The Megyn Kelly Show - Michael Cohen's Glaring Credibility Issues, and Decline of Public Schools, with Viva Frei, Phil Holloway, and Corey DeAngelis

00:00:00.640 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.440 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Happy Monday. I hope you had a great Mother's Day.

00:00:18.160 I did not post anything on X about it yesterday because I was enjoying the family.

00:00:22.300 In fact, I only made one post yesterday and it was on Instagram and it was about Thunder trying to save my children

00:00:28.100 who were not in any danger, but she didn't know that in the pool where a large basketball hoop had fallen in.

00:00:33.400 And my good girl, Thunder, barked and barked and barked until we went out and took a look.

00:00:37.520 Everyone was fine, but my sweet girl didn't know that. She was letting us know.

00:00:41.280 Stradwick just sat there, did not bark, and then ruined Yardley's soccer ball.

00:00:44.780 Okay, so the legacy media Sunday morning news shows barely covered the trial of former President Donald Trump yesterday.

00:00:52.340 And you know why? Because it's going well for him.

00:00:54.180 Trust me when I tell you that if it were going poorly for him, if Stormy had been the nail in the coffin of Donald Trump,

00:01:04.640 they would have been all over it.

00:01:07.180 So the fact that they barely touched it should tell you everything you need to know about how the Stormy Daniels testimony actually went down last week.

00:01:14.020 We now turn to the prosecution's star witness, and that is Mr. Trump's former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen.

00:01:20.900 It's been a very interesting morning. He's a convicted felon himself. He has massive credibility issues, to put it mildly.

00:01:29.240 He's been on the stand all morning, and we will bring you the latest. We've been watching every single line of testimony.

00:01:34.880 Joining us today, Viva Frye. He's a lawyer and Rumble creator.

00:01:38.160 And Phil Holloway is a legal analyst and host of Inside the Law on YouTube.

00:01:45.040 Welcome back, Viva and Phil. Great to have you.

00:01:47.720 Thank you for having us.

00:01:48.660 Thank you, as always, Megan.

00:01:50.340 All right. So I think it's fascinating seeing this happen.

00:01:53.800 I mean, to me, it's like a Greek tragedy.

00:01:56.520 You know, Michael Cohen gets picked by Donald Trump to work for him when he's a young lawyer in his 30s, gets a good job, a good salary.

00:02:03.320 He's an idolized Trump from his perch growing up in Long Island.

00:02:07.740 You know, of course, Trump was known by us all back in the New York early days.

00:02:11.260 And his job is not exactly as lawyer and counselor.

00:02:17.980 It's more as fixer, where Trump wants him to do certain things, and he does them.

00:02:22.800 And like he testified, one of the things he did for Trump was to negotiate down certain fees Trump owed or contracts Trump was obligated to pay on.

00:02:31.720 And it occurred to me when I was listening to this, you know, the relationship was fraught from the beginning, right?

00:02:38.140 Like, I think there's a reason Trump hired someone as sketchy as Michael Cohen.

00:02:41.740 He was reportedly always desiring to have someone like Roy Cohn, you know, the famed lawyer who would just he was famous for his strong arm tactics and getting things done.

00:02:54.540 And this was supposed to be his Roy Cohn.

00:02:57.880 And Cohen spent a lifetime trying to just get Trump what he wanted.

00:03:01.840 As he put it, I just my job was to make him happy.

00:03:04.980 And I don't know what sort of corners were bent or what happened.

00:03:07.380 But New York real estate is infamous for corners being bent and, you know, for operating operators doing what they need to do in order to get these buildings built and deals done.

00:03:18.560 That's just the way it is, not just Trump, by the way.

00:03:20.340 I know a lot of these guys.

00:03:22.240 So, of course, Trump had this lapdog working for him, who then, when he started to run for president, was just begging, begging, begging to be part of the administration, to be taken along, you know, for the next piece of it.

00:03:33.400 Take me with you.

00:03:34.020 Take me with you.

00:03:34.640 Take me with you.

00:04:04.640 That's not what turned things south.

00:04:06.500 What turned things south is the jig was up.

00:04:10.980 They'd been working together with AMI to cover up these women's stories who were coming forward.

00:04:16.120 Karen McDougal, the playmate of the year in 98.

00:04:18.900 Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly had this one night stand.

00:04:22.640 And Cohen was working with AMI, or in the case of Stormy, on his own, paying off these women to keep him quiet.

00:04:28.780 And when the shit hit the fan, Trump cut ties, let him twist in the wind, and he went down for it.

00:04:36.420 And now it's Trump's turn.

00:04:37.600 So that's kind of how it shook out this morning.

00:04:40.460 And the Greek tragedy winds up, you know, as in others, with the wannabe aspiring son sticking the knife in his dad, turning on him.

00:04:50.820 He says Trump turned first.

00:04:53.160 But in any event, he's up there testifying so far this morning about how he loved Trump.

00:04:57.680 He was happy.

00:04:59.220 He really loved his job.

00:05:00.700 If only, if only the dad had seen how wonderful he was, Viva, perhaps we wouldn't be here today.

00:05:09.660 He might have been a better attorney general than Merrick Garland, in fairness, but the competition's not very high there.

00:05:15.260 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:05:16.600 But it's so wild.

00:05:18.300 We're listening to this in real time right now.

00:05:20.300 And it's as though, look, there are Better Call Saul type attorneys.

00:05:23.940 And then there are Alan Dershowitz type attorneys.

00:05:26.480 And quite clearly, I mean, I like Better Call Saul and he seems like a nice guy, but quite clearly, Michael Cohen was of that pedigree of an attorney.

00:05:34.400 And there was I'm now convinced, by the way, listening to all of this, that Michael Cohen and David Pecker were in on this quasi extortion scheme against Donald Trump.

00:05:45.580 When you have Michael Cohen basically the fixer.

00:05:48.600 And I forget who said it last week.

00:05:49.780 He was the fixer because he broke everything.

00:05:52.020 You know, he's a ghost.

00:05:53.420 Oh, pics.

00:05:53.760 Just he's he's fixing, you know, negotiating these deals on stories that they know are false, making work for himself so he can bill for this, even though they know the stories are bunk.

00:06:03.880 It's like everybody was having a dip at Donald Trump's pockets.

00:06:07.440 But the bottom line is, even if all of this is true, there's no underlying crime to any of this.

00:06:11.980 But the more bottom line is that Michael Cohen is a corrupt extortionist of his own, in my humble opinion, not talking like in law.

00:06:19.080 But it's certainly seen that they were all just making work for themselves so they could dip into Trump's pockets and all take a piece of the pie as Trump is paying it out because it's not worth his time to deal with any of this.

00:06:28.640 So you don't believe that Trump had a one night stand with Stormy Daniels or had an affair with Karen McDougal?

00:06:35.420 McDougal, I don't know.

00:06:36.860 Stormy Daniels, no.

00:06:38.280 From what I know from like, I'm not intimately involved with anybody in the, you know, in the campaign.

00:06:43.140 Look, for someone who is a self-proclaimed neurotic hypochondriac myself, you're not having unprotected sex with a porn star who is in the industry of having unprotected sex because she's allergic to latex condoms when you have options that are better if that's your proclivity in life.

00:06:59.240 So I don't believe it for a second.

00:07:01.720 And I believe that Stormy Daniels is an extortionist who was trying to get money out of Trump, as Michael Avenatti has now seriously implied from his jail cell in New York.

00:07:11.300 You know what's crazy, Phil, is I came into this trial completely believing that Trump had had a one night stand with Stormy and an affair with Karen McDougal.

00:07:21.380 And I still believe he had an affair with Karen McDougal.

00:07:23.760 That one got a little bit more detailed from testimony.

00:07:27.140 I think it was today with Cohen, where it was it went on allegedly for a long time, for months, if not years.

00:07:35.620 And Cohen confronted Trump with the fact that she was shopping the story around.

00:07:39.560 And his first response, according to Cohen, was she's so beautiful.

00:07:43.320 So they definitely knew each other.

00:07:45.900 There are pictures of them together.

00:07:47.160 And I don't I still believe it.

00:07:48.840 They didn't call her and they're not calling her.

00:07:50.880 But I no longer believe the Stormy Daniels story.

00:07:53.880 I at least have very serious doubts about I would not find beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:07:57.720 Not that they have to, but I would not find beyond a reasonable doubt that they had an affair.

00:08:01.420 She came across as so not credible, as we discussed on that Friday night show.

00:08:04.580 So I just I can't I don't put any stock in what this woman's heard to her new Me Too remembrances.

00:08:11.200 I now believe it could have been a whole could have been a setup.

00:08:13.860 She met him at the Tahoe thing.

00:08:15.560 Maybe she went to his apartment or his hotel room.

00:08:17.580 Maybe she didn't.

00:08:18.780 But I can't believe a word out of that woman's mouth.

00:08:21.120 Well, considering the source being Stormy Daniels, and of course, now, if Michael Cohen says it's true, then I am irredeemably confined to believe the alternative that it did not happen.

00:08:33.880 If Michael Cohen says the sky is blue, I'm going to doubt the validity and the truthfulness of that statement.

00:08:40.760 You know, Michael Cohen, back to him.

00:08:42.680 You know, we talk about him being a fixer.

00:08:44.760 Well, it sounds to me like he likes that moniker way too much.

00:08:48.760 It seems to me that he's embracing that.

00:08:51.240 I guess it goes to his ego and pumps up his ego just a little too much.

00:08:56.360 You know, when you talk about renegotiating contracts and you talk about working down the number on the dollar amount that you owe people on bills and things like that's actually practicing law.

00:09:07.720 That's not necessarily being a fixer.

00:09:09.660 But in Michael Cohen's mind, he gets more mileage on TikTok out of being labeled the fixer for Donald Trump.

00:09:18.780 So when you talk about whether the affair ever happened or any of this other stuff, by the way, look first to the bias of the people making the claim.

00:09:27.860 Does Stormy Daniels have a bias against Donald Trump?

00:09:30.580 Most assuredly so.

00:09:31.900 Does Michael Cohen have a bias?

00:09:33.560 Most assuredly so.

00:09:35.040 And the fact that they are leading this testimony or perjury, whatever it is, with evidence that makes the case for him being biased against Donald Trump, I think only goes to help Donald Trump.

00:09:48.440 Because first and foremost, before you get into all of the prior inconsistent statements and the convictions for things related to fraud and lying, if a defendant who sits in the witness chair has a built-in bias against the defendant, you can disregard all of their other testimony.

00:10:06.580 And the same goes for Stormy Daniels and whether or not they ever had an affair.

00:10:10.420 So far, Michael Cohen is trying to sketch a relationship in which he's tight with Trump, Viva, that it was an open-door policy.

00:10:21.600 He could go in there whenever he wanted, didn't need an appointment, and that they were so close that Trump shared his contact list, like in his, I don't know if it's his phone.

00:10:33.120 I don't think Trump, yeah, Trump seems to be a shoe.

00:10:35.860 Yeah, the Rolodex phone use, but his Rolodex.

00:10:39.420 And I actually just heard people on CNN saying, oh, my God, who would do that?

00:10:42.880 Who would share every single contact they have with, you know, their right-hand person?

00:10:47.400 Meanwhile, I'm like, Abigail Finan literally knew when it was time for me to get more birth control.

00:10:52.540 You know, back when I was taking it, my assistant.

00:10:55.420 Let me tell you, there are plenty of us who share everything with our right-hand person.

00:11:00.780 But the whole point is to show they're tight, they're tight, tight, tight.

00:11:04.460 And later, it will be argued, Michael Cohen would never have done anything without running by Trump.

00:11:09.720 Well, okay, I have to get this thought out of my head before, because this goes back to the question.

00:11:13.420 So whether or not you believe Trump did this with Stormy Daniels.

00:11:15.980 For anybody who didn't watch her testimony, she said she was allergic to latex.

00:11:18.740 So in all of her hundreds of movies of career, she never used a condom.

00:11:23.440 And we're to believe that Donald Trump, who by all accounts is a germaphobe, would do this.

00:11:26.940 It's like that old commercial when you have unprotected sex with somebody, you're not just having sex with them, but everyone who they've ever had sex with.

00:11:32.820 So all that's, I had to say that before I forgot it.

00:11:36.600 Do I believe, Michael Cohen's testimony is all over the place.

00:11:40.380 I put out a meme, because it's hilarious, where his answer was, yes, I mean, no.

00:11:45.220 That was one of the last tweets from Inner City Press, Matthew Russell Lee, that I had the privilege of reading before we went live.

00:11:51.560 The guy, he'll say anything.

00:11:53.220 What's clear is that he's got overt malice and animus towards Trump, as does Stormy Daniels.

00:11:58.920 And she's got a personal vendetta, or at least financial interests, in seeing Trump go down, because she owes him a half a million dollars and doesn't want to pay any of that.

00:12:06.440 They have clear animus if they don't have potentially other mental issues.

00:12:11.300 I mean, Stormy touched on it, as to whether or not she might be suffering from some mental issues.

00:12:17.060 Michael Cohen, if he doesn't touch on it, it might appear to be apparent from his behavior.

00:12:22.780 But what we've seen in the broader scheme, we've seen a politically weaponized machine that has no qualms about using the mentally unwell as tools for political profit.

00:12:32.200 The way they exploited E. Jean Carroll to go after Trump under that law that they recently amended to allow her to do it.

00:12:39.120 I'd say to some extent the way the machine exploited Fetterman in his time of illness just because they needed him on the seat.

00:12:45.560 And then when he started saying things critical of the party, they start potentially throwing him under the bus.

00:12:50.540 We see an exploitation of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels to their detriment to pursue Trump.

00:12:55.700 And my concern is it doesn't matter what evidence is presented or is not presented.

00:13:00.240 We are in New York.

00:13:01.180 Trump is getting convicted the same way he was found liable for that nonsense E. Jean Carroll suit.

00:13:06.180 So the bottom line, I don't think it matters what evidence is on display or what evidence is contradicted.

00:13:11.280 I think Trump is getting convicted regardless.

00:13:13.740 It'll be for the appeals court.

00:13:14.680 That's how I feel, too.

00:13:15.980 I feel the same.

00:13:17.240 I feel like it's kind of it's beyond it's kind of a moot point.

00:13:21.680 I hope it's not felt, but it's kind of a moot point.

00:13:23.560 I mean, we're lawyers, so we want to analyze the evidence and say, are we convinced?

00:13:27.720 Has the prosecution proven its case?

00:13:29.980 But I mean, I just can't get past the fact that New York went Manhattan when 87 percent for Joe Biden and those 13 percent probably voted for Jill Stein and no one like I just.

00:13:45.240 This is not a Trump loving town politically, Manhattan.

00:13:48.900 And the odds are lawyer or not lawyer, you know, health care worker or not.

00:13:53.700 They don't like Donald Trump.

00:13:55.560 No one they know likes Donald Trump.

00:13:57.760 Their families hate Donald Trump.

00:13:59.460 Their wives hate Donald Trump.

00:14:00.560 Those are the odds.

00:14:01.800 So I just can't get past the fact that we're kind of out here like bobbleheads.

00:14:06.780 The trial's already lost in all likelihood.

00:14:09.140 That's what Alvin Bragg is banking on, because this truly has to be one of the worst cases I've ever seen.

00:14:17.900 You tell me about your experience.

00:14:19.160 But I mean, it's such a joke that he must be just banking on the fix being in with the jury, given their politics.

00:14:25.980 You know, when I was a prosecutor, I could not even imagine for one second bringing any case to trial, let alone one against a former president,

00:14:35.620 where there is absolutely no corroborating physical or other evidence to support the testimony of a disbarred, convicted, felonious liar named Michael Cohen,

00:14:49.080 who goes on TikTok and wants nothing more than to show the world him in his Donald Trump behind bars T-shirt,

00:14:56.400 when that is the person who concocted any kind of scheme or made any legal plan or gave any legal advice.

00:15:04.740 And he wants the jury to send the client to prison for doing what he, as the client's lawyer, asked them to do.

00:15:12.980 It's just not a rational thing to expect in a rational legal world.

00:15:17.860 But when the deck is stacked in your favor, like it probably is for the reasons you said for Alvin Bragg, then you can just go for it.

00:15:27.020 And all you care about is the short term potential for a short term conviction.

00:15:32.560 And let's not kid ourselves either.

00:15:34.500 Harvey Weinstein, yes, his case got reversed because a judge let in too much irrelevant stuff to slime a criminal defendant to the point that it became an unfair trial.

00:15:45.160 But we cannot say that we can expect the same thing for Donald Trump because for the same reason that the jury has got it in for Donald Trump,

00:15:54.820 the same reason Judge Murchon, I think, is biased against Donald Trump, the justices and the judges in the appeals process also probably hate Donald Trump because it is, after all, New York.

00:16:06.500 So this thing, from beginning to end, top to bottom, just stinks of being unfair, and it's the kind of thing that in a rational world would not have gotten this far.

00:16:16.000 But we've got this convicted felonious liar, Michael Cohen, who has to not only make out all the elements of the crime because we haven't seen that yet,

00:16:24.340 but we also have to get a jury, I guess, to pretend that all the other times he may have lied under oath, so be it.

00:16:30.760 But this time, he's decided to tell the truth.

00:16:32.580 Oh, yeah, we'll get to what a liar Michael Cohen is.

00:16:35.180 We'll take some time to dig into that.

00:16:37.540 You know, the thing is, they've proven, you know, they've had testimony that Trump was concerned about this Karen McDougal,

00:16:46.760 the playmate of the year with whom he allegedly had an actual affair, not like a one-night stand,

00:16:51.360 and that he, that the National Enquirer paid her $150,000 to, you know, give them exclusive rights to her story, which they never published,

00:16:59.780 that Stormy Daniels came forward alleging a one-night stand, and that Cohen paid her $130,000 and then sought reimbursement.

00:17:06.640 That's the underlying basis for this case.

00:17:08.160 They also have proven that this doorman, this doorman at Trump Tower claimed that there was a woman inside Trump Tower

00:17:17.720 who is the mother of Trump's illegitimate baby, and the National Enquirer paid that guy $30,000 to catch and kill his story.

00:17:26.900 We know that one was not true, and Trump presumably knew that one was not true.

00:17:32.780 So there's no question that Trump did pay through Pecker.

00:17:36.440 I guess he didn't reimburse him because Trump is an infamous cheapskate.

00:17:39.800 I mean, that is pretty much the uniform testimony.

00:17:42.220 But Trump, Trump wanted that story caught and killed, Cohen and Pecker, and they did.

00:17:48.560 They caught and killed the $30,000 doorman thing, which indisputably was fake.

00:17:53.980 Now, I heard CNN this morning talking about, I'm like, well, this, these payments are a lot higher, $130.

00:17:59.320 No, they're not, you dumbasses.

00:18:00.560 You guys know in the law of, in the world of law, the difference between $30,000 and $130,000 is nothing.

00:18:07.040 It's basically how dumb is your opposing counsel who's trying to shake you down, right?

00:18:11.060 Like, I'll pay probably $150 to get rid of you.

00:18:13.420 That's nuisance change.

00:18:14.460 That's what my client's going to pay in legal fees if we have to do this for the next six months.

00:18:19.320 But it's, it's, it's a nuisance value settlement either way.

00:18:22.560 So we can't tell anything by the money.

00:18:24.380 This was Caitlin Collins, by the way, suggesting this.

00:18:26.380 Can't tell anything by the money about whether Trump thought it was true, Viva, or knew it was true.

00:18:32.580 Well, Caitlin Collins has not had the best takes on things in any realm of the universe.

00:18:37.760 But I think this actually highlights something a little bit more insidious where you had Michael Cohen and Pecker, you know, the fixer fixing things that they break,

00:18:46.600 going to Trump with a story that everybody knows is false, but saying, you better pay it off and you better pay us off to do the work.

00:18:52.700 Or if it goes public, it might cause harm anyhow.

00:18:56.040 And it does sound an awful lot like Michael Cohen and Pecker were involved in a shakedown scheme on Donald Trump.

00:19:02.680 And it might explain, it might explain why AMI, which is Pecker's organization, signed the non-prosecution agreement with the state back in 2018.

00:19:10.280 But one thing that's worth mentioning in all of this, it's not just that it's a biased jurisdiction and a corrupt judge.

00:19:17.120 Like, we're talking about all this now, and we're still forgetting, or we seem to be forgetting, that Trump is still being gagged.

00:19:22.620 He's still incapable of publicly addressing these two confirmed liars, a porn star and a convicted perjurer, according to Arthur Angeron, the other New York corrupt judge.

00:19:32.780 He's still gagged while all this is going on and can't publicly refute a lot of the lies that they're saying.

00:19:38.100 And Stormy Daniels gets up there and says, I felt drugged.

00:19:40.960 I mean, objections sustained.

00:19:42.060 But what the hell is that to say?

00:19:43.520 I feel like I blacked out.

00:19:45.040 Like, it's so prejudicial and so absolutely irrelevant to the underlying theory of the case, the underlying felony.

00:19:53.200 And a shout out, by the way, to this guy named Joe Nierman, Megan.

00:19:56.780 You might not know him.

00:19:57.360 Joe Nierman, good logic, a New York attorney who's trying to lift the gag on Donald Trump with the not so novel but pretty obvious argument that the gag on Trump doesn't just violate his First Amendment rights.

00:20:07.080 It violates all of ours because we have the right to hear us to say.

00:20:10.040 But she's been saying that, too.

00:20:11.500 Yeah, it's why it's why this guy is doing some good work on gag Trump.

00:20:16.140 But like he's been gagged.

00:20:17.660 These two people come out and spew the most prejudicial of lies.

00:20:21.060 And if he dares to comment on it publicly, corrupt Judge Marchand, whose daughter is profiting handsomely from this trial, as is Adam Schiff, her client.

00:20:29.180 If he says anything, he'll be found.

00:20:30.140 As is Michael Cohen.

00:20:31.960 Oh, yeah, Michael Cohen with his TikTok and all this crap.

00:20:34.380 I don't know how that works.

00:20:35.240 But if Trump says anything, he might go to jail because it'll be his 11th strike for contempt charges under this corrupt Judge Juan Marchand.

00:20:42.620 The whole system is freaking broken.

00:20:45.580 And to is it Al Pacino?

00:20:47.340 The whole system is out of order right now.

00:20:49.420 And people really need to appreciate it and start speaking up about it.

00:20:53.000 You're out of order.

00:20:54.460 You're out of order.

00:20:56.180 Yes.

00:20:56.480 No, it's actually amazing because Stormy Daniels has written a book.

00:21:01.180 She's had a documentary made about her.

00:21:02.900 She's gotten paid off both by Michael Cohen and then by all these news agencies, including NBC News, which gave her $100,000 for back footage, for back footage.

00:21:12.320 Bullshit.

00:21:12.760 They bought her interview.

00:21:13.860 They're just like the National Enquirer in that way.

00:21:17.360 They're making bank off of these allegations.

00:21:19.720 And Michael Cohen now, despite the fact that he's a convicted felon with a TikTok, with merch he's selling that has Trump's picture in jail.

00:21:29.140 This is like a week ago.

00:21:30.820 This was out there and he was touting it and celebrating it.

00:21:33.500 This is their star witness.

00:21:35.080 Biased much?

00:21:36.540 The only person who can't comment on it is Trump.

00:21:39.780 And then we have the sitting president of the United States making jokes about Trump's trials at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

00:21:46.840 Once again, Trump can't respond.

00:21:48.640 He has to keep his mouth shut or they're going to throw him in jail for real.

00:21:53.380 What what if this case is still going when it comes to an appeal or what have you?

00:21:58.500 When these two if these two finally do have a debate in October, which is typically when the two candidates debate and Joe Biden brings it up.

00:22:06.020 Can he say anything about it then?

00:22:07.600 Is it does the gag order last until the end of the entire case, judge?

00:22:12.740 Or is he allowed on the presidential debate stage to actually offer a retort when he's under attack?

00:22:18.980 That's how absurd this whole this whole thing is, Phil.

00:22:21.620 Yeah, the whole thing is is absurd from from top to bottom.

00:22:24.760 This this this business with the gag order.

00:22:27.080 I just can't for the life of me understand why Judge Merchant seems to think that he can't issue a gag order against somebody who's under a state's subpoena.

00:22:36.420 For Christ's sake, he can.

00:22:37.880 He should.

00:22:38.980 And the fact that he refuses to do so is only, in my view, more evidence of his bias.

00:22:44.980 But if I can get to this one question back to Michael Cohen, where is attorney client privilege?

00:22:51.220 Why has why is the judge allowing all this into evidence?

00:22:55.400 Because all the stuff that Michael Cohen was involved with was attorney client privilege.

00:23:01.060 And the fact that he's not a lawyer anymore is a exception, Phil.

00:23:04.660 Well, I mean, nobody seems to be litigating this, Megan, and I don't see anybody objecting.

00:23:09.920 I don't see anybody standing up saying, you know, this is my attorney client privilege.

00:23:14.160 I object to to to all this stuff.

00:23:17.080 And Michael Cohen, by the way, is out here talking about things that are not even related to the issue at hand in this case.

00:23:25.320 And so there should be an objection every time something like that comes up.

00:23:29.540 There are two lawyers, as we know.

00:23:31.260 And you know, can I just jump in because I'm going to argue against myself.

00:23:34.740 So how can it be crime fraud exception basically for the listening audience?

00:23:37.900 If if Phil's my lawyer and I tell him a bunch of stuff, it's privilege.

00:23:41.700 But if what I'm telling him is I'm I'm committing, you know, some sort of a fraud and I want you to paper the deal for me and you have to put it down in a false way because that's how I'm going to get away with my fraud.

00:23:52.940 And Phil's like, yeah, I'm on it.

00:23:54.320 I'll do it for you.

00:23:55.300 That that would not be privileged because of the crime fraud exception.

00:23:59.000 But they're not alleging.

00:24:01.040 Even the prosecution knows that a hush money payment is not illegal.

00:24:04.640 Paying off Stormy Daniels, paying off Karen McDougal, even paying off the dumb doorman.

00:24:09.220 Not illegal.

00:24:09.860 What was allegedly illegal is the documentation of it, which they say wasn't proper.

00:24:14.700 But they're not talking about communications, at least not yet, related to the documentation.

00:24:20.140 That's actually what they're really missing is is testimony from Michael Cohen that Trump directed or knew about exactly how this is all going to be documented.

00:24:27.580 Maybe we'll get there.

00:24:28.320 But go ahead, Phil.

00:24:29.420 For crime fraud, you've got to have some judicial determination that there was a fraud here.

00:24:33.460 There's no evidence outside of what Michael Cohen says is that there was any kind of crime or certainly there's no fraud.

00:24:40.480 You've got no victims.

00:24:41.980 You've got somebody making a writing a check to his attorney.

00:24:45.680 It's either for attorney's fees or it's to pay for the consideration that's necessary to support a valid contract.

00:24:52.860 So there's been no judicial determination that crime fraud even applies here.

00:24:58.360 So how this whole thing is coming in without any objection, apparently, is beyond me.

00:25:04.040 And hopefully the two lawyers on the jury will at least see that because we lawyers, if nothing else, we take pride in the attorney-client privilege.

00:25:14.180 It's sacrosanct because without it, we couldn't do our jobs.

00:25:17.300 We could not represent our clients, whether it's in a criminal case, a business relations case, domestic, anything.

00:25:22.660 We can't do our jobs without an attorney-client privilege that is held sacrosanct by the courts.

00:25:29.080 Maybe these two lawyers on this jury will appreciate that and see that there is something very, very rotten in Denmark.

00:25:37.760 I mean, Michael Cohen, for the record, is no longer a lawyer.

00:25:39.920 He's no longer a licensed attorney.

00:25:41.260 He's been disbarred.

00:25:41.660 That's just the smallest of his many problems with the law.

00:25:46.000 Convicted felon, admitted liar, lied before Congress while under oath, said he lied to a federal court, was cross-examined by Alina Habat, Trump's lawyer in one of the other cases, and admitted, yeah, I've lied repeatedly to federal courts.

00:26:03.000 I mean, he's just being disbarred as an attorney is the least of his worries.

00:26:06.300 But he taped his own client, you know, they spent some time this morning on his tape, Viva, with Trump, discussing the Karen McDougal payment, which is color to this case, but is not really at issue in this case.

00:26:22.340 The documentation of it is not something he's been charged with.

00:26:25.740 It's the documentation of a different payment to a different woman.

00:26:28.760 The prosecution's just setting the stage with the Karen McDougal stuff.

00:26:31.700 Look, the evidence that we've been seeing adduced by Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels has had no probative evidentiary value.

00:26:40.640 It has only been for the purposes of being prejudicial in that it's humiliating or paints a picture of.

00:26:46.440 When you talk about the crime fraud exception, look, I won't venture out of my alley.

00:26:49.880 I was a Quebec attorney, no longer practicing because I don't live in Quebec anymore.

00:26:54.620 But when Michael Cohen was recording these conversations, there was no crime even being alleged to have been committed.

00:27:02.280 And so he's recording the conversations with his client, not because he's being bullied into breaking the law by an El Chapo type client.

00:27:10.140 He's recording it to extort his client at a later date, if need be.

00:27:14.020 And that's what we're seeing.

00:27:14.700 Let me just interject.

00:27:15.320 What he said today was that he recorded him because he wanted to then go show the National Enquirer, see, this is like he's on me to make sure it's getting done.

00:27:24.660 We've got to make sure this gets done.

00:27:26.160 You know, I'm that connected.

00:27:27.820 Megan, let me just tell you how I'm not calling you this name.

00:27:31.440 I'm calling Michael Cohen.

00:27:32.240 How insanely idiotic that explanation is that he's going to go tell David Pecker, I secretly recorded my own client.

00:27:39.640 And now I'm showing you something that he doesn't know I even recorded.

00:27:42.380 I mean, it's so what he did was make a recording potentially with the long term objective of extorting Trump.

00:27:50.840 And that's exactly what he's doing right now.

00:27:52.460 He failed to get on the campaign.

00:27:54.560 It seems that he was heartbroken and some people might have suggested suicidal, but that's what he was doing.

00:27:59.040 He wasn't even recording a crime in real time.

00:28:01.120 The ultimate irony in all of this is that I don't know if you followed Michael Avenatti, the other the other convicted lawyer extortionist in this wonderful trilogy of characters from from jail, tweeting out that he gets a call from the producer of Stormy Daniels documentary Netflix series.

00:28:16.880 And then they admit that they circumvented payment to Stormy Daniels to circumvent the money that she owed Donald Trump.

00:28:22.740 And so they concocted a fraudulent payment scheme to conceal Stormy Daniel assets from Donald Trump.

00:28:28.140 I mean, it's another realm of accuse your enemies of what you're doing.

00:28:31.600 You know, confession through projection.

00:28:33.800 They are the ones who are guilty of everything they're accusing Trump of.

00:28:36.800 But bottom line, when Cohen was recording that conversation, his his explanation is untenable at best to say, I'm going to go to some other guy now and show you a secret recording between me and my client untenable.

00:28:47.960 He was doing it for, you know, it does occur to me.

00:28:49.900 I don't I don't believe that Trump has committed a crime here, but I would say if you're thinking about committing a crime, you should definitely do it with a bunch of losers, convicted liars and, you know, people with no reputation.

00:29:01.660 It's very helpful when they take the stand.

00:29:03.800 It was very easy to dismiss.

00:29:05.120 For the record, here is that Cohen Trump audio from September 2016.

00:29:14.100 All right.

00:29:14.300 This is two months before the election, not even discussing Karen McDougal.

00:29:18.260 And you can hear Cohen suggesting the matter's been handled and you hear Trump say something about cash and you'll hear Cohen say, no, no, no.

00:29:28.700 And then they say, check, I don't know that the submission was that this is Trump clearly being like pay and cash for God's sake.

00:29:34.820 And Michael Cohen saying, no, I don't I'm not sure if my own take on it is that it hasn't really become an issue, not for nothing.

00:29:40.700 But here's the take.

00:29:41.400 I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David, you know, so that I'm going to do that right away.

00:29:54.120 I've actually come up and I've spoken to me and I've spoken to Alan Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with funding.

00:30:02.400 Funding. Yes. And it's all the stuff, all the stuff, because, you know, you never know where that company, you never know where he's going to be.

00:30:12.480 Correct. So I'm I'm all over that.

00:30:15.080 And I spoke to Alan about it when it comes time for the financing, which will be.

00:30:18.940 Listen, what financing?

00:30:20.900 We'll have to pay.

00:30:22.640 So no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:30:24.520 I got no, no, no.

00:30:27.980 OK, so that's the you know, it's showing how involved Trump was in the payments to Karen McDougal, not Stormy.

00:30:34.540 And thus, the implication by the prosecution will be he was this involved in Stormy as well.

00:30:39.220 And I assume Viva shortly, we're going to hear Michael Cohen probably testify to that, too, that he micromanaged all the payments, including the Stormy payments.

00:30:46.580 Again, though, they have to get to him also saying, and this is how I would like it to be documented in the books.

00:30:55.360 This is how you should bill it, Michael Cohen.

00:30:57.640 And this is how our bookkeeper keeper will write it down.

00:31:00.760 I really I don't know that I wouldn't put it past Cohen, but I'm actually not expecting that testimony.

00:31:07.200 This is the portion where Michael Cohen said that when asked, is there a longer conversation you had later?

00:31:12.580 He says, yes, I mean, no, I think. And I think this is the same one where he says that the call got or the recording got cut short because he got a call from Capiton.

00:31:21.100 Correct. All right. I'm not sure that I even believe that that recording was cut was cut short as a result of an incoming call.

00:31:26.080 I wouldn't I'm not sure I do anybody to delete to cut it there because who the heck knows what they discussed afterwards.

00:31:33.720 What do I what do I surmise from that?

00:31:36.300 Absolutely nothing to quote the great movie UHF. Absolutely nothing.

00:31:40.360 All right. All right. Good. And that doesn't even have to do with the alleged payment in the alleged 34 charge felony indictment.

00:31:45.820 This is just a color of the file with a bunch of prejudicial, irrelevant information to attack character or make someone look bad.

00:31:51.760 All that I know is listening to that.

00:31:53.540 Michael Cohen sounds like the scumbag stereotype of an attorney that we all know that he is.

00:31:59.260 It's so dirty, Megan, to record a conversation like that.

00:32:03.300 What was he doing now?

00:32:04.200 That was that was imagine with a client, with a client, with your only client.

00:32:09.500 And when you point out accurately, he knew this wasn't a crime, that this there was one even allegedly.

00:32:13.800 Right. Just he just recorded him without telling him on his iPhone.

00:32:16.840 All right. Standby. When we come back, I want to the movie clip that I think best embodies who Michael Cohen looks like right now.

00:32:24.320 And we'll get into some more detail about what he's saying on the stand, saying on the stand and the many, many, many, many lies already told by Michael Cohen.

00:32:31.820 How will the jury take this guy seriously?

00:32:34.360 How will the jury take this guy seriously?

00:33:04.360 Becoming absolutely obsessed with a man.

00:33:07.380 I give you Glenn Close.

00:33:10.240 I just want to be a part of your life.

00:33:12.280 Oh, this is the way you do it, huh?

00:33:13.760 Shut up at my apartment.

00:33:15.020 What am I supposed to do?

00:33:16.120 You won't answer my calls.

00:33:17.180 You change your number.

00:33:18.100 I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.

00:33:22.400 Yes, that's Michael Cohen today.

00:33:24.720 He makes his living based on Donald Trump.

00:33:27.120 He talks about Donald Trump.

00:33:28.100 Even on the stand, he seemed a little wistful about his earlier time when he mattered to Donald Trump.

00:33:32.960 And now he's just like everything about this guy is defined by Donald Trump.

00:33:39.220 He did switch his tune.

00:33:41.240 I mean, I like, OK, he has lied so many times it's hard to keep up, but he's praised Trump repeatedly.

00:33:49.660 I'll just give you a little.

00:33:50.960 OK, here he is in Sot 3 in a montage.

00:33:53.420 One thing Donald Trump is, he's a compassionate man.

00:33:58.740 He's a man of great intellect, great intuition and great abilities.

00:34:02.900 Mr. Trump's memory is fantastic.

00:34:05.840 And I've never come across a situation where Mr. Trump has said something that's not accurate.

00:34:11.600 Mr. Trump truly cares about America.

00:34:13.800 He loves this country.

00:34:15.480 He's an amazing negotiator.

00:34:17.500 Maybe the best ever in the history of this world.

00:34:19.380 The words the media should be using to describe Mr. Trump are generous, compassionate, principled, empathetic, kind, humble, honest and genuine.

00:34:34.160 He's not lying.

00:34:35.260 He was protecting a friend.

00:34:36.600 There's a difference.

00:34:37.780 What is the difference?

00:34:38.540 The difference is he was being a true friend.

00:34:41.400 He was it didn't matter to him.

00:34:43.200 He will ultimately, and I've said this so many times, he will ultimately go down in history as the greatest president.

00:34:50.480 Oh, my God.

00:34:51.580 With Chris Cuomo, who, by the way, has got his hands totally dirty in this whole thing, too.

00:34:55.180 So that's that's the government star witness today, Phil.

00:34:58.800 I mean, I realize he changed his tune, but it's so self-serving.

00:35:03.680 A jury will see through this.

00:35:06.220 I hope a jury will see through it.

00:35:08.020 But we're talking about New York, after all, and we've well documented that this jury, Alvin Bragg, is counting on this jury to be sort of in the bag for Bragg and against Trump.

00:35:19.660 You know, when you've got a lawyer who is surreptitiously recording a client and then basically saying this little snippet of a conversation proves all the other things that I'm saying that are negative about him, which, by the way, weren't recorded, it just defies credibility.

00:35:36.400 There's just no way in the world that a rational jury in a rational legal system would buy off on any of this, Megan.

00:35:43.140 And you've got this individual who's capable of saying all of the things that you just played in that sot.

00:35:49.700 And then fast forward to today, everything that he says under oath before this jury is going to be diametrically different.

00:35:56.860 Normally, we would say that that person is a compulsive liar and is not the kind of person you want to build a felony prosecution around.

00:36:04.300 They have not proven the elements of this case.

00:36:06.840 There's been no evidence yet in this case that Donald Trump committed a crime.

00:36:10.740 They're going to have to hang their hat entirely on the testimony of this liar.

00:36:15.760 They're going to have to get a jury to say, you know what, all the other times he's lied, we're going to give him a pass.

00:36:22.060 We believe beyond a reasonable doubt he's telling the truth here in court.

00:36:25.420 And it's going to be all done without any corroboration.

00:36:28.140 There's no physical evidence.

00:36:29.340 There's not going to be any documents.

00:36:31.060 You're not going to have Donald Trump writing a letter saying, hey, Michael, I want you to use this money.

00:36:35.900 I want you to pay it for something, and I want to record it on the books in another way.

00:36:38.960 No, this is payment for legal fees or legal matters, and that's how it was booked into the books of the company.

00:36:45.880 Legal expenses, which is even more ambiguous.

00:36:47.320 That's the word they used.

00:36:49.080 Where's the accountant?

00:36:50.840 Yeah, well, that's exactly right.

00:36:52.420 I mean, the CFO is in jail.

00:36:54.080 He's at Rikers, and I don't expect him.

00:36:56.360 There's a real question about whether they're going to drag him in and testify, and if they don't, whether they're going to get an adverse inference drawn by jurist instruction.

00:37:03.180 We'll see, but here's Michael Cohen.

00:37:06.060 I gave you the, he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

00:37:08.900 That was like Glenn Close and Michael Douglas in the beginning of the movie.

00:37:12.340 The hot elevator sex, the days and days behind closed doors while the wife was away.

00:37:17.440 It was actually only one night.

00:37:18.600 That was the beginning.

00:37:21.380 Then Trump started to ignore the calls, and much as it had the same effect on Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, here's what it did to Michael Cohen.

00:37:30.360 All right, I'll show you, let's start with Sot 5.

00:37:33.280 Michael Cohen here with another Michael Cohen Reacts.

00:37:36.540 Wolf, I've been receiving countless phone calls by people, all concerned because they're hearing on the media that Donald Trump is going to run again,

00:37:44.640 and he's going to make this fucked up bullshit announcement sometime after the midterm elections.

00:37:50.120 All right, I still to this day maintain that he is not doing it.

00:37:54.120 It is still part of this great grift of Donald Trump.

00:37:57.180 Now, for me personally, I hope to God that this fucking scumbag runs.

00:38:01.760 I really do.

00:38:02.780 And you just ask me why.

00:38:04.060 Well, first of all, because 24 hours after that, I'm going to put together my own team.

00:38:08.400 I want to run as a Democrat.

00:38:10.060 I want to put myself up on a stage against this fat fuck, this orange-crusted Mandarin Oompa Loompa.

00:38:17.500 So let's see.

00:38:18.800 Let's see if I'm right.

00:38:20.140 Stay tuned.

00:38:20.960 I'll be back.

00:38:23.580 Then he took his bunny off the stove.

00:38:27.660 People, this is their star witness.

00:38:31.340 Well, I mean, I don't use the word grifter very often.

00:38:34.640 I'm not going to use it now.

00:38:35.780 Well, but that very much seems like someone who's going to say one thing when it's profitable

00:38:40.000 one way and say something that's the exact opposite when it's profitable the other way.

00:38:43.500 And the other thing is when he's out there praising Trump, first of all, I happen to agree

00:38:47.500 with him back then.

00:38:48.520 But he's not just praising Trump because he is like a narcissist indirectly praising himself.

00:38:53.700 This is how smart Trump is, how good he is, and all this stuff.

00:38:56.260 And I'm his right-hand man.

00:38:57.380 I'm his fixer.

00:38:57.980 So it must be a reflection on my own greatness as well.

00:39:00.040 But, you know, the idea that this guy is a convicted perjurer, he is a confirmed liar.

00:39:05.940 He's a scoundrel of the highest order.

00:39:08.360 I am now retrospectively reanalyzing Judge Engeron's decision in the E. Jean Carroll case

00:39:14.820 where he addresses Michael Cohen.

00:39:16.960 And he specifically says, it's very funny why he said it, this man is a convicted perjurer.

00:39:20.720 He's a liar.

00:39:22.160 Engeron was the fraud case, the $400 million fraud.

00:39:27.000 Engeron was, yes, the $455 million fraud.

00:39:30.320 And Cohen testified in that case.

00:39:32.320 Keep going.

00:39:32.780 Yes.

00:39:33.120 Not the E. Jean Carroll.

00:39:34.140 Sorry, just to clarify that there.

00:39:36.040 Engeron said as a matter of his decision, Michael Cohen is a convicted perjurer.

00:39:41.100 And while some triers of fact might not give much weight to the words of a liar, I believe

00:39:45.520 him here.

00:39:46.000 I'm paraphrasing, but it's almost verbatim.

00:39:48.460 It's almost perfect.

00:39:49.760 And now that I'm listening to that and rethinking it, it's like Engeron was phrasing what the

00:39:53.900 jury has to spew out in terms of coming to a conviction here.

00:39:56.620 Yeah, he's a convicted perjurer.

00:39:58.420 Some jurors might think he's a liar now, but we choose to believe him now because once

00:40:02.580 a perjurer, not always a perjurer.

00:40:04.560 But no, I think Engeron actually telegraphed and laid up the script that the jury is going

00:40:09.300 to gobble up to come to their foregone conclusion.

00:40:13.220 Everyone around him, Phil, is a liar.

00:40:15.280 Michael Cohen is a liar.

00:40:16.700 He had a lawyer and continues to have a lawyer.

00:40:19.280 He's still represented by this guy, David Schwartz, who you may recall Michael Cohen got in trouble

00:40:23.880 a couple of months ago when he was trying to get out of jail not long ago, late 23, and

00:40:28.420 he cited a bunch of case law to the judge.

00:40:30.640 It was all made up.

00:40:32.060 It was fake cases that he used some AI generator to come up with.

00:40:36.200 And his lawyer was this guy, David Schwartz.

00:40:38.220 And I've got to show you this.

00:40:39.640 David Schwartz came on my show at NBC shortly after this whole story broke about the $130,000

00:40:44.480 payment and so on and so forth.

00:40:45.680 And now we know that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000.

00:40:50.720 We know that.

00:40:51.860 And it's almost better if Trump just would have done it himself, because you can make

00:40:54.460 unlimited donations to your own campaign, but you can't have a third party do it, which

00:40:57.800 is how they're trying to get him.

00:40:58.780 But anyway, there's no question that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000.

00:41:02.960 But the first defense that Cohen came out with was, I was not reimbursed.

00:41:07.900 And I just did this out of my love, again, back to the Glenn Close in the elevator, for

00:41:14.400 Donald Trump.

00:41:15.980 And Schwartz came on my show and tried to spew this nonsense.

00:41:18.240 Look at this.

00:41:20.260 He got approached.

00:41:21.660 It'll take $130,000 to make this go away.

00:41:26.040 He had to make a decision, OK?

00:41:28.040 I get it.

00:41:28.540 I'm not even challenging on that.

00:41:30.140 I'm challenging on the impossibility that he paid $130,000 for something he didn't do

00:41:36.320 and never sought reimbursement from his client.

00:41:38.820 When you're looking at it in a vacuum, but if you understand the relationship here, it

00:41:44.160 makes complete sense that he's approached, am I going to go to the boss or am I not going

00:41:49.100 to go to the boss?

00:41:49.840 All right?

00:41:50.080 What do I do?

00:41:51.140 He chose not to go to the boss.

00:41:53.300 Why?

00:41:53.440 He chose to take care of this thing.

00:41:55.080 Why wouldn't he get $130?

00:41:56.200 Why would he pay $130,000 of his own money?

00:41:58.840 Well, you know what?

00:41:59.540 You're going to, when Michael Cohen does come out, you're going to find out the mechanics

00:42:03.400 of that.

00:42:03.860 No, you're not answering.

00:42:04.700 You're dodging.

00:42:05.320 You're getting out of bounds.

00:42:05.900 I am answering you.

00:42:07.140 What's the truth?

00:42:07.740 The truth is he loves, he loves the boss and-

00:42:12.020 He did it out of love.

00:42:13.480 He did it.

00:42:17.100 He did it.

00:42:21.400 He did it out of love and he did it out of loyalty.

00:42:26.000 All right.

00:42:26.680 So they laughed openly at him.

00:42:27.940 We know that he was reimbursed.

00:42:29.320 Of course he was reimbursed.

00:42:31.020 And that's his lawyer.

00:42:33.320 The lawyer is a liar.

00:42:34.520 Cohen is a liar.

00:42:36.040 The jury's not stupid.

00:42:37.800 I know they hate Trump, but they're not stupid.

00:42:41.240 And I just gave you one soundbite.

00:42:42.940 Here's a little bit more of Michael Cohen on the record since the breakup, talking about

00:42:47.260 Trump.

00:42:47.540 I think he's hit the panic button a while ago.

00:42:50.920 However, what he's very good at is hiding it.

00:42:54.280 In front of the camera, he's calm, cool, and collect because he's a sociopath.

00:42:59.140 I looked at him and I said to myself, boy, what a sad-looking, pathetic, deflated individual.

00:43:07.700 He is playing to the lowest denominator of American that exists in this country.

00:43:13.980 He is truly the most dangerous person right now in this country and possibly the world.

00:43:21.620 Trump 2024, more like Trump 20 to 24 years.

00:43:26.960 Okay.

00:43:27.540 What a number.

00:43:28.640 Oh my gosh.

00:43:29.440 A lot to unpack.

00:43:30.600 The prosecution's trying to front a lot of this in direct.

00:43:34.680 So to take the sting out of what's going to be an absolutely brutal cross, but there's

00:43:40.400 no way they can take all the sting.

00:43:42.060 They'd spend every day, all day for the next two weeks, beating him up if they really wanted

00:43:45.680 to get after everything the defense is going to do to him.

00:43:48.140 And I just can't believe that once the defense is done, the jury is going to be having any

00:43:52.240 feeling other than I want to vomit, get him out of here.

00:43:56.540 But Megan, you say that the jury's not dumb.

00:43:59.500 The problem is they're partisan in all likelihood.

00:44:02.160 And that's a big, it's a big distinction.

00:44:03.460 They're not going to do what they're going to do out of stupidity.

00:44:05.920 They're going to do it out of partisan prejudice.

00:44:08.440 And, um, and that's what I think is a foregone conclusion, but everyone should rewatch that

00:44:13.020 Michael Cohen and just appreciate confession through rejection.

00:44:15.540 Everything that Cohen just said about Trump is true of himself, but Megan, one thing about

00:44:19.020 Phil, I, sorry, I cut you off.

00:44:20.200 Um, you mentioned it a moment ago and it's something that people should really understand

00:44:23.320 by reimbursing Cohen.

00:44:25.240 The allegation is that it was a disguised campaign contribution because, uh, you know, Cohen made

00:44:31.460 it and then he got repaid for it.

00:44:32.800 The bottom line is, even if that's the case and that's the theory of the case, it should

00:44:37.040 be Cohen who should be the defendant in this and not Trump, because like you astutely

00:44:41.040 observed, you can't, you know, over donate to your own campaign.

00:44:44.440 And so if it was Trump camp donating to his own campaign in kind or whatever, it's not

00:44:48.520 a crime.

00:44:49.060 If it's Cohen who did it because he got reimbursed and it exceeded his campaign contribution,

00:44:53.240 Cohen should be the one on the defense.

00:44:55.180 Well, here's the other thing.

00:44:56.580 Here's the other thing, Phil.

00:44:57.300 I heard Andy McCarthy raising this point and as usual with Andy, it was a good one.

00:45:00.640 Um, who was defrauded?

00:45:04.560 Who was the victim of this alleged fraud?

00:45:08.680 Because Michael Cohen paid the money, Michael Cohen and everybody around him.

00:45:13.260 The testimony is consistent.

00:45:15.040 He got paid back and Trump paid him double what he paid out so that he could pay full

00:45:21.320 taxes, 50% on all the monies.

00:45:23.740 So New York state did not get defrauded.

00:45:25.180 The only thing that was defrauded was a book, allegedly, in which they didn't write down

00:45:31.820 reimbursement for hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

00:45:34.820 They wrote legal expenses paid to Michael Cohen pursuant to a retainer agreement.

00:45:39.600 And the testimony was there was no written at retainer, retainer agreement.

00:45:42.800 But meanwhile, all these lawyers are coming forward to saying, I never have one written

00:45:45.700 down.

00:45:46.120 I've had so many cases in which I don't have a written down retainer, even if you're supposed

00:45:49.440 to.

00:45:49.980 Anyway, so who was defrauded?

00:45:52.120 The book.

00:45:52.540 The book was given bad information that was kept internally at Trump organization.

00:45:59.080 The book wasn't even filed as an addendum to a tax return or to some sort of corporate

00:46:04.960 submission that was required.

00:46:06.440 It went on the shelf and it sat there until Alvin Bragg subpoenaed it.

00:46:12.360 So who was defrauded?

00:46:14.020 Because fraud in the ether is not actionable.

00:46:18.780 And the law is really clear on that.

00:46:20.120 They won't enforce fraud claims unless there's an identifiable victim, which is one of the

00:46:23.940 reasons why the whole fraud came claim under anger on was so outrageous.

00:46:27.860 But there, at least we had a specific statute saying it was OK.

00:46:32.000 Yeah, well, anger on, of course, doesn't require any victims before he labels something

00:46:36.700 fraud.

00:46:37.100 Neither does Letitia James.

00:46:38.340 And apparently neither does Alvin Bragg in the in the tick tock video with Michael Cohen,

00:46:45.420 when he says he might run and, you know, in 20 because he wants to be sort of on stage.

00:46:49.880 Well, that's what's happening right now.

00:46:52.000 He's got his way.

00:46:53.080 He is on stage.

00:46:54.400 This whole thing is a theatrical stage production.

00:46:57.080 It's not a court of law.

00:46:58.260 This is nothing that's based on reality in terms of law, because for the reasons you pointed

00:47:03.900 out, there's no victims, no victims, no fraud.

00:47:06.380 It's the only time in history that I know of where two misdemeanors, arguably with the

00:47:11.060 statute of limitations having passed, are combined together to make a felony or 36 felony

00:47:16.780 fraud counts where nobody was defrauded.

00:47:20.000 It's absolutely ridiculous to call this thing a court of law.

00:47:23.960 This is simply a theatrical production, and Michael Cohen has gotten his way.

00:47:29.660 He is now on center stage with Donald Trump, and his tick tock followers are just going

00:47:35.700 insane, and his own star in his own mind is on the rise.

00:47:40.560 But let there be no doubt, Megan, that this jury is going to make their decision based on

00:47:46.220 their feelings about Donald Trump, not about what's going on in this courtroom.

00:47:51.780 I can only hope that there's one or two, maybe even three, that will say, look, even though

00:47:57.360 we don't like Donald Trump, we don't see a crime here.

00:48:00.420 And if he can-

00:48:01.020 Yeah, we love the law.

00:48:02.280 All right, wait, stand by.

00:48:03.020 Hold the rest of that thought, Phil.

00:48:04.440 Quick break, and then back with the guys right after this.

00:48:10.220 Gentlemen, for what it's worth, Trump sued Michael Cohen for breaching attorney-client

00:48:13.620 privilege months ago, but he dropped the suit in October.

00:48:16.300 There was some allegation, perhaps it wasn't viable because Cohen was acting as, quote,

00:48:22.840 fixer and not attorney.

00:48:24.320 But of course, Trump's whole defense is that he paid legal expenses.

00:48:28.280 So I don't, I'm not sure why or even if the Trump team abandoned the Michael Cohen shouldn't

00:48:34.960 be talking at all because he's my lawyer defense.

00:48:37.380 We'll have to look into that more.

00:48:38.820 Here's what just happened before they just broke for lunch.

00:48:41.140 It's 1 p.m. Eastern.

00:48:42.740 Cohen testified that Donald Trump told him to, quote, take care of the Stormy Daniels

00:48:48.580 story.

00:48:50.260 Cohen says that Trump, upon learning that Stormy Daniels was shopping her story, was

00:48:54.560 very angry with Michael Cohen, who you recall by this point in the story had been working

00:48:59.180 with AMI, National Enquirer, to tamp down these stories from Karen McDougal and the doorman,

00:49:04.680 et cetera.

00:49:05.000 Calling it, he says Trump did, a total disaster and saying, quote, women are going to hate

00:49:11.500 me.

00:49:12.640 Cohen says he responded that he had no control over Daniels' story.

00:49:17.260 Quote, just take care of it, he says Trump told him.

00:49:20.440 Cohen says he kept Trump informed on Daniels' situation.

00:49:24.100 Quote, that was what I always did, which was to keep him abreast of everything.

00:49:28.400 Cohen said Trump, quote, was not thinking about Melania.

00:49:31.560 This was all about the campaign, end quote.

00:49:34.780 While discussing the Daniels deal, Cohen said he, Cohen, raised Melania to Trump and that

00:49:40.200 Trump responded, quote, don't worry, he goes.

00:49:43.800 How long do you think I'll be on the market for?

00:49:46.140 Not long.

00:49:47.440 He wasn't thinking about Melania.

00:49:49.540 This was all about the campaign.

00:49:51.640 Per CNN, Trump smirked and shook his head when Cohen mentioned Melania.

00:49:56.980 Here's what's annoying to me still.

00:49:58.480 And the audience has heard me like this on a broken record, but like we've been over

00:50:03.240 this campaign finance law does not look at what was in the subjective head of the defendant

00:50:07.060 to figure out whether you violated the campaign's finance laws.

00:50:09.880 It looks at the nature of the payment.

00:50:12.200 If a hush money payment is paid for any reason other than to help somebody's electoral chances,

00:50:15.960 then it's not a violation of the campaign finance laws.

00:50:18.860 It's only something like a payment for polling or, you know, the lectern to set up for a debate

00:50:26.080 that you're never going to have again or use again.

00:50:27.940 That could be a legitimate campaign finance expense.

00:50:30.460 If Trump tried to claim this hush money as a campaign finance expense, they would have

00:50:34.900 come after him saying that it wasn't a legitimate one.

00:50:38.040 This wasn't a campaign finance donation expense, et cetera.

00:50:40.900 They're only claiming it retrospectively.

00:50:42.660 But even Trump's defenders, Phil, on CNN and elsewhere, just skip right past this and go

00:50:48.820 right to it was all about Melania.

00:50:52.180 It wasn't about and I'm sitting over here pulling my hair out saying no one gives a shit.

00:50:55.860 We don't care whether it's about Melania or it was about the campaign.

00:50:59.300 All that matters is is a hush money, the kind of payment that could only ever be used to advance

00:51:04.560 one's electoral chances.

00:51:05.880 That's the only inquiry and nobody will talk about it.

00:51:08.500 It won't wind up in the jury instructions and the jury will be misled the same way CNN

00:51:12.760 is about what the relevant test is.

00:51:14.680 Was it more Melania or was it more of a campaign concern?

00:51:18.340 And in addition to that, Megan, I want to know where the objection is to this speculation.

00:51:23.480 You're asking a witness to talk about what may or may not be in the head of the criminal

00:51:28.260 defendant in this case.

00:51:29.840 I don't know.

00:51:30.540 This is why it's so frustrating when you can't watch the actual court proceedings on a live

00:51:34.700 stream or on television because you're getting it second and third hand.

00:51:37.820 But when a witness wants to tell a jury what somebody else thinks, that's an improper

00:51:43.620 question.

00:51:44.260 It calls for speculation if they have some type of proof intrinsic that shows, you know,

00:51:50.780 this is what is in somebody's head if they wrote a statement and you can infer something

00:51:54.740 from that.

00:51:55.500 But for this man to offer his opinion is absolutely an objectionable question.

00:52:00.400 And it makes me wonder what kind of kangaroo court is Merchan even running here?

00:52:06.200 Because if the defense lawyers don't object to it, why doesn't the judge himself object

00:52:10.200 to it?

00:52:10.700 It's patently an improper question.

00:52:13.300 He's starting to feel a little Judge Ito-y to me.

00:52:15.740 I mean, I realize he didn't allow cameras in the courtroom, but he's feeling a little Judge

00:52:18.740 Ito-y to me.

00:52:19.960 Like he doesn't have control of his courtroom.

00:52:21.680 He's not compelling the control of the witnesses before him.

00:52:26.280 And it is his courtroom and things are spinning out of control.

00:52:29.860 We saw that with Stormy and I have no doubt Michael Cohen will be similar.

00:52:33.740 On the Michael Cohen front, Viva, I want to show you two things.

00:52:38.060 Number one, we talked about how he's banking.

00:52:40.620 He's cashing in on being the Trump nemesis.

00:52:43.980 He's got a TikTok show he does, which he agreed to suspend until after his testimony out

00:52:51.320 of deference and respect for the court.

00:52:54.320 This after he was doing the show and tweeting and giving interviews to CNN and MSNBC elsewhere

00:52:59.080 for days and days and days while this trial was going on.

00:53:02.860 It was only when the judge said to the prosecution, please control your witness.

00:53:05.300 And they said, we can't control him.

00:53:06.800 We didn't strike a deal with him.

00:53:08.000 Like he's actually not under our control.

00:53:10.440 And he was getting he was jeopardizing the case.

00:53:13.320 So Michael Cohen finally said, all right, I'll be quiet until after the trial or after after

00:53:16.160 my testimony, not not the trial.

00:53:17.620 But here's what he was doing for the listening audience.

00:53:20.300 I'm going to describe this video.

00:53:21.500 OK, here he is talking about Donald Trump and the listeners put here like a baseball

00:53:26.420 cap on him.

00:53:27.420 This is like the viewers can they put hearts above his head.

00:53:30.660 He's like the resistance leader.

00:53:31.820 They put a cowboy hat and a mustache like they love him.

00:53:34.460 Like, yeah, you go.

00:53:35.580 He keeps doing hearts with his hand, you know, like Justin Bieber hearts.

00:53:38.600 Like, yeah, when everybody says something nice, like he keeps doing it over and over to

00:53:43.720 show how much he appreciates the positive feedback.

00:53:46.500 Like they're making a heart with a crown on top of the listening audience.

00:53:50.140 A couple more.

00:53:50.820 Yeah, go ahead.

00:53:52.100 I'm just for the listening audience.

00:53:53.480 What we're watching is pure insanity.

00:53:55.100 When they give him like these, I think, tick tock tips, he's got to do the sign that they

00:53:58.620 put in their tick tock tip.

00:54:00.060 It's it's enough to make you think you're going crazy watching what he's doing.

00:54:03.180 Sorry.

00:54:03.440 Is that what that is?

00:54:04.600 OK, I think they like they give tips and he does.

00:54:06.420 He has to do what they do in the graphic.

00:54:09.000 Well, somebody got on there and made him look like a fool with not that he doesn't there,

00:54:12.440 but I mean, extra with like a silly knight's hat.

00:54:16.220 And that is like this.

00:54:17.560 He looks like Woody Allen over there on the right.

00:54:19.460 And I think ABC News did an article about all this and then he denied it.

00:54:22.900 He said they were fake news.

00:54:24.080 OK, well, we can kind of see it with our own eyes, what you're doing.

00:54:27.700 But he is a hero to those on the left.

00:54:30.180 And now, Viva, this is my second point.

00:54:34.480 Who doesn't remember Donald Trump, right, with The Apprentice?

00:54:37.480 And this is really how he rose to fame beyond New York with this this show.

00:54:42.700 All right.

00:54:43.200 And I'm going to show you.

00:54:45.380 Let me show you top 14 first, just for those of you who don't remember The Apprentice promo.

00:54:50.800 I've mastered the art of the deal and have turned the name Trump into the highest quality

00:54:55.680 brand.

00:54:56.200 And as the master, I want to pass along my knowledge to somebody else.

00:55:01.060 I'm looking for The Apprentice.

00:55:06.640 And credit to The New York Post for finding this and pulling it.

00:55:09.280 Good for them.

00:55:10.200 Now take a look at Michael Cohen's promo for his show.

00:55:15.340 He's pitching to all the networks called The Fixer.

00:55:19.960 I've been on a journey of redemption, working to set things right with my family,

00:55:24.880 my friends, my country, speaking truth to power and calling it like I see it.

00:55:30.440 But now I'm paying it forward, wielding the tools that I've learned for regular people

00:55:34.880 in trouble.

00:55:36.000 The little guy doesn't usually have access to people with my particular set of skills.

00:55:41.200 But that's all about to change.

00:55:43.280 I'll work with you, offering expertise, advice, and solutions to fix your problem.

00:55:49.320 Together, we'll change your life.

00:55:52.460 I am your fixer.

00:55:54.880 My God, someone's probably going to pick it up.

00:56:03.160 Give him credit.

00:56:04.100 That's well edited.

00:56:04.920 And that's well put together.

00:56:05.920 But that is the proverbial lipstick on a pig.

00:56:09.220 No, Megan, one thing that cannot also be overstressed.

00:56:12.660 When you talk about the hush payments, and unless it's exclusively for the campaign, then

00:56:17.460 it's not unlawful to begin with.

00:56:19.140 Just compare this to historical precedent.

00:56:21.660 You had John Edwards paying off.

00:56:23.820 Just to interrupt, Viva, because it does bother me.

00:56:26.700 It's not if they don't have to prove that it was exclusively for the campaign.

00:56:30.060 They have to prove that the nature of the payment is such that no one ever pays or would pay this

00:56:37.700 payment for anything other than a campaign, like campaign polling.

00:56:43.960 OK, so it's not even what's in his head is totally irrelevant.

00:56:47.800 And if this judge had just allowed some expert testimony from a campaign finance expert,

00:56:53.300 he would know that and it would be changing the shape of this trial.

00:56:56.140 Sorry.

00:56:56.520 Keep going.

00:56:56.920 No, well, it's a good clarification, because I was not only going to leave this at John

00:57:02.020 Edwards, who made a hush payment in a campaign season, and it was deemed, I think, totally

00:57:06.400 lawful.

00:57:07.520 Hillary Clinton's opposition research with the Steele dossier, which served one and one

00:57:12.220 function only campaign by campaign purposes, which was misrepresented in terms of how it

00:57:18.260 was paid for, mislabeled.

00:57:20.000 And also, oh, yeah, it was an outright lie that was used to be smuggled to the FBI via

00:57:24.760 Hillary's attorney.

00:57:27.080 And for that campaign violation, for that, you know, disguised, unlawful relabeling or

00:57:33.700 mislabeling of a payment, she got fined $8,000 in the DNC, $130,000.

00:57:38.500 That was the actual crime.

00:57:40.020 That was an actual crime, as opposed to what they're going after Trump for now.

00:57:43.900 So it's again, like it's not just double standards.

00:57:46.280 It's outright lawlessness because they're going after their political adversary and they

00:57:50.280 just have to find a politically prejudiced jury to, you know, pull the switch.

00:57:56.980 This is why you have even Fareed Zakaria, no right-wing zealot he, over at CNN saying

00:58:04.800 the following, Sat 9.

00:58:06.540 The trials against him keep him in the spotlight, infuriate his base who sees him as a martyr,

00:58:13.120 and even may serve to make him the object of some sympathy among people in general who

00:58:19.160 believe that his prosecutors are politically motivated.

00:58:23.100 This happens to be true, in my opinion.

00:58:25.020 I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name

00:58:29.180 was not Donald Trump.

00:58:31.640 You know, good for Fareed, though.

00:58:33.180 It's bad.

00:58:34.240 It's not bad because it's bad.

00:58:36.060 It's bad because it's helping him.

00:58:37.820 I mean, what moral and ethical depravity?

00:58:40.720 It's not objectively bad, so therefore wrong.

00:58:43.120 It's bad because it's strategically not working the way you want it to.

00:58:47.380 Go ahead, Phil.

00:58:49.240 Yeah, so, I mean, Fareed is absolutely correct, and I'm glad that he said that because, look,

00:58:54.820 and I would say the same thing, too.

00:58:56.260 If this were a trial where you had a Barack Obama or a Bill Clinton or even a Joe Biden

00:59:03.100 that was being targeted by a partisan district attorney in an area where the deck is absolutely

00:59:10.980 stacked against him from a criminal defendant's standpoint, I would be saying the same thing

00:59:14.860 because this needs to be about fundamental fairness, fairness in the justice system.

00:59:20.080 That's what due process is.

00:59:21.920 That means fundamental fairness.

00:59:23.860 And if they can take it and they can do it to someone like Donald Trump, a former president

00:59:28.340 of the United States, then they can do it to you.

00:59:30.520 They can do it to me.

00:59:31.380 They can do it to Viva or anybody else watching this show.

00:59:34.480 So if we allow our justice system to be weaponized and bastardized in this way simply because we

00:59:41.820 don't like a specific person, orange man bad or whatever, and if you can get the deck stack

00:59:47.660 with a jury, a judge, and a prosecutor all on the same team designed to get a specific

00:59:54.140 individual citizen of the United States, then our system of justice means nothing anymore.

01:00:00.220 And I've got to believe that it means more than that now.

01:00:03.280 If we can have more on the left, like Zacharias saying these and pointing this out, then great

01:00:09.540 because we need the left and we need the right.

01:00:12.080 We need everybody to understand that this is about something bigger and more than Donald

01:00:16.880 Trump.

01:00:17.240 It's about the very existence of our judicial system as we know it.

01:00:21.540 Reject the bastardization of our legal system.

01:00:25.000 All right.

01:00:25.340 Just here's a little bit of color.

01:00:27.680 OK, exactly, because it's one thing to say Cohen's lied under oath, but this is via Politico

01:00:33.220 who went through it and did a good job.

01:00:35.640 By his own admission, he's lied in court, he's lied to the media, and he's pleaded guilty

01:00:39.920 to lying to Congress.

01:00:41.720 In 2018, he pleaded guilty to nine criminal charges, including campaign finance violations.

01:00:45.800 Those were tacked on at the end.

01:00:47.080 He said, OK, yeah, that one, too, because that'll help me get Trump tax related charges and lying

01:00:50.860 to Congress sentenced to three years in prison.

01:00:52.360 He told Politico that when he lied to a Senate committee in 2017, he did so solely for the

01:00:57.680 purpose of benefiting his then boss, Trump.

01:01:00.160 He wants that as an excuse.

01:01:02.420 Soon after his many guilty pleas, Cohen began saying publicly that actually he had not committed

01:01:07.380 tax evasion, despite having told a federal judge in court that he had.

01:01:12.480 Example, when Cohen attempted to get his sentence reduced, federal prosecutors said that they had

01:01:16.060 substantial concerns about his credibility as a witness and that following his sentencing,

01:01:20.100 he, quote, made material false statements during meetings with prosecutors and the FBI.

01:01:25.380 Prosecutors declined his offer to meet with them again.

01:01:29.340 During Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, Cohen again remarked, this time under oath, that

01:01:33.660 he had not committed tax evasion, the thing to which he pleaded guilty, and said he had

01:01:38.400 lied to the judge when he pleaded guilty.

01:01:40.880 Trump's lawyer said, so you lied at the time you lied more than once in federal court.

01:01:44.000 Is that correct?

01:01:44.920 Cohen, correct.

01:01:46.380 After his testimony in the civil fraud case, Cohen had sought to have his supervised release

01:01:50.080 requirements eased, but federal prosecutors for the Southern District opposed that, and

01:01:54.540 he did go back to jail.

01:01:55.900 They told the judge overseeing the issue that Cohen, quote, has continued to deny responsibility

01:01:59.700 for his own criminal conduct and appears to have lied under oath in a court proceeding.

01:02:04.360 This guy, you couldn't ask for a less credible witness, especially on his Glenn Close subject,

01:02:12.980 Donald Trump.

01:02:14.040 Now, can we just spend a minute on the legal expenses and the actual documentation, guys?

01:02:20.460 This is like, this is drier, but it's really the most important thing.

01:02:24.980 I keep asking my team, because we have to read the updates, same as you guys do.

01:02:29.900 Has Cohen yet testified Trump directed how these payments were going to be written down in the

01:02:35.620 books, that he knew about it or that he directed it?

01:02:38.920 Cohen has testified, just right before lunch, that he directed and knew about the repayment

01:02:46.160 to Cohen for the payoff to Stormy, all right?

01:02:49.100 So that's in the record.

01:02:50.500 But that doesn't get us there.

01:02:52.280 They need him or someone to testify that Donald Trump was the one who not just signed the checks,

01:02:58.060 which did not say what they were for on them, but who said to Cohen, this is how we're going

01:03:02.100 to document it, you know, to get around the campaign finance laws.

01:03:05.740 That's Bragg's theory, has not happened so far.

01:03:10.480 So back to Andy over at National Review.

01:03:13.060 Okay, let me just read you these stats and then you guys weigh in.

01:03:16.260 Here's what he points out, okay?

01:03:17.560 This is important.

01:03:18.800 Each month in 2017, beginning in February when the arrangement was finalized,

01:03:24.420 Cohen was to provide an invoice.

01:03:26.900 That invoice would be paid by check.

01:03:29.420 An entry would be made on the Trump org's books.

01:03:31.700 D.A. Alvin Bragg says that the Trump records are false because the payments to Cohen really

01:03:39.100 constituted repayment of a debt, not legal expenses.

01:03:44.400 And that debt was incurred in October 2016, the 130 paid to Stormy.

01:03:48.860 But they were made to appear in the records as if they weren't repayment for a debt, as

01:03:53.640 if Cohen was being paid for ongoing legal services provided in 2017.

01:03:59.660 The checks don't say anything about why Cohen was paid, just that he was paid $35,000 a month,

01:04:05.300 which is true.

01:04:06.400 As for the entries in the Trump organization records, testimony at trial this week showed

01:04:11.600 that the bookkeeping department logged the payments as, quote, legal expenses.

01:04:18.600 And there was testimony that not much thought went into this, that the bookkeeping department

01:04:22.500 was using a drop-down menu on a computer program designed in the early 90s and routinely

01:04:27.540 put payments to lawyers and related expenses into this general category.

01:04:32.680 And then, you know, he makes the cases many have that these actually were legal expenses.

01:04:36.860 Cohen was Trump's lawyer.

01:04:39.640 By the way, he also goes through the money.

01:04:41.760 Arthur Idala was confused about this, as was I on Friday.

01:04:44.580 This is how much they paid Cohen, $420,000.

01:04:48.440 A lot of people have said, well, why $420,000 if it was only $130,000 to Stormy?

01:04:52.120 Here's the math.

01:04:53.020 They doubled it up for taxes, so that gets us to $260,000.

01:04:56.120 Then they also gave him $50,000, which was for 2016 tech services from a communications firm

01:05:05.560 called Red Finch Solutions.

01:05:07.720 All right, so now we're up to $360,000.

01:05:08.960 And then they gave him a bonus for $60,000, which is not described.

01:05:15.340 We don't know what the bonus is for.

01:05:17.320 Andy points out it could be retrospective recognition of past services.

01:05:20.460 It could also be prospective expectation that Cohen, in his then new capacity as a private

01:05:25.980 lawyer who had just separated from Trump, would continue to serve Trump as needed.

01:05:31.180 So there we have it.

01:05:32.020 That's the payments are written down.

01:05:33.920 The bookkeeper made a decision based on a drop-down menu, Viva.

01:05:41.460 Nowhere, anywhere, has there been testimony tying it to Trump's knowledge.

01:05:47.480 And this is a fraud case, so that matters.

01:05:53.140 Megan, it's a joke.

01:05:55.520 Was it Makani last week who said that Trump basically knew nothing about this and it was

01:06:00.060 for legal services as per retainer agreements?

01:06:02.540 I mean, that is what it has always been.

01:06:06.380 And, you know, these numbers might seem a lot or astronomical for people who have never

01:06:11.140 practiced law or for people who are not wealthy like the Trumps.

01:06:14.980 I mean, this is what, a couple hundred thousand dollars for a man, Michael Cohen, who's off

01:06:19.300 doing his business.

01:06:20.080 And Trump doesn't want to be bothered with every detail that's going on.

01:06:23.100 Michael Cohen does his business and says, here's what it costs this month and go.

01:06:26.800 And, you know, unless there's some radical need to look over invoices and see what's going

01:06:29.900 on, that's what was going on.

01:06:31.300 And but the problem is, even if it was what they want to say it was, it wouldn't be legal,

01:06:36.000 but it's not even what they want to say it was.

01:06:38.080 This is all just a big kangaroo coat show trial so they can hopefully eke out a conviction

01:06:42.800 before November.

01:06:44.140 So sleepy Joe Biden can repeat the talking point, convicted felon.

01:06:48.020 Do you really want this guy to be a president, even though it gets overturned on appeal?

01:06:51.560 Because all of this is unconstitutional or unlawful, because you can't have a state prosecuting

01:06:56.580 for federal election crimes that the feds themselves looked into and refused to take

01:07:00.100 on.

01:07:01.260 All right.

01:07:01.980 Last question, Phil, on a different subject matter, because there is a significant piece

01:07:06.360 of news out of Atlanta today.

01:07:08.940 We talked last week about how the Court of Appeals down there and state Court of Appeals had accepted

01:07:13.960 the case.

01:07:16.820 They said that Trump could file an interlocutory appeal, meaning before the trial's done, over

01:07:22.020 the judge's refusal to disqualify Fannie Willis.

01:07:25.800 They gave him, or he had, until May 18th to do it.

01:07:29.480 Today's May 13th, right?

01:07:31.520 Today's May 13th.

01:07:32.600 So there's news in that.

01:07:33.880 What is it?

01:07:36.200 So we now have, I think, the first of the several notices of appeal having been filed.

01:07:42.080 So basically, the way it works is once the trial court and the Court of Appeals agree

01:07:46.220 to the interlocutory pretrial appeal, then the parties go back and file their formal notice

01:07:51.720 of appeal with the trial court.

01:07:53.420 And that is what officially transfers the case, or begins that process anyway, to the Georgia

01:07:58.660 Court of Appeals.

01:07:59.580 So far, I think we know that Michael Roman, of course, that's Ashley Burchard's client,

01:08:04.080 Ashley being the one who basically uncovered all of this for the benefit of the world.

01:08:10.020 And so now she has filed her notice of appeal.

01:08:13.380 Donald Trump, to my knowledge, has not yet filed his notice of appeal.

01:08:17.040 I would suspect that he's probably going to wait until close to the end of the 10-day deadline

01:08:21.620 in which to do that.

01:08:22.560 But this is significant because, in my opinion, this formally divests the trial court of any jurisdiction

01:08:28.980 to take any further action on the case.

01:08:31.640 Some lawyers don't agree with that, admittedly.

01:08:33.740 But I believe that now that it's in the Court of Appeals, I believe that no other action can

01:08:38.760 be taken.

01:08:39.260 And even if it can be, it's probably a bad idea for the trial court to continue with any

01:08:43.660 other business because it might all be for nothing if it turns out that Fonnie Willis has

01:08:50.100 no business remaining or being the prosecutor in this case.

01:08:53.960 It is amazing.

01:08:54.540 I mean, the last word on this, Viva, but you've got Georgia stopped in all likelihood.

01:08:59.920 Mar-a-Lago's not going anywhere before November.

01:09:03.040 January 6th is stopped because the Supreme Court has the case on immunity and another

01:09:06.860 case that may gut that January 6th federal prosecution involving non-Trump J6 defendants.

01:09:12.380 And now we have this New York joke case with Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels as the star

01:09:17.380 witnesses.

01:09:18.280 It's amazing what the Trump team has been able to pull off.

01:09:21.120 Well, it's wild, the depths of the depravity that this system is going after Trump because

01:09:27.560 they don't want democracy to run its course.

01:09:31.580 I would only say in the Fannie Willis case, first of all, I predicted Fannie Willis would

01:09:35.360 get disqualified.

01:09:36.340 And when McAfee declined to disqualify her, I felt a little deflated.

01:09:40.880 I will claim vindication if the Court of Appeal does disqualify her.

01:09:44.280 And I think they will because I couldn't see them taking this with all the delays unless it

01:09:48.060 was to overturn what McAfee did.

01:09:49.440 Just to highlight, McAfee had a nice fundraiser with one of the witnesses, the former governor

01:09:53.940 and Democrat, Roy Barnes, who apparently is representing Fannie Willis in the state

01:09:59.500 investigation.

01:10:01.300 You know, it's it's they raised 40,000 bucks for McAfee in his run against his challenger,

01:10:06.840 Robert Petillo.

01:10:07.520 So interesting stuff.

01:10:09.100 Corruption, good politics.

01:10:10.420 I guess it's only a question of perspective.

01:10:12.220 But I want full vindication when Fannie Willis gets disqualified.

01:10:16.720 Yeah, same guys.

01:10:18.600 Thank you.

01:10:19.300 Great job.

01:10:19.960 Great to see you both.

01:10:20.820 Thank you for having me.

01:10:22.580 And here's what was interesting for the listening audience.

01:10:25.220 All this happens.

01:10:26.340 You know, as I've said, Trump's pulling the inside straight.

01:10:28.880 That's what he needed to get out of this.

01:10:30.160 And he's doing it.

01:10:31.100 Uh, and so as Viva points out, it's shit.

01:10:35.420 It's just left to democracy now, right?

01:10:37.720 That's how the left feels.

01:10:38.920 God, remember that Chris Hayes thought like it's really going to be up to the voters like

01:10:43.260 the horror.

01:10:45.180 Uh, New York Times reporting this morning on a brand new New York Times-Siena poll,

01:10:50.700 revealing, quote, an erosion of support for Mr. Biden among young and non-white voters

01:10:55.580 upset about the economy and the war in Gaza, leading to the following headline.

01:11:00.040 Donald Trump leads President Biden in five battleground states.

01:11:04.180 In Wisconsin, this is showing Trump behind just by two.

01:11:08.540 You recall he won Wisconsin in 16.

01:11:10.880 Trump lost it in 20.

01:11:12.360 In Pennsylvania, Trump up by three.

01:11:15.760 In Arizona, Trump up by seven.

01:11:19.480 In Michigan, Trump up by seven.

01:11:22.520 In Michigan, Trump is up by seven.

01:11:26.620 Wow.

01:11:27.400 In Georgia, Trump's up by 10.

01:11:31.700 10.

01:11:32.840 My God.

01:11:34.500 And in Nevada, Trump's up by 12 points, 50 to 38.

01:11:43.320 My God.

01:11:45.280 I got news for you, Alvin Bragg, et cetera.

01:11:48.760 It's not working.

01:11:51.000 That's why it wasn't on the Sunday shows.

01:11:54.240 And they realized this was a suicide mission.

01:12:00.260 They thought it would be a kamikaze where they take him out, maybe hurt themselves a little.

01:12:04.560 It was a suicide mission for them.

01:12:07.620 And we are getting closer and closer.

01:12:09.640 I mean, summer's two weeks away.

01:12:11.680 Once the summer's on, we're into the conventions.

01:12:13.760 And then the vote is here.

01:12:15.780 This was a disaster.

01:12:17.300 It was a disaster of epic proportions, what they did with this lawfare.

01:12:20.240 And the American people, love Trump or hate him, knew it.

01:12:24.700 It motivated people in a way nothing Trump could have done would have, nothing Biden could

01:12:30.340 have done would have.

01:12:31.460 This was absolute folly.

01:12:34.080 And it's great to see the voters holding them accountable.

01:12:38.460 I mean, honestly, this is why, you know, I spend my summers at the Jersey Shore.

01:12:42.500 Jersey Shore is definitely pro-Trump, for sure.

01:12:45.180 I mean, you go to Atlantic City, where he used to have a casino, and it's like every boat has got

01:12:49.520 the Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

01:12:50.640 But New Jersey typically votes blue.

01:12:53.760 And you saw Trump went on his, you know, he gets the weekends off from his trial.

01:12:58.420 Did you see the crowds?

01:13:00.120 They estimated 100,000.

01:13:01.800 I don't know whether it's 100,000 or not.

01:13:03.260 It's irrelevant what the actual number was.

01:13:05.100 For sure, it was tens of thousands.

01:13:07.000 Look at this.

01:13:10.980 It's incredible for the listening audience.

01:13:13.040 I mean, it looks like a stadium, almost, of people.

01:13:17.140 They're dying to hear from him.

01:13:18.920 They miss him.

01:13:20.640 Because he's been kept off the campaign trail.

01:13:22.680 And they're angry for themselves and for him.

01:13:26.860 I hope you like it, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, Fannie Willis, because you're going to get a lot more

01:13:33.600 just like it.

01:13:35.180 Okay, we'll be back in one moment with Corey DeAngelis on the nightmare that is your child's

01:13:41.580 school.

01:13:42.580 Stand by.

01:13:43.280 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

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01:14:46.040 School choice is gaining in popularity.

01:14:49.500 Gee, I can't imagine why.

01:14:50.440 With all the campus protests, CRT, DEI obsession, and gender ideology craziness, that's just the

01:14:57.700 tip of the iceberg.

01:14:58.980 Joining me now is one of America's most prominent and influential school choice advocates, and

01:15:03.280 that's Corey DeAngelis.

01:15:04.720 Corey is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and author of the new book, which

01:15:09.400 comes out tomorrow, The Parent Revolution, Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our

01:15:16.260 Schools.

01:15:16.860 Man, Corey, that is the perfect title.

01:15:19.060 That's exactly the kind of book I want to read.

01:15:21.820 They do need to be rescued.

01:15:23.940 There are radicals who are ruining the schools, and perfectly, you dedicate the book to Randy

01:15:30.360 Weingarten.

01:15:31.240 Tell us why.

01:15:32.180 Yeah, well, the teachers unions overplayed their hand by fighting to keep the schools closed

01:15:36.260 as long as possible to secure ransom payments from taxpayers.

01:15:40.560 They were able to leverage the school closures to call for more money.

01:15:44.200 They've gotten $190 billion in so-called COVID relief since March of 2020.

01:15:50.140 And guess what?

01:15:50.800 They overplayed their hand, and they sparked a parent revolution because families, one,

01:15:56.340 saw that the school system didn't care about them all that much, and families had to—they

01:16:01.760 were desperate seeking alternatives.

01:16:03.240 They were trying to pay out of pocket for private school tuition and fees while still paying

01:16:07.360 for the closed government schools.

01:16:09.140 But the silver lining was that the teachers' unions plan backfired very quickly when, through

01:16:15.260 remote learning, which we really should have just called it remotely learning, not a lot

01:16:19.140 of learning was going on, but families got to see what was happening in the classroom.

01:16:24.080 And guess what?

01:16:24.740 We now have 11 states with universal school choice.

01:16:28.780 Milton Friedman's vision finally coming to fruition.

01:16:32.180 I wish he were alive today because now one in five states already have school choice

01:16:37.600 for everybody, no picking winners and losers.

01:16:39.940 Everybody can take their kids' taxpayer education dollars to the school that works best for them.

01:16:44.880 That could be the public school.

01:16:46.640 You know, if you like your public school, you can keep your public school.

01:16:49.420 But if not, for whatever reason, unlike with your doctor, you can take that money in the

01:16:54.100 form of a voucher or a scholarship to a private charter home or other type of educational

01:17:00.000 learning environment that works for them.

01:17:02.080 So this is the silver lining of the pandemic.

01:17:04.180 I mentioned a lot of the hypocrisy and just theatrics and fear-mongering in the book.

01:17:11.040 And if you want to take Ted Cruz's advice on the back, he says, ruin Randy Weingarten's

01:17:15.800 day by reading this book.

01:17:17.600 I did dedicate it to her.

01:17:18.780 I sent her a signed copy.

01:17:20.480 My handwriting wasn't all that great.

01:17:22.100 I apologize.

01:17:23.340 But it's because I went to government school, so you can't really blame me.

01:17:26.160 The Parent Revolution, The Parent Revolution, The Parent Revolution.

01:17:30.780 That's the name of it.

01:17:31.840 Let me tell you something.

01:17:32.600 I've often thought while doing the show, if I only cared about—there's your dedication,

01:17:37.980 your note to her—if I only cared about doing a fun and interesting show, I would

01:17:43.440 have kept my kids in their indoctrinating New York City schools because it would have

01:17:47.860 been nonstop fodder for my program, the insanity that went on there.

01:17:51.780 But I actually love my children, and it seemed like actual abuse to me.

01:17:55.500 And so as everybody knows, I pulled—we pulled our kids from those schools and found much

01:17:59.640 better schools out here in Connecticut.

01:18:01.340 Well, I checked in with some of my friends at those same schools still.

01:18:05.920 And my one dear friend has a son who was in my younger son's grade.

01:18:12.180 So now they're in fourth grade, right?

01:18:14.280 So her son, she shared with me a little essay.

01:18:18.280 It was like a little paragraph that her son had to do about America.

01:18:23.080 And I am going to read to you, with her permission, what her son read.

01:18:26.760 She got it home and could not believe her eyes.

01:18:31.040 Okay.

01:18:31.740 He writes,

01:18:32.840 The event I would teach people about is slavery.

01:18:36.760 The reason I think it's important to teach people about this event is so that we can see

01:18:40.720 that America was built on Black people, not on whites.

01:18:45.000 Behind the scenes, it's all Blacks.

01:18:47.200 The reason we have picked crops, built houses, and America is because Black people did it all.

01:18:54.820 The only thing white people did was take credit for work they didn't do.

01:18:59.360 As a white person, I stand with Black people all the way.

01:19:03.540 This is a 10-year-old boy who is not getting this from mom and dad.

01:19:09.720 He's learning this at an institution that in the third and fourth grade is trying to indoctrinate the children to hate the country and hate whites.

01:19:21.820 It's very clear.

01:19:23.000 The only thing whites did was take credit for it all.

01:19:27.000 She was shocked.

01:19:28.180 And I don't believe they'll be at this school next year.

01:19:30.320 And look, the taxpayers are spending about $40,000 per student per year in the government-run schools in New York City.

01:19:38.940 And look, the whole school system is supposed to be meant for creating a more cohesive society, creating more of a civic participation and tolerance of others' views.

01:19:48.960 This is the exact opposite of what we're seeing in our government institutions today, and that's why the parent revolution has been sparked.

01:19:56.440 The schools aren't focusing on the basics.

01:19:58.420 They're not focusing on math, reading, and writing, on education.

01:20:01.540 They're indoctrinating kids in ways that are antithetical to their families' values and to the values of this very country.

01:20:08.720 And so families are saying, hey, why not give me half that money?

01:20:12.580 Give me $20,000 or even $10,000 to take my kids somewhere else so that I don't have to pay twice, once through the tax system, and again, out of pocket for a private school, or even to homeschool at a fraction of the cost of what they're spending in these government failure factories.

01:20:28.200 How do you measure it, Corey?

01:20:30.880 Do you measure it by state?

01:20:32.980 How many states now have school choice?

01:20:34.800 What's our metric for success here?

01:20:36.600 The barometer of success used to be whether you had any form of school choice at all, whether that was for low-income kids or special needs kids.

01:20:44.800 The new barometer of success, the new measuring tape, is whether you have universal school choice.

01:20:50.760 We're not picking winners and losers anymore.

01:20:53.000 Everybody pays for a public education, and everybody is guaranteed a publicly funded education.

01:20:59.100 That doesn't have to happen at a government school, though.

01:21:01.900 And now you have – before 2021, no states did this.

01:21:05.780 Now we have 11, all red states controlled by Republican legislatures, Arizona being one of the first and one of the most recent being North Carolina and Alabama this year as well.

01:21:16.480 The momentum isn't subsiding, and it's because it's really popular of parents.

01:21:20.380 In Arizona, for example, right when they opened the website to sign up for the scholarships, the government website broke down.

01:21:27.720 I mean, so you can make a joke about it being a government product.

01:21:32.260 That's why the website broke down.

01:21:33.640 But it's also because so many families flocked to the alternatives that we now have 80,000 families in just about a year flocked to the school choice program in Arizona.

01:21:45.240 It's popular with parents.

01:21:47.300 It shouldn't be a partisan issue.

01:21:49.040 If you look at voters, Republicans, Democrats, and independents on the ground, they support school choice nationwide with supermajority levels.

01:21:57.980 If you look poll after poll after poll, the problem is the Democrat elected officials are a wholly owned subsidiary of the teachers' union.

01:22:05.920 Joe Biden's a hypocrite on school choice.

01:22:07.860 He went to private school.

01:22:09.520 He sent his kids to private school, and then he fights against school choice for others, pulling the ladder up from behind himself.

01:22:15.200 Thankfully, Donald Trump is a supporter of school choice.

01:22:18.380 He would support it and fight for it as hard as possible.

01:22:21.700 He did so when he was in office last time.

01:22:24.220 But the problem is Randy Weingarten, who I dedicated my book to and sent her a copy, she's the head of the American Federation of Teachers.

01:22:32.940 99.97% of their campaign contributions in 2022, guess what?

01:22:38.760 They went to the Democrats, not the Republicans.

01:22:41.080 It's a complex money laundering scheme.

01:22:43.780 It ought to be illegal.

01:22:45.180 They use public funds to lobby against the public, and it's all just a way to funnel money to the Democratic Party.

01:22:52.180 Some Democrats are defecting on the issue in elected office, but it's a very rare case for them to buck the party trend.

01:22:59.000 And it's all about money.

01:23:00.180 It's not about logic.

01:23:01.160 There's no better example of this than in Illinois, which is just so disgusting when it comes to children and school choice.

01:23:07.680 There, I never miss an opportunity, my audience knows, to play the video of those moronic Chicago teachers during the pandemic,

01:23:15.140 while these children, low income, in great need of education, were kept at home, as you point out, not learning.

01:23:22.100 They were dancing.

01:23:23.300 They were doing interpretive dance to show us how these totally able-bodied teachers could not possibly go into the classroom with these little germ-carrying monsters.

01:23:34.000 Let's watch it.

01:23:34.640 Make it make sense.

01:23:43.420 Safety

01:23:43.940 is essential.

01:23:48.000 Oh my God.

01:23:49.140 It never gets old.

01:23:50.240 Keep our students

01:23:51.560 and our teachers

01:23:53.680 safe.

01:23:55.500 All right.

01:23:56.480 If these women are 35, it's a lot.

01:23:58.920 They could be in their late 20s.

01:24:01.140 And yet they wouldn't teach the children because they were terrified of dying of COVID.

01:24:04.980 They refused.

01:24:06.000 Chicago's legendary for its bad public schools and Illinois in general.

01:24:09.460 So tell us why Illinois, in your book, you point out, is a particularly sad case.

01:24:14.500 It's worse than we knew.

01:24:15.460 Yeah, I mean, they're totally pathetic.

01:24:18.540 But they did show families nationwide how low the unions will go.

01:24:22.940 In Chicago, they had a board member vacationing in Puerto Rico, thousands of miles away,

01:24:29.380 but while railing against going back to work in person.

01:24:31.920 Somehow it was safe enough to travel halfway across the planet, but it wasn't safe enough to go back to work.

01:24:38.060 They just wanted to go on vacation.

01:24:39.980 They used any excuse possible.

01:24:41.340 In Illinois, the unions were actually successful last year in getting rid of a private school choice program

01:24:49.240 specifically for low-income kids.

01:24:51.860 And guess what?

01:24:52.600 The teachers union boss out there, Stacey Davis-Gates,

01:24:55.380 she sent her own kid to private school this year after just a year before calling school choice racist

01:25:01.300 and calling private schools segregation academies.

01:25:04.600 I mean, I don't know.

01:25:05.320 If that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

01:25:09.020 And look, other families should have opportunities, too.

01:25:10.980 If she wants to send her kids to a private school, fine, but she shouldn't step in the schoolhouse door

01:25:16.480 and prevent other families from escaping her unionized failure factory.

01:25:21.740 She knows it's not good enough for her kids.

01:25:23.860 It should be good enough for other families to access alternatives as well.

01:25:28.860 They shouldn't be trapped in her government-run dumpster fire we call the Chicago public school system.

01:25:34.080 It's so sad.

01:25:35.540 Your book points out that it was in 2017 that the Republican governor made a deal with the Democratic-controlled legislature

01:25:42.520 to pass a budget that included school choice scholarship program for low-income students.

01:25:47.740 But there was a catch.

01:25:49.600 The scholarship program was set to expire in 2022 unless they extended it, which they did, but only until 2023.

01:25:55.600 That year, more than 9,000 kids were benefiting from the scholarships, but the unions don't care about the kids.

01:26:03.980 They don't pay union dues, you write.

01:26:05.740 So they set about strong-arming politicians to oppose it.

01:26:09.080 In 2023, the legislature failed to enact an expansion of the program before the session ended.

01:26:15.840 And Governor J.B. Pritzker, who I'm sorry, is a villain in my view.

01:26:19.740 He's just on the wrong side of everything, did not appear to lift a finger to help the families benefiting from the scholarships.

01:26:27.160 And now the scholarship program has expired.

01:26:30.200 Most of those poor kids deprived of those scholarships will likely end up back in Chicago's government schools

01:26:36.300 where only 1 in 10 black students can read on grade level.

01:26:42.000 Only 1 in 20 are proficient in math.

01:26:45.720 This is 9,000 families that wanted better for their kids.

01:26:51.260 Most of these families will be minority who wanted to give their kids a leg up, who wanted to learn,

01:26:57.340 who had the attitude, who already do the hard work and were learning,

01:27:01.640 and they just pulled the rug out from under them.

01:27:04.280 What they want to do instead is that when those kids get to be in junior or senior year in high school,

01:27:10.940 people totally unprepared for the colleges to which they're applying to just get rid of SAT scores,

01:27:16.420 to just ignore GPAs, to forget all the learning loss that they've had from K through 12 that they otherwise could have had,

01:27:23.320 had this been still open, and admit them to the Ivies or the junior Ivies or what have you,

01:27:29.580 then give them gentlemen's A's where they're totally unprepared,

01:27:32.380 they're not learning anything because they're incapable of doing the math and the English,

01:27:35.960 push, and then force them out on society and pretend that when they don't make it,

01:27:40.340 it's racism that led to them getting fired.

01:27:42.900 You can see the pipeline.

01:27:44.060 If they actually cared about these black and brown kids, they would do something about this.

01:27:49.160 I mean, they were calling reopening schools racist.

01:27:51.780 The Chicago Teachers Union in particular,

01:27:54.080 they put out a tweet saying that the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.

01:28:01.060 They threw every buzzword at the wall to see what would stick, and they deleted it pretty quickly after I replied to them

01:28:06.380 with a CNN headline of all places that said that the school closures disproportionately hurt black students,

01:28:13.000 and it widened the achievement gap.

01:28:15.020 So it was the complete opposite.

01:28:16.500 If anything, it was more racist to close the schools than to open them,

01:28:21.080 and maybe they realized that.

01:28:22.180 But you had them nonstop fear-mongering with caskets and fake tombstones.

01:28:26.520 Even in D.C., where I was living at the time, they placed fake body bags outside the public school offices,

01:28:32.680 implying that if you wanted to have them go back to work just like everybody else,

01:28:37.080 just like the private schools, just like daycares, everybody else is literally going back to work.

01:28:41.760 They were the only ones fear-mongering, saying that you're trying to actually kill us if you want to.

01:28:47.080 I mean, no one wanted that, obviously.

01:28:49.740 And it was just so ridiculous.

01:28:51.580 In Chicago, they were striking in 2022.

01:28:54.760 I mean, to think about it, two weeks to slow the spread turned into two years

01:29:00.780 to flatten a generation of kids in leftist cities like Chicago.

01:29:05.620 They were even calling for police-free schools, Medicare for all,

01:29:10.300 a wealth tax to reopen Los Angeles schools.

01:29:13.280 I mean, this is the same union president in Los Angeles that said that there was no such thing as learning loss.

01:29:19.440 I mean, if families aren't awake now, I don't know when they will be.

01:29:23.380 The good news is we're seeing a lot of evidence of a parent revolution where parents are pushing back at school board meetings.

01:29:31.860 Yes, in some cases, they're having their mics cut off for reading content that they don't deem appropriate for the public school setting.

01:29:39.120 It's not age-appropriate.

01:29:40.440 But you have these same people who say that conservatives are banning books.

01:29:45.000 They actually called to burn my book.

01:29:47.560 A teachers' union executive board member in Wisconsin said that it's a great day for a book-burning party.

01:29:53.380 Hasn't even read it yet.

01:29:54.700 They're total hypocrites.

01:29:56.660 But parents also got silenced by the NSBA, who sent a letter to the Department of Justice or to the Biden administration,

01:30:03.700 implying that parents should be investigated under the Patriot Act for domestic terrorism.

01:30:09.720 They even had a threat tag created by the FBI specifically for parents protesting at school board meetings.

01:30:17.640 But, Megan, the good news is since then, 26 states have already left the NSBA, which means parents, if they band together,

01:30:26.000 they can start a revolution and not just start it, they can win it in their specific states as well by becoming a political juggernaut.

01:30:33.900 Again, it's called The Parent Revolution by Corey DeAngelis, and it's well worth your read if you're a parent especially stuck in one of these schools.

01:30:40.320 But even if you're not, like, we love our schools now, but I care.

01:30:43.620 I care about other people's students and children and the next generation and how they're coming up.

01:30:49.020 The political indoctrination is just yet another problem.

01:30:54.100 That's everywhere.

01:30:54.860 Libs of TikTok and Chaya Raychik, she just interviewed a woman about this.

01:30:59.540 Here she is explaining the problem in SOT 21.

01:31:02.040 This is Chaya.

01:31:04.960 Libs of TikTok has obtained a disturbing lesson plan being used in the Tigger-Tualatin School District in Oregon,

01:31:11.920 centered around Nazi Germany propaganda and the Holocaust.

01:31:15.280 This lesson, used at Tuality Middle School, appears to display political bias by equating former President Donald Trump

01:31:21.380 to that of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

01:31:23.820 On the last page of the lesson, students are asked to guess from a collection of quotes which ones originated from Donald Trump and which ones originated from Adolf Hitler.

01:31:32.440 It's unbelievable, Corey, but that's not the outlier.

01:31:38.000 That happens a lot of places, that kind of rhetoric to children on politics.

01:31:41.700 I mean, these clowns, this is why they're so afraid of families actually getting a say in their kids' education,

01:31:47.060 because the left almost doesn't even need to have kids anymore.

01:31:50.280 If they can control the school system, they can still control the cultural direction of America going forward.

01:31:56.940 If they're indoctrinating other people's kids in the government school system,

01:32:01.660 that's about 50 million kids being churned through a system for 13 years of their lives, for seven hours a day.

01:32:09.220 Conservatives can't win this battle just by having more kids of their own.

01:32:12.900 They need to be able to fight back at school board meetings, win school board races,

01:32:18.280 but also fight for the right to take your kids' education dollars to another school,

01:32:23.360 which gives parents, conservative parents, more agency.

01:32:26.460 The school board won't want to cut off your mic or call you a terrorist if you have real leverage.

01:32:31.100 If you can say, hey, I'm going to take my money elsewhere, I'm going to take my kid elsewhere,

01:32:34.820 then they'll have an incentive to listen to you in the public school system.

01:32:38.860 So school choice can be a rising tide that lifts all boats,

01:32:41.620 but it's also not just important for your parents, for your family and your child.

01:32:46.160 It's also important for the future of this country,

01:32:49.780 because the left has infiltrated the school system to turn kids into socialists,

01:32:55.520 which will mean bigger government in the future, will mean more of a leftward drift in the future.

01:33:00.580 But what I'm thankful for is that in these 11 states so far, since 2021 alone,

01:33:07.220 a revolution has ignited and we're winning this war that the unions have waged on our kids for far too long.

01:33:12.940 Bit by bit, people are starting to pay attention, Corey.

01:33:14.780 The parent revolution is the name of the book.

01:33:17.020 So what is it?

01:33:17.820 I mean, I know that the unions, as you pointed out, donate overwhelmingly to the Democrats,

01:33:23.540 and then the Democrats just feed the unions whatever they want.

01:33:26.660 But what is it?

01:33:29.680 What's in it for the unions?

01:33:31.220 Why don't they give two figs about the children?

01:33:37.260 Well, because they're a teacher's union, not a kid's union.

01:33:39.820 And they don't even treat the teachers all that well either.

01:33:41.880 The ones that are doing a good job, the unions just serve as a way to protect the lowest common denominator.

01:33:46.960 They create rubber rooms in New York City where they put teachers there who can't even be around kids.

01:33:51.640 And then they pay them, they spend millions of dollars on this each year because they won't fire them.

01:33:58.680 I mean, it's just totally ridiculous.

01:34:00.380 But we now have a kid's union.

01:34:02.200 They're called parents, and they've woken up.

01:34:04.280 They're never going back to sleep.

01:34:05.840 They're never going to unsee what they saw in 2020.

01:34:08.340 And the parents' union can beat the teachers' union because parents outnumber the employees in the system,

01:34:15.180 and they care about their kids' educational needs more than anybody else, certainly more than bureaucrats sitting in offices hundreds of miles away.

01:34:24.700 I think if Democrats are smart, however, they'll stop listening to the teachers' union.

01:34:29.780 And if enough of the band together, the teachers' unions will become powerless, and they won't have as much control over them in the future.

01:34:36.620 We've seen some whiffs of this this year.

01:34:39.140 In Louisiana, for example, their House just passed universal school choice overwhelmingly, 72 to 32.

01:34:46.360 They didn't need any Democrat votes, but they had 20 percent of their House Democrats vote for the bill.

01:34:52.680 And so more Democrats are starting to do the right thing on the issue.

01:34:56.620 It's more of the exception than the rule.

01:34:58.780 But you also had in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, when he was running for governor, he said he supported private school choice.

01:35:04.880 He went on Fox News last year saying he supported school choice.

01:35:07.880 He ultimately caved to the unions that spent over $700,000 on his campaign.

01:35:12.700 But my point in the book and what I'm telling you today is that because there are some – the GOP has picked up the football and moved the ball forward as the parents' party,

01:35:23.860 that becomes politically disastrous for Democrats to oppose parental rights and education the more it's a political winner for the GOP to win on the issue.

01:35:32.060 In some polling, including from the Democrats for education reform, in some states, they're finding that Democrats have lost their double-digit advantage on the issue of education.

01:35:44.140 And that poll from the Democrats for education reform, they also put out a press release saying Democrats would be smart to try to come along on school choice too because it's such a popular issue.

01:35:54.380 That'll be tough. It's like you're trying to get the GOP to break up with the NRA.

01:35:58.640 It's a tall order.

01:36:01.600 Listen, thank you for writing the book.

01:36:02.860 Again, it's called The Parent Revolution by Corey DeAngelis, the subtitle, Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.

01:36:10.840 It's out tomorrow.

01:36:12.340 You can preorder it right now on Amazon.

01:36:14.580 Corey, thank you.

01:36:16.160 Thank you so much, Megan.

01:36:17.040 It's amazing.

01:36:18.420 I mean, and you got to get loud.

01:36:19.880 You got to be the squeaky wheel.

01:36:21.120 I remember when my son started last year in seventh grade and we're at a non-woke school.

01:36:27.500 They hired a new teacher.

01:36:28.940 The teacher opened up the class by saying this is an anti-racist Ibram X. Kendi classroom.

01:36:34.860 All that matters is offense, not intent.

01:36:37.640 We called the school and we were like the 50th family to call.

01:36:40.900 Everybody had called saying, oh, no.

01:36:43.580 And guess what?

01:36:44.200 That teacher was corrected and made clear, too, that this is not how you're going to run this classroom and is no longer with the school.

01:36:51.940 Be a squeaky wheel.

01:36:53.100 Use your voice, even if you're not used to it.

01:36:55.400 Come back to the show tomorrow because Ruthless is here.

01:36:58.760 Can't wait for that.

01:36:59.380 We'll see you then.

01:37:03.660 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:37:05.540 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:37:14.200 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 13, 2024

Michael Cohen's Glaring Credibility Issues, and Decline of Public Schools, with Viva Frei, Phil Holloway, and Corey DeAngelis ｜ Ep. 790

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