The Megyn Kelly Show - Michael Cohen Hammered by Defense, and Raising Resilient Kids, with Gary Vaynerchuk, Andy McCarthy, and Dave Aronberg ｜ Ep. 794

00:00:00.000 Your business doesn't move in a straight line.

00:00:02.800 Some days bring growth, others bring challenges.

00:00:05.940 But what if you or a partner needs to step away?

00:00:08.820 When the unexpected happens, count on Canada Life's flexible life and health insurance

00:00:13.680 to help your business keep working, even when you can't.

00:00:17.020 Don't let life's challenges stand in the way of your success.

00:00:20.460 Protect what you've built today.

00:00:22.500 Visit canadalife.com slash business protection to learn more.

00:00:26.280 Canada Life. Insurance. Investments. Advice.

00:00:30.980 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:43.380 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:46.420 It's Thursday, so the Trump trial is back in session.

00:00:49.780 Michael Cohen back on the stand and getting hammered during cross-examination.

00:00:53.820 It's getting kind of fun from what we hear inside the courtroom.

00:00:56.920 The jury is now paying attention. They no longer look bored.

00:00:59.400 And it's on between the Trump defense attorneys and this proven liar, this admitted liar. 0.99

00:01:06.160 I mean, watching him try to wiggle out of his lies is actually slightly stomach-turning. 1.00

00:01:10.060 He's so gross. I mean, Andy's going to make the point. 0.95

00:01:13.420 He's here, McCarthy, legal guru to us all.

00:01:16.280 I mean, he's just brilliant. 0.99

00:01:18.060 That, you know, it's a little tricky because the more of a scumbag they make this guy into, 1.00

00:01:24.660 and he is a scumbag, the more Trump risks the jury looking at him being like, 1.00

00:01:30.800 this is your right-hand man? 1.00

00:01:32.540 This is the guy you brought on to work for you for over a decade as like your, quote, fixer? 0.99

00:01:37.760 He's disgusting. 0.65

00:01:39.680 Stormy Daniels is a person you allegedly let into your hotel room. 0.99

00:01:43.660 Like, what are you doing?

00:01:45.620 What kind of a person are you?

00:01:47.200 And I'm sorry, but there may be some effect with those married women in the suburbs with all that. 0.99

00:01:54.460 Like, who are these disgusting people?

00:01:56.580 If I ever were to get indicted and they had Abigail Finan on the stand for three days, 0.95

00:02:01.020 I'd be so proud.

00:02:01.880 I'd be beaming with pride.

00:02:03.480 I'd be with love for people to see my right-hand person or my lawyer.

00:02:10.180 My lawyer is an upstanding, well-respected fight.

00:02:13.860 He knows how to fight kind of guy.

00:02:16.180 But like within the lines, he's an ethical man.

00:02:19.060 He hasn't gone to prison.

00:02:21.800 I don't know.

00:02:22.660 It's just gross.

00:02:23.660 It's gross. 0.58

00:02:24.540 I feel disgusting. 0.88

00:02:25.600 I feel like somebody had some disgusting movie on that I had to watch and I didn't want to.

00:02:30.740 Well, anyway, that's what's happening.

00:02:32.280 So Andy's going to be here in Seoul, Dave Ehrenberg, in just a minute.

00:02:35.320 But we begin with a first-time guest on the show.

00:02:39.180 170 million people in America use TikTok right now,

00:02:42.980 as it's being forced to divest from China or be banned in the U.S., right?

00:02:48.860 They're being forced to separate from their ownership or be banned inside the United States.

00:02:52.880 This comes as recent polling finds more and more young people

00:02:55.460 are spending nearly every waking hour online.

00:02:58.180 We've got the perfect guest to discuss how social media is influencing our youth and beyond,

00:03:05.640 and all of us.

00:03:07.680 Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary V, has millions of followers online

00:03:11.900 and is a prolific entrepreneur and investor behind brands like Facebook, Uber, you name it.

00:03:17.360 His rags-to-riches story has inspired people around the globe,

00:03:21.200 and he's generous with his advice to help others to succeed in their own right.

00:03:26.140 This video alone has more than 55 million views on TikTok.

00:03:30.780 Watch.

00:03:30.940 Negativity is dramatically louder than positivity.

00:03:35.160 If you analyze the world, social media, mainstream media, your household,

00:03:41.000 negativity is loud.

00:03:43.180 Positivity tends to be quiet because it's got internal strength to deal with the negativity,

00:03:49.160 and it doesn't bother itself with the negativity.

00:03:52.720 Because of that, we have a world that is louder about bad and quieter about good.

00:03:58.260 When this became obvious to me, I felt like I had to get loud about the truth of the world.

00:04:05.080 And here's the truth.

00:04:06.160 The world is better today than it's ever been in the history of mankind.

00:04:09.300 Yet, so few people believe it.

00:04:11.760 His new book, Day Trading Attention, is set to be released next week

00:04:15.960 and is available for pre-order right now.

00:04:19.160 Your business doesn't move in a straight line.

00:04:22.140 Make sure your team is taken care of through every twist and turn

00:04:25.300 with Canada Life savings, retirement, and benefits plans.

00:04:29.000 Whether you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage,

00:04:32.520 or build a workplace people want to be a part of,

00:04:35.520 Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes,

00:04:39.000 so it's easy to find a solution that works for you.

00:04:42.160 Visit canadalife.com slash employee benefits

00:04:44.860 to learn more.

00:04:46.200 Canada Life.

00:04:47.380 Insurance.

00:04:48.360 Investments.

00:04:49.080 Advice.

00:04:51.080 Gary Vee, welcome to the show.

00:04:53.400 Thank you for having me.

00:04:54.320 It's a pleasure.

00:04:55.220 Okay, so walk me through that,

00:04:56.460 because you seem to be in the business of positivity,

00:04:58.340 and I would venture to say I'm in the opposite kind of business.

00:05:03.380 The news is, we always have fun discussing it,

00:05:06.860 but I wouldn't say it's a positive lane of professionalism.

00:05:11.100 Look, I think I'm empathetic.

00:05:13.020 You know, the news has historically run with the waves of the world, right?

00:05:17.660 If you go look at, you know, the news in 1992 after the Berlin Wall falls,

00:05:22.740 and we're in this moment of pre-internet and good prosperity.

00:05:26.460 And like, so, you know, you just happen to find yourself during an era that looks more like the 60s

00:05:31.580 and other eras where, look, unfortunately, and I don't think anybody on any side is like thrilled

00:05:36.160 that there's so much contentiousness and anxiety and, you know, debate going on.

00:05:42.480 It's exhausting.

00:05:43.540 It's hard.

00:05:44.400 You know, to me, positivity is something people struggle with because most people think it's delusion,

00:05:51.900 and I'm empathetic to that, right?

00:05:53.680 Like, you know, I was born in the Soviet Union and came to this country as a little boy

00:05:59.500 and like, you know, really worked ridiculously hard to get to where I am today.

00:06:04.780 And the only way you do that is not through delusion.

00:06:07.740 It's through action and practicality.

00:06:09.400 So for me, believe it or not, I actually think positivity is practical because I do believe

00:06:13.980 that humans find what they're looking for.

00:06:16.160 To your point, when you have to report on the news, and if there is a lot of anxiety and

00:06:22.060 tension and conflict going on, well, that's going to be what you're seeing, right?

00:06:26.760 On the flip side, if you're someone like me that focuses on entrepreneurship and growth

00:06:31.420 and where the opportunities are, every day I'm seeing people create new, incredible

00:06:37.340 things for themselves and their families and for the people around them.

00:06:41.520 And so, you know, to your point, it's just a little bit of the luck of the draw that my

00:06:45.420 life is within entrepreneur land, which is very heavily predicated on offense, aka practical

00:06:52.180 positivity.

00:06:54.020 All right.

00:06:55.040 So you're a big tech investor, which would require some positivity in the early days, the

00:06:59.280 ability to see the dream and not crap all over it because it hasn't yet been realized.

00:07:03.820 And you've done very well in choosing where to invest.

00:07:07.800 I mean, Facebook, that seems like a good one.

00:07:09.320 I know you're mad at yourself for not investing more in Uber, but how were you able to see the

00:07:14.880 seams in those stories, right?

00:07:16.140 How were you able to see the vision when so many did not?

00:07:20.520 It's why I wrote this new book, Day Trading Attention.

00:07:24.060 Think about, let's break that down.

00:07:25.140 Where is the attention of society right now, platform-wise, and what's interesting in culture?

00:07:33.240 So I focus on two things, distribution and what topics are.

00:07:37.780 This is something that will land with you very well because you've masterly built an incredible

00:07:42.100 career, I think, in understanding both of these things.

00:07:45.540 I think it's getting more complicated now.

00:07:47.620 I don't have to tell you, since you grew up in that industry and era, television is changing.

00:07:52.800 What we're doing together right now, you and I, radio has changed, both with Sirius and

00:07:57.520 podcasting.

00:07:58.800 And social, I think, is just an enormous thing that people misunderstand.

00:08:03.340 It is so much bigger.

00:08:05.020 Forget about even the politics of it.

00:08:06.700 Should TikTok be banned and all this?

00:08:08.440 Facebook this.

00:08:09.380 I'm talking about from a marketing business standpoint.

00:08:11.540 I'm talking about Louis Vuitton and BMW and Nike.

00:08:15.100 And very honestly, the people that are driving right now and listening, whether they own a car

00:08:19.440 wash company or a flower shop or a liquor store, or they're a lawyer that wants to get more

00:08:24.160 clients, the amount of opportunity within social is extraordinary.

00:08:29.360 But being good at it's hard.

00:08:31.200 Just telling everybody right now on this show, go post on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok

00:08:35.380 and YouTube shorts and LinkedIn and Snapchat and Pinterest as often as you can.

00:08:41.780 OK, that's nice, Gary.

00:08:42.900 But what about how do you do it?

00:08:45.340 And so, you know, what I'm seeing right now is the greatest opportunity for people to

00:08:50.200 build fame, awareness, win their local elections or sell stuff, grow their business, reverse

00:08:59.460 the negative trends that their business are feeling by growing or starting something.

00:09:04.160 And by far the biggest opportunity is absolutely organic social media, posting diligently, strategically,

00:09:11.380 being good at it, but doing it at volume daily.

00:09:15.680 And I view this kind of like health and wellness.

00:09:17.640 Like if you eat well and you put in work in the gym, miraculously, you look better than if

00:09:24.520 you had not.

00:09:25.940 And so the people that are actually good at day trading, you know, you would be flabbergasted

00:09:30.900 by the level of science and effort that me and my organization, I have 2000, I run a very

00:09:36.680 large advertising agency called VaynerMedia.

00:09:38.780 Think of it as like the, for everybody who's listening, the madmen of this era, right?

00:09:43.040 We're the fastest growing, biggest, largest global agency.

00:09:46.140 We have hundreds of people who are employed every day working on just trying to figure out

00:09:52.120 how the first three seconds of a video should look, what copy should be there?

00:09:56.640 What's the thumbnail?

00:09:57.440 What time should we post?

00:09:59.480 Which platform is giving you more extra reach right now?

00:10:02.280 This is a real skill set.

00:10:04.080 And I would argue, I would argue everybody that's listening to this right now, grossly

00:10:09.220 underestimates a, how complex and fruitful it is to be remarkable at marketing on social,

00:10:17.520 but it's not just social.

00:10:19.020 It's, let me give you a big business one.

00:10:22.040 The Superbowl, Megan, is by far the most underpriced ad and advertising.

00:10:25.560 For $8 million, you get 130 million Americans to watch your video.

00:10:29.960 The problem is, if your 30 second video stinks, you just wasted $30 million because it's not

00:10:36.060 just buying the media, you got to make the commercial, you got to pay the celebrity that's

00:10:39.260 in it, you got to do all this ancillary stuff.

00:10:41.660 So the media is underpriced, the attention is underpriced, but the creative is the variable.

00:10:47.280 Even using your career, there have been many people that have been on television that have

00:10:52.640 been given a shot, but if they're not compelling, if the content isn't good, they don't have long

00:10:59.040 careers with lots of opportunities like you have.

00:11:01.600 So to me, it's not only getting the attention, but then do you know what to do with it once

00:11:06.380 you get it?

00:11:08.600 It's very tricky.

00:11:10.200 I've thought about this in the past when you take somebody like, let's take a Joe Rogan,

00:11:14.560 who one of the things I admire about Joe Rogan is he never gives interviews.

00:11:17.960 He, you never see the splashy magazine layout with Joe in a lawn chair in the hand behind

00:11:24.280 the head, you know, you, you don't see him going on everybody else's podcast to promote

00:11:29.340 his podcast, but he got into it a lot earlier than virtually everyone else.

00:11:35.740 So he's had years and years and years to build it up, but he does almost no promotion.

00:11:40.980 And even like the past couple of years, he's become a bigger star.

00:11:44.220 So he kind of gets, I don't know, organic promotion as people talk about the news he's

00:11:48.260 discussing or making, but how does a guy like that with absolutely no marketing effort

00:11:54.040 become as huge as he has?

00:11:57.720 Distribution, right?

00:11:58.920 When he, and also, and you'll know this because it's the interview game, as you know, so many

00:12:03.880 of the programs that you grow up, you grew up in and probably what you looked up to and

00:12:08.000 admired when you were growing up, the guest mattered, you know, Barbara Walters getting

00:12:12.920 the get mattered.

00:12:14.600 We tuned in because we wanted to actually hear from who she was interviewing.

00:12:18.000 So he interviewed a lot of emerging up and coming comedians and thought leaders, excuse

00:12:24.220 me.

00:12:24.780 And so it was a combination of both being very good at getting people that were on the come 0.99

00:12:30.460 up, which is a big part of how I think about day trading attention.

00:12:33.760 It is about finding emerging talent or emerging trends in fashion, food, politics, news, whatever

00:12:41.180 it might be.

00:12:42.460 And then YouTube has natural distribution.

00:12:44.860 YouTube, I mean, a lot of people don't know this.

00:12:46.840 YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world.

00:12:49.480 Google is number one and YouTube is number two.

00:12:52.060 And a lot of people search those personalities or topics.

00:12:55.540 Joe popped up.

00:12:56.780 They're like, wait, is that the fear factor guy?

00:12:58.320 Is that the UFC guy?

00:12:59.400 They listen.

00:13:00.360 The content was good.

00:13:01.900 And you slowly build.

00:13:03.020 It was funny to hear you say, and you said it right.

00:13:06.040 Joe was in it early.

00:13:07.940 You said it virtually before most correct at scale.

00:13:12.940 Yet back to like what has built my career.

00:13:15.260 Joe started podcasting five or six years after most of the people that I saw start podcasting

00:13:20.340 way back when.

00:13:22.080 Right.

00:13:22.440 And so like, it's crazy how early some of these stuff starts.

00:13:26.620 Now, forget about, again, the political news.

00:13:29.460 That's a whole that's above my pay grade.

00:13:30.960 But TikTok from a marketing standpoint, everyone is aware of it.

00:13:34.220 Now, there's videos of me in 2014 talking about an app called musically, which was basically

00:13:39.880 TikTok and then TikTok bought it and incorporated in.

00:13:42.980 There are people and, you know, this same with research or getting the scoop in news.

00:13:49.280 There are people that are just actually in the dirt, meaning they're they're doing the

00:13:54.900 actual work.

00:13:55.860 They're closer to the consumer.

00:13:57.560 They know what's going on.

00:13:58.920 For example, I wake up every day and I look at the app store to look at the top 100 free

00:14:04.480 apps just to see if anything's emerging on it that might become the next TikTok or Facebook,

00:14:12.120 you know, and and and that's work, right?

00:14:15.200 Like it's you know, it's free information.

00:14:17.600 But I choose to want to know what's rising and that has allowed me to be a good investor

00:14:24.760 and a good marketer.

00:14:26.360 And I think that that is what I would challenge everyone who's listening to so many people

00:14:31.260 listening right now on the left, on the right, in corporate, in entrepreneurial land.

00:14:35.600 They dismiss social because they tried it a little bit or they have some sort of emotional

00:14:40.300 feeling towards it politically, normally or socially bad for the kids, bad for the country,

00:14:45.300 all of which are incredibly valid.

00:14:47.620 What I mean by that is you're allowed to think anything you want.

00:14:50.940 What I'm excited about is for the people that are trying to build something here, this is

00:14:55.540 free distribution.

00:14:57.640 And what's really great, this is really crazy.

00:14:59.600 You'll appreciate this because you've been around it long enough to know how real what

00:15:03.420 I'm about to say is social that you and I grew up with was more like email marketing.

00:15:07.880 We tried to amass as many followers as possible.

00:15:10.440 And then every day, a certain percentage of those people would see our post.

00:15:14.260 Social in the last three years is now every individual post has the potential to get tremendous

00:15:20.660 reach, right?

00:15:22.820 So you showed a video earlier that got 55 million views.

00:15:25.760 I'm going to open it right now just to really, because I want people to be educated with me

00:15:30.040 being on right now.

00:15:30.960 My latest post on TikTok currently has 5,600 views.

00:15:35.880 Nothing, nothing, right?

00:15:38.640 Even though the one before that has 297,000.

00:15:41.800 That was never true for the first decade.

00:15:44.580 You would stay within the same range because you had a certain amount of followers.

00:15:47.320 I have 15 million followers on TikTok.

00:15:48.840 I have a certain amount.

00:15:49.840 I'm going to get a percentage.

00:15:50.960 Now it's about the creative, the actual post.

00:15:54.180 Let me tell you why this is incredibly intoxicating.

00:15:56.700 That means every person listening right now who's never used social to build up their business

00:16:02.600 or any other thing that matters to them, donations for their nonprofit, awareness to support their

00:16:08.920 friend who's running for local office or anything else.

00:16:12.120 That means anyone listening right now who's not put in the 15 years of work that I've put

00:16:16.300 in to get to this place, they can post one video and it can get more views than I've got

00:16:21.520 because they made a good video that people care about.

00:16:23.520 That is a level of meritocracy and democracy that is unheard of in the business and marketing

00:16:28.660 world.

00:16:29.520 That's why social media is so incredibly unbelievable for businesses, entrepreneurs, and corporations.

00:16:36.500 And again, the book is called Day Trading Attention.

00:16:40.680 The person I'm thinking about now is Mr. Beast because I met him at a conference last year

00:16:44.860 and he was there and so was the head of YouTube.

00:16:47.820 And the head of YouTube got up there after Mr. Beast had been interviewed and it was very

00:16:53.400 interesting, but the head of YouTube was saying, Jimmy sits there all day and tries to figure

00:16:58.700 out the YouTube algorithm.

00:17:00.100 He knows it better than I know it.

00:17:01.680 He knows it forward and backward.

00:17:02.540 He knows what hits.

00:17:03.320 He knows what doesn't hit.

00:17:04.540 This is not just some kid who came up with like goofy videos to do that would make people

00:17:08.540 laugh or make people feel good.

00:17:10.240 He figured out early on what you're saying, what will get the 55 million and what won't and

00:17:16.420 exploited it to the max.

00:17:18.260 I don't even know how to start doing that.

00:17:21.460 And by the way, like, cause I think words matter really not exploited it really just

00:17:27.020 strategized it.

00:17:28.160 Right.

00:17:28.400 It's really kind of cool to your point.

00:17:30.380 You made a great point there.

00:17:31.660 People think this is luck.

00:17:33.140 There's no luck in this game.

00:17:35.320 This is a real skillset.

00:17:37.000 You could say LeBron James got lucky, but it's not true.

00:17:41.620 He was gifted physically, but there was a lot of work into it, right?

00:17:45.500 You could say anything you want to your point, Jimmy, I'm sorry, Mr. Beast.

00:17:51.140 Like I've watched him because I've been in the game.

00:17:54.320 I mean, I posted my first YouTube video around wine on February 21st, 2006.

00:17:59.440 The app hadn't even been out for a year.

00:18:01.660 I've been there the whole 18 years.

00:18:04.200 And what I can tell you was very early on, which is why I have a relationship with him.

00:18:08.440 It was obvious to me that he was going to win because he understood thumbnail culture. 0.78

00:18:12.360 He understood cadence.

00:18:14.040 Think about everybody telling you and every show you've ever been on that you got lucky.

00:18:21.640 They don't know how much writing goes into it, how much prep work, the cadence, the strategy

00:18:26.220 of what you're going to say before you go to commercial break when you do television.

00:18:29.540 These are real things.

00:18:31.060 This is real business science.

00:18:33.400 And so that what I'm excited about is the reason I wrote the book is between my agency

00:18:39.380 and where I am in my career and because things are changing so fast right now, what I wrote

00:18:44.200 out here more in a textbook environment than anything else, a blueprint, a manual is what

00:18:51.040 Jimmy, what Mr. Beast Jimmy did on YouTube.

00:18:54.440 There are people doing on every platform from LinkedIn to Pinterest to Facebook to Twitter

00:19:01.440 X.

00:19:02.460 And every person listening has the propensity or opportunity to be better at one or two

00:19:07.020 or the other platforms.

00:19:08.240 I have a lot of pride that I'm one of the few people on earth that has a tremendous following

00:19:12.840 across all of them.

00:19:14.580 And obviously my organization markets on all of them.

00:19:17.100 And what I tried to do in this book was teach people why each platform is different, how

00:19:22.680 you can pop on one versus the other based on these skill sets.

00:19:26.680 Be self-aware and know if you want to be in videos or if you want to be a writer or if

00:19:30.640 you want to do audio.

00:19:32.060 There's a lot of ways to win this game.

00:19:34.360 What I don't want, which is the biggest issue, is I don't want people crying that they can't.

00:19:39.320 I want people to be accountable and understand they can if they choose to.

00:19:43.000 You know, people are sitting out there right now, Gary, thinking,

00:19:45.100 I wasn't on whatever, Fox News.

00:19:49.320 I didn't invest in Facebook.

00:19:51.860 I've got two followers right now.

00:19:54.140 This isn't going to work for me.

00:19:55.420 I'm a home designer or I'm whatever, a photographer.

00:20:00.380 This is never going to work for me.

00:20:02.860 And by the way, I'm empathetic to that.

00:20:05.060 But I also, the reason I was so excited seven minutes ago is I'm going to say it again.

00:20:09.740 Sally, who's sitting and listening right now, if you were a manager of a local flower

00:20:14.780 store in Madison, Wisconsin, and you've never posted, but you'd like the store to do better

00:20:20.540 because you'd like to be an owner of your own flower shop, the fact that you can make

00:20:24.600 a video right now and post it on TikTok or Facebook or Meta, and it has a chance of getting

00:20:28.860 more views than a video that I post or Megan posts.

00:20:32.780 That is a level of merit and a level of speeding up the shortcut of what you missed out on.

00:20:38.380 That is extraordinary.

00:20:40.860 And if you don't do anything about it, listening right now says, well, I'm still not going to,

00:20:48.060 they need to understand that they're the problem.

00:20:50.140 Now, if they don't complain, Megan, then I'm fine.

00:20:52.280 If you don't have the ambition to build your business, if you prefer your macro privacy

00:20:57.500 over everything, I think that's beautiful.

00:20:59.960 I think that's allowed.

00:21:01.100 My rant right now is for the people that sit around and complain and say everyone else is

00:21:06.140 lucky and don't do anything about it.

00:21:08.820 That to me is the issue at hand.

00:21:11.420 If you're content and thrilled with life and have no interest in growing your business or

00:21:16.460 your economic opportunities or your influence opportunities, I, you know, it's not my cup

00:21:22.440 of tea DNA wise, but boy, do I understand it.

00:21:25.500 And I think that's beautiful.

00:21:26.460 People should be able to see the world differently and live different lives.

00:21:29.620 But if you are a complainer, if you are a jealous Johnny, if you point fingers instead

00:21:35.940 of pointing thumbs, you have no excuse because even the excuse of, well, Gary, you got in early

00:21:40.980 and yes, you did work hard, but you're eight years ahead of me.

00:21:43.800 The fact that the algorithms and social media are now completely empty and based on people's

00:21:48.660 interest in the first hundred people that are served that video, that is a level of

00:21:53.000 opportunity that is like the gold rush in back in the day when everybody moved out to

00:21:58.360 California looking for gold.

00:21:59.720 This is a gold rush of opportunity.

00:22:02.120 And most people aren't talking about this because they bucket social media into this just

00:22:06.740 like general vanilla statement.

00:22:08.660 This is the nuances, Megan.

00:22:10.140 This is the opportunity and it's a big deal.

00:22:12.260 And I'm, as you could probably tell by my voice, I want this for people.

00:22:16.020 Like I want people to understand they can.

00:22:19.220 I just don't, I, I, I think if, and by the way, if you're listening right now and you don't

00:22:24.040 think you can't, you need to rethink who you surround yourself with.

00:22:27.280 Sometimes it's your cynical mom or your, or your best friend.

00:22:31.000 People need to be very, very, very particular about who they hang out with and what they listen

00:22:35.640 to.

00:22:36.200 Right.

00:22:36.560 Because if you're in that muckery, you're not going to do it.

00:22:39.500 Of course, if you think the world sucks and you never can, you're not going to do anything.

00:22:43.140 But the second you think you can, it changes everything.

00:22:46.340 And, and for years I've been talking about this, but the opportunity is bigger now because

00:22:51.240 things, random things go viral.

00:22:53.480 Megan, as you know, now in a way that you didn't six years ago.

00:22:57.140 Mm-hmm.

00:22:57.840 I know if you're, you're sitting out there and you're thinking, I can't, I don't have

00:23:01.640 a tail.

00:23:02.640 I don't be in a, you're like actually try to consider whether that kind of thinking is

00:23:07.680 your worst enemy and nothing beyond that kind of thinking is your worst enemy that you could

00:23:10.960 actually be on your path toward going viral with your product, with your store, with your

00:23:14.940 business pretty soon.

00:23:16.580 If you just pay attention to what's working and if you buy day trading attention, which

00:23:20.880 isn't about day trading and sitting there pushing stocks.

00:23:23.740 It's about all the stuff that we're talking about right now and how anybody can grow their

00:23:27.240 business exponentially with, by being smart and putting in a little like elbow grease.

00:23:32.500 Elbow grease.

00:23:33.640 It's, you know, just let's make this very simple for everybody.

00:23:37.720 Hard work matters.

00:23:39.260 There's an outcome from it.

00:23:41.140 Let's not, let's, I think a lot of people that are listening will agree with me on this.

00:23:44.540 We, anyone in your circles that demonizes hard work, I'm not asking for people to burn

00:23:50.080 out and have mental breakdowns, but anyone who doesn't understand that elbow grease, well

00:23:55.380 said, is a part of the equation to get to a happier place.

00:23:59.080 They're very delusional of the history of life.

00:24:02.980 Yeah, I feel the same.

00:24:04.380 Honestly, even in my job, I think that people trust me because they know I give them facts

00:24:09.320 and I've researched what I say.

00:24:11.180 I don't just come out here and read what I, what I saw on X.

00:24:13.860 And over the years, people build up a trust of you, you know, with you like, okay, she

00:24:18.960 hasn't misled me.

00:24:20.300 I can take it to the bank.

00:24:21.580 And they know that like to, to deliver these complex things in a way that's digestible

00:24:25.840 does take a lot of work.

00:24:27.140 I would say that's the difference between myself and many, many in the news industry.

00:24:30.500 Like I will spend hours figuring it out.

00:24:33.580 So my audience doesn't have to.

00:24:35.740 I watch everybody and everything.

00:24:38.080 It's what I do for a living.

00:24:38.980 I mean, I'm completely aware that you didn't stumble into this audience.

00:24:44.200 This is real work.

00:24:46.240 And everyone can do it.

00:24:47.300 I mean, it doesn't matter what it is that that's your particular focus.

00:24:49.880 You do have to have some gusto.

00:24:52.420 Everybody can do it if they're self-aware.

00:24:54.580 They have to find things that are like, I'll give you an example.

00:24:56.520 I was an atrocious student because I wasn't passionate about Saturn.

00:25:00.160 I didn't want to learn that.

00:25:01.260 I just didn't.

00:25:01.960 You know, and so I think what hurts people is they're also not willing to be humble enough

00:25:07.560 to say, I'm not good at this.

00:25:09.020 And I don't like that, you know, and I think, right.

00:25:12.560 You like that.

00:25:13.120 I'm glad that you picked up on that.

00:25:14.300 There's something really powerful to that.

00:25:15.700 I'm going to say it again.

00:25:16.720 You have to have the humility to say, I'm not good at this.

00:25:20.000 And I don't like that.

00:25:21.660 And what happens is if you have that sentence with yourself, then you end up going to the

00:25:25.580 place of, I am good at this.

00:25:27.280 And I do like that.

00:25:28.800 And so I'll give you an example.

00:25:29.440 Don't you think, Gary, this is another reason why false praise from one's parents

00:25:33.060 is not, is counterproductive.

00:25:35.520 It's devastating.

00:25:36.340 The parent doesn't have to be putting the child down all the time, but should not be

00:25:39.380 falsely praising things that the kid is actually not good at.

00:25:42.080 I don't know if you can see this.

00:25:43.500 I literally, do you see the goosebumps I have right now?

00:25:45.800 Oh yeah.

00:25:46.480 Yes, I do.

00:25:47.920 Do you know why?

00:25:48.540 You know why I have this?

00:25:49.780 I know you love your mama.

00:25:51.700 Well, I love my mama the most, but let me say from where you're going, I believe that

00:25:56.140 eighth place trophies over the last 30 years have done more mental health damage.

00:26:02.600 Do you understand that these kids, and I'm very fortunate, we hire so many kids right

00:26:06.160 out of school.

00:26:06.900 I have a hundred, I mean, seven, eight hundred employees, maybe even a thousand now that are

00:26:11.540 22 to 25.

00:26:12.900 And I can tell you unequivocally, and so much of my audience is this age.

00:26:16.580 I read all my DMs.

00:26:17.520 I, like you, do the research I read.

00:26:20.460 When I tell you the amount of kids today that are scared to lose, because we taught

00:26:26.220 them that losing was bad, it's so bad that we'll give you a trophy even though your team

00:26:30.400 lost 14 to 1 in this game.

00:26:34.120 And you'll appreciate this.

00:26:35.700 I think this will make sense to you.

00:26:37.260 All of this was well intended.

00:26:39.540 It wasn't like all these parents came out 30 years ago and said, let's create soft kids

00:26:44.920 that are zoo animals that can't live in the wild and are going to have really tough lives

00:26:48.680 because they don't have a backbone or they can't deal with adversity or they don't have

00:26:52.740 the stomach for, you know, pressure.

00:26:55.800 They just thought they were doing the right thing.

00:26:58.060 The problem was it wasn't.

00:26:59.340 To your point, you can do anything is true for about a nanosecond until you start trying.

00:27:04.980 I can tell you right now that I see unlimited six, seven, eight-year-old kids on sports fields

00:27:10.480 all around New York City that immediately I can tell you that child is not capable.

00:27:14.920 of playing in the National Basketball Association.

00:27:18.420 You know what I mean?

00:27:19.080 And that's okay.

00:27:20.940 Like there is, when I walk through a classroom and see the art hanging that the kids made in

00:27:25.120 sixth grade, I can save a lot of time right now.

00:27:27.860 It is not true that any one of those kids can make art that will sell at Sotheby's in the

00:27:33.100 future.

00:27:33.880 That's great.

00:27:34.840 You can try everything, but you can't be everything.

00:27:39.020 And when you fall in love with who you are versus who you wish you were, then it becomes

00:27:45.780 game over.

00:27:46.400 I, in fifth grade, wanted to play for the New York Jets.

00:27:50.820 I, by sixth grade, realized I was more likely to buy the New York Jets than to play for them.

00:27:56.300 That made me go into entrepreneurship, not professional sports.

00:28:01.900 And by the way, you know this story, by the way, I want to hear the story after you finish

00:28:05.060 your point, but I want to hear the story about your mom and your sweater.

00:28:08.420 I thank you for that.

00:28:09.660 I'm always happy to share the greatest human being of all time.

00:28:12.800 My mom's story.

00:28:13.460 I, to finish my story, this is very important, I think, for a lot of people.

00:28:19.060 This is a big one, actually.

00:28:20.520 I'm 48 years old.

00:28:21.880 When I was getting D's and F's in school in the late 80s and early 90s, as you know,

00:28:26.540 Megan, and a lot of people listening right now, entrepreneurship wasn't cool.

00:28:30.620 It wasn't a thing.

00:28:32.180 Everything was about what's the best university you can get into, and then what's the best

00:28:37.080 job you can get into.

00:28:38.880 That was the status.

00:28:40.420 That was the cool.

00:28:41.220 That was the, right?

00:28:42.420 There was no, I don't, when I heard entrepreneur in my youth, that meant that you were like 0.95

00:28:47.720 a loser and you made pretend that you worked. 0.91

00:28:50.200 Yeah. 0.98

00:28:50.600 And when you heard about somebody dropping out of college to go pursue, you're like, 0.99

00:28:54.780 oh my God, loser. 1.00

00:28:56.280 Loser. 1.00

00:28:57.040 And so, you know, I, but I was willing to lean into who I was because that's where my 0.98

00:29:02.620 happiness was.

00:29:03.440 And then I got fortunate that the timing of the world went in my favor.

00:29:07.780 And now I walk around the world and people want to take a picture with me.

00:29:11.240 It's nothing I haven't thought in a million years.

00:29:13.140 All I wanted to do was sell wine for my dad's wine store.

00:29:16.180 Do you know what I mean?

00:29:16.560 Like, I just wanted to be a businessman.

00:29:18.080 I didn't call an entrepreneur.

00:29:19.260 I'm going to be a businessman when I grow up.

00:29:21.600 That's just what I want for everybody.

00:29:23.040 Don't worry what we think.

00:29:24.280 Don't worry what I think or Megan thinks or your friends think or your family thinks

00:29:27.140 or the neighbors and definitely not anonymous people, anonymous people on social media.

00:29:31.460 Think about what you think.

00:29:33.180 Think about what you think.

00:29:34.340 Because you're going to be 90 years old one day laying there.

00:29:36.920 And if you have regret, I promise you that's going to taste a lot worse than people making

00:29:41.100 fun of you because you want to open up a bike shop or you're quitting your corporate job

00:29:45.500 to do landscaping.

00:29:47.240 This judgment of others is destroying our happiness.

00:29:51.420 And it must stop as if anybody else's judgment has anything to actually do with your life.

00:29:57.420 It's so true. 0.84

00:29:58.520 Oh, I love what you said.

00:29:59.640 And I love it.

00:30:00.160 I've heard you say that you don't believe in regrets.

00:30:02.780 And I think my audience knows, same.

00:30:04.680 I just, I don't really have many.

00:30:07.180 I don't spend my time thinking about that kind of thing.

00:30:09.260 I think it's a real mental block toward going forward and advancing your life, your well-being,

00:30:13.180 your happiness.

00:30:14.060 But anyway, one of the reasons you're like this and wound up a happy, seemingly well-adjusted

00:30:18.800 man is mom.

00:30:20.540 And that brings me to the Jets and your childhood experience.

00:30:24.100 Can you just tell us that?

00:30:24.800 I love this story.

00:30:25.560 Yeah, thank you.

00:30:28.080 I'm going to try to compose it here.

00:30:29.980 Like, this is such a big deal.

00:30:31.320 Like, it's, you know, when I tell you that without a shadow of a doubt, it is uncomfortably

00:30:37.660 clear to me that 89.6% of why I have happiness and contentness.

00:30:43.880 And by the way, back to my professional success, I'm detached from my professional success, meaning

00:30:49.060 I love my career.

00:30:51.140 I love being good at it.

00:30:52.320 I'm humbled by the admiration and opportunities of doing things like this.

00:30:56.400 It leads me to, but I don't think it defines who I am.

00:30:59.820 Like, I don't think, like, I'm good or a good guy or a winner because I'm good at business.

00:31:05.700 I think it's a skill I have that is now kind of revered a little bit more than it has.

00:31:11.220 It's always been respected, but now it's cool, right?

00:31:13.300 It's pop culture.

00:31:14.960 And all of that is because of my mom.

00:31:16.500 My mom was, back to what I just heard you say, I think you would love her parenting style.

00:31:20.980 She was rainbow and sunshine.

00:31:23.620 Like, I never had, I had nothing but joy around my household, except when I did things that

00:31:30.080 were not right, which led to real accountability.

00:31:33.880 I was grounded and punished four times a year like clockwork because I brought back a report 0.88

00:31:40.060 card that looked like garbage, and that was unacceptable.

00:31:43.420 And other than that, I was a pretty good kid. 0.62

00:31:45.640 But if I ever did anything, like, I would, first of all, let me go to a place that I

00:31:49.720 think may resonate with you.

00:31:51.220 I never even contemplated disrespecting my mom or dad.

00:31:54.900 Oh, gosh, my mom.

00:31:56.680 I mean, I did it because I was a bratty teenage girl, but man, oh, man, my mom, Linda made 0.97

00:32:01.440 me pay.

00:32:03.000 Yeah, and by the way, Tamara made my sister Liz pay for the same teenage girl thing. 1.00

00:32:07.640 I never went through that phase, but on real talk, it was because I was worried.

00:32:11.800 She was an old school, like, we don't play that around here. 0.94

00:32:15.300 Like, we are in an era now, look, I can wrap my head around why we stopped spanking our

00:32:21.520 kids, though, if I'm being unbelievably transparent, like, I could get, you know, get a couple glasses

00:32:26.980 of wine in me, and I can get into, like, a thoughtful of, like, is there an angle there?

00:32:31.060 But the fact that we don't even ground our kids anymore in modern parenting, are you kidding

00:32:36.460 me?

00:32:37.340 All we're teaching people is that there's no consequences in life.

00:32:40.680 Do you know why everyone's so interesting on Twitter?

00:32:45.180 Because you can't punch them in the face when they say something to you.

00:32:47.900 I grew up in Jersey in very blue-collar, lower-middle-class neighborhoods.

00:32:53.720 Let me tell you what happened when we would say something fresh to each other.

00:32:57.540 Somebody might get punched in the face, right?

00:33:00.260 And so we live in a society now where there aren't ramifications, there aren't consequences.

00:33:06.980 And I couldn't agree more with people understanding, like, actually, actually, make you look like

00:33:12.600 this.

00:33:13.040 Do you know why the book cover is purple?

00:33:14.820 Because we become, and boy, oh boy, nobody understands this better than you in this audience.

00:33:19.580 America's become unbelievably red and blue.

00:33:22.620 Like, woo, we are really loving red and blue.

00:33:25.460 When it comes to parenting, if you can be purple, then you win. 1.00

00:33:29.980 To your point, and you said it earlier, I'm not talking about scolding your children.

00:33:34.080 I'm not talking about what a lot of parents did to their children.

00:33:36.640 Listen, I'm going to be vulnerable here.

00:33:38.860 My grandmother, what she did to my father, and she was a Russian woman in the 30s, 40s, 1.00

00:33:43.360 and 50s, 60s, 70s.

00:33:44.560 This is no judgment.

00:33:45.920 They grew up in a—people don't understand the USSR, Megan.

00:33:49.120 The USSR was like North Korea. 0.91

00:33:50.980 You weren't allowed to leave.

00:33:52.040 It was jail.

00:33:52.760 It was—I promise for everyone that's listening here, which means you listen to a lot of politics

00:33:57.380 and world news and care about this stuff, you have no clue what the USSR was from 1917

00:34:02.680 to 1991.

00:34:03.900 It was bad, bad.

00:34:05.160 So I don't judge my grandma, but I'm very aware of what a human looks like when they

00:34:10.440 don't get positive reinforcement, when they get negative, when they get that all the time.

00:34:14.480 My father is one of those people.

00:34:16.020 And it really—it's a real challenge to have true self-esteem when you're parented in that

00:34:23.180 negative of an environment.

00:34:25.020 So I'm not saying to everybody to do that, but to parent in a delusional way where everything

00:34:32.560 is great and you're the best and go fight your kids' fights.

00:34:36.020 Megan, do you know the parents go to school and try to argue with parents to give their

00:34:39.200 kid a better grade?

00:34:40.260 Do you know how crazy that is?

00:34:42.060 I know.

00:34:42.380 What are we doing here?

00:34:43.480 And beyond.

00:34:43.960 In corporate America, too.

00:34:44.900 I've told this story before, but we had a friend at a huge investment bank in New York

00:34:48.400 City.

00:34:48.700 We had dinner with he and his wife, and he was telling us that he actually received a phone

00:34:52.420 call from a new hire at this major American bank, from a new hire's mom complaining about

00:35:00.080 her son's tough schedule.

00:35:03.320 Yeah, I mean, to me, look, you know what's amazing about being born in the Soviet Union and

00:35:09.000 living in America?

00:35:09.700 America, you realize that people have options.

00:35:12.440 My parents were granted jobs that they couldn't transfer from in their early 20s before we

00:35:18.100 moved to America.

00:35:19.700 When people come to my company and we have a, listen, I believe in a happy culture in

00:35:24.340 a way that you can't imagine, but not delusion, not entitlement.

00:35:27.660 And when people are like, you know, this blows, this stinks, this sucks, this, this, I, you know, 0.94

00:35:32.420 I always, honestly, I take it pretty serious. 0.95

00:35:34.140 I'm not ivory tower.

00:35:35.400 I try to attack it.

00:35:36.740 I try to have meaningful conversation.

00:35:38.260 We go try to address it.

00:35:39.600 But when somebody comes a second, third, fourth, fifth time, and complains about things that

00:35:43.460 don't matter, like it's one of the most joyous things that in my career that I'm able to

00:35:48.720 say is like, hey, unlike me, who was born in a communist country, and luckily I got out

00:35:54.800 and definitely unlike my parents and grandparents, you have options.

00:35:58.360 You don't like this company, but you know what I would have said to that mom? 1.00

00:36:02.020 I said, mom, first, and this is that, I'm going to tell you exactly what I would have

00:36:05.480 said, not for this show, but real life.

00:36:07.540 I would have said, first, mom, I think it's very sweet that you're calling for your son

00:36:11.260 in one part of me.

00:36:12.700 The other part of me thinks that your son's in big trouble because if you're fighting his 0.96

00:36:17.000 fights and he's a grown ass man, he's got a big problem. 0.83

00:36:19.980 And here's the answer to your question. 0.98

00:36:21.760 Yeah.

00:36:21.900 And here's the answer to your question.

00:36:23.800 He's more than welcome to do this schedule.

00:36:25.720 We hired him for a reason.

00:36:26.620 We think he's got talent, but if this schedule is too tough for him, he really needs to consider

00:36:31.700 doing something else.

00:36:33.380 Yeah.

00:36:33.920 That's what I always say.

00:36:34.640 I always say on my team, you know, you don't want to work weekends occasionally.

00:36:36.820 You don't want to work a late night when news breaks, go work at KeyBank.

00:36:40.100 It's wonderful.

00:36:40.680 You know exactly what the hours are.

00:36:41.820 Go show up at nine before you're good.

00:36:44.300 And I want everyone to hear this because this is an important nuance and I don't judge them.

00:36:48.460 You don't want to good.

00:36:50.060 Know yourself.

00:36:50.620 No problem.

00:36:51.660 News may not be free.

00:36:53.560 Mazel tov.

00:36:54.220 Like you want to like you want to go chill?

00:36:56.000 Like do you?

00:36:57.520 Do you?

00:36:58.340 I chose to completely punt school.

00:37:00.620 Everyone told me that I should get A's and B's.

00:37:02.620 I told myself I should get D's and F's.

00:37:04.520 And it was joyous.

00:37:06.100 It was joyous until I got until I got grounded every market period.

00:37:09.840 But it was more than fun for me.

00:37:12.780 Same now in real life.

00:37:14.100 I may want to be hungry and build meaningful, everlasting empires that have positive impact

00:37:20.040 and selfish and selfless goals.

00:37:22.820 But if you are structured a different way and you value something else.

00:37:27.480 And to your point, the occasional discomfort of needing to do something that's out of the

00:37:32.620 normal structure, then that's amazing.

00:37:34.740 You shouldn't work in an entrepreneurial, in my world or your world, fast-paced reality.

00:37:39.840 You shouldn't be a fireman if you're not willing to wake up when the fire happens, right?

00:37:44.000 And that's okay.

00:37:45.060 That's very okay.

00:37:46.120 I do.

00:37:46.660 This is important.

00:37:47.280 I do not judge people that do not have my ambition or work ethic or interests.

00:37:52.860 I just want them to be themselves.

00:37:55.220 But what I don't want, and this is where I think you're going, and the theme of this,

00:37:58.820 and this will land with everyone, I don't want people to think they can get compensated

00:38:03.560 when they're not that person.

00:38:06.260 That's right.

00:38:06.640 If you don't want to be the...

00:38:08.320 Let me make this simple for everyone to understand.

00:38:10.100 If you don't want the pressure of being the quarterback and you want to be the backup

00:38:14.460 linebacker, well, then you better not expect to get quarterback money.

00:38:19.600 That's exactly right.

00:38:21.080 So if you're like, can we have the conversation, everyone?

00:38:24.120 Like you're allowed to do whatever you want.

00:38:26.100 But when you start sneaking into entitlement that you should, there is no should.

00:38:31.160 You want...

00:38:31.560 Hey, everybody, everyone who's listening, you want to get way happier?

00:38:34.580 You want things to go way better?

00:38:36.380 Let me give you something.

00:38:37.660 Eliminate the word should from your vocabulary.

00:38:40.320 There is no should.

00:38:41.740 It's too nuanced.

00:38:43.240 What do you mean should?

00:38:45.120 This is why I get so crazy, Megan, about everyone judging everybody else.

00:38:48.500 You have no idea what's going on in their house.

00:38:50.840 You don't know their background.

00:38:52.000 You don't know what's going on today.

00:38:53.820 I said something the other day, a kid comes in yelling about their manager, who's been

00:38:58.040 good to them for three years.

00:38:59.440 I hadn't had the information yet to know what was going on.

00:39:02.660 But I said to the kid, I said, but you've loved her for three years.

00:39:05.800 What if she's been...

00:39:07.480 What if you're struggling with her for the last three weeks?

00:39:09.940 Because three weeks ago, she found out that her mom is terminally ill and she hasn't

00:39:13.540 told anybody yet.

00:39:16.120 Maybe that's why she's not showing up to the meeting and over coddling every moment. 0.99

00:39:21.160 Like, you know what I mean?

00:39:22.060 I don't think we...

00:39:23.200 You know, people love throwing around empathy until it's not working for them.

00:39:28.160 You know?

00:39:30.380 I like that.

00:39:30.860 I'm ready to sign up.

00:39:31.880 I think I could do well at your company.

00:39:33.740 If there's news things fall through, I'm going to send you my resume.

00:39:37.560 No, wait.

00:39:38.020 I want to hit a couple of other things in the news because I'd love to get your take on

00:39:41.480 a couple of newsy items.

00:39:42.360 I saw something I didn't totally understand in the news today about Google and AI and how

00:39:48.060 Google is now announcing that it's got this new AI program that's going to, quote, do the

00:39:52.340 Googling for you.

00:39:53.360 And what they seem to mean is if I type in into Google what's happening with the presidential

00:39:59.080 debates in the search engine, rather than bringing up a link to CNN and Axios and Fox

00:40:05.540 News, it's going to deliver the AI, will deliver the information for me.

00:40:11.560 Here is what's going on with the debates.

00:40:13.720 They're going to have...

00:40:14.260 And now already, news organizations are complaining about this, saying this is going to absolutely

00:40:18.940 gut human jobs, that all the reporters who work for those news organizations and others

00:40:25.360 are going to go away. 0.95

00:40:26.620 And their work, whatever's left inside the companies, those people's work, will be cannibalized

00:40:32.800 by Google AI, which is going to claim it as its own and offer it up as its work product.

00:40:38.900 And it seems to be a rather big deal.

00:40:40.600 But what do you think?

00:40:43.760 There's a lot there, and I'm excited to break it down with you.

00:40:46.180 So number one, AI is a big deal.

00:40:51.460 Let's get right to the punchline for everyone.

00:40:53.220 Will AI eliminate tons of jobs?

00:40:57.600 It sure will.

00:40:58.860 Now, this is where people like to choose cynicism and defense.

00:41:03.620 Megan, will AI create an enormous amount of new jobs?

00:41:06.460 It will.

00:41:07.680 There's going to be a word that's going to be at the top of everyone's tongue in five

00:41:10.620 years.

00:41:10.920 It's called prompt engineering.

00:41:12.700 It will be a huge skill set.

00:41:14.400 And you probably remember this.

00:41:15.200 Remember 15 years ago when everyone's like, I need to make my kid an engineer so they can

00:41:19.240 build websites.

00:41:20.280 That's what you're going to start hearing of everybody with prompt engineering, which

00:41:23.600 is the critical thinking required to put in a good prompt into AI so that you get an answer.

00:41:29.340 Let me keep going.

00:41:32.020 Search engines, as you and I know it, this is going to really land for you.

00:41:37.020 Remember when search engines came when we were kids kind of coming up?

00:41:40.020 Yeah.

00:41:41.260 Do you know what that eliminated?

00:41:42.800 It eliminated the yellow pages.

00:41:44.260 Do you know how many people were employed and how many businesses do you know that how

00:41:48.480 many businesses are named?

00:41:49.460 Do you know that businesses are named triple A plumbers, triple A cleaners, triple A?

00:41:55.040 You know how you've seen those?

00:41:56.180 Do you know why that is?

00:41:58.360 That's because everybody used to use the yellow pages and it was alphabetical.

00:42:02.020 That's right.

00:42:03.040 And so GPS got rid of Rand McNally.

00:42:07.500 That's right.

00:42:08.340 Google got rid of Encyclopedia Britannica.

00:42:10.560 Like so many of the things were replaced.

00:42:12.180 So AI is going to replace search engines.

00:42:15.100 That is true.

00:42:16.440 That is true.

00:42:17.460 Now, people will still use search engines for quite a while.

00:42:20.100 It'll take time.

00:42:20.820 There's even people you can find that use AOL dial up right now, many more than people

00:42:24.280 realize.

00:42:25.060 So there's things that linger, as you know.

00:42:27.180 But the reality is, yes, it's going to change.

00:42:30.340 Now, don't forget, that's Google's AI.

00:42:33.700 And then there's going to be OpenAI, Microsoft's AI.

00:42:36.600 There's going to be many different AI chatbot clients.

00:42:39.460 There's going to be startups that start.

00:42:40.680 And don't forget, that's just intent-based.

00:42:44.720 I want to make sure everybody understands what I'm saying here.

00:42:46.940 That's when you wanted to go look up something in the Encyclopedia.

00:42:50.120 That's when you needed a plumber and you went to the yellow pages.

00:42:53.480 The way you go to Google now is when you decided you needed something to look at.

00:42:58.460 On the flip side, there's social media.

00:43:00.140 There's podcasting.

00:43:01.240 There's the media where you are just browsing.

00:43:03.900 Like you're kind of living and it's coming to you.

00:43:05.860 So it's not like everything's going to get eliminated.

00:43:09.040 Just new things are going to pop up.

00:43:11.420 But that's been the story of all time.

00:43:14.200 You know, I always say this, Megan.

00:43:15.720 I think you might innovate.

00:43:17.040 You're going to like this one as well, I think.

00:43:19.220 People love innovation and entrepreneurship and technology when they're not on the receiving

00:43:24.920 end of being hurt by it.

00:43:27.740 You know, what did all the poor people that owned bookstores do in the mid-90s?

00:43:33.260 They got picked on first.

00:43:34.600 A guy named Jeff Bezos came along and he subjectively and strategically decided he wanted to go after

00:43:39.900 bookstores first.

00:43:41.380 If he would have picked flower stores or car washes or hair salons, they would be like

00:43:48.060 your technology is going to get around to you one day or another, right?

00:43:53.320 Here's a good one because I was an early investor in Uber.

00:43:55.620 All the medallion owners in Manhattan and all the black taxi owners in LA, they laughed at Uber

00:44:00.880 early on.

00:44:01.420 I know because I was there and I was talking to them.

00:44:03.480 They're like, nah, we've got the government in our pockets.

00:44:06.020 Nah, this is New York.

00:44:08.180 What do you need Uber for?

00:44:08.860 We have the best transportation system in the world.

00:44:10.660 They were all laughing until they were crying.

00:44:13.360 I don't think people get it.

00:44:14.840 This is only one outcome.

00:44:16.600 By the way, back to your world.

00:44:18.560 Network TV was loving life until something invented called cable came along and created a

00:44:25.140 little bit more distribution of all that attention.

00:44:27.740 No longer was it just on Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings.

00:44:33.120 Now we had cable and Ted Turner innovated with CNN.

00:44:36.400 And now cable's hurting because of the invention of the digital lane and people like me and

00:44:40.400 shows like this.

00:44:41.520 Yeah, I get it.

00:44:42.820 It's forward motion.

00:44:43.640 All right.

00:44:43.840 I've got to get in the TikTok thing.

00:44:46.560 How do we feel about this?

00:44:48.020 Are we in favor of what the government is doing against TikTok?

00:44:51.500 Are we in favor of a ban?

00:44:52.580 I'll tell you where I am personally.

00:44:55.100 I can speak to myself personally.

00:44:56.940 Two things.

00:44:57.900 Business-wise, if all that attention goes away, I'm pumped.

00:45:02.520 Day trading attention.

00:45:03.240 Because the next day, everyone's confused.

00:45:05.400 To me, I'm a huge winner if TikTok gets banned professionally because I know I'm better at

00:45:10.940 realizing where the attention is immediately than the other average bears.

00:45:15.440 And all that attention is going to disperse into all new places.

00:45:18.260 And because this is my religion and my insanity and I'm a mad scientist of it, I'm going to

00:45:24.340 be able to extract more of it for me and my clients.

00:45:26.760 And that's going to be good.

00:45:28.260 As someone who's born in the Soviet Union and who is very into modern history, I will

00:45:33.720 say as a human being, again, I am not aware of what's under the hood of what the politicians

00:45:40.280 and all the work they've done to decide that this is the appropriate action.

00:45:44.440 I'm not even going to begin to go there.

00:45:46.500 It'd be impossible for me to understand what they think or don't think is happening between

00:45:51.600 China and America.

00:45:52.680 We all understand there's geopolitics going on.

00:45:54.960 That's fine.

00:45:56.100 What I will say is, if I'm being full disclosure on this and being honest, which is how I like

00:46:00.680 to roll, I'm a little worried that the reason we're banning it is, you know, we're banning

00:46:08.460 this because it's something bad for our country from the outside.

00:46:12.060 Because the history of the world always tells you that it starts with that.

00:46:17.720 And then the next thing, Megan, that we hear is, we're banning this from the inside because

00:46:23.580 it's bad for us.

00:46:24.840 This is an incredibly unprecedented, slippery slope.

00:46:29.300 And I remind everybody who's listening to this, because boy, if you're listening to this,

00:46:33.720 I know that this interests you because obviously this is one of the faces of political talk over

00:46:40.100 the last three decades.

00:46:42.940 Sometimes it's your four years and sometimes it's not.

00:46:46.040 And if we open the can of worms that we are banning things for the best interest of America,

00:46:50.540 it always starts on the outside and then it always comes in the inside.

00:46:54.340 And if we allow it to come to the inside, you've now begun the beginning of the entire

00:47:00.300 things that have historically broken down the Roman Empire and all the other things that

00:47:04.700 looked like us for the last hundred years.

00:47:07.000 So I would say, even if, Megan, I'll say something complex that might not land with most people,

00:47:11.660 but I'm going to say it because that's how I live my life.

00:47:14.540 Even if it was ugly under the hood of what they got, I would think long and hard about how

00:47:19.880 to handle that, not named ban, because boy, could you imagine, whether you like it or not,

00:47:27.980 even talking about Google earlier, could you imagine waking up in seven years to a headline

00:47:33.440 that says America's banning Google because of the interest of America?

00:47:38.540 You know, I think regardless if someone's listening right now that fully believes red or listens to 0.85

00:47:43.760 this because they also want to hear the other side and fully believe blue or something in between

00:47:47.580 purple, like someone like me, I can promise you, I think everybody would understand that

00:47:52.280 that's probably not going to end up good.

00:47:55.180 Yeah.

00:47:56.000 I mean, I did a headline a couple of years ago saying Parler was no longer available.

00:48:00.640 The alternative, the more conservative alternative to Twitter, where they had said, build your

00:48:04.440 own lanes, build your own lanes.

00:48:05.640 And then they did.

00:48:06.420 And then after J6, it was like somehow it's Parler's fault, even though most of the planning

00:48:10.060 happened on Facebook.

00:48:11.280 But Parler was no more like that.

00:48:13.520 To your point.

00:48:15.300 But what's interesting is Parler was no more on the distribution.

00:48:19.480 Like what's so interesting is Parler can go to Parler.com and create a mobile native app

00:48:24.780 and not be not like, like what's so interesting is there's always alternatives to capitalism,

00:48:32.180 right?

00:48:33.220 Apple versus Google versus Facebook versus Parler versus Snap versus TikTok.

00:48:38.400 There's in the incredible aspect of what America is in entrepreneurship and democracy,

00:48:45.060 though not at its best.

00:48:46.900 Sometimes it gets weird that there's always a counter move.

00:48:49.720 There's another move.

00:48:50.920 When the U.S.

00:48:52.100 government says ban, that's what alcohol was during prohibition.

00:48:56.540 That's a very different game.

00:48:57.960 Well, that worked out.

00:48:59.280 Correct.

00:49:00.840 I loved this conversation.

00:49:02.540 I hope you come back on and talk to us more about your life philosophy, your background,

00:49:06.180 your bio, and if TikTok gets banned, I definitely want you to come back to tell us exactly where

00:49:11.000 we should put our new, our new attention.

00:49:13.520 Yes.

00:49:14.080 Yeah.

00:49:14.660 Day trading attention.

00:49:16.440 All right.

00:49:16.620 It can help anybody, any business owner, any individual looking to get their message

00:49:19.720 out and be heard on some of these issues that we've talked about.

00:49:22.400 His name is Gary Vaynerchuk.

00:49:23.940 He's huge.

00:49:24.500 You know him.

00:49:25.060 It's a new book.

00:49:26.120 Check it out.

00:49:26.740 It's out next week and available for pre-order right now.

00:49:29.820 Gary, all the best.

00:49:30.520 Thank you so much.

00:49:31.880 I'm wishing you well.

00:49:32.800 Take care.

00:49:33.540 Likewise.

00:49:33.820 Okay, when we come back, we've got Andy McCarthy and Dave Ehrenberg on the latest from the

00:49:39.700 Trump trial.

00:49:40.720 Cohen's on the stand right now.

00:49:41.720 We've got the latest for you.

00:49:46.220 Fireworks inside of a New York City courtroom today as Michael Cohen is back on the stand

00:49:50.520 subject to cross-examination by Trump's defense lawyer who is really getting after it.

00:49:55.920 Today, they just broke for lunch and we've got some real highlights from the morning.

00:50:00.400 We've got two of our favorite legal experts here to break it all down for you.

00:50:02.880 National Reviews, Andy McCarthy, back with me, and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for

00:50:08.360 Palm Beach County, who has a new YouTube channel where you can check him out called True Crime

00:50:14.540 MTN.

00:50:16.020 MTN, like mountain.

00:50:17.120 Is that what it means, Dave?

00:50:18.220 True Crime MTN?

00:50:20.660 Mountain or Midas Touch Network.

00:50:22.360 Yes, Megan.

00:50:22.940 Thank you for plugging it.

00:50:24.760 Okay, good.

00:50:25.220 Yeah, my pleasure.

00:50:25.980 I'll check it out.

00:50:26.900 Andy, good to see you as well.

00:50:27.880 There's also two prosecutors here.

00:50:30.160 One retired, one still at it, but at least one more defense-minded, I know, from what

00:50:36.960 I read at National Review, at least in this case.

00:50:40.660 So let me give you a couple of the highlights or lowlights, depending on your view of Michael

00:50:44.320 Cohen on the stand today.

00:50:45.420 Uh, he was asked by Todd Blanche if during his conversations with a guy named Robert

00:50:53.400 Costello, and some are speculating that the defense has already said they're going to

00:50:56.800 call one witness on, uh, when, when it's time to present their case, that it may be this

00:51:01.040 guy, Costello, who was allegedly a go-between between Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani slash

00:51:08.320 President Trump, the sitting President Trump, and that, uh, Costello allegedly said to Cohen,

00:51:15.480 you got friends in high places, fear not, you're good.

00:51:18.340 Kind of like wink, nod, all's well, don't, don't flip on Trump.

00:51:22.440 But he was brought in to the grand jury and he was very helpful to Donald Trump, though

00:51:27.440 not helpful enough because he did get indicted.

00:51:29.820 And he seems to be very favorable towards President Trump and not so much towards Michael

00:51:33.840 Cohen.

00:51:34.120 And so why was Cohen asked about this man from the defensive, by the defense attorney?

00:51:39.320 Well, here it is.

00:51:40.740 Todd Blanche asked Michael Cohen if during Cohen's conversations with this guy, Costello, uh,

00:51:46.560 after the raids, I assume this is on Mar-a-Lago, that, um, he told him he could cooperate against

00:51:53.860 Trump, whether Costello said, you know, you could cooperate against Trump and that Cohen

00:51:58.020 in turn said to Costello, in other words, this is the question by the defense lawyer, did

00:52:01.560 you tell Robert Costello that you, quote, had nothing on President Trump and could not

00:52:07.900 cooperate?

00:52:09.540 Answer, no.

00:52:11.320 Then Todd Blanche asked Cohen if he meant, no, I didn't say that to Costello or no, you

00:52:18.060 don't recall whether you said that.

00:52:19.960 Cohen, I don't recall.

00:52:21.820 So, all right, I see why the defense went there.

00:52:26.980 You told this guy you had nothing on Trump.

00:52:29.280 And now that you're trying to get out of prison, you want to get out of all these deals, you

00:52:33.280 want to look better.

00:52:34.440 Suddenly you have all sorts of dirt on the man.

00:52:37.240 And that brings me to the next line, which was supervised release, which I gather Cohen is

00:52:42.980 on right now, um, Cohen said he tried three times to get his supervised released, you know,

00:52:50.900 from prison terminated, and then Blanche pressed him and corrected him and said, in fact, it's

00:52:56.340 been four failed attempts.

00:52:58.660 And Michael Cohen had to admit that on the subject of working in the White House, which has been

00:53:04.040 an ongoing thing.

00:53:04.820 You wanted to work in the White House.

00:53:06.220 You got stiff armed.

00:53:07.560 Trump didn't want you. 0.98

00:53:08.540 You're bitter.

00:53:09.120 However, uh, he tried to say, no, I just wanted my name out there as possible chief

00:53:14.360 of staff shortlist for ego purposes.

00:53:16.740 He said this earlier in the week, he reiterated it again today.

00:53:21.140 Uh, Keith Davidson, the one time lawyer for Stormy Daniels said, well, Cohen told me he

00:53:25.440 wanted to be attorney general and that he was suicidal when he wasn't chosen.

00:53:30.020 I know all of our hearts just skipped a beat at the thought of Michael Cohen as the attorney

00:53:33.980 general of the United States, but okay.

00:53:36.780 All right.

00:53:37.020 We'll calm down and go back to what he testified to today, which was, uh, that there was definitely

00:53:44.360 talk about being chief of staff.

00:53:47.040 There was, there were texts between Cohen and his daughter where they discussed whether

00:53:52.600 he would be chief of staff.

00:53:53.880 Cohen's daughter said she read that Reince Priebus was being considered and, uh, Michael 0.81

00:53:59.340 Cohen responded, he's pushing like a madman.

00:54:02.280 And that when Trump did in fact pick Reince Priebus, um, Blanche asked Cohen, whether it's

00:54:08.000 true, Cohen told his daughter, he was disappointed Cohen that I wasn't considered.

00:54:12.960 Yes, sir.

00:54:13.720 Uh, and then he acknowledged that he told his daughter that Trump just wasn't happy with

00:54:20.300 the title I wanted last, but not least, or perhaps it is least because I've been talking

00:54:26.060 about this story, like a Greek tragedy guys, you know, where he's got this never ending

00:54:30.580 adulation for this man.

00:54:32.060 He adored and read his book twice and just wanted any sort of place in Trump's circle,

00:54:36.260 wanted to be just like him.

00:54:38.120 And then of course it ends and him trying to kill the King and kind of take himself out

00:54:43.600 as well.

00:54:43.980 And the King turns on him too.

00:54:46.180 He couldn't even get tickets to the inauguration.

00:54:51.720 Again, Michael Cohen admits via these texts, he was having real difficulty, even getting tickets

00:55:00.880 to Trump's inauguration in 2017.

00:55:06.780 Unbelievable.

00:55:08.340 And he also admitted that, um, well, he was at least asked about the fact that he was allegedly

00:55:14.040 despondent when the former president of Goldman Sachs got a post in the white house and Michael

00:55:19.780 Cohen did not all of this.

00:55:21.600 Dave Ehrenberg is trying to paint the picture of bitterness. 1.00

00:55:26.380 He's a bitter, bitter liar pretty effectively. 0.99

00:55:30.840 Am I wrong? 0.99

00:55:32.180 I think today, Todd Blanche has had a pretty good day.

00:55:35.720 I think he was successful in punching holes and Michael Cohen.

00:55:39.840 I thought it was actually very powerful, a different part of the cross-examination where he had Cohen

00:55:46.140 admit that his testimony in front of the judge, uh, was a lie when it comes to his tax cases.

00:55:53.500 Remember he went before the, uh, judge in a, the civil fraud case and said, I lied to the federal

00:55:59.520 judge about my tax case.

00:56:00.780 And that had nothing to do with Donald Trump.

00:56:02.380 And he went back and said, yeah, that original federal judge was corrupt.

00:56:06.820 He was in with, in cahoots with prosecutors.

00:56:09.240 So I don't think that made Michael Cohen look good.

00:56:11.740 And he had to admit to lying on the stand.

00:56:14.260 So that's not good.

00:56:15.640 But here's the thing, Megan, if this were all about Michael Cohen's cross-examination and

00:56:21.260 pointing out his lies, then yes, I think the state would be in a lot of trouble.

00:56:25.120 But the state has spent all of its time building this firewall around Cohen with all these witnesses

00:56:31.080 and documents.

00:56:31.900 And a lot of it is even Trump's own words, his tweets, his admissions in a court proceeding

00:56:36.540 in California, and all this stuff has come into play to buttress what Michael Cohen has

00:56:41.540 been saying.

00:56:41.980 So you may not like Michael Cohen and you may think he is a liar, but is everyone lying?

00:56:47.120 The corroboration that the state has spent so much time with, I think helps prove their

00:56:51.180 case.

00:56:51.300 Let me ask you this though, Dave, and I'll go to Andy.

00:56:53.760 Corroboration of what specifically?

00:56:57.340 Corroboration that Trump was involved from the beginning in the hush money scheme.

00:57:00.980 And by the way, I know what you're going to say.

00:57:02.680 Hush money schemes are not illegal.

00:57:04.260 Correct.

00:57:04.480 But it's telling the story about why the catch and kill scheme was established.

00:57:10.080 And then the big issue, and it was made an issue by Todd Blanche in his opening statement,

00:57:15.820 was whether or not the $420,000 reimbursement to Cohen was a reimbursement for the hush money

00:57:22.800 payments, or was it legal fees?

00:57:25.260 And Todd Blanche said in his opening statement that this was not a reimbursement.

00:57:29.540 Maybe Andy could help me with this, but I don't know why he said that.

00:57:32.900 I don't know why he made that to be such a big issue, because all the evidence shows

00:57:36.400 that it was a reimbursement.

00:57:38.260 And so there is no direct evidence that I've seen that ties Donald Trump directly to the

00:57:43.460 falsification of the business records, which is the underlying misdemeanor.

00:57:46.480 But once you put into play that this is legal fees and not a reimbursement, if the state

00:57:52.700 can show, yeah, it's a reimbursement, which I think they have shown, then it's a small

00:57:56.740 step from there to proving that Donald Trump lied on the forms when he listed this stuff,

00:58:03.000 his company listed it as legal fees and not as reimbursements.

00:58:06.340 By the way, it's legal expenses, which I do think is better for Trump than legal fees,

00:58:12.620 legal expenses.

00:58:13.940 I mean, it's amazing to me, Andy, that we are now at a felony trial for a former president

00:58:18.920 of the United States, something we've never somebody we've never we've never indicted our

00:58:22.560 former president over the difference between legal expenses and reimbursement to my lawyer.

00:58:29.320 It's that's literally what the case is boiling down to.

00:58:32.580 This is insane.

00:58:33.500 Your thoughts.

00:58:33.940 Well, you know, a part of it is that it's not as clean as all that, right?

00:58:39.880 The more evidence comes out, you can't what he was paid for had to do with a variety of

00:58:50.840 things of which the payment to Stormy Daniels was a component, but was not all of it.

00:58:56.860 So it's not like, you know, the $35,000 a month traces to more than the Stormy repayment.

00:59:05.440 So that's not as clean as it looks.

00:59:08.620 The calling the arrangement a retainer is not clean.

00:59:14.900 They're they've tried to turn that into something that's incriminating.

00:59:22.240 The more evidence that comes out, the more what you hear is, you know, it was agreed that Cohen

00:59:28.920 could represent himself as Trump's private lawyer while he was president in 2017.

00:59:36.120 Oh, and it turns out that he actually did do some work for him in 2017 and 2018.

00:59:41.100 We all know a retainer agreement.

00:59:43.960 There are different kinds of them, but one kind that you can have is you pay somebody

00:59:47.560 for their availability, not necessarily that there is a project, but you want the lawyer

00:59:53.360 to be available.

00:59:55.580 The retainer does not have to be in writing.

00:59:58.280 It absolutely should be in writing, but it doesn't have to be in writing.

01:00:01.700 And one component of what they paid him for was a bonus.

01:00:09.440 So, you know, Cohen has three different things.

01:00:12.260 He's got the the Stormy Daniels NDA, the non-disclosure agreement.

01:00:17.140 He's got this 50,000.

01:00:19.080 He apparently laid out for some kind of digital assistance to spin polling favorable to Trump.

01:00:27.040 And then the last piece of it is what they call a bonus.

01:00:32.120 And the fact that Cohen may have decided that the bonus was, you know, for work well done

01:00:37.620 in the past doesn't mean that the Trump organization couldn't have decided that it was part of keeping

01:00:42.680 the relationship going in the future.

01:00:44.900 The only reason I lay all that out is, you know, to say it's problematic that they characterize

01:00:50.900 this or described it as a retainer under circumstances where it's monthly payments to a guy who is

01:00:59.160 currently holding himself out as Trump's private lawyer and is actually doing work for Trump

01:01:05.000 and is available to do Trump, to work for Trump at any point.

01:01:09.720 To say that it's like the fraud of the century to call that a retainer arrangement is strange

01:01:15.580 to me.

01:01:16.500 And then let me just address one thing that Dave mentioned, because this is very important.

01:01:20.900 I think this weaving, this wall of corroboration around Cohen is a very important thing for

01:01:30.760 the prosecutors to have done.

01:01:32.740 But I also think it's illusory because the corroboration, as Dave points out, is mainly

01:01:40.120 for stuff that technically speaking is legal, even if some of the way the Trump defense is

01:01:45.040 trying the case would suggest you to think that they think it's radioactive and they need

01:01:50.340 to distance Trump from it.

01:01:52.660 But there's one crucially important piece of evidence on which Cohen is the only witness.

01:02:00.100 And that is, there's a January 2017 meeting that Cohen has testified about between or among

01:02:08.100 him, Allen Weisselberg and Trump, in which Cohen alleges that Weisselberg described how this

01:02:16.600 arrangement was going to be booked and Trump was present and, according to Cohen, understood

01:02:22.060 what Weisselberg was saying and conveyed his assent somehow.

01:02:26.460 That is the only piece of evidence in the case that ties Trump to the way this was going to

01:02:33.660 be booked in the Trump records.

01:02:36.140 So it's a situation where if I were trying the case as a prosecutor or Dave were trying

01:02:44.940 the case, we would want to be able to go to the jury and say, we would never ask you to

01:02:50.500 convict somebody on the uncorroborated word of somebody like Michael Cohen.

01:02:55.180 And we've been very careful that every time we've elicited something important from him,

01:02:59.820 there's a document.

01:03:01.000 There's another witness.

01:03:02.000 There's something that supports his version of events.

01:03:05.220 But when you get down to brass tacks on that piece of the puzzle, which is a very important

01:03:10.480 piece, he's out there on his own.

01:03:14.140 I want to tell you guys that we pulled an article from USA Today, January 2019, because

01:03:20.760 we've been curious about the, in that $35,000 a month fee that you just ticked through, the

01:03:26.860 $130,000 doubled up for tax purposes, allegedly to pay off Stormy, a $60,000 bonus, and then

01:03:35.440 $50,000 to this company, Redfinch.

01:03:39.520 There's been some testimony around that $50,000 to Redfinch was kind of interesting.

01:03:43.420 Cohen testified that he skimmed off the top of it, that he didn't think, right, that they

01:03:50.020 had actually done $50,000 worth of work.

01:03:52.180 But I don't know, he paid them anyway, and he took some of the money, somehow, in some

01:03:57.160 way, shape, or form, Cohen cheated Trump.

01:03:59.800 He shorted them.

01:04:01.360 Didn't he short them?

01:04:02.720 He shorted them.

01:04:03.260 Okay, maybe that's what it is.

01:04:04.300 He shorted them.

01:04:05.020 But he cheated and had to admit on the stand.

01:04:08.540 But do you know, you mentioned it was for these tech services to pay this company to rig

01:04:14.600 a poll.

01:04:15.600 You know what else he got from them, Andy?

01:04:17.880 So he offered this guy, John, is it Gouger, G-A-U-G-E-R, a great name, chief information

01:04:25.100 officer at Liberty University, $50,000 to rig two online polls in Trump's favor.

01:04:31.580 He's the owner, this guy, of Redfinch Solutions, which is the tech firm that got this $50,000.

01:04:38.160 Well, in addition to these rigged polls, Cohen wanted a fake Twitter fan account portraying

01:04:46.540 Cohen as a sex symbol.

01:04:49.360 The result? 0.96

01:04:51.280 At women for Cohen.

01:04:54.300 It went live in May 2016.

01:04:58.180 Here are some of the examples of the posts.

01:05:00.420 May 2016.

01:05:01.800 No wonder at real Donald Trump chose Michael Cohen as his right-hand man.

01:05:05.740 He's charming, intelligent, and handsome.

01:05:10.020 Oh, man.

01:05:10.940 I'm now convinced that Elon Musk is right, that AI may be the most dangerous thing that

01:05:17.900 we have, the prospect that we have to live with.

01:05:20.840 People making up social media accounts from Michael Cohen as a sex symbol.

01:05:26.700 If that's the world, I'm glad I'm an old guy and I'm not going to live to see all of

01:05:31.040 this.

01:05:31.440 Please.

01:05:32.000 The AI can't do worse than this.

01:05:33.560 Wait, just let me give you one more.

01:05:35.740 September 16, Cohen tweeted from his personal account, I was told I look like a younger

01:05:40.780 Andy Garcia.

01:05:42.240 At women for Cohen responded, you look even more sexy, but the closest doppelganger for

01:05:48.260 sure.

01:05:48.980 Hashtag our guy.

01:05:50.640 Hashtag awesome.

01:05:51.980 This is gold.

01:05:56.980 This is gold stuff.

01:05:58.440 Okay.

01:05:58.800 Go ahead, Dave.

01:06:00.060 No, Megan.

01:06:00.560 I want that guy's phone number.

01:06:01.840 I could use that.

01:06:03.160 I want to.

01:06:04.080 I mean, I'd like to be compared to Ben Affleck.

01:06:06.600 That'd be nice.

01:06:07.340 So yeah.

01:06:08.020 Help me out.

01:06:08.580 Hashtag women for Dave Ehrenberg.

01:06:13.220 Although I just got married, so I'm off the market, but still.

01:06:16.980 Oh, sad.

01:06:18.100 Appreciate it.

01:06:18.480 Yeah, I know.

01:06:19.020 So sad.

01:06:19.420 I keep getting asked what Molly Ringwald is really like.

01:06:23.260 So that's my life.

01:06:24.620 So Ben Affleck.

01:06:25.240 Okay, so I do want to talk about, now Andy, as I understand the testimonies that's come

01:06:32.020 in, they haven't, let's go back to that.

01:06:35.700 They said the meeting happened either January 16 or January 17 of the year 2017, and it was

01:06:40.940 Weisselberg, the CFO for Trump, Trump and Michael Cohen.

01:06:45.140 As I understand it, the testimony that was elicited shows that Trump heard how Michael

01:06:50.060 Cohen was going to submit his bills and that he was going to say he was pursuant to a retainer

01:06:56.980 agreement for illegal expenses, but that there hasn't been testimony, at least not from Cohen.

01:07:03.960 Maybe we got it from one of those bookkeeping witnesses earlier about exactly how it was

01:07:08.060 written down in the Trump books.

01:07:10.220 Am I wrong about that?

01:07:12.640 No, you're right.

01:07:13.560 The invoices are really the strongest part of Bragg's case.

01:07:20.060 I now think that, to me, to try to organize this as I would try to organize it if I was

01:07:26.400 trying the case, the three things you have to show from Bragg's perspective is falsity,

01:07:34.160 that the documents are false.

01:07:36.160 Second, that there's a scheme to defraud because they're not the same thing.

01:07:39.640 In the statute, you have to show both falsity and fraud.

01:07:42.440 And then the third thing, to make it a felony, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that

01:07:47.940 the fraud was with the intent to conceal another crime, right?

01:07:51.960 So those are the three things.

01:07:53.440 And the falsity is very important because the falsity is the most basic thing here.

01:07:57.940 If they can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these documents were knowingly and

01:08:03.000 intentionally made false, then you're done.

01:08:05.560 So if you look at the book entries, they book them as legal expenses, as you pointed out before,

01:08:14.160 which I agree is better for Trump because the testimony about that is that they were

01:08:19.680 operating off some early 1990s software where there was a drop menu.

01:08:26.260 And if it was legal fees to a lawyer or expenses attendant to the representation,

01:08:31.340 they would put it in legal expenses.

01:08:33.580 So theoretically, this is where you would put a storm, even if you were like trying to

01:08:39.080 do it as honestly as you could, that's how they would have, they would have booked it

01:08:42.420 as legal expenses.

01:08:44.380 Then you look at the checks, you know, every one of these things, right?

01:08:47.660 Has an invoice, a check and a book entry.

01:08:49.680 You look at the checks, there's nothing on the checks that represents anything about what

01:08:54.300 it's for.

01:08:54.820 It's just their checks written to Michael Cohen.

01:08:57.480 So what the case on falsity comes down to, I think, are these invoices that Cohen prepared

01:09:03.620 and says that this is the way that Weisselberg wanted it done.

01:09:07.780 And the invoices say, pursuant to the retainer agreement, here's my bill for whatever.

01:09:18.360 I have it here, dear Alan, pursuant to, this is quoting from one of your pieces, Andy, dear

01:09:23.540 Alan, pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for the

01:09:29.700 months of, et cetera.

01:09:30.860 And he went through month after month.

01:09:33.140 Right.

01:09:33.280 So I think that, um, that's the, that's the strongest part of the case for Bragg as far

01:09:40.120 as falsity is concerned, but it's a big leap to go from that, especially if there's, there's

01:09:47.560 murkiness about exactly what a retainer is, but putting that aside, you know, Trump's got

01:09:54.120 a pretty good argument.

01:09:54.980 I think that he didn't get into the granular detail of how things were booked in his company.

01:10:01.240 He knew that he was paying back Cohen.

01:10:04.780 Um, and they have to prove that he caused these documents to be false in the records.

01:10:11.900 I think that's a, it's a tough road to hoe. 1.00

01:10:14.060 It's not, I think that's the, that's the best shot that, that, uh, that Bragg has in

01:10:19.740 this case of proving something along the lines of falsity, but it's, it's no slam dunk.

01:10:25.800 That's for sure.

01:10:26.420 So do they pin the, you tell me, Dave, is the, are the documents at issue, the Michael

01:10:36.160 Cohen bills that I just read, right?

01:10:41.860 That, uh, read dear Alan.

01:10:43.840 And this happened every month, um, pursuant to the retainer agreement, which Bragg says

01:10:48.820 was a lie.

01:10:49.620 There wasn't one kindly remit payment for services rendered for the months of January

01:10:55.860 and February, 2017 saying there were no services rendered.

01:10:59.640 He was no longer acting as a lawyer and, and there were no services rendered in January,

01:11:04.360 February, 2017.

01:11:05.040 So that's, that's a lie.

01:11:06.900 Michael Cohen's bill.

01:11:09.500 It's also a lie that in the Trump bookkeeping, keeping department, the dropdown menu checked

01:11:16.560 legal expenses should have been reimbursement.

01:11:22.080 And I guess the only other thing would be the checks, which have nothing on them other

01:11:26.120 than $35,000 in a Trump signature.

01:11:29.500 Actually, Megan, I believe the checks do have the word retainer on them.

01:11:33.560 And I look closely at the check and I think that is where it's deceitful because there

01:11:38.600 was no retainer agreement between Trump and Michael Cohen.

01:11:43.280 And so I think that's where they get them on the checks.

01:11:45.760 But as far as the other stuff, this is where Andy and I would agree is that I don't understand

01:11:51.440 why Todd Blanche decided to make it so radioactive to say that there was a reimbursement here.

01:11:59.680 Todd Blanche has laid down the line and said this, these are legal fees, legal services.

01:12:05.040 I agree with you, by the way, calling them legal expenses is a broader term that helps

01:12:08.140 Trump, but it hurts Trump to say that these were not reimbursements.

01:12:13.040 So now if the state can show the lawyer to be a liar, that they were reimbursements, then

01:12:17.600 I don't think it's a big logical step to then say that the way you treated it as legal services

01:12:23.260 is intentionally deceptive.

01:12:25.900 And although I don't see much direct evidence that Trump was involved in it, there's enough

01:12:31.940 circumstantial evidence that I think gets the prosecution there.

01:12:34.980 One last thing, Andy brought up a good point.

01:12:37.500 I actually had missed that Cohen did apparently testify that there is direct evidence where

01:12:42.800 Trump assented to the repayment scheme with Allen Weisselberg, although that's trusting

01:12:47.160 Michael Cohen's word because Allen Weisselberg is not going to be brought in as a witness.

01:12:50.980 But they do have Allen Weisselberg's handwritten notes, which explain how the $130,000 became

01:12:58.600 $420,000.

01:13:00.600 And I think that's important evidence as well.

01:13:02.540 Can I just make clear, do you know the answer, Dave?

01:13:05.520 Because, you know, the defense hasn't started its case yet.

01:13:07.980 We just know what they're going to argue based on the cross-examinations that we've seen.

01:13:11.560 Is Trump denying that there is $130,000 reimbursement to Cohen for the payment to Stormy Daniels in

01:13:22.740 that money, in that $420,000?

01:13:24.420 Is Trump denying that he ever repaid Michael Cohen anything with respect to Stormy?

01:13:30.520 Yes.

01:13:31.080 As far as the $420, Todd Blanche has denied that any of that is reimbursement.

01:13:37.040 I think that's what's going to get him in trouble, especially when you see documentary

01:13:40.980 evidence, when Trump's own words were in the 2018 lawsuit where he said he did reimburse

01:13:46.260 Michael Cohen $130,000 to pay off Stormy Daniels, where you see a tweet from around that time

01:13:53.800 where Trump said that Cohen was reimbursed for the NDA.

01:13:57.540 And then there's this financial disclosure form that Trump put out when he got to the

01:14:02.680 White House where he said under oath with his signature that, yes, he did reimburse Michael

01:14:09.040 Cohen for an amount between $100,000 and $250,000.

01:14:13.380 So that's what's going to get him in trouble.

01:14:15.580 I think Trump's own words.

01:14:16.840 Why would Trump dispute that?

01:14:18.260 We all agree that hush money payments are not illegal.

01:14:21.140 So why would he dispute?

01:14:22.160 Why isn't the defense very clearly?

01:14:24.740 Yes, he paid her off.

01:14:27.380 I reimbursed him.

01:14:28.700 She was annoying. 1.00

01:14:29.800 It never happened.

01:14:30.960 I got rid of her.

01:14:32.180 That's it.

01:14:32.600 I don't know how they booked it.

01:14:33.640 Why is he getting into, I never slept with her, and I didn't actually reimburse Michael

01:14:37.680 Cohen.

01:14:39.120 I wonder if it was because Trump is ordering his lawyers to say, deny that we ever slept

01:14:43.840 together.

01:14:44.560 And then perhaps he wants them to deny there was a reimbursement.

01:14:47.900 But that doesn't make sense because I think that, Megan, is Trump's best defense to say

01:14:52.620 legal services encompasses a reimbursement.

01:14:55.740 That was part of Cohen's job as lawyer slash fixer.

01:14:59.220 But when Todd Blanch says no reimbursement within the 420, that poses real problems for the defense.

01:15:05.140 Yeah.

01:15:05.260 Could I just add to that?

01:15:06.520 If my lawyer pays off a debt for me, Andy, if my lawyer pays off a debt for me that I

01:15:10.260 owe personally, and I pay him back, I'm going to say legal services, legal expenses.

01:15:17.300 I'm not going to get into the underlying, like, this seems par for the course.

01:15:20.740 But go ahead and make your point.

01:15:22.560 Yeah.

01:15:22.720 Well, first of all, I agree with that.

01:15:24.300 I don't think, I think legal expenses is fine.

01:15:26.900 Um, certainly not a fraud beyond a reasonable doubt.

01:15:31.900 Um, but to Dave's point, if that is the, I hadn't understood that Blanch had planted his

01:15:39.340 feet that way. 0.97

01:15:39.940 If he has, that's like the most moronic thing I've ever heard. 0.98

01:15:42.720 Because not only is Trump on record a number of places indicating that he, he paid that 0.90

01:15:48.540 back, uh, but a statement by the, by the party that's against the party's interest in a trial

01:15:57.180 is an admissible statement.

01:15:58.940 So the, they wouldn't even have to put a witness on for this, basically, they could just put

01:16:04.840 in all the, the places where Trump has acknowledged that the payment was made.

01:16:08.840 So if Blanche did that, that's like a, a dunderbrain move, which I, he doesn't strike me as a.

01:16:14.880 Has that been admitted into evidence, Dave?

01:16:15.940 Has, has the prosecution moved any of those Trump statements you just mentioned into evidence?

01:16:20.400 All three.

01:16:21.480 The 2018, uh, legal document that Trump filed as part of his California lawsuit, civil lawsuit

01:16:28.180 against Stormy Daniels, where he admits that he paid Michael Cohen, $130,000 to go to

01:16:33.640 Stormy Daniels.

01:16:34.580 He, uh, the tweet has been admitted into evidence as well.

01:16:37.800 And the financial disclosure form where Jeff McConaughey acknowledged that that was Trump's

01:16:42.940 signature on the form under oath.

01:16:44.460 And as far as what Todd Blanche said, that's his lawyer saying it.

01:16:48.120 Trump didn't say that there was no reimbursement, but Blanche said that and laid down that gauntlet 1.00

01:16:53.380 in the opening statement, which to me, I still don't understand why he did it, why he

01:16:57.580 stuck by that, which eliminates really Trump's best defense.

01:17:01.180 Yeah.

01:17:01.340 I, I have to say, you know, I, now I come at this with prosecutors bias.

01:17:08.360 So take that for what it's worth.

01:17:10.800 I always think that the case has to hang together logically, because if you're a prosecutor and

01:17:17.180 the case doesn't hang together logically, then that's doubt and you're sunk.

01:17:20.860 So that's the way we have to think about it.

01:17:23.480 Um, defense lawyers sometimes look at the case a different way.

01:17:28.000 They think, look at it as, I don't need to get 12.

01:17:31.840 I only need to get one.

01:17:33.320 So sometimes the defense sort of collides into itself in a way that a prosecutor can't afford

01:17:39.960 for the government's case to go, because you're trying to pick off a juror and maybe you can

01:17:45.600 get the jury to agree that the NDA is illegal.

01:17:48.140 Or maybe you get a couple of jurors to say that Cohn is just a terrible person and, and,

01:17:54.500 you know, you can't convict on the basis of his testimony.

01:17:58.520 They don't have the same obligation to be consistent as the prosecutor does.

01:18:02.620 I stipulate that that's true.

01:18:04.360 However, I've really been puzzled throughout the case, and I continue to be, that if your

01:18:12.940 defense, as I think it should be, is that this stuff is legal, that these agreements are

01:18:20.400 legal, then the last thing I'm doing is either denying that they happen when there's two tons

01:18:25.860 of evidence that they, that they happen.

01:18:28.360 And I don't want to treat them like if Trump is near them or touches them, it's incriminating.

01:18:36.000 I want to like, I mean, I would have been tempted during Pecker's testimony.

01:18:40.280 I would have been tempted to be sitting at the defense table in front of the jury doing the New

01:18:44.380 York Times crossword puzzle.

01:18:45.860 Like I wasn't getting hurt a touch by this.

01:18:49.780 And yet the Trump defense throughout has really made an effort to try to put big distance between

01:18:57.860 Trump and these transactions.

01:19:00.700 And while I understand why they want to be able to argue to the jury that Trump was not

01:19:06.140 involved in the granular detail of how things got booked, I just think treating this stuff

01:19:11.040 like it's, like it's illegal and radioactive and something he needs to be a million miles away

01:19:15.840 from is a big mistake.

01:19:17.120 Well, we had Arthur Idala on, on Monday who pointed out to us, he's a New York trial attorney

01:19:23.440 pointed out to us that he's very, very good friends with Joe Takapina and Joe Takapina

01:19:27.300 used to represent Trump.

01:19:28.740 Yeah.

01:19:29.180 I think in this case, certainly in the criminal matters that he's been dealing with.

01:19:33.880 And, um, Arthur was intimating though, didn't say explicitly that Takapina is, you know,

01:19:41.220 like Arthur, a book, a Brooklyn kid and wasn't going to be told by anybody how to try the

01:19:46.660 case because he had strong feelings on his own, what should be argued and what shouldn't.

01:19:51.260 And he's no longer representing Donald Trump.

01:19:54.360 So I do think he was suggesting, you know, Trump is strong arming his lawyer into making

01:20:01.100 the arguments Trump wants to hear himself in court.

01:20:04.720 And that may be to his detriment.

01:20:06.180 That would not be the first time that's happened.

01:20:07.800 And, um, I do want to pull up my, my team just sent me the Trump tweets that you were

01:20:11.640 referencing Dave.

01:20:13.540 Cause I did, we did at some point go back and looked at the, look at that Stormy Daniels 1.00

01:20:17.560 case between the civil case between Trump and Stormy out in California.

01:20:22.280 And I know that you and others have argued that he explicitly admitted it was a reimbursement

01:20:27.220 in that in pleadings in that case.

01:20:29.840 When I read it, I have to admit it seemed confusing to me.

01:20:34.160 I didn't say, I w I didn't read the paragraph where he allegedly made this admission and

01:20:38.640 say, yep, there it is.

01:20:40.440 I was like, huh, this is it.

01:20:42.620 Okay.

01:20:43.160 I mean, maybe, maybe not as that was my takeaway on it.

01:20:46.300 I don't deny it.

01:20:47.020 I just, it wasn't clear.

01:20:49.360 Here's the, here's the tweet.

01:20:51.980 He writes, uh, this is on Twitter.

01:20:54.960 Hold on.

01:20:55.500 I'll click on it so we can see the date.

01:20:56.860 Uh, five, three, 18, Mr. Cohen, an attorney received a monthly retainer, not from the

01:21:05.480 campaign.

01:21:05.740 So here he's using retainer, you know, as like fee interchangeable with a fee, uh, received

01:21:11.320 a monthly, monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the

01:21:15.040 campaign from which he entered into through reimbursement, a private contract between

01:21:22.480 two parties known as a non-disclosure agreement or NDA.

01:21:25.760 And then he goes on to admit this is in connection with the stormy case.

01:21:29.480 So here he uses the word through, he says through reimbursement.

01:21:35.360 Um, that's why that's how Michael Cohen entered into it.

01:21:39.020 I mean, that's probably good enough, but again, I'm, I'm a little unsatisfied.

01:21:44.740 Dave, is there smoking gun language where he's like, I reimbursed him?

01:21:49.680 Well, do you see the conflict of interest form also that he signed around the same time

01:21:55.180 he submitted to the government where they added that there was a reimbursement of Michael

01:22:00.820 Cohen for a fee, uh, an expenditure between a hundred thousand dollars and $250,000.

01:22:06.440 Uh, so that those three things.

01:22:09.240 And also as far as the, the first thing you mentioned, the trial court in, uh, California,

01:22:13.440 they subsequently came out with a ruling that says that this is an admission by Donald Trump,

01:22:19.800 that, that this is an admission.

01:22:20.940 So it was my understanding that it was clear that the admission was he did pay Michael Cohen

01:22:26.340 to then pay stormy Daniels to reimburse him for the stormy Daniels payment.

01:22:30.880 But there's a reason just to be clear, Dave, that was to Trump's advantage in the stormy

01:22:35.340 Daniels case because he wanted to show we struck an agreement.

01:22:39.480 I'm aggrieved and I want a remedy here.

01:22:42.740 Like it, in that case, he wanted the court to know he had reimbursed her and wasn't embarrassed

01:22:47.600 about it.

01:22:48.680 Correct.

01:22:49.640 And as far as that tweet goes, Megan, yeah, that tweet was a, was a contentious tweet.

01:22:55.540 The, uh, Todd Blanche and his team fought hard to keep that tweet out of the trial.

01:23:01.260 It was a reason why they didn't want that in there and they lost and it was admitted.

01:23:05.780 Because I think they understood how damaging it was.

01:23:07.980 And I just have to wonder if Todd Blanche knew when he was standing up in his opening argument

01:23:11.500 saying there was no reimbursement, no reimbursement.

01:23:13.980 Did he know of this, all this information, this evidence that the state was going to provide?

01:23:18.360 You have to believe it.

01:23:19.280 It was probably provided a discovery.

01:23:21.240 I just don't know why he had to go there.

01:23:23.720 Because I think now we've done the very thing we were criticizing them for doing, which is

01:23:29.100 we now we've wasted 20 minutes talking about whether he damn reimbursed Michael Cohen for

01:23:33.840 the 130 when it's irrelevant. 0.67

01:23:35.720 I mean, it's, it's relevant, but it's, this is not dispositive in any way of the case.

01:23:40.780 He should have just admitted.

01:23:42.060 He should have said, yes, I reimbursed him.

01:23:43.740 Hush money payments are not illegal, but I did not know anything about how the bookkeeping

01:23:47.940 went at the Trump organization.

01:23:49.400 I'm a busy man and it should not be dispositive.

01:23:52.780 You're absolutely right.

01:23:53.460 But you know that the prosecutors are going to make Todd Blanche eat his words because

01:23:57.860 jurors hate when lawyers lie to them.

01:23:59.720 And when a lawyer promises you something or attest to something and they're opening and

01:24:04.360 it proves to be the opposite by the end of the case, they take that, the jurors take that

01:24:08.860 into the deliberation room with them.

01:24:10.780 And you know that the prosecutors are going to make Todd Blanche eat it.

01:24:15.060 So I think that was an unforced error.

01:24:16.980 Yes, because they're saying, I can't trust him.

01:24:19.960 He lies to me that I can't trust that lawyer because he lied to me about this thing.

01:24:23.680 All right, stand by.

01:24:24.200 I'm going to take a quick break and we'll come right back.

01:24:25.820 There's much more to get to.

01:24:27.320 This case is so crazy.

01:24:28.480 Can you believe women for Cohen?

01:24:31.720 It's nuts.

01:24:32.920 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM.

01:24:36.940 It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and

01:24:41.760 important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

01:24:44.680 You can catch the Megan Kelly show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts

01:24:49.660 you may know and probably love, great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave

01:24:56.160 Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelly.

01:24:59.300 You can stream the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are, no car required.

01:25:05.540 I do it all the time.

01:25:06.580 I love the Sirius XM app.

01:25:09.120 It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more.

01:25:14.680 Subscribe now.

01:25:15.600 Get your first three months for free.

01:25:17.900 Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free.

01:25:23.740 That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free.

01:25:29.700 Offer details apply.

01:25:30.780 I want to play you one piece of tape, guys, that was played on the cross of Cohen this

01:25:40.840 morning that had all the media reporters reacting, saying, my God, he sounds so different.

01:25:47.220 And this is a very different version of Michael Cohen than the jury has been presented with

01:25:51.540 thus far.

01:25:52.340 I'm not sure our audience will find it jarring or surprising because we've played a lot of

01:25:56.500 Michael Cohen tape over the past few days.

01:25:58.580 But take a listen to this.

01:25:59.560 It was played in court today.

01:26:00.660 It's a thought from Michael Cohen's reaction to Trump's indictment on his mea culpa podcast,

01:26:06.660 March 2023.

01:26:07.460 So I want to thank the Manhattan district attorney's office and their fearless leader, Alvin Bragg.

01:26:15.460 He is about to get a taste of what I went through.

01:26:18.280 And I promise you, it's not fun.

01:26:21.500 Picturing Donald Trump being led through the booking process, getting fingerprinted, having

01:26:26.380 his mugshot taken fills me with delight and sadness all at the same time.

01:26:31.880 Sadness, I say, because what an embarrassment it is to the office of the presidency to have

01:26:38.060 a former president of the United States handcuffed and mugshotted before the entire world.

01:26:45.840 So, Andy, you've been pointing out all along that they really don't have much.

01:26:51.920 If we go down your list, they have to prove falsity.

01:26:54.700 They have to prove a scheme to defraud.

01:26:56.960 And they have to prove that he had an intent to conceal an underlying crime.

01:27:03.660 And that's the alleged election violation, you know, the campaign finance violation.

01:27:08.940 And they just there's just I don't where is the proof of that?

01:27:12.940 Where is the election violation?

01:27:15.180 And there's a debate in legal circles about whether they have to actually prove an election

01:27:18.720 violation or whether they just have to prove he intended to violate the campaign finance

01:27:23.900 laws, which is even more attenuated.

01:27:25.860 But really, it comes down to Cohen for the most part.

01:27:29.500 I mean, Cohen's the one who talks about the meeting with Weisselberg.

01:27:32.900 Cohen's the one who submitted the invoices.

01:27:35.700 The case rests largely, almost entirely on Cohen and entirely as to that third piece of the

01:27:44.040 elements.

01:27:45.460 And my question to you is, do tapes like this, his serial falsehoods, just completely wipe that out?

01:27:53.580 I mean, are we at the point now where the judge actually could consider entering a directed

01:27:58.000 verdict?

01:28:01.140 So I think, Megan, we have to take a second and take a step back and and just remember,

01:28:07.220 and I'm telling you what I tell myself at least a couple of times a day.

01:28:11.860 There's often a difference between, especially when you have a case that's that's covered as

01:28:18.240 intensely as this one, with what our understanding of the evidence is, because we can, you know, we can

01:28:25.780 take it in in bits and then analyze it legally versus what the jury is taking in in the courtroom.

01:28:33.700 You know, the jury doesn't get me and Dave to come out every 30 minutes and explain to them what it

01:28:40.320 all means.

01:28:41.360 Right.

01:28:41.880 So so helpful.

01:28:44.500 But the thing is, there's nothing to me, the unseen dynamic in a in a criminal trial, probably any kind

01:28:52.580 of trial, but especially a criminal trial is how the judge number one relates to the jury, but also how

01:29:01.760 the judge treats the prosecution's case, because the jury takes its cues in terms of how it understands

01:29:10.140 it, how it how it at least presumptively feels about the government's case from the way the judge

01:29:16.080 is acting. Right. So we can we can say we can do this antiseptic exercise to say, as I've done, you

01:29:23.880 know, falsity, fraud of the crime. Right. That's that's all very neat and clean. But what the jury is

01:29:30.740 getting is. Judge Merchant is very solicitous of the government's case. The Trump defense is acting like

01:29:39.460 the NDA is even if they say they're legal, that they're not like, you know, that they need distance

01:29:45.920 from it. The judge is allowing the prosecutors to talk about a conspiracy as if it's already been

01:29:52.080 proved. The judges has allowed Pecker and Cohen to testify that in Pecker's case, there was a

01:30:00.940 non-prosecution agreement and a fine paid to the SEC, the FEC. And in Cohen's case that he pled guilty

01:30:07.840 to campaign finance violations. So the prosecutors are kind of acting like the other crime is not

01:30:15.200 something they have to prove. It's an established fact already. And I don't know, you know, it's going

01:30:20.820 to be very important what the jury instructions are in this case, maybe more so than even in the

01:30:26.040 in the usual case. But I don't know that the that the case we're analyzing is the case the jury

01:30:32.680 is perceiving. And on the last one of that last point that you made, this goes to me, this is one

01:30:39.880 of the biggest disconnects in the case. As you said, Bragg is now saying, you know, I don't even have

01:30:47.160 to establish the other crime. I only have to show that he intended to commit it. That's not how the

01:30:52.700 criminal law works. The way the criminal law works is if you commit an act, we infer your intention

01:31:01.220 from the act. And it's pretty it's pretty easy. If you rob a bank, we know what you have on your

01:31:06.900 mind. Right. But what the law is very concerned about is if we're criminalizing your thoughts,

01:31:14.360 then we require strong evidence that that's actually what you were thinking. So in theory,

01:31:20.960 you should have to prove more, not less. If what you're saying is we only have to prove that he

01:31:26.040 intended the crime, like there should be some unambiguous evidence that Trump had the

01:31:30.620 campaign finance laws on his mind and he had a reasonable enough understanding of him that he

01:31:36.240 willfully violated a known legal duty. That's the kind of evidence that you want when it's just an

01:31:42.100 intent crime. And instead, what they're saying is, I don't even I only have to prove like he intended

01:31:47.840 to do it as if that's a lower thing rather than a higher burden. So I just think the case we're

01:31:54.180 talking about that we get to parse may not be the case the jury's perceiving in the courtroom.

01:32:02.400 Right. We're kind of ivory towers right now, not man on the street taking it all in the way the

01:32:07.940 jury's taking it in and experiencing it fresh faced the way the prosecution's presenting it and the

01:32:13.580 defense is poking holes in it. So, Dave, where what do you think so far? I mean, what's the narrative

01:32:19.460 going to be? The underlying crime was what? That he received an illegal campaign contribution

01:32:25.320 from Michael Cohen in the form of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. And then he worked

01:32:30.720 with Cohen and Weisselberg to cover it up. And to document it falsely, is that that's basically it.

01:32:39.320 Correct. And that the crime occurred when Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels one hundred thirty

01:32:43.880 thousand dollars. That was the campaign finance crime. And you don't have to prove beyond a reasonable

01:32:49.040 doubt, as Andy said, that that crime occurred. You just have to show that that's why they falsified

01:32:55.120 the business record. So first, you have to show that Trump was involved with the falsification

01:32:59.420 of the business records, and that was intended to conceal the campaign finance crime. Now,

01:33:04.660 I know there are some commentators who are suggesting that there's also some tax crimes that

01:33:09.240 the state is going to allege because of the way they grossed up the payment to Michael Cohen.

01:33:14.780 I am unclear on that. That just confuses me because Michael Cohen did pay taxes on that amount. So

01:33:21.200 the state of New York doesn't seem to be out any money. So I don't know what they're talking about

01:33:25.280 when it comes to the tax crime. Maybe Andy can help me on that one. But I think the best second crime

01:33:30.180 they have to make this a felony is still the campaign finance crime. Now, on appeal, we'll see if

01:33:35.280 the courts allow a state prosecutor to lean on federal campaign finance laws to elevate a state

01:33:42.080 misdemeanor to a state felony. We'll see. Yeah, especially when there is no campaign finance

01:33:47.300 violation here. But let me ask you this. So do you agree, Dave, that the evidence they have that

01:33:52.080 Trump was in on the alleged scheme boils down to that January 16th meeting with Weisselberg or 17th

01:33:57.120 meeting with Weisselberg, Cohen and Trump and what Cohen is saying about Trump hearing the way that

01:34:04.520 Cohen was going to bill it? And potentially also Cohen claims that Trump reassured him that there'd

01:34:13.760 be no campaign finance problems with the law because Jeff Sessions, according to Cohen, Trump said,

01:34:19.660 Jeff Sessions is in my pocket. Is that is there some other bombshell out there that supports Trump

01:34:25.280 knew and was in on the documentation scheme? The testimony that we heard from Jeff McConaughey that

01:34:30.740 Donald Trump was a micromanager who expected him to negotiate bills down, I think is circumstantial

01:34:38.040 evidence that Donald Trump is not going to just sign off willy nilly on a $35,000 per month

01:34:43.460 retainer payment unless he knew that this was for something very personal to him, the hush money

01:34:50.660 payment. So I think you can extrapolate that. Okay, but that doesn't get to the false documentation.

01:34:55.560 That gets to, I knew what it was for. It was the stormy hush money. I'm trying to get

01:35:00.560 all the evidence that proves he knew they were going to write it down falsely. He was fine with

01:35:04.980 that. He was in on that scheme. And he also had a willful intent to violate campaign. He knew that

01:35:13.260 this was going to violate the campaign finance laws and had a willful intent to do that. So far in that

01:35:17.900 latter, latter point, all I've seen is the alleged conversation, conversation, conversation about

01:35:22.860 Jeff Sessions. Don't worry. He's in my pocket. He's not going to come after you, David Pecker or anybody

01:35:28.160 else. Right. Well, in February, they had that meeting in the White House where Michael Cohen

01:35:32.320 alleges that he and Trump met and Trump said, hey, are you okay? You need money? And then you'll get

01:35:38.060 your checks for January and February. Go talk to Allen, meaning Allen Weisselberg. And so you'd have

01:35:44.260 to believe that Donald Trump didn't know what Allen Weisselberg had come up with this grossing up

01:35:49.240 scheme, the way that they framed it, that Donald Trump really believed that this was for legal fees or

01:35:54.140 legal expenses, that all this stuff was legit above board, when in reality, it does look like

01:35:59.680 that Donald Trump was involved from soup to nuts from the beginning to the end in paying out the

01:36:05.000 hush money and disguising it as these legal expenses. And perhaps it would have been a good defense if he

01:36:10.700 said, yeah, I interpreted reimbursement as legal expenses. So there is no fraud here. But that was

01:36:16.540 undone by Trump's own lawyer, Todd Blanche, to say, no, no reimbursement whatsoever within the $420,000.

01:36:22.080 Okay, guys, a couple of quick questions on the witnesses. Weisselberg is at the heart of this

01:36:26.800 whole thing. He was allegedly in the room for this pivotal meeting. Right now, we know he's in

01:36:30.900 Rikers. He would not cooperate with Alvin Bragg. So he's sitting in jail on some other cases against

01:36:36.500 Trump. And he's not going to be called because the prosecution says Cohen's their last witness.

01:36:42.080 And I guess the defense is not calling him. I don't even know if you can you call him as a defense?

01:36:46.560 Can you get him out of jail for a day to come testify? Anyway, they're not calling me there,

01:36:50.140 we believe. So why is that, Dave? Well, it's easy to see why the prosecutors aren't going to call

01:36:56.160 him. He's a liar. He's convicted perjury sitting in Rikers right now. And he's loyal to Donald Trump. 1.00

01:37:01.660 So he's not going to help the prosecution. It's that last thing. It's that last thing that's

01:37:05.280 keeping him off the stand, because those first two things are true of Michael Cohen, too.

01:37:09.580 Fair enough, except Michael Cohen is not in Rikers. But yes, point taken. As far as why the defense

01:37:14.720 isn't calling him, he has his credibility problems, too. I don't know if it's a good look to put on as

01:37:19.880 your main witness, a guy who has so much baggage and they really can't control. Although he's loyal

01:37:24.840 to Trump, he could give up something that could ultimately bite him in the butt. Now, the other 0.99

01:37:29.640 thing is this. The defense just seems like they're going to rest without putting on any witnesses at

01:37:34.980 all. And that is not uncommon. If they think the state has not reached its burden of proof,

01:37:40.440 then they don't have to put on a thing. I know for sure that Trump's not going to testify.

01:37:44.640 I did think the expert witness would testify. And right now we're hearing that may not happen.

01:37:49.200 Well, yeah, because they said that they were going to bring one witness. The defense did,

01:37:52.120 Dave. So that's changed now. I'm hearing that it's uncertain now. I thought it was. Maybe Andy

01:37:57.980 knows more. But I got the sense that right now it was in flux. Okay. So why do you think Weisselberg is

01:38:04.460 not taking the stand, Andy? And does anybody have any thoughts on where Keith, the bodyguard, is?

01:38:08.860 If we're going to dispute whether there was an interlude with Stormy Daniels,

01:38:12.580 one side, whichever one is telling the truth, should want Keith to get on the witness stand and say,

01:38:19.140 I was outside of his door every night. She never, never came there. Or I remember she went in. I

01:38:25.280 don't want to be here and turn on Mr. Trump. But yeah, she definitely was there. Go ahead, Andy.

01:38:30.200 On Weisselberg, he's not testifying because Bragg won't immunize him. He's got a live

01:38:34.860 Fifth Amendment privilege. And if he testifies favorably towards Trump,

01:38:40.320 what Bragg has demonstrated is that while he's not particularly interested in prosecuting actual

01:38:47.420 crime in New York, which is a pretty significant problem, he's very interested in prosecuting

01:38:53.700 Allen Weisselberg. He does it more often than I go on vacation. So, you know, that's why. And I

01:39:00.900 actually think this is one of the more underhanded things I've seen in a long time, because it's

01:39:06.580 obvious that if you're the jury, you'd be sitting there saying, where is Weisselberg? And what Bragg

01:39:12.460 tried to do last week was get in to evidence the severance agreement between Trump and Weisselberg.

01:39:21.580 Weisselberg gets $2 million, but there's all kinds of provisions in the agreement that prevent him from

01:39:27.100 speaking publicly or contributing to investigations and other stuff against Trump. And what Bragg is

01:39:35.560 trying to do is suggest that the one keeping Weisselberg off the stand is Trump, because he's

01:39:44.180 got this severance agreement that he can hold over him. In the meantime, the severance agreement has an

01:39:49.020 explicit term that says, if you get subpoenaed, or if you get called by a court of competent

01:39:53.920 jurisdiction to come in and testify, yes, you can come in and testify. That's, you know, the agreement

01:39:59.640 doesn't actually have to say that to be true, but it is true, right? So what Trump, what Bragg is

01:40:07.500 trying to do is say, Trump is the guy keeping him off the stand. In the meantime, the guy keeping him

01:40:12.040 off the stand is Bragg. All he's got to do is give him immunity, and then he could bring him in to

01:40:16.080 testify. And if he would say a version of events that was helpful to Bragg's case, that's exactly

01:40:21.340 what Bragg would do. But the only guy who's got power to give him immunity is Bragg. No one else in

01:40:26.160 the equation has that power. Any thoughts on the bodyguard? Any like, why wouldn't they call the

01:40:31.500 bodyguard? I don't, I don't, I guess I don't know enough about that, because I, and maybe this is

01:40:40.400 just me, because I have like this conceit about this whole thing, and I just can't get past myself. But

01:40:46.000 I just think the stormy thing is so out of place in this case. I mean, that testimony, I even think the

01:40:55.180 judge regrets having allowed that graphic testimony in the case. It's totally irrelevant

01:41:01.440 to whether, you know, whether Trump paid the money or whether Cohen got paid and what the

01:41:11.500 documents say and how the documents were prepared. It's really far afield from that. And I think the

01:41:17.820 Trump people have made enough in the way of a mess for themselves by fighting things that they

01:41:22.200 shouldn't be fighting. I don't understand why the state cluttered up their case with that other than

01:41:27.080 to dirty up Trump. I don't see any other good reason for it. Maybe they didn't feel like they

01:41:32.620 needed him, Dave. Yeah. And Megan, this is another self-inflicted wound by Todd Blanche's opening

01:41:38.060 statement. He made it a point to say that the sex never happened. And so that opened the door

01:41:42.480 for Stormy Daniels to bring out all this salacious stuff that otherwise she would never have been able 0.99

01:41:46.880 to talk about. So that was another miscue, I think, unless the defense can use that on appeal

01:41:52.920 to overturn the case because that stuff was so prejudicial. So maybe there's a strategy in it

01:41:57.100 after all. Okay. Let's talk about what could happen after this, because we had Mark Garagos and

01:42:02.640 Marsha Clark on the program yesterday, and we had a brief discussion about what would happen if Trump

01:42:08.880 were convicted. Would he be remanded? I mean, would he be putting cuffs immediately? Would he be taken?

01:42:15.260 Would he be remanded to jail pending the filing of an appeal, etc.? And could he potentially as,

01:42:22.240 you know, could there could something as extreme happen, Dave, where he could be wearing an ankle

01:42:27.640 bracelet during the first presidential debate later in June? I don't think so, Megan. A judge

01:42:35.260 understands the moment he's in. And I think that if Trump is found guilty after the sentencing won't

01:42:41.660 take place right away, he will not be remanded. He'll be allowed to go about his business. And then

01:42:46.900 when he gets sentenced, I think it's more likely than not he gets just probation. And if he does get

01:42:51.820 anything more than probation, yeah, he could get some house arrest. But remember, Trump is going to

01:42:56.520 appeal that immediately. So he won't have any sanction, I think, until after, well after the election.

01:43:01.540 Both Garagos and Marsha Clark, who are legit trial attorneys, as you know, said he'll probably get

01:43:09.340 jail time at any, well, there was some question about whether he'll, but that any other defendant

01:43:14.160 would get jail time for these 34 felonies, even without a prior record. Is that crazy talk, Dave?

01:43:22.820 I think it's true that other defendants could get jail time, 34 counts, even with no prior record.

01:43:29.380 They could, but most of them seem to get probation for this. Donald Trump, though,

01:43:34.000 I do not believe he'll get jail time. I don't know how you put him in jail with Secret Service

01:43:37.360 for this. I think, yeah, he could get some level of house arrest with an ankle bracelet at some

01:43:42.760 point, but this is going to be on appeal for some time. And I just don't see him wearing an orange

01:43:48.100 jumpsuit or steel bracelets ever in this case. Marsha had questions about jail time. He was,

01:43:53.120 he was saying, who are your experts? I was like, what do you, I got the best experts in law coming on

01:43:56.960 this show? And he was the first one who really pushed the idea that he was going to go to jail

01:44:01.620 for this if he gets convicted of the 34. Go ahead, Andy. I looked at the stats the other day. I did a

01:44:08.460 little post on National Review for this. In 2022, which is the last year they have full records, there

01:44:14.860 were 156,000 arrests in New York City, of which 72,000 were felony arrests. And of those, almost

01:44:26.000 30,000 were violent felony arrests. You know how many people got prison sentences in 2022? 4,350

01:44:34.520 out of 156. How many were named Trump? Well, no, but my point is, my point is, it's really hard to,

01:44:43.960 what does Heather McDonald say, that like, prison is like the Lifetime Achievement Award for criminals?

01:44:48.480 It's really hard to get sentenced to prison in New York. And the other thing, Dave may know more about

01:44:54.820 this than I do, but I'm pretty sure I was not a state practitioner in New York. I only did the

01:44:59.360 federal stuff, but my understanding is with certain categories of nonviolent crime, and this, even

01:45:06.880 though it's a felony, would be considered a nonviolent crime, that once he files a notice of

01:45:12.700 appeal, he's out until the appeal is decided. So I don't see, is there prison in his future if he gets

01:45:23.140 convicted here? It's possible. But I think he could string this out till 2025, 20. And once he's,

01:45:29.120 if he wins the election, and I've never been one who thought, I still think Biden's the favorite to

01:45:35.580 win the election. But if he wins the election, I would think under the supremacy clause, they would

01:45:42.920 argue that he shouldn't face a sentence until after he's out of office. So I think it's a long way

01:45:50.220 from that. So you don't see him in an ankle bracelet, or God forbid, behind bars. Can you

01:45:55.200 imagine that debate? Hold on, hold on, just doing cell check. I'll get, I'm going to answer that right

01:45:59.960 after they deliver my, my meal. That's insane. Here, here's Dave, you go on MSNBC. Here's Lawrence

01:46:09.200 O'Donnell with some thoughts on, on the upcoming debate, and why he's not happy about them. Stop 25.

01:46:15.520 There will be a nominee in the debate, facing at least three indictments, who will already have

01:46:25.480 been convicted or found not guilty in an earlier trial happening now in New York City. If there is

01:46:31.420 a hung jury in the Manhattan trial, and the district attorney announces that he is going to pursue a

01:46:36.900 retrial of Donald Trump on those same charges, then Joe Biden won't be able to talk about that case

01:46:41.980 either. A so-called debate that was already going to be ridiculous, is going to be even more

01:46:50.600 preposterous. It will be the theater of the absurd. Joe Biden won't just have one hand tied behind his 0.92

01:46:58.840 back. He will be put in a legal straitjacket. And the unfair benefit to Donald Trump is enormous.

01:47:06.960 Joe Biden is a good lawyer who could rip up Donald Trump in a debate just talking about the criminal

01:47:15.740 indictments, indictments against Donald Trump alone. Do you agree with that, Dave, that he won't be

01:47:22.640 able, Biden won't be able to raise any of the criminal indictments at the debate? I don't see why he can't

01:47:28.920 raise them. I mean, he, he can talk about state cases. I understand why he may not want to talk about

01:47:33.960 federal cases that his own Department of Justice is pursuing. He can talk about them generally,

01:47:38.640 though, say, hey, you're the one who's been indicted four times. He can say stuff like that.

01:47:43.300 But there's nothing to stop him from talking about a state case, even a state case that ended in a

01:47:47.920 home jury and still has to be tried again. So, no, I have to disagree with him on that. I don't know

01:47:52.420 what authority he's citing that would say that Joe Biden can't talk about those things.

01:47:58.240 I agree with you. I was, I wondered if, silly me, I wondered if he knew something I didn't.

01:48:02.900 I should have known better. Do you have any thoughts on that, Andy, whether Joe Biden will

01:48:07.140 be somehow prohibited from commenting? I mean, I feel like he will definitely comment on at least

01:48:12.800 the New York state case, especially if there's been a conviction. Yeah, I think Trump, when he

01:48:18.780 was president, would get himself in trouble by doing things like recommending that somebody get

01:48:23.260 severe jail time. But in prosecutor's offices, which is the executive branch, and I was a Rudy

01:48:32.240 Giuliani assistant. So there was a fair amount of concern about how the media was going to report on

01:48:38.900 our cases. But a lot of thought went into what you put in charging documents so that as long as it's on

01:48:45.560 the public record, you're allowed to talk about it. So I don't see why he wouldn't. The attorney

01:48:50.360 general or the prosecutor on the case could speak publicly about what's on the public record. So I

01:48:55.680 don't see why he shouldn't. The other reason, though, I think the debate will be hilarious,

01:49:01.360 and maybe we'll talk about this some other time, is if things go the way they're now scheduled to go,

01:49:07.180 Hunter Biden's got a trial on, is it June 3rd? June 3rd. Is the gun case? And then June 20th is the tax

01:49:15.880 case. I mean, I don't know what they're going to do. Will they ever get around to talking about

01:49:20.360 inflation or Israel? That's a good question. I mean, we're going to be talking. It'll be like us 0.98

01:49:26.240 three talking about talking about the trials. Yeah, exactly. Talking about whether it was a

01:49:31.760 reimbursement or not, just like completely off point. I got to ask you this last thing. So yesterday, I

01:49:38.880 mentioned this to our panel. And what we were told by a source close to the J-6 federal case

01:49:45.700 is that there's an expectation that this is what the prosecution is going to do, Jack Smith,

01:49:51.600 that the Supreme Court is going to rule on whether Trump has absolute or partial immunity.

01:49:57.460 They're also going to rule on that J-6 obstruction case that doesn't involve Trump, but could gut

01:50:02.500 one of the main claims against him. And something will probably be left of Jack Smith's case. The

01:50:09.800 odds of it going away completely because Trump's completely immune for all, very, very slim. So

01:50:15.040 something will be left. That's worst case scenario for the prosecutor. Best cases, everything's left.

01:50:22.500 Then they kick it back down to Judge Chutkin and they say, you figure out, you know, potentially

01:50:27.620 which of the behaviors alleged took place as in his role as president and which of the behaviors

01:50:33.880 alleged took place in his role as candidate Trump, not working for the American people,

01:50:38.920 but working for himself because that latter group would not be immunized. That's that's an expected

01:50:44.060 ruling could could go differently. But let's say that's what happens. They expect Jack Smith

01:50:49.220 and Tanya Chutkin, the judge, to pedal down to the metal on trying the case. This Supreme Court 0.96

01:50:57.440 ruling would come out in June, presumably. And then we move forward to maybe July, maybe as

01:51:03.900 soon as August that she actually tries the case. It's going to take a long time. It's not going to

01:51:08.160 be a fast case. And there's a belief we won't get it tried before the November election. I share in

01:51:12.680 that belief, but they do think it could get tried before January 6th. So Trump could potentially win

01:51:21.100 the presidency in November while he's on trial in that D.C. courtroom. The DOJ rule of we don't

01:51:28.920 prosecute within a certain window doesn't apply. They've already said we charged him well before

01:51:32.840 that window. So it's on there. They're full steam ahead. He gets elected president. He gets convicted

01:51:41.120 in the J6 federal court. And then the Democrats turn it into a battle in Congress not to accept

01:51:51.500 the vote, the certification. The count will have happened in December. And then the certification

01:51:57.280 would be J6 like it was the last time. And they will make the case. He's a convicted felon in a federal

01:52:05.000 court over, you know, obstruction or whatever counts are left. You can't certify this vote and

01:52:11.800 then it's going to turn ultimately into a political battle again. How do you like that theory? And could

01:52:17.840 it actually play out like that, Dave? I do think that if the Supreme Court greenlights the case that

01:52:23.780 Judge Shutkin and Jack Smith are going to go pedal to the metal, I do agree with that. But I think that

01:52:29.700 we're thinking so many steps ahead about how the Democrats will react if it happens right before

01:52:34.300 he takes office. That's a lot. My head is spinning on so many hypotheticals. But I do agree with the

01:52:41.180 fact that if this case can be tried before the November election, that it will be. I don't think

01:52:47.180 that they're going to move to try it after the elective. Trump gets elected in November. I don't

01:52:52.120 think that Judge Shutkin and Jack Smith are going to set this case for November 20th. What if it's

01:52:58.220 mid-trial when it gets elected? Yeah. They'd have to actually like recess the trial for a week for the

01:53:02.760 election, perhaps? I guess. Oh, I don't know that answer, Megan. But I do think that-

01:53:08.060 Because, Dave, he wouldn't yet be president. So he couldn't pull the DOJ off the case. He would be

01:53:13.240 president-elect. He can't pull the DOJ off the case until he's sworn in.

01:53:18.060 I think that the way that they'll do it is if they think they can complete the trial before the

01:53:22.720 election, they'll go ahead with it. I think if they think the trial would take place and continue

01:53:27.120 till after the election, then I don't think they set it for trial. I don't think Judge Shutkin would

01:53:30.780 go that far. I totally disagree with you. I think she'll do what she needs to do to get him.

01:53:37.120 But you go ahead, Andy. Yeah, I think there's a missing piece in the hypothetical. So I think the

01:53:45.460 smart money is that the Supreme Court is apt to remand the case to Judge Shutkin with some guidance

01:53:55.040 about distinguishing official acts from private acts, and then tell her to work out which is which,

01:54:06.420 because you may have to take some evidence on that. So let's say the case gets remanded that way.

01:54:14.440 Here's the quandary for Jack Smith. I thought, listening to the argument, and I confirmed this

01:54:20.980 rereading the transcript of it, I thought that Sauer, the lawyer for Trump, gave a lot of ground.

01:54:29.120 He did.

01:54:30.320 And especially in the answers to the questions by Justice Barrett and Justice Kagan.

01:54:36.160 And what falls into private conduct.

01:54:38.880 Right. And like, for example, the fake electors scheme is private conduct. The allegation that

01:54:47.360 he has that verification document in the litigation in Atlanta that has a false statement in it,

01:54:52.940 they admit that that's private conduct. Now, here's the thing. This would require a concession

01:54:59.680 from Smith that, based on the way he's tried the case in Florida, I don't know if he has it in him.

01:55:05.380 But I could see a prosecutor going to Judge Shutkin and say,

01:55:11.120 you know what, Judge? Forget about going through the indictment and parsing it out.

01:55:17.900 We're ready to go on, go to trial on just the stuff that they said was private. And I'll leave

01:55:23.900 the rest of my case, even though I want it on the on the cutting room floor. Now, the reason I say I

01:55:29.100 don't think Smith has it in him is I really thought in Florida, if he wanted to get to trial,

01:55:35.540 he should have made that a fast and nasty obstruction case and not don't do the three

01:55:40.940 dozen classified information counts to get you into two years of CEPA litigation. You don't need

01:55:47.200 that. If you want to get the guy to trial, he's got like 40 or 50 years of exposure on the on the

01:55:52.540 six or eight counts of obstruction. He could have gotten that case to trial, but he wants the whole

01:55:58.020 case. So it's it's in this limbo. And if he acts like that in Washington, then I think all bets

01:56:04.100 are off because you'll never get to those scenarios you talked about, Megan, because

01:56:08.720 if if they send the case back to Chutkin for her to do this exercise and go through it,

01:56:14.540 then it's still a pending immunity case, immunity issue, which is appealable.

01:56:21.300 So she'll make her ruling and then Trump will appeal to the D.C. circuit.

01:56:25.000 OK, I agree. I agree. But but you take it from here, Andy. I agree. But then the Court of Appeals

01:56:32.840 will take it. D.C. Court of Appeals will take it. And they're I don't know. Let's just say they

01:56:36.700 rule for her like they did the last time on immunity. Who's to say the Supreme Court's going 0.97

01:56:41.520 to take that appeal up and get down into the granular, you know, OK, this is private. No,

01:56:47.880 this is presidential. Wouldn't they in that circumstance be more likely to say that one

01:56:52.460 we're not taking? We defer to the court and to the Court of Appeals. That's making the problem.

01:56:57.140 Yeah. But the problem is in in federal law, I don't know if it's the same way. And I think it's

01:57:03.540 the same way in most jurisdictions. There's you're only in front of one court at a time.

01:57:09.600 As long as the immunity is a live issue, she's not going to be able to do or she's got like three

01:57:15.060 months of work to do to get this case to trial because there's major pretrial motions that haven't

01:57:19.960 been decided. There's also going to be an attack on Smith's status as a special counsel,

01:57:25.740 which they're going to litigate down in Florida as well. I don't see how there's enough time

01:57:30.940 unless Smith just says, I'm willing to live with the case as Sauer conceded it was in the Supreme

01:57:38.900 Court in terms of the private activity. Let's go to trial on the fake electors and the false

01:57:44.900 statement. Then I think you could get to trial. But if you if you don't do that, then it's still

01:57:49.980 an immunity issue that's appealable. And once the D.C. circuit takes it, even if they only take a

01:57:55.500 month, that's a month that checking can't do anything on the case. I just don't think there's

01:58:00.080 enough time to get it to trial. Dave, do you think there's any chance Jack Smith will winnow

01:58:07.940 the J6 case down, as Andy just outlined, or potentially the Mar-a-Lago case? That's where

01:58:14.500 you are in because he understands if Trump wins this election, both of those cases are going away

01:58:22.380 entirely. So if there ever were a time to take half a loaf, he might be thinking this is it.

01:58:30.680 I agree with Andy on the January 6th case. I do think the election interference case in D.C.

01:58:35.760 can be narrowed and expedited, not the Mar-a-Lago documents case. I think Jack Smith is resigned to

01:58:42.080 the fact that with Judge Cannon, he's not going to have this happen before the election, no matter what

01:58:46.740 he tries to do. And as Andy said, if Jack Smith really were about just gaming the system, he could

01:58:52.960 have filed the Mar-a-Lago documents case in Washington, D.C. in a better form. And not only

01:58:58.400 did he file it in the Southern District of Florida, but he actually asked for the West Palm Beach

01:59:03.000 division, which allowed Judge Cannon to be the more likely judge assigned to this case. So Jack Smith,

01:59:09.620 I think, just believes in the system. He's going to move ahead. But I do think that if he has a chance

01:59:14.300 to expedite the January 6th trial because of everything that's been going on, yeah, I think

01:59:19.200 he does that. And Judge Huckin would go along. All right. I got to get Andy to give the last word.

01:59:24.840 Jack Smith just believes in the system. He's a Boy Scout. He's just Joe Friday in there trying to do

01:59:30.380 his best for the American people. Do you believe that? Well, let me put it this way. Mike Dreben got up

01:59:39.340 in front of Mike Dreben, who is Smith's lawyer, right? Got up in front of the Supreme Court being

01:59:44.540 asked questions by Justice Alito and said, you don't have to worry about politicized prosecutions

01:59:52.440 because we don't do something like that. After all, prosecutors take an oath and we have to go

01:59:59.660 through the grand jury to get charges filed. And we have all kinds of internal controls in the

02:00:08.360 Justice Department to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen. While Dreben was looking

02:00:15.120 the court in the eye and making that argument, if you looked over at the table for the other party in

02:00:21.240 the case, what you didn't see was the defendant who was entitled to be present, but who wasn't present

02:00:27.860 because he's up in a political prosecution in New York and he can't be present at the trial.

02:00:34.540 Jack Smith has scheduled these cases, has brought his indictments under circumstances where the cases

02:00:45.920 had to come to fruition in the months leading up to the election, even though there's Justice

02:00:50.780 Department guidance that says we're never, ever supposed to take election dates into account.

02:00:57.460 This was all strategically done. And this idea that you, you, that the public has an interest in a

02:01:05.980 speedy trial that trumps the interest, pardon the pun, of a defendant who has been prosecuted not by

02:01:14.420 one, but by four different prosecutors, including Smith twice. Under circumstances where any one of

02:01:22.660 these cases would be a full-time job to get ready for, and they want to do all four of them, and they

02:01:29.140 want to do it before election day, and then they want to tell you his due process rights have been

02:01:34.240 completely upheld and respected. And then they want to look you in the eye and say, we're just about

02:01:39.460 the system. We're just upright guys. We don't care if it's Trump or, you know, Joe Schmoe off the

02:01:45.380 street. We treat them all the same. Really? I don't think so. Same. It's like going down in an

02:01:51.980 airplane, a la the one they showed in Lost, crashing and burning and Boeing being like,

02:01:57.840 we checked all the safety boxes. We follow protocols. Fear not. Who would ever, who would

02:02:03.520 ever cut corners and see a plane go down? That was how the Supreme Court argument felt to me on,

02:02:08.560 when Jack Smith's lawyer said that. Okay, sure, Jan. Sure. Guys, you're great. Thanks. I'm sorry I stole so

02:02:14.700 much extra of your time, but as usual, a stellar discussion. Thank you both. Thank you. Thanks so

02:02:19.640 much. And we will be back tomorrow with our pal Dan Bongino. Oh, we've got so many good things to

02:02:26.080 talk to Dan about. I know you're going to love it. Please tune in. Thanks for listening to The

02:02:33.540 Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:02:44.700 Thank you.

02:02:56.660 Have a great day.

02:03:04.520 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 16, 2024

Michael Cohen Hammered by Defense, and Raising Resilient Kids, with Gary Vaynerchuk, Andy McCarthy, and Dave Aronberg ｜ Ep. 794

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript