:31:52.740 If you had evidence that Joe Biden was linked to Hunter Biden's business deals in a way that is illegal, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

01:32:02.520 Again, no evidence that we have seen.

01:32:05.440 House Republicans so far have failed to show any direct evidence.

01:32:08.300 As for evidence, though, there hasn't been any.

01:32:10.700 And House Republicans have still not delivered any proof of President Biden directly benefiting from his son's business dealings.

01:32:17.500 First, they have to have some evidence that is hard evidence.

01:32:20.480 No evidence, Peter.

01:32:22.200 Yeah, the evidence is there.

01:32:24.200 And again, the fact that the Biden family profited from decisions that Joe Biden made is quite clear.

01:32:31.820 And the Burisma one's a classic example.

01:32:33.480 Everybody kind of mocked when Joe Biden, sorry, when Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board, pointing out he wasn't an energy expert.

01:32:40.460 He wasn't a Ukrainian expert.

01:32:42.180 What was he doing on the Burisma board?

01:32:44.200 We now know he wasn't a Ukraine or energy expert.

01:32:47.600 He was a Joe Biden expert.

01:32:49.340 And that's what they were hiring him to do.

01:32:51.920 And I think the firing of the prosecutor is one example of several that we're going to have greater clarity on going forward.

01:32:59.040 And I think time is against the White House on this.

01:33:03.020 And I do think that if it does come to an impeachment, the Senate's probably not going to vote.

01:33:08.920 They're going to vote along partisan lines.

01:33:10.640 But what we've always wanted, Megan, is the information to come out for people to be aware of what the first family was doing when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States.

01:33:21.060 And I think that's exactly where we're headed.

01:33:22.880 That's right.

01:33:24.220 And so the reason Kevin McCarthy had to declare the inquiry instead of have a vote on it is because he didn't have the votes.

01:33:29.040 There are a lot of moderate Republicans in districts.

01:33:32.500 I think some 18 of them that went for Joe Biden, who don't want to have to vote for this because they want to win reelection.

01:33:37.780 But once this evidence starts to come in, I mean, now that they're really they've got this wide net.

01:33:42.160 Do you think that those Republicans and others like the public opinion on this, it's already in favor of believing that he did something wrong?

01:33:49.040 We've seen that.

01:33:50.580 Do you think it's going to get even stronger?

01:33:52.880 I do, Megan.

01:33:54.200 I think you look at the trend line.

01:33:55.820 As more information has come out, the information is not confirming Joe Biden's story.

01:34:00.920 It is confirming the very serious legal and ethical problems that exist with the way that the Bidens have operated.

01:34:09.600 So I think more sunlight is going to basically lead to sunburn as far as the Bidens are concerned.

01:34:16.240 And that's just the harsh reality that they are facing.

01:34:20.200 The politics of this are separate.

01:34:22.380 But I think when you look at the evidence and the facts, the American people are already there.

01:34:27.320 Every poll that I've seen indicates that 60 percent or more of the American people believe there was something wrong and unethical with what was done here by Joe Biden.

01:34:35.480 We need answers.

01:34:38.140 Peter Schweitzer is one of the honest ones looking for them.

01:34:40.880 Thank you.

01:34:41.500 Thanks so much for being here.

01:34:43.260 I want to tell all of you two things.

01:34:45.840 Go sign up for our American News Minute.

01:34:47.800 It's my email to you every Friday.

01:34:49.100 And we've got some behind the scenes fun things for you, including pictures from my interview with Donald Trump.

01:34:54.780 Go to MeganKelley.com and you can sign up.

01:34:57.540 We don't clog your inbox.

01:34:58.620 We just send you one email a week.

01:35:00.520 I've gotten such great positive feedback on the email.

01:35:02.940 People love it.

01:35:03.840 It's a great way to catch up on what you missed.

01:35:05.500 And check out our full interview with President Donald Trump.

01:35:08.600 It's on podcast.

01:35:09.800 It's on YouTube.com slash MeganKelley.

01:35:11.940 It's everywhere.

01:35:13.300 Have a great, great weekend.

01:35:17.320 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:35:19.180 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 15, 2023

Media and Dems Turn Against Biden and Harris, and Hunter's Gun Charges, with Rich Lowry, Peter Schweizer, Dave Aronberg, and Mike Davis ｜ Ep. 628

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript