New Fani Willis Witnesses, and the Power of Drudge, with Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Chris Moody, and Jamie Weinstein ｜ Ep. 738
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 37 minutes
Words per Minute
179.39561
Summary
Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump should stay on the ballot for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Plus, new details emerge in the Fannie Maegan v. Willoughby case, and updates on the Trump trial from New York and Washington D.C.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Super Tuesday.
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I used to do this on the air at Fox and Brett Barrow would be like,
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And then he like, he learned to love Super Tuesday.
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2024, a very different election year from the prior Super Tuesdays.
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We know President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump
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are going to dominate tonight and they're going to be the nominees.
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The only thing that's going to stop them is somehow their own parties
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Instead, I'm just saying, it's going to happen.
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We're going to let you know officially what happens tomorrow,
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but that's not where the real news is today when it comes to this presidential race.
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And we have major updates in several of the proceedings,
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including the Fannie Willis disqualification case in which not one,
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but two new witnesses have just come forward and the implications for former President Donald
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Trump's trial there, as well as continued fallout in the Supreme Court decision yesterday,
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which we and others have been pouring over to figure out just how good it is for Donald Trump.
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And it turns out it's even better than we thought.
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Plus, we've got trial updates now out of New York, D.C., and more.
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There are a lot of maneuverings going on behind the scenes by the Democrats to make these things happen faster.
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And, of course, by Team Trump to slow them down and then by the media to express outrage in response to any Trump win.
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Joining me now to kick things off today is Mike Davis.
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And Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.
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You can find Mike on Fox, Dave on MSNBC, but together only right here on The Megyn Kelly Show.
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But I want to start with the Supreme Court decision yesterday, nine to zero, that Trump
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should stay on the ballot in Colorado, and this will affect him in all the states.
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Anybody trying to kick him off is going to have to deal with this.
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But as it turns out, there was more in the decision, and it had just broken when we went
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And I'll paraphrase it from Andy McCarthy's National Review piece, where he said, OK, it's
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for sure they held that states are not empowered by the 14th Amendment to remove alleged insurrectionists
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Can't have the patchwork of Colorado finding differently than, you know, Georgia, Florida,
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And then five of the justices went on to say, the only conservative who didn't join in this
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is Amy Coney Barrett, that this insurrectionist piece of the 14th Amendment can only be enforced
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against someone who's been convicted of an insurrection, who has been convicted of an
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And that is the piece that drove the three liberals nuts.
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So they wrote their own decision, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson, saying, you went
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And the reason they're so mad about it, Mike, is that what this does is it makes it impossible
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for Congress really at any point at any time that's going to affect Trump to invoke this
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clause against him again, because the majority of the Supreme Court said this piece of the
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Constitution, the 14th Amendment, saying you can't run if you're an insurrectionist.
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It can only be enforced against someone convicted of an insurrection.
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He hasn't been indicted for insurrection anywhere.
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And so this really was even better for Trump than at least we first thought.
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And they're following a precedent from more than 150 years ago called the Griffin's case.
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It's a persuasive precedent where then Chief Justice Salmon Chase, riding circuit as a circuit
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judge, not a Supreme Court justice, decided a case where it was these exact patterns where
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someone was that they were trying to disqualify a Confederate who engaged in insurrection or rebellion.
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And Salmon Chase said, no, in order to do this, Congress has to pass a federal criminal statute
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for insurrection or rebellion with a disqualification clause, which Congress promptly did.
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And if Jack Smith or the Democrats want to get rid of Trump, if they fear American voters
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and they don't want American voters to decide the election on November 5th, 2024, then Jack
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He better charge Trump with insurrection under this statute.
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He better get a federal jury, grand jury to indict a federal jury to find guilt, guilt
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unanimously with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, a federal judge to convict.
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That's the only way you can disqualify under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
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The January 6th Democrats and the Biden Justice Department have spent tens of millions of dollars
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And they charged Trump with many other things, but they couldn't charge Trump with insurrection
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How many insurrectionists go unarmed and into a nation's capital,
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get to the Senate floor of the nation's capital and walk through velvet ropes, follow police
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direction, take selfies and don't burn down the damn place.
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January 6th was a lawful protest permitted by the National Park Service that devolved into
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And what Andy says, Dave, is that this means that congressional Democrats would not be able
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to, on the next January 6th of 2025, right after we've had the election, you know, that
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They would not be able to refuse to ratify a Trump victory on the grounds that he is an
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The Supreme Court just took that away from them.
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And this is one of the many reasons why some on the left are very angry at the Supreme Court
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And in particular, for that additional step the five conservatives took.
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I can see why he's got two, he's got two really good Supreme Court decisions under his
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And I tell my Democratic friends, this is what you get when you listen to Susan Sarandon for
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your political advice and end up voting for Jill Stein, you get a Supreme Court that doesn't
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So instead of just ruling on the issue in front of them, they went further.
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And the one thing I would disagree with, Megan, is, and I have a lot of respect for Judge
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McCarthy, but I didn't see that in the opinion where you have to have a conviction for insurrection
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And here's how I interpret it, is that what the Supreme Court said is that only Congress
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Now, there's nothing in Section 5 that says it's exclusive to Congress, but the Supreme
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So if that means that there is someone who did engage in insurrection and was convicted
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of insurrection, that states cannot bounce that person off the ballot.
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And if Congress doesn't establish a mechanism, then tough luck.
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But what Andy is saying is that right now, the only existing statute that could be used
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That's the only law in the books right now that could be used.
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And Trump has not been charged as an insurrectionist.
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So yes, going forward, sure, they could change the law.
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But you tell me how in a Republican-controlled House, and we all remember Schoolhouse Rock,
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it's got to go through the House and the Senate and be signed by the president to become a
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law, they're going to change the law between now and November.
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Oh, there is a less than 0% chance they're going to do that.
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Congress is going to do what they're best at, which is do nothing.
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So what this court decision did was to also tell federal courts that you don't have the
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power to disqualify a federal candidate from office because of insurrection.
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Even if they're convicted of an insurrection, it's going to be up to Congress to create a
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And so that takes the power away from state officials and judges until Congress acts.
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So that's why it was such a broad ruling, such a powerful ruling by these justices and why
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even Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, hey, let's not go this far.
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Well, I would say I think David is right that you can have a civil component to this because
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the predecessor to this criminal statute on insurrection or rebellion, there was a civil
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So it could be either civil set up by Congress or criminal.
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So that's, you know, well, according to the Griffin's case, it has to be criminal, but
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So, you know, that's he could be he could be right there.
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I would say this on could Congress right now, could federal prosecutors right now get rid
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And the answer is yes, they would have to be charged.
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Those insurrectionists would have to be charged under this federal criminal statute for insurrection
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or rebellion with a disqualification clause that's already on the books.
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It's just the the Biden Justice Department would actually have to come up with evidence
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Well, like, like, take take, for example, some of those J6 defendants who actually were
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Well, I don't know if they were charged with insurrection.
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I think they were charged with seditious conspiracy, which is right.
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So but if you were to have a January 6th defendant charged with insurrection and convicted
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of insurrection, the Supreme Court has basically said those people are not going to be president.
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So, you know, Dave, maybe if you go after a horn man or lectern guy, my two favorites for
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presidents, you know, you could you could take them out with that statute.
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Well, Megan, Mike, Mike is right that no one has been charged with insurrection.
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They've been charged with a conspiracy, which is different.
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Mike, I the statute that says that insurrection is a crime contains a section that says you
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I thought that was what was in the 14th Amendment, Section three.
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The statute actually prohibits you from running again if you violate that.
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If you've lost me, you've definitely lost my audience.
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Just give me the bottom line without doing in-depth statutory analysis.
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So if you want to disqualify for insurrection or rebellion, there is a statute on the books,
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a federal criminal statute on the books right now.
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You charge under insurrection or rebellion, and there is a disqualification provision in
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So if you're convicted of insurrection or rebellion under that statute, you are disqualified.
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And while they could change the law going forward, there's zero chance that this House
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controlled by the Republicans is going to be on board with that.
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So for now, Trump is protected and not just for now, I mean, all the way through the election
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and potentially, you know, up to January 6th when, you know, he's he's if he wins, he's
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And it's very bad for people like Michael Ludig, Lawrence Tribe, who I mean, since this
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idea came up and Ludig was one of the ones who did it, he was, you know, I mean, I think
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it's fair to say he's a respected appellate court judge.
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It's not like you see Michael Ludig all over cable news on a normal basis, but he was a
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But here's just a flashback of some of the media and the experts embracing this wonderful
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idea, which, as I point out, while they were split on just how far they went.
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Nine out of nine did say states are not empowered by the 14th Amendment to remove alleged insurrectionists
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Colorado is executing its state's rights to decide who should be on their own ballot.
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That language in the Constitution, Jim, simply could not be any clearer.
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The former president is not eligible to be president again.
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Trump incited and therefore engaged in an armed insurrection against the Constitution.
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Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection against the Constitution.
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For under the Constitution, he cannot be our president again.
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That engaging in insurrection has disqualified himself from holding any future federal office.
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We're confident the Supreme Court will reject that claim.
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That was courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon.
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I mean, look, we'll see whether those experts now go back in and say, gee, even my side ruled
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Yeah, boy, the hazards of videotape, you know, that it looks like me.
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It looked like me when I said that the Supreme Court would deny cert in the absolute immunity
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And that's that's because it really was cockamamie.
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Like, he's I think he's more right leaning, but he's a never Trumper.
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You have to when you look at the conservative leanings of these judges, Mike, you have to
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figure out, OK, it's not enough just to say they're conservative and therefore I need to
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You do have to figure out one step beyond that.
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And I'm sorry to make it all boil down to politics.
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They he lost his mind when he got passed over for the Supreme Court by George W.
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And he's just been a bitter, washed up loser for years and years and years.
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Here I am defending the Federalist Society, ultra conservative judge, Judge Ludwig.
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This wasn't a complete victory for Trump at the Supreme Court in that they did not address
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the issue that Trump wanted them to address, which is whether or not he engaged in insurrection.
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And by doing that, the finding from the lower courts is that Trump did engage in insurrection.
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So where Ludwig and others are coming from is that if you did engage in insurrection, the
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plain meaning of the text of the 14th Amendment, Section 3 says you are disqualified for running
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But the Supreme Court decided to abandon their textualist roots, originalist roots, and decide
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to rule on principles of federalism and just common sense that we don't want 50 states to
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Not to lump you in with these people, Dave, from reacting to this decision.
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And this is given to us by the Media Research Center.
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This is actually what I had been concerned about.
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I had been concerned that should it go to the Supreme Court, they would rule this way.
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My next guest says Donald Trump is still an oath-breaking insurrectionist.
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The court went way further than it needed to go.
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Our colleague Melissa Murray has called this Supreme Court the YOLO court.
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The criticism of the court is that they're playing interference.
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Not since Bush v. Gore have we seen a court that's had this many opportunities to interfere
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The headline here is that this is a unanimous ruling, but if you scratch the surface just
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Trump will take this, spin it, spread the misinformation, disinformation on it.
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Remember him, Mike Davis, back in the Fox days?
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He was like a normal pollster that you could rely on for down the middle analysis.
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But look, I understand the five for argument for the reasons that we kicked the show off
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And I wonder whether these same people are going to be so disgusted with the court and
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ready to dismantle it after the court is likely, Dave, to rule against Trump and his claims
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that everything he did in office is immune from prosecution when we get that decision
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They're going to rule against him on that, but they're going to drag their feet.
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And I understand that, because if they continue to delay this matter, the trial in D.C. may
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The only people who dragged their feet were Jack Smith and the Justice Department.
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As soon as they filed the charges, Trump started to challenge it legally.
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They didn't have to put it on this term, but they took it on this term.
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Well, compared to what they did here in the Colorado case, Megan, where they expedited
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matters to give just Trump a decision within weeks to make sure it was done before Super
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Tuesday, where they even issued an opinion on a Monday, which was so rare.
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And then you compare it to intervening in Jack Smith's case, where they first said, no, we're
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That's because Jack Smith was trying to skip the D.C.
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You got to go to the middle, guys, before you come to us, which, Mike, every Supreme
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Court would most likely prefer, because then you get a whole decision with reasoning from
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the lower court that you get to kick off the argument with.
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It wasn't unusual at all for the court to say, slow down, Nellie.
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You do it before this Court of Appeals, and then you come to us.
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Well, yeah, I mean, of course they have to decide this Colorado disqualification case
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as quickly as they can, because these states need to print ballots, right?
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And they need to print ballots and figure out whether Trump is going to be on the ballots
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On this presidential immunity, they are deciding this case in, like, warp speed.
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They're not allowing Trump to seek en banc review with the D.C. Circuit.
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They're not waiting to hear oral argument in this case next fall or even next winter,
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They're very much expediting this, and there's no need for them to expedite this because it's
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Whether Trump is on the ballot is relevant to the election.
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Whether Trump has presidential immunity is not.
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Yes, I mean, look, I would say this about presidential immunity.
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I know you guys both disagree with me on this, but I seem to have a track record on this.
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The Supreme Court is going to find that the president, any president, is immune from criminal
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Then the Supreme Court is going to remand this case to D.C. Obama Judge Tanya Shuckett to hold
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an evidentiary hearing on what Trump allegedly did on January 6th that was in his official
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acts, like, you know, he was going to fire his acting attorney general.
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That sounds pretty presidential to me, versus in his personal capacity.
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And then once they decide that, Trump can appeal that again, because you're dealing with
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And so the bottom line is, is that there's no chance this case is going to go to trial before
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You're going to actually have to vote for the president of the United States on November
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5th, 2024, the old-fashioned way, instead of having your left-wing judges remove him from
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Here's, take a listen to Jim Acosta on CNN, talking about how sad this is and how Trump
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gets, files all these appeals, delays everything, not like a normal person, even though everybody
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in the United States who gets convicted or sued civilly and loses has the opportunity to
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file an appeal, which Jim Acosta, he should familiarize himself with a lovely service known
00:23:44.720
as Google, or any of its competitors, which we're moving to now, because this is not a special
00:23:54.440
Jim, what do you say to all those Americans out there who are watching this, who are frustrated
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and say, you know, Trump is getting away with breaking the law, that he files appeal after
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He tries to delay every proceeding that's brought against him in a way that is just, it just
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goes against what our judicial system should be about.
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I mean, isn't he treated differently than just about everybody else in this country?
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I mean, just about anybody else would not have.
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The ability to appeal things until kingdom come.
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Well, actually, they do have the ability to do that.
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Well, for all practical purposes, it doesn't, that doesn't happen.
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I mean, the vast majority of defendants out there don't have the, don't have the resources
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to drag everything out in umpteen different cases across the country.
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I mean, I used to, I used to clerk for Judge Gorsuch on the 10th Circuit.
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I used to clerk for Justice Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
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We heard appeal after appeal after appeal from rapists and murderers and carjackers and these
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same Democrats who bemoan that, you know, Trump's not above the law.
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They just want to throw him in prison and bankrupt him and take him off the ballots after they
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impeached him twice for nonsense because they fear American voters.
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Why do they not want American voters to have a choice on November 5th, 2024?
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Of course, I'm respectable, says John Huston as Noah Cross in the movie Chinatown to Jack
00:25:49.540
Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
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And then there is what happens when you are all three of those things, as the Supreme
00:26:04.920
Politicians pretending to be justices working in an ugly building.
00:26:09.760
And as Trump relied upon and yesterday was proven correct, they are all whores.
00:26:15.460
And I have lots to say about the Supreme whores and what they have done and what they might
00:26:21.280
yet do, which, improbably enough, includes making Joe Biden into an instant American king.
00:26:29.880
The evidence is mounting that what Donald Trump is suffering from is something called
00:26:38.040
There are two million Americans with aphasia, a kind of catch-all for a series of communication
00:26:45.700
And obviously, this is a layman asserting this.
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I'll give you the first crack on that one, Mike, because I see you laughing.
00:27:00.440
I take offense to what he said about everything else he said was fine, but he said the Supreme
00:27:07.580
And I take great offense to that because I think the Supreme Court building is beautiful.
00:27:16.220
And the actual courtroom in which the justices sit is magnificent, has a bunch of history.
00:27:20.700
And who knows whether Keith Olbermann's actually ever dragged himself out of his cave to go
00:27:24.860
over and behold the majesty that is the Supreme Court building.
00:27:32.940
I'm kind of glad he's in the national conversation just because he's entertaining.
00:27:37.440
I mean, it's either offensive or wrong or both, which is why we go to him a fair amount.
00:27:47.160
And there's plenty more to discuss on the legal front.
00:27:50.300
Now, that brings me to I'm going to figure out what I want to do next.
00:27:54.860
OK, January 6th, that's the underlying case with Judge Chutkin.
00:28:09.660
While SCOTUS, in a separate matter that we made a reference to, tries to decide whether
00:28:20.700
And Politico comes out with an article called, entitled, The Enormous Pressures About to Land
00:28:29.820
And in this piece, the author makes a reference to the fact that Jack Smith, who's both pursuing
00:28:38.420
the January 6th federal case against Trump and the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Trump
00:28:43.720
in Dave's jurisdiction, had an appearance before the Florida judge in the Mar-a-Lago case recently
00:28:51.840
and said to that judge, Aileen Cannon, there are no DOJ policies that prevent cases that
00:29:00.160
have already been charged from going to trial in the run up to the election, even if the
00:29:10.020
Notwithstanding this, you know, supposed DOJ policy that they would not do anything to
00:29:14.480
interfere with an election within 60 days of the election.
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They wouldn't do anything like that because they don't want to influence the vote.
00:29:21.540
Now they're saying to Judge Cannon, we're actually not going to follow that in this
00:29:30.360
It doesn't apply because we charged him well before.
00:29:34.100
And so now there's real speculation about whether Judge Chutkin should go ahead with this
00:29:41.180
trial as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court gives it any sort of a green light, should rush it
00:29:48.640
And the suggestion is that she could hold the trial only three to four days a week, leaving
00:29:55.080
Trump the remainder to travel the country and campaign.
00:29:58.260
Hold the trial on alternating weeks, allowing Trump to campaign in the weeks in between his
00:30:05.520
Hold half day trial days, leaving Trump the remainder of the day to travel to closer states
00:30:12.600
right around Washington, D.C. and to campaign nationally through his media appearances.
00:30:20.500
And then the writer goes on and Kush Cardory to say, you know what?
00:30:25.560
The trial also does not need to even end before November, though that's far from ideal.
00:30:31.600
They can keep this thing rolling and potentially you could get him convicted even after he wins
00:30:42.200
and then he could be, I guess, kicked out, not certified.
00:30:49.540
I don't know what the end plan would be if they got his conviction between November and
00:30:54.100
But my takeaway on this, I am coming back to you, Dave.
00:30:56.920
But let me just give this one to Mike first, too, is that these Democrats will stop at
00:31:03.940
He can campaign in the afternoon in the states around Washington, D.C.
00:31:11.880
Yeah, remember, they waited 30 months, 13 months to bring these charges.
00:31:17.840
And these are coordinated charges with the Biden White House and the Biden Justice Department.
00:31:23.220
I've given you specific names in each one of these cases where they're specifically coordinating.
00:31:29.040
You have Nathan Wade, for example, billing his time to meet with the Biden White House
00:31:34.420
You have Matthew Colangelo going from the Biden Justice Department, the number three office,
00:31:39.700
to Alvin Bragg's office to bring the first indictment ever against a former president
00:31:45.900
You had Jonathan Suh, Biden's deputy White House counsel, waive Trump's claim of executive
00:31:54.500
So you have Biden's fingerprints on all four of these things.
00:31:57.320
You had Biden going out there, leaking that Garland was acting like a professor instead
00:32:04.960
And we have these four coordinated indictments and criminal charges against Trump.
00:32:10.080
And they've timed these trials back to back to back right during the 2024 presidential election
00:32:27.460
The legitimacy of the judicial system is on the line.
00:32:31.720
When the American people start paying attention and they see President Trump in a courtroom for
00:32:37.520
these bogus charges instead of on the campaign trail, this is not going to go well with the
00:32:43.300
And when when when the justice system loses its legitimacy with half of the American people,
00:32:52.560
I mean, Dave, if this is the Democrats campaign strategy, this is the thing that Biden thinks will
00:33:01.260
win him the election that, as again, quoting here from Andy, who's making a reference to
00:33:08.340
Adam Liptack of The New York Times, outlining outlining the possible plan.
00:33:14.040
A felony trial of Trump on the January 6th charges before a hostile Washington jury pool
00:33:19.280
and an unfriendly Obama appointed judge beginning after Labor Day, running through Election
00:33:36.580
Do we have a judge in Chutka and Judge Chutkin who would go along with this?
00:33:43.740
Megan, there is absolutely no evidence that Joe Biden has been pulling the strings on any
00:33:50.720
Remember, he and I would agree is frustrated with Merrick Garland because Merrick Garland,
00:33:54.980
the one thing I will agree with what Mike said is that he slow walked a lot of this stuff.
00:33:58.620
He is timid, and I don't think he was the right pick for attorney general.
00:34:02.140
But he finally appointed a special prosecutor, and then it was on.
00:34:05.100
Remember, this is the same attorney general who's prosecuting Joe Biden's son, the same
00:34:09.860
guy who let Robert Hur become the special counsel, and then released this report bashing
00:34:16.200
And as far as the Department of Justice and this 60-day rule, there has never been a rule that
00:34:20.560
says you cannot try a case before the election.
00:34:22.880
Just ask Senator—well, he's not around anymore—Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.
00:34:27.120
He had a trial for his fraud claims, his criminal activity, in late September of the year where
00:34:35.840
In fact, the jury gave a guilty verdict a week before Election Day.
00:34:43.520
And if anything, I got to tell you, I think the Supreme Court was dragging its feet.
00:34:48.800
I know we've talked about this, but one other thing about that, they didn't have to intervene
00:34:54.020
They didn't have to wait two weeks to then say, yeah, we're going to get involved.
00:34:56.680
And then when they did so, even after they granted cert, they didn't have to issue a
00:35:00.780
And then they could have had the oral argument like now, like in March.
00:35:09.480
Not only is there no coordination between Biden and the prosecutors here, but it looks like the
00:35:14.320
Supreme Court has been intentionally dragging its feet to make sure justice is not served before the
00:35:18.760
election and voters don't get the information they need to make a rational choice.
00:35:24.260
I'm going to have to bust out my mother's cupboard again, aren't I, Dave?
00:35:28.340
Lack of planning on your part does not justify an emergency on my part.
00:35:31.720
She used to whip that thing open whenever I'd be like, mom, I need you to pick up my school
00:35:39.360
Now it's not up to the Supreme Court to suddenly have to go faster than that aircraft carrier
00:35:50.360
Whether Judge Shutkin could actually help them engage in this strategy on J6.
00:35:55.340
But here's here's the thing I want to get back to.
00:36:00.480
Andy's saying, Mike, the DOJ pointing out even if Trump wins in November and and Mike Davis
00:36:11.780
You will not be in power until January 20th, 2025.
00:36:19.580
And he writes, remember, a president elect is in no position to dismiss anything.
00:36:25.740
There may be more than enough time between September and January to get Trump not only
00:36:34.020
Jack Smith is banking on at least the former, the conviction.
00:36:36.980
And he'll push for the latter two if it's remotely attainable.
00:36:44.380
I hadn't even considered this scenario, Mike, where Trump, where they do press forward on
00:36:50.600
J6 trial before Judge Shutkin after the Supreme Court rules if they allow this case to go forward
00:36:57.380
And I realize the whole heart of that case may get gutted by another case that they're about
00:37:01.360
to hear, a Fisher, that's another matter, that they might put pedal to the metal, make him
00:37:07.740
do the half days or the four days a week, what have you.
00:37:13.260
And between November 5th and January, they get a conviction and sentence him to prison.
00:37:27.940
And that's that's why this Jack Smith is a scud missile that the Democrats send in.
00:37:34.580
Remember, he was overturned nine to nothing when he brought his bogus corruption charges
00:37:39.180
against former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, a likely presidential or vice presidential candidate.
00:37:45.100
And in 2016, he was able to win his conviction and destroy Bob McDonnell's political life and
00:37:53.420
And then the Supreme Court, eight to nothing, reversed him in 2016.
00:38:04.780
He got banished to The Hague because he is a partisan buffoon prosecutor.
00:38:09.820
And then Garland's brought him back as the scud missile to take out President Trump before
00:38:22.340
It's very blatant that what they're doing is they're trying to interfere in the election.
00:38:32.080
And so they're trying to bankrupt, disqualify from the ballot and put Trump in prison because
00:38:38.860
they don't want the American people to put Trump back in the White House.
00:38:43.220
OK, Dave, I mean, I think the answer to my question is we don't know.
00:38:49.040
It's truly unprecedented to have an elected president elect get convicted of a felony and
00:38:59.520
But before he's been sworn in, like, I don't think we know we're on uncharted grounds here.
00:39:11.740
You could technically serve as president from prison.
00:39:15.820
What would be interesting if he is convicted and then he takes office, I assume there would
00:39:21.360
I assume there'd be an appeal and his sentence would be stayed.
00:39:25.220
And then he would go into the White House and then nothing would happen until after he's
00:39:37.960
He could also resign temporarily under, I forgot which, Mike can help me, which amendment
00:39:42.280
where the vice president takes over briefly and then hards him in any, which one is it,
00:39:53.240
But, you know, the reason why Donald Trump is running for president is because he realizes
00:39:57.280
this is the best way to escape all the legal liability swirling over his head and it may
00:40:12.040
The legal news today is actually really interesting.
00:40:15.080
We have to ask if our guys can stay just a little later.
00:40:19.040
One final point that we raised the other day, Andy raised it, too, in this piece, and I thought
00:40:28.200
In the Florida case by you, Dave, they went in there, both sides, and said, okay, how about
00:40:35.040
The prosecution said we want July, I think July 8th.
00:40:38.080
And Team Trump said, no, that's too soon, but we could do August 12th.
00:40:44.060
And no one really thinks that case is going to go off on August 12th.
00:40:47.740
But the thinking is that what he was doing there was getting a placeholder on that case
00:40:54.600
so that Judge Chutkin over in D.C. and all the peril I just described there can't go anytime
00:41:00.900
soon because they're not going to make Trump sit for simultaneous criminal trials.
00:41:07.100
So Team Trump appears to have thought, okay, better to have that one on the calendar than
00:41:12.960
But Annie makes the point that, well, the downside to this is Trump's lawyers have now
00:41:18.160
undermined their credibility to argue to Judge Chutkin that the Biden Department of Justice
00:41:23.780
must not be allowed to subject Trump to a criminal trial during the campaign stretch run.
00:41:33.960
The judge, Judge Cannon and Mar-a-Lago would say, you know what, we're not doing it on August
00:41:38.920
I know that was we had a placeholder, but too much to go through.
00:41:42.520
And then suddenly this big, beautiful window of time opens up and Judge Chutkin says, I'm
00:41:46.960
back from my European vacation and I would love to do it.
00:41:50.320
And at that point, is he saying like Trump would be unable to argue, unable to argue, oh,
00:41:56.680
but it's not fair because he already agreed to in another jurisdiction.
00:42:01.340
But Trump said that they can't do it before the election.
00:42:04.320
And then he was pushed by Judge Cannon to say, give us a date.
00:42:08.900
So then they said, OK, August 12th, for the reasons that you and Andy had mentioned, they
00:42:13.260
thought it would block Judge Chutkin's future calendar.
00:42:17.340
But it is correct that now they can use that against him.
00:42:20.740
But when it comes to Judge Cannon, it won't matter.
00:42:23.740
That case is not happening before the election.
00:42:26.160
Judge Cannon is going to give in to Trump's demands to delay it.
00:42:29.340
Where it could come into play is, yes, with Judge Chutkin, when Trump says we can't do
00:42:33.540
it before right before the election, then Judge Chutkin says, ah, you gave them August.
00:42:39.780
And yes, she has said she's going to ditch her European vacation to come back and try
00:42:48.980
This is this is the happiest place on Earth, not Disneyland.
00:42:57.000
I'm going to save it to the top of the hour via Katie Fang of MS.
00:43:02.440
Donald Trump has until later this week to post a ninety one point sixty three million
00:43:12.820
This is the civil case for first it was sexual assault.
00:43:15.780
And then the big judgment for it was for him allegedly defaming her.
00:43:19.820
And Newsweek says, of course, in New York, a person must pay a court cash bond that amounts
00:43:25.440
to one hundred and ten percent of the judgment.
00:43:28.760
That's why it's more than the eighty three million that was ordered.
00:43:31.220
So he has to pay ninety one million dollars in bond to stay the execution of that civil
00:43:35.520
judgment against him as he tries to appeal this.
00:43:39.020
On Monday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said he would not reach a decision on Trump's motion to stay
00:43:52.080
Is Trump going to have to post this bond for ninety one million and is he then going to
00:43:57.440
have to post the bond for the half a billion dollar judgment that's been handed down against
00:44:03.780
him in the corporate fraud case against the smiling judge Engeron?
00:44:09.380
I mean, so what is is Trump going to have to liquidate assets to pay the bonds on these bogus
00:44:17.560
I mean, they changed the law in New York for this this nut job.
00:44:27.180
So go ahead and try to say she's going to say she's going to go ahead.
00:44:34.260
I mean, Trump's going to have to liquidate his assets.
00:44:37.720
He's going to have to post these bonds or they're going to go in and what, like take
00:44:43.560
This is the again, this is part of the Democrat lawfare.
00:44:48.340
They're doing this on the disqualification front, the impeachment front, the four criminal
00:44:55.660
They're trying to go after him for one hundred million dollars.
00:44:58.480
But Gene Carroll, this is lawfare and election interference.
00:45:01.220
And Democrats may be gleeful about this right now, but they're not going to be very gleeful
00:45:05.720
when Donald Trump essentially runs over their puppy with a lawnmower on November 5th,
00:45:17.880
Dave, I really am interested in this because when he tried to get the New York appeals court
00:45:23.260
to reduce the amount of bond he had to post in that half a billion dollar judgment against
00:45:31.620
Now he's trying to get a larger panel of the appellate court to reconsider this, arguing that
00:45:38.500
it's an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual,
00:45:45.960
And so far, these judges are all saying no, no, no.
00:45:52.320
And the one judge said, on the $500 million, they said, we'll let you go get loans, all
00:45:58.280
If you want loans, you can go get loans, because originally that crazy judge, Engrod, said you
00:46:02.720
can't even get a loan for this from any bank that even does business in New York, which
00:46:08.380
And so they said, all right, you can get a loan.
00:46:12.020
Because there's like a Wall Street Journal piece today really talking about how Letitia
00:46:18.960
And while that's really not the state's first choice, because they don't know how to run
00:46:23.380
buildings or sell buildings, that what what else can they do?
00:46:31.540
And if he doesn't post the bond, that that would have to be their next move.
00:46:36.900
I do think he'll get loans to pay off the bonds.
00:46:44.240
And he takes this very personally when you go after his finances.
00:46:46.640
But this is where his own rhetoric hurts him, because when he says how rich he is and he
00:46:51.300
has way more money than people know, yeah, the courts use that against him.
00:46:55.000
So a lot of this is his own braggadocio coming back to get the loans.
00:47:02.680
But if you're a bank and you see how leveraged he is right now to the tune of over a half a
00:47:08.140
billion, I can see you not wanting to loan anything to Donald Trump.
00:47:11.580
My own fear is like the Saudis are going to be like, hey, we'll do it.
00:47:16.520
And then he owes the Saudis, which we don't want in our future president.
00:47:23.380
That's something, Megan, that I think we can all agree on.
00:47:26.920
Now, Trump does have an asset that could be blowing up financially, which is the true
00:47:32.640
social where he could be in line for a couple billion dollars.
00:47:37.700
So that's something that he could use to get a loan.
00:47:42.660
Mike, do you am I wrong to fear like China coming in and saying we can cover the 500 million
00:47:51.700
Yeah, I mean, it would be very bad to have a president of the United States corrupted and
00:47:56.120
compromised by foreign loans and payments, you know, from China, Ukraine, from Russia,
00:48:02.220
from Kazakhstan, from Romania, every other trouble spot around the world.
00:48:05.820
I mean, I'd hate to see a president of the United States or his family members take any
00:48:12.640
Well, how about the Bidens in the Biden crime family?
00:48:16.920
OK, this would dwarf that on a massive scale, but I'm against it.
00:48:21.780
I want to go on record and say I'm against it for Biden.
00:48:26.760
But this is kind of the position he's being placed in.
00:48:29.500
I mean, what would you do if you were Donald Trump?
00:48:31.540
Would you sell Trump Tower so Letitia James could get it just to give to these Democrats
00:48:38.140
in Albany who are busy taxing us to our eyeballs?
00:48:41.900
There's no victim who's going to get this money.
00:48:52.440
Before we get to Fannie Willis, I've got to tell you, this has been reminding me of something.
00:48:57.480
It's one of my favorite movies, and it should be one of everyone's favorite movies.
00:49:00.680
This Keith Olbermann little rap that he did today on the Supreme Court and that he did
00:49:09.160
The conservatives on the Supreme Court are Trump's whores.
00:49:12.660
Chief Justice Roberts is a Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
00:49:17.080
And Justice Alito is a Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
00:49:21.020
And Justice Gorsuch is a self-contradicting Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
00:49:25.440
And Justice Kavanaugh is a drunken abuser Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
00:49:30.680
And Justice Barrett is a handmaid Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
00:49:55.680
I'm just telling you there's some sort of a revelation in his constant focus on whores.
00:50:02.000
I leave it to the audience to figure out what that is.
00:50:09.560
Not one, but two witnesses have now come forward to various defendants saying that they would
00:50:17.800
They are both saying, shocker, Terrence Bradley is full of BS.
00:50:24.400
The lawyer who once represented Nathan Wade for a short time and was Nathan Wade's friend
00:50:28.840
and when he took the stand, notwithstanding all of his admissions to attorney Ashley Merchant
00:50:33.460
before he got to the stand about, yes, I know when it happened.
00:50:38.900
It happened when she left the DA's office as a junior person and became a judge in 2019.
00:50:44.240
And then he gets on the stand and doesn't remember anything.
00:50:46.440
Two other people are like, he talked to me like that too.
00:50:50.020
He told me all the same secrets he told Ashley Merchant and went on and on and had great detail.
00:50:58.020
Number one is a woman named Cindy Lee Yeager, who is not just some rando.
00:51:05.220
Cindy Lee Yeager is currently the co-chief deputy DA for Cobb County, the neighboring county.
00:51:17.000
So this person also has an obligation of candor for the court to the court, and she's apparently
00:51:21.980
ready to take the stand if the judge, because he's still considering whether he will reopen
00:51:25.480
the evidence or whether he even needs to reopen the evidence.
00:51:28.960
And she says from August of 23 through January of 24.
00:51:33.980
So basically this past fall, that's the same time Ashley Merchant was talking to Terrence
00:51:37.500
Bradley, that she had numerous conversations with Bradley as well, in which he was talking
00:51:43.840
about his favorite subject, Willis and Wade, in their romance.
00:51:47.740
According to the filing, he told Ms. Yeager that relationship began, see if this sounds
00:51:53.100
familiar, guys, around the time that Willis and Wade met at a judicial conference in 2019.
00:51:59.380
Wade, quote, had definitively begun a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis during the time that
00:52:06.340
Ms. Willis was running for DA, which is 2019 to 2020.
00:52:11.100
Mr. Bradley stated that he had personal knowledge of this relationship and included details regarding
00:52:17.820
Mr. Wade's use of Robin or Ms. Willis's use of Robin Urte's apartment and other meetings
00:52:25.580
between the two of them prior to November of 2021, which is when he filed for divorce and
00:52:32.080
Mr. Bradley told Cindy Lee Yeager, she alleges, again, this is an officer of the court saying
00:52:39.660
this, that Mr. Wade personally prepared his own divorce complaint against his spouse and
00:52:44.140
told Terrence Bradley, you just signed the divorce filings and filed them, suggesting that the
00:52:49.580
actual attorney-client relationship did not begin until around November of 2021 and not
00:52:56.840
back in 18, as Terrence Bradley testified. And they say, based upon these statements,
00:53:03.920
it is Ms. Yeager's understanding that Mr. Bradley did not begin representing Mr. Wade until November
00:53:08.440
of 2021. All right, now, just going to give you the second thing. This happened this morning,
00:53:16.920
moments ago. Another person has come forward, another officer of the court. His name is attorney
00:53:21.840
Manny Arora, former adjunct professor at Georgia State School of Law. Apparently he's a friend of
00:53:29.020
Terrence Bradley's. Terrence Bradley, he talks a lot. He spoke to Terrence Bradley, says Manny,
00:53:37.740
and he's willing to testify that Terrence Bradley, same time period, September, October,
00:53:44.280
2023, this past fall, regarding the relationship between Willis and Wade. Aurora claims that Terrence
00:53:49.540
Bradley told him the relationship began when Willis was running for DA in 2019 through 2020,
00:53:55.560
that Bradley had personal knowledge of the relationship, including details regarding the
00:54:00.400
use of Robin Urti's apartment. That's exactly what the other one said. Personal knowledge,
00:54:05.460
including the use of Robin Urti's apartment. And he adds that Mr. Wade, this is what this guy learned
00:54:12.200
from Terrence Bradley, had a garage door opener to the property. This rung a bell with us because
00:54:20.140
Ashley Merchant, I think, was also told this by Terrence Bradley because she raised it when he was on
00:54:25.080
the stand. We pulled the saw. Watch. Do you recall that he had a garage door opener to either a house
00:54:32.540
or a condo or something like that of Ms. Willis's?
00:54:35.640
I've never seen a garage door opener. So no, I do not have any personal knowledge of him having
00:54:45.000
a garage door opener. Do you have any knowledge at all from Mr. Wade or any source that he had a
00:54:52.000
garage door opener to access one of Ms. Willis's residents? And I'll object to any source as to
00:54:57.460
hearsay. All right. Depends on the source. Overruled. No, not. No, I don't have any knowledge.
00:55:05.640
Well, it's clear that Ashley Merchant got that from somewhere. It appears to have been him. But
00:55:12.000
for sure, we've got a lawyer named Manny Aurora who's willing to take the stand and say,
00:55:17.680
he told me, Terrence Bradley told me Mr. Wade had a garage opener to that property. And again,
00:55:25.300
we have another witness, a DA, saying he told me that they were having an affair at that time
00:55:30.400
and had details about the use of her apartment and other meetings. I mean,
00:55:34.600
a little butterball turkey. The thing has popped out. It's done. It's done. Dave,
00:55:42.600
is it done? How many witnesses have to come forward to put the lie to this?
00:55:48.400
It's only done if they had firsthand information. What they're doing is just,
00:55:51.800
again, saying that Terrence Bradley lied on the stand. He was out there saying things and he has
00:55:57.520
clearly loose lips. And then when he got in the stand, he said, well, I was just speculating.
00:56:01.000
So I think that's what would happen here. He'd get put on the stand. He'd say, I was just speculating.
00:56:05.220
I was talking trash. And so I don't think that moves the needle as much as something else,
00:56:09.940
Megan, that you may have seen where the first witness, Yeager, said that she heard
00:56:15.240
Bonnie Wilson's voice on a phone call to Bradley talking. And that would, right, that would contradict
00:56:21.320
actually. Yeah, that I think is a bigger deal than this. This to me, Megan, because it's not
00:56:26.340
firsthand information, does not move the needle. And I don't think that the judge is going to
00:56:30.180
reopen it just for this. It's that other thing, which we'll talk about, which may be a bigger
00:56:33.920
problem. I'll just fill it in now. This first witness, this assistant deputy DA in Cobb County
00:56:42.580
is willing to take the stand and tell this judge under oath that Fannie Willis was calling Terrence
00:56:48.740
Bradley when Bradley was visiting Yeager in September. So Bradley was with Yeager and he got a phone call
00:56:55.240
from Fannie. And she was calling Bradley in response to an article that was published about
00:56:59.680
how much money Nathan Wade and his law partners had been paid in the case. She was mad because the
00:57:04.100
press was going off about how well compensated this one guy was with no relevant experience in
00:57:10.900
prosecuting RICO felonies and so on. And Ms. Yeager personally heard DA Willis tell Terrence Bradley,
00:57:19.300
quote, they are coming after us. You don't need to talk to them about anything about us.
00:57:28.040
Us. An obvious reference to Fannie and Nathan. Mike, all of this undercuts Terrence Bradley trying
00:57:36.920
to claim he knew nothing on that stand. And of course, the underlying under oath assertions
00:57:44.260
Yeah, I mean, this is a train wreck. And I would say about this Terrence Bradley,
00:57:49.700
look, he's a lawyer. He was a law partner with Nathan Wade. Why is he running his mate? Look,
00:57:56.440
why is he running his mouth? Just keep your damn mouth shut. Even if it's not exactly an attorney
00:58:01.840
client relationship or may or may not be. If you're a law partner, if you're a previous lawyer,
00:58:09.220
future lawyer, just keep your damn mouth shut. Why is he running his mouth to all these people?
00:58:17.380
I know why. I don't know. This is my opinion is he's mad. He got pushed out of the firm
00:58:23.280
over allegations of sexual assault that he denies. So he doesn't have. And then he got that's when
00:58:30.160
his relationship with Nathan Wade, at least as a lawyer, ended. He testified. And that was,
00:58:35.240
I think, summer of 2022 or maybe September of 2022. So he's probably pissed off a little that
00:58:42.680
not only did they push him out of the firm, but he got accused of being a terrible person of like
00:58:47.100
sexual assault again, which he denied on the stand. And so while it appears they had some
00:58:53.260
contact going forward, it wasn't particularly close. He denied that he had any contact. But
00:58:57.440
now we had this guy calling Ashley merchant, leaving the voicemail saying I served them having
00:59:02.320
lunch together a couple of weeks ago. So Nathan Wade and Terrence Bradley, and that I know these
00:59:07.940
players, I knew exactly who it was. And I introduced myself and like just all the bricks are falling
00:59:13.780
out of this wall for Terrence Bradley. And why? Because he's embarrassed that he did blab
00:59:19.960
inappropriately on a friend and worse potentially on a client, but he did blab and it's out there.
00:59:25.300
And for better or for the worse, I don't know. You tell me the judge is a human. There's no
00:59:29.960
sequester order on him and media, Dave. So he's going to know this and he's got to review these
00:59:35.840
motions to see whether he's going to allow these people to testify.
00:59:38.940
Right. I agree with everything you and Mike said about Terrence Bradley. Remember when
00:59:44.520
Bonnie Willis's lawyers went after him, we didn't understand why. So why go after your own witness?
00:59:48.880
He's given your side, whatever you wanted. But now we know that because I guess they anticipate all
00:59:55.220
this stuff coming out. And the fact is he did have a bad breakup with Nathan Wade. And so, yeah,
01:00:01.120
this is something the judge is aware of. The judge may have already made up his mind and this doesn't
01:00:05.100
matter. But if the judge has not, or if he's ruling for Bonnie Willis, then he's more likely
01:00:10.060
to allow this to come in. I still believe the only thing that really is relevant here is that
01:00:15.540
conversation that that Yeager heard herself of Bonnie Willis's voice talking to Terrence Bradley.
01:00:23.200
I'm just going to say, Mike, how do you speculate that he has a garage door opener that he uses to
01:00:31.400
access this apartment owned by Robin Yurty, where he's visiting? That's quite a speculation.
01:00:37.360
And very specific, a very specific speculation. I mean, this case is a mess. I don't know if Dave
01:00:44.380
is with me now that this case, they should absolutely get disqualified from this case. And
01:00:49.280
this case should be dismissed with a new prosecutor brought in because it is so corrupted. I would say
01:00:55.960
to the Democrats, why would you use these corrupt lying buffoons as your front people for the law
01:01:04.480
fair against a former and likely future president of the United States? If you're going to run law
01:01:10.120
fair in 2028, pick better people next time. I think that's good advice. That's free legal advice.
01:01:16.880
I agree with that. And I want to tell the audience again tomorrow at 9 a.m., Ashley Merchant will be
01:01:21.040
taking the stand in front of the Georgia Senate committee that's investigating this. They've
01:01:26.620
subpoenaed her and all of the texts between Ashley Merchant and Terrence Bradley. They've already
01:01:32.160
interviewed what they say are whistleblowers in this case, though we don't know anything more
01:01:36.500
about that. So we're expecting to learn a fact or two directly from Ashley Merchant tomorrow when
01:01:42.540
interestingly, she takes the stand. All the lawyers are taking it pretty soon. Dave and Mike are going
01:01:47.060
to have to take the stand and I'm going to take the stand. We're all going to be, but we'll tell
01:01:50.920
the truth. Guys, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. All right. When we
01:01:56.680
come right back, the mystery of Matt Drudge. There is a new podcast out, which is riveting about one of
01:02:04.100
the biggest names and least understood men in media. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on
01:02:11.520
Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting
01:02:17.560
and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly show
01:02:22.200
on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people
01:02:28.880
like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelly. You can stream the
01:02:36.040
Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I
01:02:42.680
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and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to
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subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free.
01:03:10.580
It is one of the great mysteries in media. Where in the world is Matt Drudge? Despite being named one
01:03:20.160
of the most influential names in journalism, Matt Drudge has all but disappeared from the public eye.
01:03:27.360
His website Drudge Report is still going strong, but is he even behind it anymore? And why did he
01:03:34.660
turn so hard against Trump in 2020 after having been pretty openly supportive of him in 2016?
01:03:42.040
All of these questions have led to a fascinating new podcast called Finding Matt Drudge. The host
01:03:48.340
and producer, Chris Moody and Jamie Weinstein join me now. Welcome to the show, Chris and Jamie. Great
01:03:54.820
to have you. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. Jamie, great to see you again. What a fun idea
01:04:01.220
for a podcast. He really is this enigmatic guy who no one ever sees. I've seen him one time. I have
01:04:10.860
had one in-person interaction with Matt Drudge. He was in the Fox News green room. And he likes it that
01:04:17.820
way. It's not just because he's looking to stir up buzz about him. He really is reclusive. And so talk
01:04:24.880
to me about how you got this idea. Well, it was in the middle of a pandemic. We're looking for
01:04:31.600
something to do. So my wife and I, we started a little production company. And this was the first
01:04:36.200
idea I had, in part because Matt Drudge obviously wields influence and has for over 25 years helped
01:04:43.340
shape the media narrative. But there's also a mystery to it, as you mentioned. There are questions that
01:04:48.340
people still don't know. They don't know why Matt Drudge became increasingly reclusive over the years.
01:04:53.080
ended his radio show, stopped going to the White House correspondence dinner,
01:04:56.920
basically disappeared from public life for the last decade. They also don't know why he turned
01:05:03.600
against Donald Trump after pretty heavily going all in for Trump. And as we show in our podcast,
01:05:10.160
visiting the White House after Donald Trump was elected. And there's even speculation. There was an
01:05:15.660
article a couple of years ago, and some of the people that Chris talks to on the show still think
01:05:20.580
perhaps he doesn't even run the site anymore. So there's these mysterious questions surrounding
01:05:26.040
him. He's obviously a person of great influence. We thought that combination made for a pretty
01:05:31.220
interesting show. And that's why we went and did it. Totally. Absolutely. It does. Just so people
01:05:39.240
know, I don't know if the audience is familiar with the Drudge Report. They must be, because it's one of
01:05:42.660
the biggest sites online. He doesn't like it when you call it a blog. It aggregates stories. And it
01:05:50.260
could basically be the newsroom, you know, the sort of editorial hub for Fox News for many years or for
01:05:57.660
other right-leaning publications. He has enormous power in conservative circles and beyond. Yes,
01:06:03.180
my team is telling me that in the media-ite power rankings this year, okay, I was number four,
01:06:10.220
they're telling me, and Matt Dredger's number five. So he's a power, very, very powerful,
01:06:13.840
very clearly. But he legit is. And you went back- And Megan, can I just add? Yeah. He's five now,
01:06:21.580
and that's at when people are saying his power has ebbed. You know, he's not at its height. So,
01:06:27.020
you know, even after 26 years- I think that's true.
01:06:29.500
He is still in the top five of the media-ite power rankings, which shows just how powerful he must
01:06:35.460
have been at his very height. Yeah. I mean, truly, when I was at Fox News, you did not start
01:06:41.060
your day without going to the Dredge Report. You just- it wasn't done. And then you could see over
01:06:45.440
the years him change, for sure, his feelings about Trump changed. And I don't know if you guys noticed
01:06:50.020
this, and we have all sorts of fun thoughts from your podcast that we're going to play, but
01:06:52.900
my own impression was he was very much behind Trump in 16. And then during the Trump presidency,
01:06:58.620
he was- to me, as a reporter, it was very clear that Ivanka and Jared were his two best sources,
01:07:06.680
because every other day, we'd see some glowing picture of Ivanka or some great piece about Jared,
01:07:14.800
who were getting hit by all the other media. And so, you know, you can kind of tell as a reporter
01:07:18.620
who a guy's sources are when that happens. And then suddenly, bupkis. Like, 2020 came around,
01:07:24.120
his coverage on Trump changed, even in Jared and Ivanka got ignored, Chris. And what was it?
01:07:29.680
Did you guys figure out why? Why did he turn on Trump? Well, we should emphasize how important
01:07:35.320
the Dredge Report was to the Trump campaign. Trump had been courting Dredge even since 2015,
01:07:42.020
actually, even a few years before that, where he would leak things to Dredge through certain
01:07:47.280
spokespeople. On election night, Bannon and Jared Kushner called Dredge on the phone for advice
01:07:56.220
for what to do with the exit polls coming out, showing that Trump wasn't doing very well.
01:08:01.260
And Dredge told them, said, you know, hold the line. Those are BS polls. Trump is going to win.
01:08:07.260
And then in the aftermath, of course, Dredge was visiting the White House and was speaking with
01:08:12.480
the president and his staff quite often. People saw him there certainly more than once. So he was
01:08:18.400
a part of that in more cases than just somebody influential in the media. Now, the reasons that
01:08:25.400
he turned on Trump, there's a lot of different speculation. But what we've heard from the Trump
01:08:31.900
White House is that there was talk of Dredge not being happy with Trump on immigration. That was a
01:08:39.240
certain policy reason. But we also have an interview coming out very, very soon with a former
01:08:44.120
Dredge Report editor named Joseph Curl, who talks about how members of the Trump White House spoke
01:08:51.280
negatively about Dredge and it got back to him, kind of took him for granted, said things kind of like,
01:08:57.440
well, who needs Dredge? Who needs a blogger? That kind of talk. And, you know, Dredge has ears
01:09:03.300
everywhere. He hears things. If you say something about him, he will notice it. And that got back to him.
01:09:09.060
And so it could have been a little bit of policy, could have been a little bit personal. But it
01:09:13.340
certainly was a mix that made him turn against Trump in the end. I believe the immigration thing,
01:09:21.020
because one thing I think we know is that he's good friends with Ann Coulter. And Ann Coulter,
01:09:29.220
of course, everybody now knows, has completely turned on Trump. And it's I mean, if ever there
01:09:33.720
were a single issue voter, it's Ann on immigration, she's it's she's devoted her life to this issue.
01:09:40.400
And God, she's been proven right every day on her forecasts. And I think she and she has Mickey
01:09:47.920
Kaus on all the time. I enjoy her her substack and her submissions. But I think she and Mickey Kaus and
01:09:54.040
Drudge share this one issue as a true passion. So it would make sense because she was an ardent
01:10:01.760
supporter of Trump's. And what soured her on him? It was he didn't build a wall. And even though he did
01:10:07.720
more certainly than Biden has done on immigration, he didn't really get it done. As as we can see,
01:10:12.480
everything he got done got undone as soon as he left office. Well, Megan, just to to follow up on that,
01:10:18.660
we actually have an interview with Mickey Kaus, who hasn't aired yet, where he talks about a dinner
01:10:24.020
that Ann Drudge he and he had after one of the debates in 2016. So there's definitely a nexus.
01:10:31.920
He's not a stranger to Drudge either. So, you know, that that is certainly part of it. But let me just
01:10:36.860
add one more thing that I think we heard to to what Chris said about why he turned on Drudge. I think
01:10:42.060
those two are crucial. The third is, I think people mistake Drudge for a partisan kind of Republican
01:10:47.900
party operative sometimes. And he's not that he likes to be different than what people think.
01:10:54.000
There's a there's a clip from him on C-SPAN. And in 2000, 1999, talking about Pat Buchanan ending
01:10:59.520
the race saying, oh, this would be interesting. I think he always wants to be interesting. I think
01:11:03.680
he wants to go against the grain sometimes. And, you know, after supporting Trump, what's more against
01:11:07.660
the grain than turning around and showing that he's his own man and doesn't necessarily need to follow
01:11:11.980
Trump and do the same thing four years later. So the podcast gets into his beginnings. And I
01:11:16.800
didn't I didn't know any of this, but he apparently worked at CBS News for a time, always loved media,
01:11:22.400
always loved news, even as a kid, grew up in the Maryland area and got gets a job at CBS News and
01:11:29.320
starts pulling things out of the garbage ratings. And you have a bit of that. You have a clip of the
01:11:35.520
actual Drudge. Here's a clip for our audience from your podcast of you, Chris, introducing the clip.
01:11:41.640
And here's a clip. Watch. Drudge started finding that CBS staffers were tossing television rating
01:11:47.740
numbers in the trash before they were made public. He went out and dug them out. Here he is telling
01:11:54.660
the story during a speech in 1998. Overhearing, listening to careful conversations, intercepting
01:12:04.220
the occasional memo would volunteer in the mailroom from time to time. I hit pay dirt when I discovered
01:12:10.820
that the trash cans in the Xerox room at Television City were stuffed each morning with overnight Nielsen
01:12:15.960
ratings, information gold. And it wasn't CBS News. It was the Price is Right, right? Price is Right,
01:12:22.720
where he worked for a time. So fascinating. So just put some meat on those bones, Chris.
01:12:28.540
Well, Drudge knew a story when he saw it. You mentioned that he grew up in Maryland,
01:12:32.800
right outside of Washington, D.C., in the shadow of the great institution that was the Washington Post.
01:12:38.660
And I think he idealized it quite a bit and wanted to be part of an institution like that.
01:12:44.800
But due to, I think you could argue, educational or class differences, he never really was welcomed
01:12:50.580
into that club. And I think he always carried that with him, that he wasn't part of them.
01:12:55.980
So going out to California, right at the advent of the internet, he's using what we would see now as
01:13:01.120
a primitive computer in his apartment. This is the moment when the gatekeepers really started coming
01:13:07.480
down. And a 20-something, like Matt Drudge, could dig something out of the trash and then wouldn't
01:13:12.700
have to get permission from an editor. He could post it on his own, on his own terms, on his own
01:13:19.240
website. And that is the key change. And it was in those seeds at CBS that we saw his greatest scoop
01:13:26.360
that really launched him just a couple of years later, when Newsweek magazine had some details of
01:13:32.400
the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal and then paused on publishing it. Well, Matt Drudge got a
01:13:38.560
hold of it and published it real quick right on his website and brushed the news media very quickly
01:13:44.960
into the internet age, realizing that anyone could scoop these institutions all of a sudden.
01:13:50.620
And I believe that clip that you played was when Drudge, after releasing the Monica Lewinsky story
01:13:56.240
details, going back to Washington and speaking at the National Press Club, surrounded by the people
01:14:04.100
who I think he would argue in his mind, rejected him and saying, hey, I scooped you and now things
01:14:09.680
are changing. And that was the start of it all. And now he scoops them all the time. I mean,
01:14:15.160
you know, it's wonderful when you get a clip on the Drudge Report or a link to your, you know,
01:14:20.720
something you've done because your volume of hits just goes through the roof. That's the
01:14:24.880
power of his reach. But yeah, the Monica Lewinsky thing is huge. We'll, we'll get to that in one
01:14:29.420
second. Um, where he lives, how to find him, how to actually lay eyes on him is weirdly a huge
01:14:38.880
mystery. He doesn't want attention. And, um, you, you talk about in episode two, this moment, Chris,
01:14:47.260
where you're at the Palm restaurant in Washington, DC. And to me, it's like Kaiser Soze, you know, like
01:14:53.360
you just, you almost had a, but no, what happened? Well, Jamie had gone into the restaurant for
01:15:02.440
dinner and the maitre d' rushed up to him and said, you won't believe who was just here. And
01:15:07.480
Jamie says, hi, who, you know, somebody famous. And he says, Matt Drudge. Now it is remarkable that
01:15:13.020
a maitre d' would be so excited to see somebody because they see celebrities at the Palm all the
01:15:17.160
time. But Matt Drudge is someone so elusive, so mysterious that he's worth gossiping about and
01:15:22.400
talking about. And the maitre d' spoke to us, uh, on the podcast, but it's, it is, it did drive us a
01:15:27.720
little crazy that we had started this project and we almost had them by I think 10 to 15 minutes.
01:15:33.180
Uh, Drudge also, I want to say came into the door, didn't see anybody at the front, just kind of slipped
01:15:38.560
in quietly, had a drink at the bar. Uh, people noticed him. They Googled his face. They said,
01:15:43.180
I can't believe it's him. And then before they could turn back around, he was gone. This is really
01:15:48.600
emblematic of how he operates. He appears in Washington or he appears in a place and then
01:15:54.060
he just disappears on his own terms. Uh, you can never really nail him down. You mentioned how
01:15:59.760
elusive he's been. The guy hasn't been photographed, I believe in over a decade. Uh, when we spoke to
01:16:04.980
Joseph Curl, who was his staffer for four years at their exit meeting, before he left the company,
01:16:10.700
Joe Curl said, Hey brother, can we get a photo together? And Drudge said, absolutely not. And he's
01:16:15.580
never spoken to him again. And that's Matt Drudge. I love it. And he's always got the fedora on,
01:16:21.840
you know, which is kind of interesting because that is a tell that. Well, he always does Megan,
01:16:25.660
unless he wants to be recognized, takes that thing off. And he's just a guy walking around town and
01:16:31.140
people don't recognize him. It's, it's kind of like Batman's mask. You know, you wouldn't know
01:16:35.580
it's Batman if he took it off that the fedora in a way is his mask. So one of the people you talk to
01:16:41.900
about Drudge was Tucker Carlson, who's of course been in conservative circles, media circles for
01:16:48.180
his entire adult life. And actually before then, um, even when I was a kid, his dad worked in the
01:16:52.260
media. So that this is a fascinating story and I'll play the audience a little clip. You should
01:16:57.440
definitely download the podcast so you can hear the full story. Um, again, finding Matt Drudge,
01:17:02.200
here it is from episode one. I remember having one conversation with him. We were talking about,
01:17:08.220
I was always been fascinated by, you know, who is he personally? And somebody once said to me that
01:17:12.640
he had bought a bunch, maybe Breitbart, I think told me that he had bought a bunch of land in Miami
01:17:17.660
Dade, but kind of on the outskirts far from Miami and had built a sort of doomsday compound. And for
01:17:24.580
the record, I'm not against doomsday compounds at all. I don't think that's a crazy thing to do
01:17:28.760
in the slightest. I think it's an admirable thing to do. So I wasn't mocking him, but I asked about it
01:17:33.980
and he became so emotional and burst into tears and started yelling at me. And I was going to
01:17:39.960
betray him and tell people about his compound. I suppose he was right because now I am a lot of
01:17:46.120
people in the media business really want to be famous. In fact, it's the rule rather than the
01:17:50.480
exception. And here was a guy at the center of the media business at the top of it who didn't want any
01:17:56.260
attention personally. Okay. So you actually followed up on the alleged compound and you've
01:18:05.060
got a story in the podcast about someone who actually in 2020 found it, went onto the property,
01:18:13.540
which already seems scary to me. You're like, it's somebody who doesn't want you there. And yet
01:18:19.040
he did it. So what, what tell us about that? There was a reporter named Bob Norman who was working
01:18:23.920
on a story about why Drudge turned against Trump in 2020. And as a good reporter, he couldn't get
01:18:30.140
comment over the phone or over email. So he drove over to Drudge's house. He assumed there'd be a
01:18:35.020
big gate. Maybe he'd leave a note and the gate was wide open. So in drives Bob Norman, right to
01:18:41.280
Matt Drudge's front door. He steps out, knocks on the door, no answer. Then, so he gets up and he leaves
01:18:49.080
not long after his telephone rings and who is it, but Matt Drudge. And he is furious. Couldn't believe
01:18:55.340
that this reporter would come onto his property, said he was going to call the police, uh, said,
01:19:00.500
you know, you were brave for doing this. You could have been shot. Something could have happened to
01:19:03.700
you, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and, uh, what the reporter noted was that Drudge, you know,
01:19:10.940
he said it was about a 30 minute phone conversation. Wouldn't stop ranting about him coming on his
01:19:16.760
property. Every time he tried to turn the conversation back to an interview about the
01:19:20.720
story he's writing, Drudge would just come right back around. And he actually exasperated the
01:19:25.960
reporter so much that he just said, please just stop. Um, now we did our own. It's interesting.
01:19:32.580
I have to tell you what's interesting about this to me is the more I live and the more I, I meet very
01:19:38.080
successful people, you know, whether they're extremely talented or they're extremely hardworking
01:19:42.200
or whatever, or they've made a bunch of money and doing something. The more I realized that
01:19:46.760
these people tend to come in very interesting and complex packages. Yeah. And in, in many of the
01:19:52.940
cases, and I don't mean this pejoratively, but they're a little off socially, you know, I honestly,
01:19:59.180
I could say the same about myself. I definitely have social anxiety and I'm constantly a bull in
01:20:03.060
a China shop and saying the wrong thing, but I just think not to say I'm this brilliant person.
01:20:07.380
I'm just saying like, I can relate to, you might be very strong at one thing and like kind of not so
01:20:13.000
strong at another. And he's that to the extreme, right? He started this with no support, no
01:20:18.020
connections, just this sort of aggregated news source. And then he's for all these years been
01:20:24.420
so incredibly powerful to this day. I check the Drudge report every morning. And I love that you're
01:20:28.720
looking into whether it's still Matt behind it, because I have wondered and you, you know,
01:20:32.780
and you actually conclude it's him that like, we'll know when Matt Drudge is no longer interested in
01:20:38.000
doing this. How will we know, Jamie? Well, Chris interviews some people that were at
01:20:44.160
Andrew Breitbart's funeral. And of course, Andrew helped edit the Drudge report when Drudge needed
01:20:50.720
someone to stand in for him back in the very beginning. And Drudge shows up and the, the,
01:20:56.640
some of the, the Breitbart staffers there who were just about to launch actually Breitbart's website
01:21:01.780
talk to him and they say, you know, he, well, he asked them actually, he goes, what are you going
01:21:09.820
to call the website now? And they go, well, we're going to call it Breitbart. He goes, really?
01:21:15.000
You're going to call it Breitbart, but Breitbart's past. He goes, yeah, but we want to honor Andrew
01:21:19.140
Breitbart. That's what we're going to call it. We're going to continue on. And he said, well,
01:21:21.980
that won't be for me when I'm gone. That website is done. So when, you know, basically it gives the
01:21:28.140
answer to the question we're trying to answer whether he still works on the site. There's also,
01:21:32.320
you know, other information we have to show that he does. But he will not be, that site will not
01:21:38.460
exist if Matt Drudge is, is not working on it. That's basically what he said. Well, on the subject
01:21:44.420
of the house, Chris, it looked like, I haven't seen it personally, but I know we have some video and
01:21:49.560
he's putting it up for sale now. So I think it's okay to show it, but it wasn't, is a nice house,
01:21:54.800
but Matt Drudge has got to have tens of millions of dollars. There's just no question. He's a
01:22:01.200
multimillionaire thanks to what's happened with the Drudge Report. I don't know. Did you expect
01:22:06.980
him to be living more elaborately? Well, one thing about this house is that the price is in the
01:22:14.200
location. It is secluded. You cannot see it from Google Earth. It is covered in green. It is invisible
01:22:21.260
from above. You cannot see it from the road. It is tucked away. It's almost built into the earth is
01:22:27.360
how Bob Norman described it. It's a place where somebody who wanted to get away and not be bothered
01:22:33.220
would certainly go. You know, he used to have a place closer to downtown Miami beach and those kinds
01:22:37.980
of places. But he just wanted to get away from that exposure. And you did mention that that house is
01:22:43.660
for sale and it went up for sale right in the middle of us doing this podcast. And the descriptions
01:22:49.960
have changed. They've added more exclamation points and more references to why this seller is
01:22:55.280
very motivated. So we don't know why he wanted to get rid of it. But one can speculate.
01:23:00.740
But I will say that this is not... I mean, they actually reiterate that they put this online. He put
01:23:04.080
this online through his realtor. They want you to see it. Oh, it's not our video. We wouldn't...
01:23:07.180
No, no. It's not like you secretly got in there.
01:23:08.980
No, no, no. But he also is known to live around the world. You never know where he
01:23:14.980
actually is. His staffers never know where he is. He could just be in Israel. He could be in Arizona.
01:23:22.840
He could be in Florida. He has properties. He spends a lot of time in Las Vegas. He likes to
01:23:27.920
get really fancy sweets. Matt Leshak, his biographer, has reported. And so he's a person that likes to move
01:23:35.020
around. And that, I think, when you mention like, hey, this doesn't look like a palatial mansion or
01:23:40.500
anything. It's like, well, he has other priorities and he has other properties too.
01:23:45.400
And it's a beautiful home. I just know, I mean, he's got to be one of the richest men in media.
01:23:49.820
When he's down in Miami, you could go big. You could go right in the ocean.
01:23:53.460
Okay. I'm going to get to two things. We have to talk about Monica Lewinsky.
01:23:57.020
And then I will tell you about the time I met Matt Drudge in person in the conversation that we had.
01:24:01.920
Um, so Monica Lewinsky is really what put Drudge on the map. And you point out in the show,
01:24:08.160
most people think Matt Drudge broke that story. And he did, he did break the Monica piece of it.
01:24:16.380
Did he not? Because I'll tell you my experience of this. I mean, I was not in media. I was just a
01:24:20.580
kid. Um, but I was a lawyer and shortly thereafter, when I got to Fox news in 2004,
01:24:27.300
Britt Hume told me this personally, that the reason special report launched the night it did
01:24:32.640
was because Drudge broke, uh, the Monica Lewinsky story and they understood at Fox, this was huge
01:24:41.600
and they had no choice, but to like fire up an engine, the special report show that they were
01:24:47.880
not yet ready to put on the air. But there, you know, Fox is kind of, it was a startup to begin
01:24:51.820
with. They're like, let's fucking do it. You know? So they did it and the show is still going strong
01:24:56.440
and now hosted by our friend Brett Baer. Anyway, Matt Drudge got that whole thing started. And I
01:25:02.200
see in the piece, Michael Isikoff, who writes for Newsweek, who actually had the story, but was told
01:25:06.540
by his publisher Newsweek to hold it. He's kind of like, he didn't really break it. You know,
01:25:11.580
I broke the piece about being investigated by the justice department for a lot, you know,
01:25:16.380
but it really was a Matt Drudge thing. Well, Matt Drudge pushed it into the open in a way that
01:25:22.280
Newsweek was hesitant to do. There were lots of details swirling around at this time. Um,
01:25:27.880
and yeah, and the finer points, Isikoff had quite a few scoops and he's a fantastic reporter. He's
01:25:32.760
now at Yahoo News. Um, but the, the point with, with Drudge was that Drudge made this story
01:25:38.840
impossible to ignore. There was no more, Hey, should we hold this story? Should we check it?
01:25:44.520
Everyone had to run after the story. Television shows had to be launched. You know, it thrust the
01:25:52.720
ships to war as it were, um, in a way that might not have happened in such an abrupt way. It could
01:25:58.840
have been a little drip drip leak here. We don't, we don't exactly know, but what it certainly did,
01:26:03.720
um, was put legacy news organizations on their toes and they realize in the internet age,
01:26:10.400
if we don't break this, somebody else will. And I, and I think it pushed us into a digital era
01:26:15.880
that we were in a different universe before Drudge broke this. And for that, um, you could
01:26:22.260
tell the biography of Matt Drudge game changer. I mean, you really could, it could just be called
01:26:26.280
game changer because he really has been. Here's Isikoff from the podcast. Um, this is a clip from
01:26:31.560
episode two, finding Matt Drudge where Isikoff talks about it all. Take a listen.
01:26:36.360
You had the scoop and why was it not run? Why was it delayed?
01:26:44.160
Basically they were nervous. I mean, the editors, you know, this was like, they wanted to know
01:26:50.940
everything, but like, well, wait a second, like, you know, can we really report that Clinton,
01:26:56.800
you know, has been having an affair with an intern? The story was going to come out. It was a question
01:27:06.040
of how and when, right. But the fundamentals were already there. It was just too explosive. They
01:27:21.920
Well done. So, I mean, kudos to him because he did do great reporting on it. It was just Newsweek
01:27:26.100
that didn't, that didn't have the appetite. And so that's the thing about Drudge because he puts
01:27:30.240
up the red siren above the Drudge report and everyone in news is like, holy shit, Drudge has
01:27:36.780
got the siren up. We all have to pay attention. And one day, uh, he did that involving yours truly.
01:27:44.660
And this would lead to my encounter with him. So it was 2013 and, uh, my son Thatcher had just been
01:27:52.440
born in July. And I had struck a deal with Roger Ailes to, when I returned from maternity leave,
01:28:00.600
join the Fox news primetime and take over the 9 PM spot. And it was to be kept secret. I certainly
01:28:07.360
wasn't going to blab it to anyone. I didn't want to screw up my own career across my boss in that way.
01:28:12.880
And, um, I was online one day in our little townhouse we had and boom, there was the news
01:28:19.840
on the Drudge report. And I remember it like, holy, oh my God. Like, how does he know? Because
01:28:25.740
I knew and Roger knew and almost nobody else knew. And, uh, it says something like Megan to prime time.
01:28:33.360
And I never found out, but shortly thereafter, it's so it must've been, you know, between 13 and 17.
01:28:38.760
Cause that's when I left Fox. I saw Matt, Matt Drudge in the green room outside of Sean Hannity
01:28:44.860
studio on a night. He, he, I think he was going on Hannity. And, uh, I said, Matt Drudge,
01:28:50.920
like, how you doing? I said, someday you're going to have to tell me who told you that news.
01:28:58.520
And he said, I promise you someday I will tell you. And that, then I haven't seen him again.
01:29:03.760
So I'm really kind of hoping that someday it was like maybe after the person dies, he didn't tell me
01:29:09.600
what the condition would be, but he felt like he was in a position to actually at some point share it
01:29:13.320
with me, which I'd love to know if he gets back to me, you know, I'll, I'll let you know.
01:29:17.120
But anyway, uh, it's just another Testament of how he gets stuff. No one has.
01:29:25.040
Yeah, he, he is remarkable at that. And I think Chris, in one of the episodes,
01:29:28.600
uh, I believe it talks about how Trump secretly would have things leaked to him after telling
01:29:33.280
people, you know, don't, don't leak this anywhere, keep this secret. But when the doors are shut,
01:29:37.820
he would have someone give it, give it over to drudge and part to curry favor, uh, with,
01:29:43.200
with someone he viewed as so influential who, which is Matt drudges. And which is why,
01:29:48.240
uh, from the very beginning of his campaign, as Chris mentioned, they try to court drudge
01:29:52.340
as a supporter. And it certainly worked in the beginning.
01:29:55.700
And he would send drudge personal notes too. Oh, I'm sorry. Trump would write personal notes
01:30:02.360
to drudge. Uh, he would have the drudge report.
01:30:04.540
He does it with all of us. Yeah. I got one myself. It's on my office desk here. Uh,
01:30:08.900
but he would print the drudge report and then write little notes, like great story drudge. You
01:30:12.620
know, I mean the, the personal, um, attempt was, was very real going after him.
01:30:18.180
What Donald Trump was sending me when I was in the prime time of Fox,
01:30:21.360
almost invariably were stories about himself in the newspaper that he would then sign.
01:30:28.580
He just mail them to me. Like, okay. Thank you. And, but he would call me also to compliment
01:30:35.920
various news segments he had seen on the Kelly file. I have one from Trump that says, Chris,
01:30:40.360
you're a bad reporter. Sign Donald Trump with love. Um, okay. Can we just spend one second?
01:30:47.800
Cause we're talking about Monica Lewinsky and the, in the whole Bill Clinton affair. She's actually back
01:30:51.960
in the news. You guys see this. She's got this huge spread in L magazine as like the next supermodel.
01:31:00.620
And these young people over on Tik TOK, et cetera, are reacting to her as though she is a hero. She's
01:31:08.740
she's modeling reformation clothing. And they are the young folks today are so incredibly excited
01:31:16.520
about Monica Lewinsky, who for the young people watching this show is famous, or I do believe
01:31:22.600
the word is infamous for having an affair with a married man who happened to be the president of
01:31:27.320
the United States, whom she admitted to aggressively courting by showing him her thong and bragged
01:31:32.500
about her quote, presidential knee pads before she had even met him. Um, so she was excited to go
01:31:37.760
into the white house and get it on with the all too willing sitting president of the United States.
01:31:43.500
She was outed. One thing led to another. He lied about an under oath and he was impeached,
01:31:49.400
but not convicted similar to Trump. And, um, her name became synonymous with blowjobs. That's what
01:31:55.520
happened. I mean, that's all she gave him. They didn't have actual conventional sex and to get a
01:32:01.400
Lewinsky became synonymous with getting a blowjob, which was embarrassing. I'm sure for her, but now
01:32:05.840
she's resurfacing as like the new heroine to the young folks today. I'll give you a sample of, uh,
01:32:11.880
one of these tick tockers, I don't know, 19 or 20, whatever you guys think is better.
01:32:16.560
I am not going to lie. I had zero idea who this woman was. So I had to do a little bit of research
01:32:22.680
and this is Monica Lewinsky and she's pretty iconic. So she is the woman that Bill Clinton
01:32:30.580
had an affair with the woman where Hillary Clinton got cheated on. But reformation basically partnered
01:32:37.220
with Monica Lewinsky and voter.org to bring awareness with voting for the election for 2024.
01:32:44.300
So this collab is truly iconic. The fact that she is promoting voting. Well, she had a literal affair
01:32:50.780
with Bill Clinton, icon, legend, like get that bag. But can we take a moment for the red dress,
01:32:57.320
the red tights? Like I know Hillary Clinton is shaking in her boots right now. Like I know Bill
01:33:02.900
Clinton is peeping like he's lurking. He's like, Oh, that's Monica Lewinsky. She looking absolutely
01:33:09.240
fire pookie. Oh my God. I'm sorry. I'm going to be honest. I prefer my female heroes to have actually
01:33:19.120
done something heroic for women kind. I, okay. I'm glad Monica Lewinsky is doing okay, but she's not it.
01:33:26.640
Jamie thoughts. Well, first of all, the language just makes me feel old, uh, collab and get that
01:33:32.380
bag. I mean, this, this is a, this is a different era. I guess I am, I am getting older. I don't
01:33:38.180
know what to say to that. Uh, it's so bizarre that, that Monica Lewinsky is being, uh, uh, brought out
01:33:43.840
again. Uh, so, uh, you know, so much, so many years later. Uh, my only thought is that hopefully
01:33:47.760
that bodes well for the show. If people are figuring out about Monica Lewinsky, maybe, uh, drudge, uh,
01:33:52.620
podcasts, but we'll be, uh, next up there alley. I don't, I don't get it. Are we so desperate?
01:33:58.040
Do we run out of actual heroes, like actual heroines? There are actual women out there right
01:34:02.620
now doing great things for America. I'm glad she's back on her feet and I'm glad back in her 2015
01:34:08.000
special, the black and white thing, she took responsibility for her terrible decision-making.
01:34:12.520
These were no ordinary mistakes. Yes. Every 22 year old makes mistakes. These were not ordinary ones.
01:34:18.200
You have an affair with a sitting president of the United States was wife. The first lady's,
01:34:21.820
you know, upstairs and you know, you're, you're jeopardizing the country in a, in a way this was
01:34:27.700
a huge one. So she deserves some time on the sidelines. Doesn't mean she should never work
01:34:32.900
again in her life, but she's not a heroine. This is so weird. I don't get it. Young people seem
01:34:37.860
desperate to prop up anybody who's been through anything as a hero because they don't allow
01:34:43.680
themselves to go through anything anymore. Even the bad words they can't hear and discussions
01:34:49.600
about abortion or they need trigger warnings, reading the founding documents. They wanted
01:34:54.320
a trigger warning at the national archives. I mean, we could keep going. So in any event,
01:34:57.940
keep looking, go Monica. I love, you know, I love that you keep trying to reinvent yourself and keep
01:35:04.040
coming into the national news every other year saying this is the first time. But anyway, um,
01:35:09.820
it all started with Matt Drudge. So what do you guys make of it now? Because media over the,
01:35:15.520
what, 20 years that he's been doing this has changed dramatically. Does he have, I know we
01:35:22.540
talked about number five media and all that, but does he have the same influence now, especially
01:35:27.340
given how the Republican party feels about Trump as he used to? Well, you've mentioned Megan that
01:35:33.340
Fox news was always reading him, uh, in the studio and everything, but it wasn't just Fox news.
01:35:37.700
It was all the networks. It was ABC, CBS, NBC, all the reporters mainstream left and right, uh, to
01:35:44.280
your question though, of, of, has he declined a little bit in, in, um, his influence? I would say
01:35:50.040
certainly. So the internet has changed, uh, drudges where you used to go to see the latest news. You
01:35:55.760
would refresh it. You would hit refresh, refresh, refresh to find something new, but now that's on
01:36:00.360
social media. That's on Twitter X that's places like that. And so that has kind of supplanted it a
01:36:05.900
little bit. And, and, um, also his, his reporting has kind of slowed down a little bit. It's a lot
01:36:10.420
more aggregation and fewer scoops than he used to have. Um, but I think it's okay for a site like
01:36:15.820
that to enter a new season. Uh, I'll tell you why I really love going to the dredge report is because
01:36:20.140
so much of my media diet is run by an algorithm. I desperately want a creative, interesting person
01:36:26.860
to find stories for me to read and say, Hey, I think you'll like this. And not because of who you
01:36:31.140
are, but because who I am, who I am as the editor. And I think that is what is going to make him
01:36:35.240
stand up that human touch that he has. Um, even if he doesn't have the influence that he did maybe
01:36:40.560
10, 15 years ago, he still certainly matters. I agree. He's done so much for the news industry
01:36:46.660
for causes. I hold dear, um, for the media coverage and media in general that I'm grateful
01:36:52.700
to the guy enigmatic though. He may be that that is kind of part of his allure. You guys can hear
01:36:58.740
more at finding Matt drudge new podcast available on all platforms guys. Thanks for being here.
01:37:03.980
Thank you for having us, Megan. Really appreciate it. All right. And we'll see all of you tomorrow
01:37:08.720
with the latest on the Fannie Willis hearing. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.