The Megyn Kelly Show - New Revelations Connect Obama to Russiagate Hoax, and Hunter Biden Starts Dem Civil War, with Matt Taibbi and Emily Jashinsky ｜ Ep. 1113

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00:00:31.240 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.800 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.760 We've got a big show for you today.

00:00:47.340 After-party host Emily Jaschinski will be here to react to Hunter Biden lashing out 0.99

00:00:51.880 and how on everyone in the Democratic establishment in not one but two lengthy

00:00:58.160 and rather profane interviews.

00:01:00.720 But first, an update to a story we told you about yesterday that's been all over the place,

00:01:05.500 at least on right-wing media, but not at all in the mainstream media.

00:01:10.580 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard releasing Russiagate documents Friday evening

00:01:16.600 that she says, show, quote,

00:01:19.760 there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.

00:01:28.160 Now, I want to tell you that she, Matt Taibbi is also reporting,

00:01:33.220 his information is, that these documents are also potentially going to ensnare officials

00:01:40.480 all the way up to 2024 in alleged conspiracy problems.

00:01:47.580 So we could be talking about Biden administration officials that could be getting pulled into this.

00:01:54.440 And it could get all the way up to President Obama.

00:01:59.360 I mean, having now really read in on this case,

00:02:02.760 there's a real question about whether Barack Obama's about to have the same kind of trouble

00:02:07.800 that Jack Smith caused for Donald Trump.

00:02:12.760 Taibbi reporting that Trump's national security team

00:02:16.420 is also looking at evidence that members of Trump's 2024 campaign were spied on, too.

00:02:24.800 So the story we're about to bring you is going to touch on Barack Obama's administration

00:02:29.600 and him personally, as well as Joe Biden and his administration

00:02:35.100 and what they may have been doing, both to undermine Trump in general

00:02:39.260 and possibly spying on Trump's campaign the second time around.

00:02:44.580 Matt is here.

00:02:45.340 He's joining me in one second, but I'm just going to set up the story for you first.

00:02:48.740 Not everyone agrees that there's any there there.

00:02:50.980 And I teed this up for you yesterday, saying to the audience,

00:02:53.560 this is what Tulsi said.

00:02:55.520 Matt Taibbi is saying the following.

00:02:57.060 And on the opposite side is National Review's Andy McCarthy.

00:03:02.120 And Andy's argument is that Gabbard is placing too much emphasis on the conclusion that Russia...

00:03:11.280 This is confusing.

00:03:12.920 OK, never mind.

00:03:14.680 Forget this explanation.

00:03:15.940 Please just get right to Matt.

00:03:17.080 OK, I'm going to explain it to the audience directly.

00:03:19.200 Here's what happened.

00:03:20.880 You had intel officials here.

00:03:23.300 We had intel officials, OK, and they were under Barack Obama

00:03:27.260 planning a December 9th, 2016 presidential daily brief.

00:03:32.860 Oh, they brought in they brought in Matt.

00:03:34.280 OK, here he is.

00:03:35.100 Hi, Matt.

00:03:35.480 Nice to see you.

00:03:36.000 Matt Taibbi's here.

00:03:37.400 How's it going?

00:03:38.880 Great.

00:03:39.360 All right.

00:03:39.600 So your postings on Racket News over the past few days have really helped me tremendously.

00:03:44.240 And so the audience knows, as I always do, I've read all of Andy McCarthy's postings as well.

00:03:48.820 I've read your detractors in the mainstream media.

00:03:51.380 And I have to say, you've totally convinced me you're you're as always, you're an honest

00:03:56.820 broker, but you've totally convinced me.

00:03:59.440 This is actually I think they're in deep shit.

00:04:03.120 And it's amazing.

00:04:04.240 But my biggest takeaway is how did Trump 1.0 not find these documents that Tulsi just

00:04:09.720 revealed because they really show the story.

00:04:12.560 But let's we're just going to walk the audience through it like third graders because it's

00:04:16.620 extremely dense.

00:04:17.980 And, you know, it's taken me time and time again and reading all the materials to get

00:04:22.000 it.

00:04:22.420 So so the deal was, let's start with.

00:04:25.480 Back, let's go back to December of 2016.

00:04:29.400 Barack Obama's president, but Trump has won and is going to be taking over as president

00:04:35.000 in January.

00:04:35.520 And they planned the Intel officials under Barack Obama planned.

00:04:39.960 This is a lot of this is from Racket News, which everybody should read directly.

00:04:42.860 Matt's group Intel officials planned a December 9th, 2016 presidential daily brief, which is

00:04:50.600 always from the Intel community for the president, letting him know what's happening in the world.

00:04:53.960 They planned a PDB that would say foreign adversaries, quoting here, foreign adversaries did not use

00:05:02.240 cyber attacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. presidential election outcome.

00:05:08.520 And they also planned to say we have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure

00:05:14.180 intended to alter results.

00:05:16.100 Here's the bottom line.

00:05:17.220 What people need to know is Obama's Intel community was about to give Obama a presidential

00:05:23.640 daily brief that totally dismissed, downplayed, pooh-poohed, choose your word, the notion that

00:05:31.800 Russia had meaningfully interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

00:05:37.560 That's true.

00:05:38.800 And by the way, Matt has gone well beyond the language that just speaks to manipulation of

00:05:44.380 election infrastructure and pointed out that if you look at what the Intel community had been saying,

00:05:49.760 it went well beyond dismissing they're not attacking our election infrastructure.

00:05:55.060 They had doubts up and down the board about whether Russia had done anything more in 2016

00:05:59.360 than it had ever done, which was just kind of attempts to be a menace and so a little bit of chaos.

00:06:05.380 And the Intel communications that are released now by Tulsi show that.

00:06:10.400 So while Andy and others are zeroing in on the notion that on before they sat with Obama,

00:06:18.220 they were going to tell him no attempts to hack our election infrastructure.

00:06:21.780 And Andy will later argue them later coming out and saying, but lots of attempts to interfere

00:06:27.580 in the election in general and totally to help Donald Trump.

00:06:31.240 He's saying that's apples to oranges.

00:06:33.340 Jim Himes, you point out at Racket News is saying that's apples to oranges.

00:06:36.560 There's no gotcha in Tulsi's big reveals about what was about to happen next, because nothing

00:06:42.500 that happened next contradicted that they didn't try to hack our election databases.

00:06:47.740 OK, so hopefully the audience is with me so far.

00:06:50.120 What Tulsi revealed was that the Intel community was about to issue that statement to President

00:06:58.040 Obama saying they didn't like they didn't try to hack our election infrastructure.

00:07:03.380 And there's no evidence that they intended to alter the results this way.

00:07:08.560 And what happened was James Comey's FBI said, we're out.

00:07:12.360 We're not joining that.

00:07:14.300 We don't agree with that.

00:07:15.860 And we're going to issue our own briefing later.

00:07:17.640 And as a result of the FBI saying that and saying that it was going to draft a dissent, an official

00:07:24.300 from Clapper's office, Clapper, again, at the time he was national security, DNI, he was

00:07:33.200 director of national intelligence.

00:07:35.400 And by the way, Matt points out Clapper, of all the Intel officials, was probably the least

00:07:39.600 enthusiastic about Russia, Russia, Russia.

00:07:42.340 It was a lot more Brennan over at CIA.

00:07:45.680 But anyway, Clapper's office, OK, said, we're axing the PDB because the DNI, like Tulsi now,

00:07:52.300 she does the PDB for Trump.

00:07:53.800 Whoever runs the intelligence apparatus does it.

00:07:56.580 And that was Clapper under Obama.

00:07:57.980 So he said, oh, FBI's out.

00:07:59.460 OK, we're killing it.

00:08:00.540 We're killing the PDB for the time being.

00:08:02.760 And at that point, a meeting was held.

00:08:04.900 It was called and held, including all of Obama's top people, all of them.

00:08:09.680 And they had a big meeting on this.

00:08:12.860 And the next day, things changed dramatically on the Russia narrative and changed in a way

00:08:20.960 that would support the Russia, Russia, Russia allegations that would go on to undermine the

00:08:27.240 entire first term of Donald J. Trump.

00:08:30.920 And Matt is going to help us lay out this whole story.

00:08:34.040 So and Matt contends, and he's convinced me, too, it was not a matter of changing it from

00:08:39.700 apples to oranges, you know, just like pointing out apples and pointing out oranges before and

00:08:44.640 after this critical meeting.

00:08:45.780 It was they had been saying there's no apples, there's no apples, there's no apples.

00:08:51.180 And as a result of this meeting, they changed it to say apples abound.

00:08:55.440 We're in an orchard.

00:08:56.740 They're everywhere.

00:08:57.900 We see nothing but apples.

00:08:59.380 So it's really not an apples to oranges situation.

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00:09:55.420 Okay, Matt, thank you for being patient through my thumbnail sketch.

00:10:02.440 What's the first thing you want to say about this story?

00:10:04.480 Well, first of all, I understand, and I think you did a great job walking people through everything.

00:10:11.620 I understand the confusion about this.

00:10:14.580 I don't think that the report, as it was released, did a particularly good job of explaining

00:10:21.460 what exactly the significance of these documents was, but they were very significant.

00:10:28.920 If you remember before the election, there was a story in the New York Times, for instance,

00:10:34.760 on October 31st saying, FBI sees no link between Russia and Trump and the election.

00:10:44.080 This was sort of what officials were telling people in the media.

00:10:49.800 There were a few fringe attempts to kind of work the Steele dossier material, this full-on

00:10:55.200 Trump-Russia conspiracy narrative into the media.

00:10:58.400 But for the most part, they didn't get there.

00:11:00.600 After the election, it was the same thing until this moment on December 9th, 2016, when Barack

00:11:11.300 Obama convened this meeting, ordered a new intelligence assessment.

00:11:16.440 And then immediately, that same night, there were leaks from the administration telling

00:11:23.700 people that there had been interference by Russia specifically to help Donald Trump, because

00:11:30.540 there were two different issues.

00:11:31.540 Let me just stop you right there. 0.84

00:11:32.340 Let me just stop you right there. 0.84

00:11:33.540 So they call this meeting with all the Obama top people, and no revised PDB has been issued

00:11:42.460 yet.

00:11:42.920 No revised intelligence community assessment has happened yet.

00:11:46.060 The last thing that happened in the intel community was, we're going to tell them that

00:11:49.940 there really was no significant Russian interference, at least insofar as election apparatus goes.

00:11:55.560 And FBI said, we're out.

00:11:57.280 We're going to issue our own.

00:11:58.540 And then Clapper said, all right, well, let's just pause everything.

00:12:00.940 Then everybody gets together.

00:12:03.280 That, right after that, before any revised intel happened, before anything happened, they began

00:12:10.740 leaking to the media, WAPO, New York Times, CNN, saying something.

00:12:16.060 Diametrically opposed, saying, Russia, Russia interfered.

00:12:21.060 And that, to you, you describe that as the smoking gun that shows there had been a decision

00:12:28.080 to shift the entire messaging around this in a way they thought would undermine Trump.

00:12:33.860 Because why, if that were not the case, wouldn't they have just waited until they had the new

00:12:41.600 and newly ordered intel assessment and then figured out what was what?

00:12:47.500 Yeah, and that's really the striking set of documents is you can see on December 9th, there is an order

00:12:58.460 from the director of national intelligence office basically giving out directions on how to put together

00:13:08.100 a new intelligence community assessment per the president's request.

00:13:12.580 But as they're giving out the assignment, the homework is already published in the New York

00:13:19.360 Times and the Washington Post.

00:13:21.760 In other words, they hadn't even started work yet or group work on this assessment, and they

00:13:28.140 were already telling everybody in the media what the conclusion was.

00:13:32.520 So the entire work period of this had to be a sham.

00:13:38.540 Essentially, they pre-concluded what was going to be in the assessment and started leaking in advance.

00:13:45.540 And there's no question, it appears, that this was done at the direction of the president of the United

00:13:54.400 United States than Barack Obama.

00:13:57.940 They convened, it was all of his top emissaries.

00:14:01.920 It was John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, Ben Rhodes, Andy McCabe, you point at Richard Ledgett from NSA,

00:14:09.320 all of these top emissaries for Obama.

00:14:11.460 I mean, these are his top, top, top officials when it comes to national security.

00:14:14.760 They get together and they received a group email the next day from Clapper's office, he was DNI again,

00:14:22.860 headed POTUS, meaning president of the United States, POTUS tasking on Russia election meddling,

00:14:30.240 asking them to produce an assessment per the president's request, quoting, quoting there.

00:14:35.840 He says, this intelligence community is prepared to produce an assessment, quote,

00:14:43.040 per the president's request that pulls together the information we have on the tools Moscow used

00:14:49.320 and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election, an explanation of why Moscow directed

00:14:55.580 these activities and how Moscow's approach has changed over time going back to 2008 and 2012

00:15:02.140 as reference points.

00:15:03.580 And you write in assessing this, in sum, just before Obama was about to receive a briefing

00:15:09.120 that contained no reference to significant Russian interference, that briefing was called

00:15:14.600 off and a high level meeting of White House security officials was convened, after which Obama

00:15:19.840 himself tasked them with a new assessment that would lean toward a more aggressive conclusion.

00:15:26.220 The critical job of divining Russia's motives would be given to the CIA and

00:15:33.400 Brennan, and I think you're suggesting here there's a reason that even though it was technically

00:15:38.140 all under Clapper, who was the DNI, it was given to the CIA and Brennan, who all along had been

00:15:44.420 very pro-Russia, Russia, Russia, and they knew full well he would go along to get along.

00:15:49.980 Yeah, and this coincides with other information that we already had.

00:15:55.520 Obviously, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, a few weeks ago, released a note talking about how Brennan

00:16:03.500 overrode the objections of his deputy director of analysis and two of his handpicked Russia experts

00:16:12.380 to include Steele dossier material in this assessment.

00:16:16.880 I also did a story last year with Michael Schellenberger about that, about how they suppressed

00:16:24.860 dissent in the ICA that said that Russia was actually hesitant about Trump.

00:16:30.780 They considered her mercurial and unreliable and saw that Hillary Clinton represented continuity

00:16:37.200 and was manageable, and they weren't so concerned about her being president.

00:16:41.480 All of this was suppressed, and Brennan was the person who was most aggressive in pushing

00:16:46.740 the other line.

00:16:47.800 So the fact that he was in charge of divining Russia's motives, and remember, motive is a

00:16:53.340 key thing here.

00:16:54.060 It's not just that Russia interfered.

00:16:55.840 It's that Russia interfered specifically to help Donald Trump.

00:16:59.440 Those are two things.

00:17:00.940 Yeah, and so he was in charge of that second part.

00:17:04.500 Okay, and this dovetails with the report that's in The Federalist today, entitled by Molly Hemingway,

00:17:11.480 top intelligence officials contradicted the CIA's Brennan, saying there is no intelligence

00:17:17.860 to support this key Russian hoax claim.

00:17:21.780 And just not to get too into the weeds, but she too is reporting that at the time, okay,

00:17:26.900 so leading up to this assessment, CIA Director John Brennan was pushing Russia, Russia, Russia,

00:17:31.980 and that top officials working on this intelligence community analysis about Russia's alleged interference

00:17:39.360 went to him and said, we don't have it, and we definitely should not be including in this thing

00:17:47.240 the so-called key judgment, which is an important intelligence term, that Russia interfered

00:17:55.440 specifically to help Trump.

00:17:58.740 We do not have that, and you should not put that in there.

00:18:02.500 And you're reporting here, dovetailing with what you just said and you've reported, the

00:18:06.760 senior intelligence officials pointed out the lack of evidence to substantiate that claim.

00:18:11.840 Quote, we have no intelligence to directly support this aspiration point, said one member of the

00:18:19.500 group.

00:18:19.780 The official worried that the inclusion of that claim would, quote, open the intelligence

00:18:24.520 community to align a very politicized inquiry that is sure to come up when this paper is

00:18:30.940 shared with the Hill, meaning when it goes more public.

00:18:35.660 And the Ratcliffe analysis, so that's Trump's current CIA director.

00:18:40.680 He just last week took a look at all of this, and he just concluded that the inclusion of that

00:18:47.380 term, that this was a key judgment, that Putin was trying to help Trump, saying that the

00:18:54.000 included, the inclusion of that noted, he noted the risks of including poorly supported

00:19:00.920 judgments since skeptical readers are inclined to reject an entire analysis if a single judgment

00:19:05.480 appears exaggerated, biased, or unsupported.

00:19:08.800 It goes on to say, this is from, I think, this is Molly writing, the experts did not disagree

00:19:15.180 that Russia had continued its practice of attempting to sow chaos in presidential elections.

00:19:19.840 They believe the intel indicated Russia sought to weaken presumptive winner Hillary Clinton,

00:19:26.940 and those efforts may have indirectly helped Trump.

00:19:31.280 But they were concerned about the lack of evidence for the claim that became a cornerstone of the

00:19:35.520 Russia collusion narrative in which Trump was accused of conspiring with Russia to steal

00:19:40.200 the election.

00:19:41.360 The official who was objecting to all of this wrote in December of 2016, can you really prove

00:19:48.100 Moscow was trying to get Trump elected?

00:19:51.600 And you've written to this too, Matt, that there is a difference between trying to weaken

00:19:57.880 the woman they presumed would win, Hillary, and trying to help Trump get elected.

00:20:05.760 That's right, and that's the key distinction, Megan, is that while a lot of people believe

00:20:13.580 that that was apparent, they were expecting that Hillary Clinton was going to be president

00:20:24.500 and that they were, to some degree, comfortable with that, but that they were engaging in influence

00:20:34.660 activities nonetheless.

00:20:36.340 However, they just did not have concrete evidence that they were trying to help Trump.

00:20:41.700 And Molly is quoting security officials.

00:20:45.240 I don't know from which agency, but I know that they came from all three of the agencies that

00:20:50.500 participated in this intelligence community assessment.

00:20:53.180 Brennan overrode people within the CIA who objected to that conclusion.

00:20:58.200 He overrode people in the director of national intelligence office who could not sign off on

00:21:05.100 that and in the FBI.

00:21:07.780 So there was certainly not unanimous belief, even though they published that at the time.

00:21:14.580 Yes, we'll get to the media in one sec.

00:21:16.780 Yeah, so this is all very important.

00:21:18.900 They just didn't have it.

00:21:19.960 And the important thing about that is that that's the reason they had to use the Steele 0.68

00:21:25.360 dossier stuff is because it was the only-

00:21:27.920 Wait, hold on that too.

00:21:29.280 Well, next we'll do Steele dossier and then we'll do what they did with the media.

00:21:32.100 But I just want to read this other little piece from Molly's reporting today.

00:21:36.300 Um, so the, so she's reporting he had underlings coming to him saying, we don't have it.

00:21:43.640 We do not, we cannot say in this briefing that the Russians wanted to help Trump.

00:21:48.280 We don't have that.

00:21:49.280 And she writes that Brennan called the dissenting individuals into his office on December 30th,

00:21:54.520 2016, had a lengthy meeting.

00:21:57.060 Again, this is all post, like, putting the brakes on that report they were going to give,

00:22:01.740 but being told by Obama, give me a new report.

00:22:04.180 And now Brennan is doing his level best to say exactly what he's been told to say.

00:22:08.640 So he calls in those people into his office, has a lengthy meeting,

00:22:11.440 in which they articulated their serious concerns and says, quote,

00:22:16.320 The assessment will stay the same, which is all I can think of is the godfather.

00:22:22.940 The rent stays like before.

00:22:25.820 Nothing will change.

00:22:27.900 So he gives the order.

00:22:29.900 Nothing's changing.

00:22:31.100 We're sticking with Russia, Russia, Russia. 0.91

00:22:33.180 And then she writes the following.

00:22:34.460 The paper trail about this dispute posed a problem for Brennan, again, CIA director,

00:22:39.920 because his underlings are putting the shit in writing. 0.70

00:22:42.560 And he's not really thrilled about that.

00:22:44.200 Uh, because Brennan had presented the information as being universally held

00:22:48.840 with a high degree of confidence.

00:22:51.160 The CIA review noted that the key judgment that Putin was trying to help Trump

00:22:56.660 was given a higher confidence level than was justified.

00:23:01.700 And it further noted the CIA review.

00:23:03.980 Sorry, that Ratcliffe just did last week.

00:23:05.620 He just know he just said, hey, when we look back at this, you said that was a key judgment

00:23:10.760 and that was giving it a higher confidence level than was justified.

00:23:14.620 There was all this internal dissent.

00:23:16.220 You did not have it that Putin was trying to help Trump.

00:23:18.760 And it further noted that the intelligence community assessment had been drafted under

00:23:22.620 an unusually rushed timeline.

00:23:25.580 And then she gets into the leaks that that happened before they even finished it off.

00:23:30.900 So before we get to the leaks, now tell me how at this point they're trying to come

00:23:35.600 up with the thing Obama wanted, which is Russia, they were involved.

00:23:39.820 They wanted to help Trump.

00:23:40.800 That's why she lost.

00:23:41.660 And suddenly the Steele dossier, which had already been out there, this is one of Andy's

00:23:47.600 points that he thinks undermines Tulsi, how the Steele dossier became super important.

00:23:53.560 Because what Andy says is they already, they didn't say Russia was extra involved just because

00:24:01.220 Obama told them to, they had already relied on the Steele dossier in the fall of 16 to

00:24:06.900 get the ability to spy on Carter Page, where they went into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance

00:24:12.720 Court and they used the Steele dossier to get a warrant to spot to spy on Carter Page.

00:24:18.180 So his point is they were already focused on Russian interference and they used the Steele

00:24:24.340 dossier in the fall of 16.

00:24:26.040 But you're, you're making the point that at this, at this point in the timeline, the Steele

00:24:31.880 dossier became extremely important.

00:24:34.480 Why?

00:24:35.880 Well, with all due respect to Andy, for whom I have a lot of respect, I think that actually

00:24:40.640 is kind of an apples to oranges comparison because the, the September, 2016 issue with

00:24:46.400 the FISA Warren application, that was, I would say more of an internal, um, uh, mishap within

00:24:54.980 the FBI.

00:24:55.980 Uh, this is part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into, uh, Trump and Russia, and

00:25:03.580 they were attempting to find someone they could get surveillance, FISA surveillance authority

00:25:09.100 on.

00:25:10.100 The initial target was George Papadopoulos, but they threw him out in August of 2016 as not

00:25:16.260 having any credible links to Russia.

00:25:18.540 So they settled on Carter Page and in order to get a surveillance authority on page, they

00:25:24.820 had to use the Steele dossier because there were, there was no other, uh, credible intelligence.

00:25:30.580 In fact, he was an informant or he was in good standing with the CIA at the time, which

00:25:35.480 they kept out of that, uh, Warren application.

00:25:37.780 So that was just the use of the Steele dossier earlier in 2016, that was sort of a self-contained

00:25:45.220 little thing that happened within the FBI.

00:25:48.340 What, what happens in December of 2016 is a much bigger and more important embrace of

00:25:56.820 the Steele dossier.

00:25:57.860 This is when the entire intelligence community throws its weight behind this document, which

00:26:02.960 by the way, had been pooh-poohed, uh, previously by the CIA as being internet rumor.

00:26:09.120 Um, and you know, the other agencies didn't think of it in terribly high regard either until

00:26:15.120 this moment when it became important.

00:26:17.680 So I, I think that's important.

00:26:19.680 And it's also important to note that this was why the press was suddenly able to write

00:26:25.560 about this because everybody had the Steele dossier, Megan, you know, this in September

00:26:30.720 and October of 2016, but nobody published it for the very good reason they couldn't

00:26:35.260 confirm it.

00:26:36.340 It wasn't until the Obama administration threw their weight behind it that they could report

00:26:41.580 it.

00:26:42.460 They had the permission slip.

00:26:43.380 So now they need the Steele dossier because the boss has told them to get back to him with

00:26:49.280 an assessment that says Russia did interfere and Russia meant to help Trump.

00:26:53.940 And so where do they turn?

00:26:55.500 They don't have it except in the Steele dossier, which we now know was totally made up.

00:27:00.720 It's been entirely discredited.

00:27:02.540 That was the best evidence they had, which you're reporting to even at the time they

00:27:07.420 knew was bullshit, but they decided to go with it anyway.

00:27:11.060 So now they start to lean on that.

00:27:12.720 And now we get to the, the press.

00:27:16.440 This is so interesting.

00:27:17.440 So you write, uh, at racket, it's suspicious that a presidential daily briefing was postponed

00:27:22.980 to make way for an intelligence community assessment ordered at Obama's request.

00:27:28.600 It's fishier yet that the evidence that Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified

00:27:35.800 annex.

00:27:36.560 It didn't make its way into the principal report because the main intelligence agents objected

00:27:40.980 too much to that.

00:27:41.680 So they, they stuck it in an annex to the intelligence community assessment.

00:27:46.420 So anyway, fishier yet that the evidence Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified

00:27:50.900 annex containing Steele dossier material.

00:27:54.180 And here we go.

00:27:55.260 But the smoking gun is that these eventual conclusions leaked instantly, instantly, not one or two weeks

00:28:03.360 after Obama ordered the intelligence community assessment, uh, but the same day before any group

00:28:10.380 work could possibly have been done.

00:28:12.940 And this is you writing on December 9th, 2016, the New York times ran with the headline quote,

00:28:19.360 Russian hackers acted to aid Trump in election.

00:28:24.200 U S says the exact thing.

00:28:26.340 It appears Obama wanted, and they didn't have, and the lower level intelligence agents were saying

00:28:32.040 we can include that.

00:28:33.180 That cannot be a key judgment, but got overruled by Brennan.

00:28:36.020 The New York times has it the next day.

00:28:38.880 It was just the previous day that call me was like, I'm out.

00:28:42.180 I'm not doing that.

00:28:43.240 And that, uh, Brennan or a clapper put a hold on that planned presidential daily brief within

00:28:49.620 24 hours.

00:28:50.460 The New York times headline is exactly what Obama wanted.

00:28:54.580 Russian hackers acted to aid Trump in election.

00:28:56.880 U S says, and you say the piece not only led with the full blown steel dossier, um, saying

00:29:03.160 it that Putin acted to help Trump at Hillary Clinton's expense, but, but it followed with

00:29:08.920 aggressive conclusions about Russian hacks of both democratic and Republican party infrastructure.

00:29:13.800 Also that same day, the Washington post ran a piece describing a secret assessment that

00:29:19.520 Russia worked to help Trump, even though the group assessment had only just been assigned.

00:29:26.680 Washington post reporter, Greg Miller went on air with PBS to flog the paper's secret assessment

00:29:31.620 story and spoke of Russians having weaponized material and not for nothing, Matt, but you

00:29:38.100 point out all these reporters would go on to win Pulitzer prizes for their reporting.

00:29:46.780 Yeah.

00:29:47.340 I mean, it's kind of amazing.

00:29:48.940 Uh, you know, I look back at this, Megan, uh, at the time, uh, I was a Democrat.

00:29:54.600 I, I had voted for Hillary Clinton in that election cycle. 0.67

00:29:58.080 I wasn't particularly a fan of Donald Trump, but all of this material about Trump and Russia,

00:30:04.740 as soon as it came out, my instantaneous reaction was this doesn't feel right.

00:30:10.120 Um, I, I put, I remember putting out a column said something about this stinks.

00:30:15.140 Uh, and it was sourced in the same way that the WMD story was sourced with lots of unnamed

00:30:21.940 officials referring to things that could not be independently verified by other reporters,

00:30:27.500 which is always a big red flag with this, uh, serious of a charge, but everybody piled on and

00:30:35.700 it was, I had never seen anything like it in media before the, you know, even the WMD story,

00:30:41.060 it took some time for there to be consensus formed here.

00:30:45.640 It happened overnight.

00:30:48.040 Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and it was crazy.

00:30:50.720 And we know why we know why, because at least with WMD, they realized printing that shit

00:30:54.460 was going to get us into a war and there should be some hesitancy before doing it.

00:30:58.980 But this, the only stakes involved were you would unfairly condemn Donald Trump and maybe

00:31:06.100 not undermine his presidency, which is meaningless to the Washington post and the New York times

00:31:12.220 and CNN, which was just as guilty.

00:31:13.860 Those three were the worst political to all those four, the absolute worst.

00:31:18.700 And now we can see completely doing stenography for this dishonest intelligence community.

00:31:26.180 Yeah.

00:31:26.780 And again, I think most journalists of the old school, you know, if you interviewed reporters

00:31:33.460 from the seventies and eighties, like the, the frontline investigative reporter types who

00:31:38.700 would have done that kind of story back then, they were always motivated primarily by the fear

00:31:45.900 of getting something big wrong.

00:31:47.760 Right.

00:31:48.880 And this is exactly the kind of story that would worry a good reporter a lot because you're

00:31:56.980 not able to see the thing at the middle of this big, you know, sort of presentation or

00:32:06.580 what's inside the, the, the sort of Christmas wrapping in your story.

00:32:10.860 You just, you just can't see the evidence.

00:32:12.640 And, and yet you're going to make this enormous conclusion on the front page of your newspaper.

00:32:19.180 And if that turns out to be wrong, once upon a time, that was your career.

00:32:23.060 You were never going to work again.

00:32:25.160 But we're in a different world.

00:32:27.320 Now you can make those kinds of mistakes and get promoted.

00:32:31.360 Afterward.

00:32:31.940 And get Pulitzer Prizes.

00:32:33.320 So, so here's, here's the next piece of it.

00:32:35.900 So you write from there, from there, officials built the Trump Russia narrative brick by brick.

00:32:43.820 You write on December 15th, the NSA's Admiral Michael Rogers, who in private refused to upgrade

00:32:52.600 his agency, the NSA's confidence level from moderate to high on this nonsense, gave an interview

00:32:59.560 to the New York times in which he said, there should be no doubt.

00:33:02.480 This was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.

00:33:09.400 News that the FBI agreed ran the next day.

00:33:13.420 This is exactly like COVID and how Fauci and Collins got all those virologists who had been saying,

00:33:20.640 it looks like it came from a lab after a browbeating within 24 hours to completely reverse themselves.

00:33:29.000 And then they were saying it was racist to say it came from a lab.

00:33:33.120 Okay, same thing, but, but like very dangerous.

00:33:36.380 Okay.

00:33:36.880 And, and you say, this is the process that led to the release of the much discussed January 16th,

00:33:42.000 2017 intelligence community assessment that concluded Vladimir Putin and the Russian government

00:33:46.960 aspired to help president elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting secretary

00:33:53.000 Clinton.

00:33:53.920 Um, the, the very report that's magically Washington post and New York times knew how it was going

00:33:59.540 to come out before it had even been drafted or before they'd even started working on it.

00:34:04.580 And this dovetails because you say it started brick by brick, the whole narrative about Russia gate

00:34:09.340 and the Intel community using these media outlets as their stenographers.

00:34:13.100 And it just happens to, to track with a clip that went viral this week in the wake of the

00:34:18.680 Colbert cancellation, which shows actress Claire Danes, who of course started in that great

00:34:23.900 Homeland security or Homeland series on Showtime.

00:34:27.540 And she talked about how she in that role playing a spy meets with, or was meeting with

00:34:32.860 spies on the regular during this timeframe.

00:34:35.080 It was 2018 under Trump.

00:34:36.800 And as soon as she starts to talk about how cozy the Intel community was getting with reporters,

00:34:43.380 Colbert, who is not dumb, though he's a hack, stepped all over her and tried to change the

00:34:50.280 subject.

00:34:50.780 Here's the clip.

00:34:52.320 So now one of the things that you do, do you do this every season where you go get to spend

00:34:57.200 some time with some actual spies?

00:34:59.480 We do.

00:34:59.900 It's like the coolest part of my job.

00:35:01.720 Spy camp for us, uh, producers and writers and really, yeah.

00:35:06.200 Is it like, you know.

00:35:07.140 So we park ourselves in a, uh, club in Georgetown and talk to like real spooks and, you know,

00:35:15.540 people in the intelligence community and, and the state department and journalists and

00:35:19.160 people who really.

00:35:20.240 What do they tell you that like, what, what's the most surprising thing that they've told

00:35:23.260 you about their jobs or something you would need to know?

00:35:25.380 Well, every year it's different, right?

00:35:26.940 We've been at it for a while and, and the climate has been, has changed.

00:35:31.080 But this year it was all about, you know, the distrust between the administration and,

00:35:35.020 and the intelligence world and, um, and the intelligence community was suddenly kind of

00:35:39.480 allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not such good friends.

00:35:42.500 How long ago did you start shooting this, uh, this season?

00:35:45.320 How long ago?

00:35:45.520 Uh, we started in, uh, late August, September.

00:35:49.700 No, didn't happen.

00:35:51.400 Didn't hear it.

00:35:52.820 How long have you been shooting this season?

00:35:55.660 Uh, it's unbelievable that clip.

00:35:59.040 I mean, uh, I've been on Stephen's show.

00:36:01.020 I liked him, you know, I, uh, but that's very embarrassing.

00:36:05.240 And yeah, all these journalists, they were in bed with, uh, these spooks at this time.

00:36:12.900 And they were, uh, essentially just printing wholesale these conclusions that they were fed.

00:36:20.220 I mean, just think about it.

00:36:22.340 That story that came out in the New York times and what December 10th or whatever it is about

00:36:26.980 Russia, um, interfering to help Trump or Putin interfering to help Trump.

00:36:30.800 Think about how quickly they had to put that together.

00:36:33.720 Um, you know, that unless that was somehow in the works with CIA sources early, like from

00:36:40.260 much earlier on, uh, that's doing a story on that scale in 24 hours is just incredible.

00:36:46.140 You have not checked what you've been told.

00:36:48.860 You have just been a stenographer.

00:36:50.700 That's what that shows.

00:36:52.440 And now, so now Trump is very interested in this story, understandably, since his entire

00:36:58.580 first term was undermined by this fake narrative.

00:37:03.180 And now for the first time, we're really learning that it really was directed by Barack Obama.

00:37:08.760 I mean, that's what the Tulsi reveal on Friday night shows that that's you tell me,

00:37:13.300 Matt, cause you've been following a lot more closely than I have.

00:37:15.040 The biggest reveal on Friday night was this was all directed by Barack Obama.

00:37:21.420 Yeah, so that's absolutely, uh, the big reveal.

00:37:25.240 There were a lot of reporters, you know, um, like Aaron Maté, Paul Sperry, uh, even Dan Bongino

00:37:32.880 when he was still in the media, not in the FBI yet.

00:37:36.180 Um, uh, I worked with Michael Schellenberger.

00:37:39.420 We, we all worked on this question.

00:37:42.280 Ray McGovern, by the way, another former, uh, intelligence official, uh, everybody worked

00:37:47.500 on this ICA.

00:37:48.660 And we all knew that there, there had been a big change and that somehow, uh, the disagreement

00:37:56.240 about Russia's involvement between the FBI, CIA, and NSA had somehow magically resolved around

00:38:04.540 this time.

00:38:05.260 But we all thought this was an intramural process between the agencies.

00:38:09.480 Uh, what is new now is that we, we see that it was directed by the white house, that there

00:38:15.340 was an order that came on from on high, uh, to come up with the new ICA and that this didn't

00:38:22.460 come from the agencies themselves.

00:38:23.960 It came from Obama.

00:38:25.540 Um, either that, or one of the agencies briefed Obama who in turn gave the order, but, uh, you

00:38:31.920 know, and that's still a mystery, but Obama being in the middle of this is now the story.

00:38:37.680 Yeah.

00:38:37.920 I mean, he clearly gave the order one way or the other, because it says per the president's

00:38:42.100 request.

00:38:42.760 I mean, that's in writing now.

00:38:44.120 So here's Trump just now.

00:38:46.200 Uh, he's, he was just caught on camera saying, well, we'll play both of them in succession.

00:38:52.020 Let her rip. 1.00

00:38:52.680 The witch hut that you should be talking about is they caught president Obama, absolutely 1.00

00:38:58.620 cold, Tulsi Gabbard, uh, what they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016, but

00:39:06.660 going up all the way, going up to 2020 and the election, and they tried to rig the election

00:39:12.160 and they got caught and there should be very severe consequences for that.

00:39:17.400 It wasn't lots of people all over the place.

00:39:20.580 It was them too, but the leader of the gang was president Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. 0.59

00:39:26.740 Have you heard of him?

00:39:28.140 And, uh, except for the fact that he gets shielded by the press for his entire life, that's the

00:39:33.880 one they look, he's guilty.

00:39:36.860 It's not a question.

00:39:37.860 You know, I like to say, uh, let's give it time.

00:39:41.740 It's there.

00:39:42.560 He's guilty.

00:39:43.580 They, this was treason.

00:39:46.080 This was every word you can think of.

00:39:48.720 They tried to steal the election.

00:39:51.440 They tried to obfuscate the election.

00:39:54.460 They did things that nobody's ever even imagined.

00:39:57.040 Even in other countries, you've seen some pretty rough countries.

00:40:00.500 This man has seen some pretty rough countries, but you've never seen anything like it.

00:40:04.420 And we have all of the documents.

00:40:06.520 And from what Tulsi told me, she's got thousands of additional documents coming.

00:40:13.220 I mean, that he, there he is on camera saying he thinks Barack Obama is guilty of treason.

00:40:20.040 And, and that is a word Tulsi used too.

00:40:22.840 It may be too dramatic, but I don't know.

00:40:25.860 I mean, it's certainly is a threat.

00:40:27.260 Yeah, I mean, look, look, the reporter in me, uh, always gets nervous when a president is commenting on a potential criminal case and giving the verdict ahead of time.

00:40:39.520 But, um, I understand why he feels strongly about this, uh, this directly.

00:40:45.140 I mean, frankly, this whole caper, uh, paralyzed his entire first presidency and the people who are wondering about the officials in his, uh, first term who didn't come up with these documents.

00:40:58.500 I think they have good reason to wonder about that.

00:41:00.960 Uh, but this is, this is a, an enormous story, uh, in our gen, in our time.

00:41:07.380 I, I think it's maybe second to the WMD story in terms of intelligence deceptions, but it might even be a bigger one, uh, given that it, there has not yet been a public reckoning about it.

00:41:20.500 It, this deception continues to be mainstream opinion in this country.

00:41:25.660 And, uh, it's unfortunate that there just has not been, um, a case that would make this clear to the people.

00:41:33.980 Well, we had the Durham investigation.

00:41:36.480 So how, what did, what did that do?

00:41:40.820 Well, it is, the Durham investigation did establish pretty clearly the manipulation of the FISA, uh, warrant by the FBI.

00:41:49.880 They obviously obtained, um, or, or it led to one conviction of, uh, an official named, a lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith, who, as I mentioned before, omitted the key detail that Carter Page, um, was, uh, had a relationship.

00:42:06.080 And was in good standing with the CIA when they depicted him as an agent of a foreign power.

00:42:10.700 Um, so it did that, but it seemed to miss some other things.

00:42:17.880 Now, I say that, um, look, the best way I can put this is, I think it's, it's a little early to close the book on what Durham found.

00:42:28.320 Uh, there, you know, there may or may not be more to come from that.

00:42:33.680 We know that there is material that was not released from that investigation.

00:42:37.500 So, um.

00:42:38.820 May still be coming.

00:42:39.780 Because Tulsi's promising she's going to release more as the week goes on and presumably the weeks.

00:42:45.520 So, maybe, maybe we'll get that.

00:42:47.980 You seem to be suggesting you think we're going to get that, which, good, I hope we get that.

00:42:51.280 Um, the, wait, I just want to read one other thing from your, from your writing.

00:42:56.660 You, you write that the meeting on December 9th that switched out a tepid presidential daily brief for a dramatic narrative about Russian interference to help Trump was hugely meaningful.

00:43:10.060 It positioned Steele dossier conclusions as mainstream news.

00:43:15.220 It set up Trump to be investigated by his own incoming FBI director and made sure the incoming administration did not see dissenting intelligence about Russian meddling.

00:43:28.600 More to come.

00:43:29.500 And what you mean by that last point is that, that discussion about, we're going to give him a PDB on December 8th that says the Russians didn't, they did not hack into the election, uh, in any meaningful way.

00:43:46.860 That would have gone, not just to the sitting president, but to the president elect.

00:43:52.260 And you are positing here that another goal of spiking it was so that Mike Flynn, the incoming DNI, would not be able to see it.

00:44:05.920 Yeah.

00:44:06.560 Oh, uh, I think he was the national security advisor, right?

00:44:10.480 Oh, sorry.

00:44:10.840 Yes.

00:44:11.140 Yeah.

00:44:11.360 He was national security advisor.

00:44:12.460 Yes.

00:44:13.420 But, uh, yeah.

00:44:14.880 Ratcliffe was the DNI.

00:44:16.860 Right.

00:44:17.460 Well, eventually.

00:44:18.220 Yes.

00:44:18.540 Yeah.

00:44:18.780 Um, and, uh, I, I wasn't sure about this, you know, the, but I, um, reached out to Michael Flynn over the weekend and asked him if they had gone forward with this PDB, would you have seen it?

00:44:33.260 And he said, I would have read it.

00:44:34.900 And, uh, he said he was already accessing, he was going to a SCIF, which is a secure facility, uh, and regularly accessing the PDBs for, uh, for Trump.

00:44:47.020 So, uh, who, um, had already, by the way, invoked the displeasure of the intelligence community by, uh, saying that he wasn't particularly interested in reading the PDBs every day.

00:44:56.500 Uh, but, uh, when I asked, uh, Flynn, if he thought it might've been a factor in holding the PDB, the fact that they knew he was going to see it, he said, very likely.

00:45:07.880 So, uh, you know, that's what he said.

00:45:09.980 Um, why would they want the Trump administration to see anything that was downplaying Russians interference?

00:45:16.180 They knew that that was already being rejected entirely by team Trump.

00:45:19.380 Now, what if the, about, I mentioned it in the intro before you came on your reporting that this investigation may involve Biden era issues too.

00:45:30.040 That the DOJ to whom Tulsi has referred this case, though, we don't know exactly why we know from reporting that preceded Tulsi's Friday night announcement.

00:45:39.120 They've got some sort of investigation going at DOJ into James Comey.

00:45:43.540 We don't know why.

00:45:44.380 And also John Brennan.

00:45:45.980 And we think that's over Brennan, including the Steele dossier in the annex to this report and the testimony he gave around that process to Congress.

00:45:58.420 I think that's as good a summary as we're going to get, though we don't totally understand the whole thing.

00:46:03.600 Anyway, um, you're reporting that DOJ is also focusing on conspiracy charges, looking at conduct from 16 through 2024, and also at evidence that members of Trump's campaign may have been spied on in 2024.

00:46:22.780 So what can you please elaborate on either of those points?

00:46:25.680 I can't say a whole lot, Megan, other than what what I wrote, but I've heard a couple of different stories.

00:46:33.520 I have one source who has a very concrete story about this, but I can't go forward with it yet.

00:46:42.620 But what I can say is that there is a statute of limitations issue with some of these 2016 behaviors that would be solved if they could prove a continuing pattern of conduct.

00:47:00.860 And there were various investigations that took place during the Biden era, some of which the public knows about, some of which they don't know about.

00:47:14.540 And those, I think, would become tied to a conspiracy charge that would relate to these 2016 behaviors.

00:47:23.920 So I know that's kind of a, you know, not a very clear answer, but I can tell you that they're they're looking at investigations from the Biden period and suggesting that there is a pattern of conduct, you know, potentially to obtain surveillance authority in one case.

00:47:43.880 Right.

00:47:45.860 That might be established.

00:47:47.260 And that that might be how they look at this criminally.

00:47:51.400 Wow.

00:47:51.880 Wow. And do we know who they're looking at?

00:47:55.080 I mean, you heard President Trump there say Obama committed treason.

00:47:58.940 Obama.

00:48:00.400 Somebody was just pointing this out the other day that Obama would not have immunity for anything that happened once he was out of office.

00:48:07.720 And I wonder whether there's any evidence he did anything once he was out of office.

00:48:12.340 But what about Clapper, Brennan, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice?

00:48:20.440 None of these people has immunity.

00:48:21.880 They were not given any sort of blanket pardon.

00:48:25.580 Yeah, I heard everybody's in play.

00:48:28.380 Everybody at that meeting is in play.

00:48:30.740 The only thing we've heard concretely, though, is about Brennan and and Comey.

00:48:39.840 Comey.

00:48:40.340 Yeah.

00:48:40.560 There was one report that I heard that there had been a referral involving Clapper, but I haven't been able to confirm that yet.

00:48:50.980 So and it's conspicuous that he's not on that list already that's been released.

00:48:58.320 So that's interesting.

00:49:00.060 But you have to think that everybody who is at that meeting is probably lowering up at this moment.

00:49:07.900 So in the minute we have left, Matt, just give us the the big picture perspective on this story, what it is and what it means about.

00:49:16.180 About everything about the intel community and Trump, Obama and the press.

00:49:19.520 I think the core thing that people have to remember about this story is that at the center of it, it's about taking a basically a forgery, a manufactured piece of paid campaign research and making it officially backed policy of the United States government.

00:49:41.220 And they use that to generate a year's long investigation that paralyzed the American government.

00:49:46.960 And it's one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on the public by the intelligence community ever.

00:49:53.260 And we've had a lot of them in this country.

00:49:55.620 So it's fascinating to see it finally unwind.

00:49:59.280 Wow.

00:49:59.980 And there need to be consequences that they cannot just get away with this.

00:50:04.860 These are villains.

00:50:06.620 Matt Taibbi, thank you, as always, for your honest, straightforward reporting.

00:50:09.620 Love talking to you.

00:50:10.220 Thanks so much, Megan.

00:50:11.760 Take care.

00:50:12.340 Wow.

00:50:13.000 Wow.

00:50:13.760 Wow.

00:50:14.880 Coming up, Emily Jashinsky is here.

00:50:16.960 We'll talk about this.

00:50:18.040 And it's Hunter Biden time.

00:50:20.260 We got to go there.

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00:51:45.320 The son of former President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, is the Internet's main character today.

00:51:51.020 Amazingly, in the span of two conversations, Hunter Biden went on an expletive-filled rant

00:51:55.120 against George Clooney and other key Democratic figures, claimed Ambien is what caused his

00:51:59.600 father's horrific debate performance, speculated crack cocaine is probably safer than alcohol,

00:52:03.760 and says the reason that the Dems lost 2024 is because they did not remain loyal

00:52:07.780 to his dad.

00:52:09.960 Also, he says the cocaine found in the White House is not his.

00:52:12.840 That's just a start.

00:52:14.620 Plus, you would not believe how Stephen Colbert and his buddy Jon Stewart responded to his

00:52:20.620 cancellation.

00:52:22.240 Cry me a river.

00:52:23.800 Would you grow up, you children?

00:52:26.920 Put on your big boy pants and take it like a man. 0.99

00:52:30.340 This is absurd.

00:52:31.480 Third, many of us have had very public cancellations, and some were absolutely fucking brutal, and

00:52:39.040 we didn't invite all our friends to come cry on the set and say, poor, poor her, poor,

00:52:45.220 poor him.

00:52:46.340 American democracy will not be the same.

00:52:49.080 Some of us took it like professionals, then picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and

00:52:54.860 moved on with life.

00:52:55.900 Is this how it's going to be for the next year, watching this crybaby try to play the

00:53:01.240 victim that his show got canceled?

00:53:03.400 Grow up.

00:53:04.220 It's called television, you toddler.

00:53:07.280 Here to discuss it, one of our EJ's pair, Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party on the

00:53:14.480 MK Media Podcast Network.

00:53:16.420 Thank God this will never happen to you, Emily Jashinsky, on the MK Media Podcast Network.

00:53:20.580 But I'm sure if you ever did, you wouldn't take it like an infant in the crib.

00:53:27.020 This is absurd, this man.

00:53:29.160 Hiring a gospel choir.

00:53:30.500 Did you see Jon Stewart?

00:53:31.620 He hired a gospel choir to sing behind him and said, F you to Donald Trump, or F off to

00:53:36.580 Donald Trump, because they think the outpouring of Democrats saying thank you to Stephen Colbert

00:53:41.820 for, quote, standing up to power or speaking truth to power.

00:53:45.400 There were more than five Democratic politicians posting that in unison.

00:53:49.620 And funny how that happens over the last several days.

00:53:52.320 And hilariously, they see themselves genuinely as the protagonists of the story, as though

00:54:00.400 Stephen Colbert wasn't, according to Puck News, losing $40 million a year.

00:54:06.160 That show was apparently losing $40 million a year.

00:54:09.260 And you can see how the math doesn't math for the Colbert Report, but for the show, because

00:54:15.680 I mean, you can't have overhead like an old late night show in 2025.

00:54:20.780 It just it doesn't make sense when you're getting three million people a night.

00:54:23.880 It's an absurd equation.

00:54:25.900 And so to act like this is-

00:54:26.460 The economics are not there.

00:54:27.800 No.

00:54:28.200 And to act like this is all because Paramount has a merger in front of Donald Trump, which

00:54:32.780 true, they do.

00:54:33.400 The Trump administration is looking at the Paramount Skydance merger.

00:54:36.880 But to act like that's why they pulled the plug on Colbert, it's insane.

00:54:40.280 They're actually getting rid of the entire franchise, not just the host.

00:54:44.280 Why wouldn't you just replace the host? 0.79

00:54:46.060 And by the way, if Trump were in there bargaining for the, you know, summary firing of people

00:54:50.820 on CBS airwaves who are terrible to him and don't like him, there'd be no one left.

00:54:56.240 Literally, who would be left?

00:54:58.140 Norah O'Donnell would have to go entirely. 0.84

00:55:00.060 So would that Margaret Brennan.

00:55:01.660 So would Gayle King.

00:55:03.420 I mean, if really, if Trump were in there bargaining for like, these are the people who have to go,

00:55:07.520 Colbert is an antagonist, but, you know, is he any worse than these others I've named?

00:55:11.600 Margaret Brennan is out there trying to skewer, ineffectively though, his top administration 0.72

00:55:15.840 officials every week.

00:55:17.060 She tried to tank a vice presidential debate in favor of the Dems, as did Norah O'Donnell. 1.00

00:55:23.360 So it's like, I don't know, there'd be a lot of targets that I'd probably want to take care of

00:55:27.480 before I got rid of this loser in late night who nobody's watching.

00:55:31.000 By the way, so they say his show caused, that it was, it was losing $40 million a year.

00:55:37.960 Can I tell you something?

00:55:38.900 The Kelly file, this is back in 20, you know, 14 through 17.

00:55:44.820 And they have a hundred employees on this thing.

00:55:47.020 For a hundred employees, they lose $40 million a year.

00:55:49.560 On the Kelly file, we had nine producers, that's it.

00:55:53.400 And maybe a handful of tech staff, maybe five.

00:55:56.500 So let's call it 15 roundup.

00:55:58.440 And we made a hundred million dollars a year on that show that, that just the Kelly file

00:56:02.840 brought in a hundred million dollars a year in revenue.

00:56:05.640 This guy has a hundred employees.

00:56:07.960 So almost 10 times what I had, and he's losing 40 million.

00:56:13.340 That's what gets you fired.

00:56:15.100 You loser.

00:56:16.220 It's unbelievable that they kept him on the air at all based on this, like as long as they

00:56:22.000 have, then they're like, Oh, I was number one in late night.

00:56:24.080 Okay.

00:56:24.240 You were number one by 1000.

00:56:25.660 You were beating Jimmy Kimmel in the overall number by 1000.

00:56:29.560 You were losing in the advertiser key demo from 18 to 49 year olds to Jimmy Kimmel.

00:56:35.240 Jimmy Fallon is no longer on the board.

00:56:36.960 He might, he might no longer be with us for as long as I know, because literally as Roger

00:56:41.260 Rails once said about Paula Zahn, you could put a dead raccoon in his chair and get the 1.00

00:56:45.440 same ratings to Jimmy that Jimmy Fallon's getting.

00:56:47.640 Okay.

00:56:47.760 But, but there was, he wasn't number one in the key advertiser friendly demo.

00:56:52.080 And irrespective of that, all the numbers had fallen almost 50% just since 2018.

00:56:59.420 No one's watching late night television anymore.

00:57:02.100 It's a failed business model.

00:57:04.580 Right.

00:57:05.040 And that's why they're getting rid of the whole franchise.

00:57:06.600 So for Colbert and Stewart to slot themselves into these roles as protagonists against the

00:57:12.480 big, bad corporate overlord and the Trump administration is just like, it is completely laughable.

00:57:18.280 And for Democrats to do the same, it was completely laughable.

00:57:20.460 I mean, laughable.

00:57:21.220 It's obviously cynical, but at the same time, it's just like, give me a break.

00:57:24.460 They're getting rid of the entire show, not just Colbert.

00:57:27.020 There are all kinds of different people at CBS who are bad, but Colbert is even losing on

00:57:31.220 digital.

00:57:31.600 I mean, he can be the number one on, on late night, even if he's like losing in the demo,

00:57:35.620 but like Fallon does better than him on digital, according to reports.

00:57:39.260 Like he's, he's of all the late night hosts, the one that does most poorly on YouTube, Instagram,

00:57:44.940 Tik TOK, and those platforms, which is not surprising at all because my new theory on why

00:57:50.060 we have all of these like Gen X politicians flocking to Colbert's defense on the left, you

00:57:55.320 know, you're Chris Murphy, Hakeem Jeffries.

00:57:58.020 It's because they were human.

00:57:59.980 Yeah, she might be a boomer. 1.00

00:58:02.220 I don't know, but they, boomers count in this too, but Colbert and Stewart remind them of

00:58:07.920 this time period when people felt like they were, they had this, this moral energy around

00:58:13.840 resistance to the Bush administration.

00:58:15.360 And there was something really edgy about tuning into comedy central late night back in

00:58:20.720 like 2009 or 2007 that, uh, it just makes them, it's, it's this wave of nostalgia to look like

00:58:28.580 you're standing up, uh, and standing by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, who are honestly, you

00:58:32.960 missed it.

00:58:33.960 There's like these losers who go out there and, and like March on Harvard's campus.

00:58:38.860 You missed the civil rights era. 0.54

00:58:40.540 Sorry, you weren't around for it.

00:58:42.260 You're cosplaying now.

00:58:43.560 No, no one's believing you.

00:58:44.980 You're not making any sort of a difference.

00:58:46.860 Um, Steve Krakauer corrects me.

00:58:48.840 There are 200 employees on Colbert's show, 200.

00:58:55.380 Literally we had nine producers to produce the highest rated show in all of cable news in

00:59:01.320 the key advertiser friendly demo, 25 to 54 on cable news with the Kelly file.

00:59:06.100 I had nine producers and like I say, just a handful of texts for a hundred million dollars

00:59:11.340 a year.

00:59:11.580 That show netted this show is losing 40 million a year with 200 employees.

00:59:18.100 It's a loser.

00:59:19.500 What you call that in the kids talk is a loser.

00:59:23.220 It's a hard loser and he can't accept it.

00:59:26.080 And like, just one other thing, Jon Stewart, I, I love to talk about this.

00:59:32.040 Okay.

00:59:32.440 What a pathetic has been.

00:59:34.060 Um, he had his role during the heyday.

00:59:37.100 He was very relevant for a time that time has passed and all of his ratings support my

00:59:42.440 statement.

00:59:43.020 Okay.

00:59:43.520 Some of us were able to reinvent ourselves after we left the cable news universe and some

00:59:49.620 of us weren't.

00:59:51.120 Um, so he came back still thinking he'd be the king of the cool kids and he's had absolutely

00:59:56.040 middling ratings.

00:59:57.260 Nobody's watching him.

00:59:58.400 And so he decided to bring back some of his old tricks.

01:00:01.800 Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of his little gospel choir.

01:00:06.800 He's done more hip pieces on me than anybody I can think of that has attacked me time and

01:00:11.820 time again.

01:00:12.260 When I just had my babies, I'd be nursing them on my couch and he would drop in another

01:00:16.020 hip piece on me because I was a threat on Fox news and he was afraid of me.

01:00:20.720 He didn't want my message getting out there.

01:00:22.840 He wanted to, you know, to diminish me and my shows in their crib.

01:00:25.760 That failed too.

01:00:27.800 Anyway, so there was speculation yesterday in the podcast universe, Bill Simmons had

01:00:32.320 on bet Matthew Bellany of puck news, uh, formerly Hollywood reporter.

01:00:36.020 And they openly wondered whether when Jon Stewart went on the air Monday night, he would quit

01:00:42.500 because he was so outraged over the wrong, the deep wrong that had been done to his good

01:00:47.680 friend, Stephen Colbert, you know, clearly filed, fired over politics.

01:00:51.120 And, um, so there was some anticipation.

01:00:54.360 They both said they were going to watch Stewart live that night to see whether he would quit

01:00:58.980 and make a point that this was deeply immoral so much so that he would sacrifice the millions

01:01:05.100 and for the fame air quotes that he's getting from his reappearance on Mondays on the daily

01:01:12.560 show.

01:01:13.280 And instead, this is what we got.

01:01:17.200 This ain't the time to shrink.

01:01:19.160 This is the time to fight.

01:01:24.960 This is the time to rise up.

01:01:30.580 You're afraid.

01:01:32.520 And you protect your bottom line.

01:01:34.900 I've got but one thing to say.

01:01:37.660 Just one little phrase.

01:01:42.900 Go fuck yourself.

01:01:44.160 Go fuck yourself.

01:01:47.160 Go fuck yourself.

01:01:49.160 Fuck, fuck, fuck yourself. 0.92

01:01:53.180 Just go fuck yourself. 1.00

01:01:54.980 Everybody.

01:01:57.160 Fuck, fuck yourself.

01:01:59.180 Just go fuck yourself. 1.00

01:02:01.120 Fuck, fuck, fuck yourself. 0.92

01:02:03.160 Just go fuck yourself. 1.00

01:02:05.060 So it was a no.

01:02:08.080 He did not forgo his millions of dollars or his ridiculous do nothing post on the daily

01:02:15.600 show.

01:02:16.580 Instead, he chose himself and he chose to go with a profanity laced rant against the company

01:02:22.540 that owns Comedy Central, Paramount, with whom this merger has happened.

01:02:25.780 They also own CBS.

01:02:26.700 And this came as no surprise to me because he's always been all about himself.

01:02:31.820 However, I did not expect that he would really kind of embrace the same mistakes Oprah Winfrey

01:02:38.700 has embraced that have made her an official has been to where they take their old stick that worked 20 years ago, try to revive it in their older bodies with their gray hair and think in the modern

01:02:54.640 day media environment, which, you know, better than anybody, Emily, doesn't work.

01:02:59.220 You cannot, as a 60-year-old dude, whatever Jon Stewart is, he's around there, or in Oprah's

01:03:06.160 case, 70-something, come out and still pull off the, I am shouting at people, I will be 1.00

01:03:14.060 heard.

01:03:15.340 You look old and weird and it's too jarring.

01:03:19.380 It no longer works.

01:03:21.400 And so it's not surprising to me, because I don't watch his show, that he too is failing and

01:03:26.880 that he felt the need to hold on to his one little loser show a week because who else would

01:03:31.320 hire that? 0.97

01:03:32.840 You know, that's kind of interesting because his pod, the podcast version of Jon Stewart is

01:03:37.680 different than that.

01:03:39.300 And so to have that actually be in his life and him not sort of understand the distinctions, I

01:03:46.180 think is pretty interesting.

01:03:47.360 The other thing I'll add on that is what you just described and what we just watched, unfortunately,

01:03:53.100 is obviously also tiresome, but it's also the type of thing that people saw as really

01:03:58.580 avant-garde in, again, like 2007, because you had someone on this cable network speaking

01:04:05.180 to younger Americans.

01:04:06.820 He was doing the kind of anti-network late-night show thing, like the anti-Tonight Show type of

01:04:13.160 thing over on Comedy Central.

01:04:14.660 And he was, you know, using profanity.

01:04:17.420 He was being much more directly political than the late-night hosts were.

01:04:21.400 And that felt at the time novel and fresh and edgy.

01:04:25.660 And now it feels like another shtick instead of something that's honest and authentic.

01:04:31.140 It feels like this overproduced, like to act like you're speaking truth to corporate power

01:04:36.780 on a corporate platform by doing the same shtick you've been doing for 20 years, it obviously

01:04:42.320 does not have any of the same edge or novelty that it had back then, but he doesn't realize

01:04:47.580 it.

01:04:47.840 I think that is actually really interesting.

01:04:50.100 You're so right.

01:04:51.020 It's so true. 0.84

01:04:51.720 He would have been so much better off if he had just opened up with just him at the

01:04:55.100 desk, looking at the camera and just speaking extemporaneously.

01:04:58.760 Like, I'm really distressed over this.

01:05:00.620 This is why.

01:05:01.280 This is what I think.

01:05:01.960 These are the things.

01:05:02.560 I've known this guy for this long.

01:05:04.200 Here's my own experience and what parallels.

01:05:06.320 Like, people would have watched that.

01:05:07.940 It would have been gripping.

01:05:09.400 People, you know, on his side at least would have found it really interesting.

01:05:11.540 But he went back to the gospel choir is one of his favorite tools.

01:05:17.080 He just looks like a fool.

01:05:18.520 Now he's 62, jumping and dancing and screaming at us in front of it.

01:05:23.120 He looks old, dare I say, elderly.

01:05:26.460 And like, he's trying to hold on to his golden years, like his youth years.

01:05:32.700 It's not that far afield from what J-Lo is on stage doing right now with her fake sex 1.00

01:05:38.400 simulations.

01:05:39.720 You know, might as well just show it.

01:05:40.700 I mean, there's a lot to go over in this next hour.

01:05:44.280 J-Lo's out on tour in the middle of nowhere.

01:05:46.300 I don't know.

01:05:46.600 I don't know where she. 0.96

01:05:47.360 No one's listening to J-Lo.

01:05:48.620 Her tours have been a mess.

01:05:50.300 Her songs are unpopular.

01:05:51.340 Here's a man with his face in her crotch. 1.00

01:05:53.000 For the listening audience, we see Heine with a thong and a man looks like he's giving her 1.00

01:05:58.480 oral sex, like his face is in her crotch. 1.00

01:06:01.300 Now she bends over, and then for the next several minutes, she simulates actual sex 1.00

01:06:05.720 acts.

01:06:06.120 Like, you know, there.

01:06:07.000 She's doing actual sex acts, though she's clothed, with a bunch of men wearing just pants 1.00

01:06:11.260 and corsets, I guess.

01:06:13.900 I don't know what they're wearing.

01:06:15.820 Yeah, like doggy style, missionary, her sitting up on them and writhing and grinding. 1.00

01:06:21.520 She's 55 years old, and she hasn't come to grips with the fact that she's not a sex symbol

01:06:26.800 anymore.

01:06:27.300 I'm sorry.

01:06:28.560 I can say this, because I'll be 55 in November.

01:06:31.660 We're not sex symbols.

01:06:33.200 We could look great for our age.

01:06:35.220 We could rock a bikini in the right setting.

01:06:37.320 That's terrific.

01:06:38.120 Good for us.

01:06:39.580 But asking the American public to look at you and be like, I want to have sex when I

01:06:44.760 look at her.

01:06:46.460 That ship has sailed.

01:06:48.080 I'm sorry.

01:06:48.720 It's sailed with menopause.

01:06:49.860 And a post-menopausal woman out there bumping and grinding against 30-year-old men. 1.00

01:06:56.340 It just makes us think about how old you are.

01:07:00.340 Try to have some class instead of embracing life as a now soft porn actress. 0.89

01:07:06.180 These are the same people in different bodies, Stuart and Lopez.

01:07:11.740 Holy shit, that's so funny.

01:07:16.280 I didn't know where that was going to go, and it just landed perfectly.

01:07:21.500 But truly, there's something interesting about that, because with J-Lo, if you are trying

01:07:29.020 to impress people by looking good for your age, baked into that is still people thinking

01:07:35.140 about your age, which is not what people think when you're actually 25 and you look like you're

01:07:41.280 25, you're drawing attention to your age.

01:07:44.720 So if you want people to be thinking, yes, this woman is beautiful for her age, then by

01:07:50.880 all means, but we know that what, here I go, Jon Stewart and Jennifer Lopez both want people 0.97

01:07:57.220 to think is that they're actually still at the top of their edginess and their novelty.

01:08:04.220 And that doesn't work at this point in their careers.

01:08:07.760 And there is something culturally going on right now.

01:08:09.980 Part of it just has to do with our technological abilities to tweak our appearances and keep

01:08:15.300 looking younger and younger that has an element of arrested development to it.

01:08:19.600 This is a serious thing that's happening with adults flocking to Disney World alone and mass,

01:08:26.260 apparently.

01:08:26.900 This is a thing that's really happening across the culture, and part of it is probably people

01:08:30.940 being able to tweak their appearances, getting married later, buying houses later, and there's

01:08:35.560 all kinds of stuff going on here.

01:08:37.020 But it is, I think, like getting us stuck in this loop of just tired, tired culture.

01:08:44.360 But people are now starting to reject it because the gatekeepers are losing their power, and that's

01:08:48.580 where you see J-Lo failing to sell tickets.

01:08:50.780 And see, the thing is, is like, you can look sexy as an older woman. 0.53

01:08:55.620 Absolutely.

01:08:56.460 You know, hello, Tina Turner was the goddess of this into her 80s. 0.70

01:09:01.880 And she would wear a tight dress or a short dress, and she would show off those unbelievable 1.00

01:09:06.100 legs and arms and everything in between.

01:09:08.460 But with class, she never, you never saw Tina Turner shoving her vag in some 30-year-old 1.00

01:09:15.660 dancer's face and then simulating every, like, it was like reading the Kama Sutra watching

01:09:20.680 that J-Lo performance.

01:09:22.100 She wasn't desperate for attention.

01:09:25.640 She was, yes, always a sex symbol in a way, just because she was so sexy and strong and

01:09:31.000 talented.

01:09:32.020 But J-Lo's crossed over to actually trying to be like a porn star.

01:09:36.300 That's what, she's closer to somebody you'd see on OnlyFans. 0.67

01:09:40.940 And that's where it falls apart.

01:09:43.540 You know, you look at a lot of these, look at Celine Dion.

01:09:46.880 I mean, Celine's now having some health problems, but like, she's always had this very thin body, 0.92

01:09:51.920 but she wears these totally glamorous gowns. 1.00

01:09:55.100 She's never had to do this because her talent reigns supreme.

01:10:00.720 You know it as soon as your ear hears it.

01:10:03.600 And she has a world-famous talent and voice.

01:10:07.520 J-Lo doesn't.

01:10:08.980 And she's tried to make up the gap with her, by being a sex symbol, by being like a sex pot, 1.00

01:10:15.420 a sex kitten for her entire career.

01:10:17.760 And when you are 29, it's great.

01:10:20.460 Even 39, you can pull it off.

01:10:22.420 My friend, at 55, you need to retire that act.

01:10:25.680 Put on a great dress.

01:10:27.220 And try, try to sing.

01:10:30.860 I'm like, I'm sorry.

01:10:32.520 That's the point at which you found yourself.

01:10:35.020 This thing is not working.

01:10:36.380 Okay, back to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

01:10:40.220 The Colbert meltdown has reached epic proportions.

01:10:45.360 There were actual protests outside of his studio last night in New York.

01:10:50.360 Like, people are gathering to chant something like, down with Trump, up with Colbert, or

01:10:55.440 like, kill Trump, save Colbert, whatever it is.

01:10:58.140 And in his show, Colbert's show, because they're leaving him on the air.

01:11:02.260 Steve, is it through the end of next year?

01:11:04.640 Is it like through the May of 2026?

01:11:08.680 So they've got how many, almost not quite a year left of these, nine months of these shows.

01:11:14.140 I'm going to tell you right now, that's not going to happen.

01:11:16.400 They're going to pull the plug, at least if he continues with this nonsense.

01:11:20.900 He brings in all these Hollywood and late night and related stars to try to, I guess,

01:11:29.120 make us cry about his cancellation.

01:11:31.300 And here's how that looked.

01:11:33.900 Look at those guys.

01:11:35.880 Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen kissing.

01:11:40.620 Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers.

01:11:43.240 Seth Meyers, complete loser.

01:11:44.820 Can't stand him.

01:11:46.400 Adam Sandler, love him.

01:11:48.680 Shame on you for appearing in this.

01:11:51.580 Stewart and, what's his name, John Oliver.

01:11:54.960 Like a couple of teenage girls in the audience. 0.86

01:11:57.800 Overacting.

01:11:58.580 A cartoon version of Trump.

01:12:00.260 Stop, stop, stop, stop playing.

01:12:02.740 I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

01:12:03.720 Lin-Manuel, Miranda, and Weird Al.

01:12:06.320 What's going on?

01:12:06.900 Hold on, give me a second.

01:12:08.040 Your song has been canceled.

01:12:09.340 What?

01:12:10.200 Why?

01:12:11.260 I don't know.

01:12:11.900 Hold on, it says here, this is a purely financial decision.

01:12:15.780 What does that mean?

01:12:17.620 I think it means money.

01:12:18.920 Well, yeah, but what money?

01:12:21.160 I don't, hold on.

01:12:21.860 It says here that since you started playing that song, the network has lost, and I don't

01:12:27.200 know how this is possible, 40 to 50 million dollars.

01:12:31.200 He just looks so out of touch, Emily.

01:12:36.400 Like, it's the same thing as Kamala Harris parading out those celebrities to try to save 0.97

01:12:40.880 her campaign.

01:12:41.660 It didn't work on Democrats.

01:12:44.760 That's who he's trying to appeal to.

01:12:46.140 It didn't work on Democrats for her, and it doesn't work on his Democrat audience for

01:12:51.040 him.

01:12:51.240 It only makes him look like the elitist, out-of-touch, rich snob that he is.

01:12:58.340 And this is, we were talking about this actually on After Party last night.

01:13:01.280 There's this difference between macroculture and microculture.

01:13:02.980 After Party, it's on at 10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays on YouTube, live with Emily

01:13:08.380 Jashinsky.

01:13:08.880 You should totally tune in.

01:13:09.960 It's super hot.

01:13:11.000 Keep going.

01:13:11.820 That's right.

01:13:12.260 We're having fun.

01:13:12.820 We're live.

01:13:13.220 And so Colbert is doing this thing where he's, like, still pretending that he's Johnny

01:13:20.000 Carson, even though what he's doing is for a really niche audience of educated, affluent

01:13:25.080 coastal liberals, the types of people who watch John Oliver and John Stewart, and really like

01:13:31.000 those weird Trump jokes that he does that are more, like, uncomfortable than they are

01:13:35.220 funny.

01:13:36.120 And so this is the problem, is he's still acting.

01:13:39.260 Part of the reason he sees himself as a martyr and a victim is because he's acting like they

01:13:43.060 canceled Johnny Carson for saying something mean about Ronald Reagan, and that's not what's

01:13:47.140 happening.

01:13:47.860 He's trying to do microculture versus macro monoculture, but he's trying to do it on a

01:13:54.520 macro monoculture budget with a 200-person staff losing 40 million people a year, $40 million

01:14:00.300 a year.

01:14:01.200 And I forget, I wish I could credit the person who said this, because it's so smart, but it

01:14:04.660 was basically, his show was basically affirmative action for anti-Trump, like, coastal elitism

01:14:11.280 because it was losing all of that money.

01:14:13.360 And yet CBS had to be careful with it because they don't want to look like they're getting

01:14:18.780 rid of, you know, this political opponent of the president.

01:14:22.080 They don't want to upset all of the other people in the industry who they know are going

01:14:26.180 to jump to Colbert's defense and frame it sympathetically.

01:14:28.920 And Colbert genuinely was funny at a point.

01:14:31.060 That's why he has some, like, genuinely funny friends like Adam Sandler, but it's the same

01:14:36.080 thing.

01:14:36.360 I'm going to do this one more time, Megan.

01:14:38.060 I'm going to go back to this well one more time.

01:14:39.700 It is J-Lo-esque, right?

01:14:41.360 It's our culture doing the Steve Buscemi meme where he says, hello, fellow kids, with the

01:14:45.760 skateboard over his shoulder in perpetuity because J-Lo was a dancer.

01:14:50.820 She was famous for being, her talent was in dance. 0.57

01:14:53.840 Her talent was being really hot and a really good dancer. 1.00

01:14:56.740 Colbert and Stewart, their talents were being these, like, young, edgy, anti-establishment

01:15:03.460 comedians.

01:15:04.460 And you can't be a young, edgy, anti-establishment comedian or an incredible dancer when you're

01:15:09.960 not young anymore and they haven't adapted.

01:15:13.960 This is why I like being in news because getting older in news is actually a bonus.

01:15:18.060 It gives you a lot of wisdom from your years of covering the news.

01:15:20.620 It's not a deal breaker.

01:15:21.460 You don't have to be fired.

01:15:22.180 It's not like your vagina looks different, so you can't be out of here anymore. 1.00

01:15:30.860 Yes, yes, yes.

01:15:32.180 It's been great for Leslie Stahl.

01:15:37.400 I just, I love, I love that they're trying to do the same shtick they did 20 years ago

01:15:43.840 and they're just all getting terrible results.

01:15:46.820 Matt Taibbi was on the first hour, as you know, and in watching one of their shows, they

01:15:52.060 were talking about this, he and Walter Kern, and they revived this clip because this is

01:15:56.760 Colbert.

01:15:57.220 This is the reason Colbert failed.

01:16:00.000 He took a great franchise, The Late Show, great franchise.

01:16:03.660 You know, David Letterman used to be there and absolutely fucking ruined it by segments

01:16:08.500 like this, where he went to Russia, to the Ritz-Carlton presidential suite, where the alleged Trump

01:16:18.920 pee tape from the Steele dossier was said to have happened with the prostitutes so he could

01:16:25.040 do on-scene reporting.

01:16:28.040 Look at this.

01:16:28.800 Hello.

01:16:32.540 Join me, won't you?

01:16:34.620 In the bedroom of the presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, the room

01:16:40.660 we've heard so much about, and yet no one has come to check it out.

01:16:44.080 I don't know why.

01:16:45.820 When you're in this room...

01:16:47.260 You don't?

01:16:48.240 I don't know how to describe it.

01:16:51.060 It's soaked in history.

01:16:54.260 It just, it just washes over you.

01:16:57.180 I mean, it's not even like it's in the past.

01:17:01.060 You're in history.

01:17:03.520 You're in it.

01:17:05.160 You know what I'm saying?

01:17:08.760 I'm saying the pee-pee tape supposedly took place on that bed, is what I'm saying.

01:17:14.000 The dossier alleges that President Trump was somewhere in this room.

01:17:19.120 We don't know where he sat.

01:17:20.360 Could have been on this bench down here.

01:17:22.520 Though I doubt it, because that's in what's called the splash zone.

01:17:25.380 Are you going to want to wear a poncho?

01:17:28.180 Could have been on the couch over there.

01:17:30.080 But what would that look like?

01:17:31.900 Join us when my investigative journalism continues.

01:17:35.540 Peep-peep-ape.

01:17:36.980 Peep-peep-ape.

01:17:38.360 You know when you've imagined something for so long, and then when you finally see it,

01:17:41.640 it just doesn't match what you pictured in your head?

01:17:46.040 That's not this feeling at all.

01:17:47.520 It's amazing to me, Emily, how every single one of those laughs was laugh track, because

01:17:55.580 he wasn't funny.

01:17:57.420 The whole thing wasn't funny.

01:17:59.060 And by the way, even his side has now had to admit the steel tape has been totally discredited,

01:18:04.640 and it was all a lie.

01:18:05.600 That's how you fail in television.

01:18:08.720 Yeah.

01:18:09.400 Well, you know what would have been funny is if that entire shtick, well, first of all,

01:18:13.800 if the jokes were funny, but if the entire shtick was satirizing the political establishment

01:18:18.840 cooking up a conspiracy hoax and making fun of this idea that there was a dossier that

01:18:25.980 had legitimate, credible information because Christopher Steele stitched it together from

01:18:30.100 all of these different sources was really one primary source, subsource, all of that.

01:18:35.280 The idea that this suggested that Donald Trump really credibly had colluded with the Russian

01:18:39.560 government, making fun of the CIA and the FBI and the Obama administration and the Clinton

01:18:45.480 campaign for cooking up such a hilarious hoax, that would have been funny.

01:18:49.220 And by the way, that's exactly what Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were standing up against,

01:18:53.900 the excesses of the intelligence community during the Bush administration.

01:18:57.040 And it reminds me, one person who has adapted really well, I was thinking about this while

01:19:01.680 you were talking to Matt, is the great Matt Taibbi, because he mentioned he'd been on

01:19:05.240 Colbert's show and he used to like Colbert.

01:19:07.040 And I'm like, you know what?

01:19:08.820 Taibbi is one of the people who was anti-establishment when those guys were anti-establishment.

01:19:13.820 And Taibbi has remained consistent and he has adapted instead of just hook, line, and sinker

01:19:19.820 buying what the intelligence community is selling because they happen to be on your sort of

01:19:25.960 ideological side at any given moment.

01:19:28.560 That's actually-

01:19:29.160 Glenn Greenwald too.

01:19:30.420 Right, Glenn.

01:19:31.160 Yep, that's actually edgy.

01:19:32.460 That's why they're actually interesting, compelling people.

01:19:36.600 And Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart look so hollowed out and sad and are just going back

01:19:43.380 to these same shticks over and over again for like 10 years now in a way that is only funny

01:19:48.740 to like 5% of the country that is still reliving the moral energy they had in 2007 because they

01:19:55.780 were laughing at Jon Stewart for taking down the Bush administration.

01:19:59.540 And it just, it's not the same anymore.

01:20:02.100 It doesn't work anymore.

01:20:03.140 Yeah.

01:20:03.640 I've been on Colbert's show multiple times.

01:20:05.920 I've been on Kimmel's show.

01:20:06.900 I've been on Fallon's show.

01:20:07.960 I've been on Seth Meyers.

01:20:08.840 I've been on all of them.

01:20:09.900 I was on Jay Leno, all of them.

01:20:11.640 And I can affirmatively tell you that Stephen Colbert is not funny.

01:20:14.920 He's not funny behind the scenes.

01:20:16.100 He's not funny on camera.

01:20:17.760 And the only reason he really wanted me is because back when I went on, they would occasionally

01:20:22.320 book journalists.

01:20:23.400 Just ask Brian Williams.

01:20:24.460 It was his downfall.

01:20:25.680 That's right.

01:20:27.100 It's because all of them would occasionally do like news.

01:20:30.220 But it would be like a smattering.

01:20:31.780 You know, we would be like a sprinkle on top of the cake, which the cake was always real

01:20:36.660 celebrities, like actual Hollywood A-listers who would go and be the first two acts.

01:20:41.840 And then you'd come on as a news person, like as the C-team, which is fine.

01:20:46.200 You're a news person.

01:20:46.960 You're not expecting to be the lead act.

01:20:48.680 But they completely lost their mission.

01:20:50.420 And we talked about this when Colbert got canceled last week and the news broke.

01:20:53.720 His lead guest of the night he got canceled was Adam Schiff.

01:20:57.160 Adam Schiff.

01:20:58.980 I got to read you part of what Charles C.W.

01:21:00.860 Cook wrote in National Review about Colbert, because it's so good.

01:21:03.300 But he writes, since the news has promulgated, entertainment analysts have been busy looking

01:21:08.240 for the murder weapon.

01:21:09.440 Some have suggested it was Trump.

01:21:10.660 Others have pointed to political climate, the state of the TV market, the economics of

01:21:14.280 producing a spectacle in contemporary New York.

01:21:16.540 My choice is less complex.

01:21:17.780 The executioner was Stephen Colbert.

01:21:20.280 As the host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was annoying in a direct and palpable sense.

01:21:24.840 He hectored.

01:21:25.360 He sneered.

01:21:25.780 He gatekept for a narrow, pious worldview.

01:21:28.140 And above all else, he sacrificed jocosity, meaning being funny, for ideology, a trade

01:21:36.880 that never, ever pays.

01:21:38.920 Under Colbert's inadequate leadership, the program came to resemble the sort of bedeviled

01:21:42.440 mutt that one might expect if one were to instruct artificial intelligence to produce

01:21:46.520 a chat show, having trained it solely on old episodes of The View.

01:21:50.320 Not only did the product fail to look like America, its architects neither knew what America

01:21:55.120 looked like nor wanted to know.

01:21:57.260 It was insular, smug, and self-serious.

01:22:00.780 And worst of all, it routinely committed the only mortal sin in show business.

01:22:04.680 It was boring.

01:22:06.300 Last but not least, most of this was directly Colbert's fault.

01:22:10.040 The rest was indirectly his fault.

01:22:12.520 Many of the postmortems have noted correctly that Colbert was obsessed with a particular

01:22:15.880 strand of American politics, and that in addition to giving the show a dull Manichean

01:22:20.800 tone, this obsession led him to offer up a surfeit, that means excessive amount, of left-leaning

01:22:27.700 politicians as his guests.

01:22:29.720 Right on.

01:22:30.760 What has received less attention is that his non-political invitees were also habitually

01:22:36.340 dreary.

01:22:37.340 Why?

01:22:38.260 Because in the environment that the Stephen Colbert's of the world have created, they had

01:22:41.620 no choice but to be so.

01:22:42.920 It is indeed true, he writes, that the death of the movie star system has made late shows

01:22:47.620 more difficult to stage.

01:22:49.340 But in the grand scheme of things, this is a red herring.

01:22:52.360 A media universe that was engineered by the likes of Stephen Colbert was always destined

01:22:56.420 to be a media universe in which interesting people sedulously, that means constantly, avoided

01:23:02.960 saying anything of consequence, and in which those who tried to say compelling things were

01:23:08.220 swiftly cut off at the pass.

01:23:10.460 Ultimately, the problem was of demand, not of supply.

01:23:14.680 And he goes on from there.

01:23:15.480 It's a great piece.

01:23:16.760 Charles is so smart with his fancy words.

01:23:18.860 But I get it.

01:23:19.660 I think we get it.

01:23:20.800 And he's not wrong.

01:23:21.600 I'll give you the last word, Emily.

01:23:23.000 Well, I was going to say, I don't know how Charlie had time to watch so much Colbert when

01:23:26.080 he was nose deep in his thesaurus, apparently.

01:23:29.620 All those hours.

01:23:31.000 But he's right.

01:23:31.560 I mean, it was just for a tiny slice of the public, and it was operating on a budget that

01:23:35.940 couldn't possibly sustain that.

01:23:37.880 And it took, you know, I think a big corporation like Paramount, CBS, a long time to reconcile

01:23:43.920 with the death of monoculture.

01:23:45.760 They just they can't do it anymore.

01:23:47.060 And they're not.

01:23:48.000 It doesn't make Colbert a martyr in any way, but we can expect him to be.

01:23:51.780 They're all dinosaurs.

01:23:53.020 They're all getting canceled.

01:23:54.360 Trump actually just posted on Truth Social that he hears Jimmy Jimmy Kimmel is going to

01:23:57.700 be canceled next.

01:23:59.080 That could be Trump actually does have very good sources in television across the board.

01:24:04.140 So he could be right.

01:24:05.260 Kimmel's numbers are also terrible.

01:24:06.640 Fallon's literally are, I mean, in the bottom of the barrel.

01:24:09.740 You can't even see Fallon.

01:24:10.860 He's so far behind the other two and the other two are already losers.

01:24:13.500 So they're not going to be around in five years.

01:24:15.880 None of them will be around.

01:24:17.520 They're too expensive for too little return.

01:24:20.020 The day of the late night talk show host and the late night talk show has passed.

01:24:24.900 It had its heyday.

01:24:26.460 Carson Leno, too, was great.

01:24:28.760 Letterman.

01:24:29.380 Awesome.

01:24:30.180 It's over.

01:24:31.360 Accept it.

01:24:32.340 Move on.

01:24:33.340 Cut your losses.

01:24:34.100 CBS was the first.

01:24:35.980 It won't be the last.

01:24:37.380 Emily stays with me.

01:24:38.320 And we have a fun announcement coming about the other EJ in a moment.

01:24:43.440 That plus Hunter Biden.

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01:26:12.000 Advice.

01:26:12.460 Here with me today, Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party on the MK Media Podcast Network.

01:26:22.560 Just go to wherever you get your podcast, type in After Party or Emily Jashinsky, J-A-S-H.

01:26:28.280 It starts and you will find her show, follow on podcast and watch live on YouTube on Mondays

01:26:34.560 and Wednesdays at 10 p.m.

01:26:35.580 And you can have a beer with Emily.

01:26:37.320 Not everybody gets to do that.

01:26:38.640 Okay.

01:26:38.780 Or a margarita, courtesy of Megan and Doug.

01:26:42.280 That's right.

01:26:43.000 I didn't know that you didn't, you can't drink tequila.

01:26:46.420 So we had a last minute substitution on your margarita.

01:26:49.960 Well, that's a terrible affliction, by the way.

01:26:52.260 Yeah, it's really embarrassing, actually.

01:26:53.780 I'm deeply embarrassed by it.

01:26:56.320 It's like an allergy?

01:26:58.180 Yeah, it's, and I don't know why I'm not allergic to anything.

01:27:00.640 I'm sure I'm going to get all kinds of comments from doctors being like, it's this, it's that,

01:27:04.080 or it's nothing, but truly, trust me, I've, I've experimented many times.

01:27:08.220 It's, it must have been horrible the first time you found that out the hard way.

01:27:11.400 It was.

01:27:12.240 And I was in a tequila phase of my life and I found out even just like a little sip.

01:27:17.140 It doesn't matter.

01:27:18.060 It'll, it doesn't work.

01:27:19.240 It doesn't work anymore.

01:27:20.100 Oh no.

01:27:20.820 Did you look like, like Hitch, like Will Smith in the movie Hitch with like this wool and everything?

01:27:26.020 No, I, I didn't, not quite that bad, but bad enough that I, I can't keep doing it.

01:27:33.160 Okay.

01:27:33.660 Okay, good.

01:27:34.180 Well, got it.

01:27:34.980 The problem was rectified before I served you anything dangerous and I'm thrilled it worked

01:27:39.240 out.

01:27:39.480 Okay.

01:27:39.660 See, this is all the fun you're missing.

01:27:40.760 If you're not watching after party with EJ, um, Hunter Biden, I'm going to kick it off

01:27:45.740 with this comfortably smug of ruthless, such a great guy.

01:27:48.600 He tweeted the following and he's not wrong.

01:27:51.360 Hunter Biden is the Joe Rogan of the left.

01:27:54.380 I wonder if they will realize it.

01:27:57.100 Put Hunter in front of a mic.

01:27:58.600 That's how you save the Democrat party.

01:28:02.140 Kind of true.

01:28:03.020 He's joking, but he was highly entertaining.

01:28:06.040 I mean, a little misguided on pointing the finger at others, many others for doing things

01:28:10.820 that he himself has done exactly and times 10, but fine.

01:28:14.480 It was very entertaining to see him break out the machine gun, the rhetorical machine gun

01:28:20.560 and go after every prominent Democrat who's been in the news lately.

01:28:25.960 Um, maybe we have that sought.

01:28:27.440 Let's see.

01:28:28.200 Uh, I don't know.

01:28:30.320 It's not 12.

01:28:30.780 Let's try.

01:28:31.120 Let's start with stock 12.

01:28:33.300 Fuck him.

01:28:34.800 Fuck him.

01:28:35.780 Fuck him.

01:28:36.580 And everybody around him don't have to be fucking nice.

01:28:39.800 Number one, I agree with Quentin Tarantino.

01:28:41.940 Fucking George Clooney is not a fucking actor.

01:28:44.560 He is a fucking, like, I don't know what he is.

01:28:47.880 He, he, he's a brand.

01:28:49.480 Fuck you.

01:28:50.180 What do you have to do with fucking anything?

01:28:51.880 Why do I have to fucking listen to you?

01:28:53.420 We, me and James Carville, who hasn't run a race in 40 fucking years.

01:28:57.980 And David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama.

01:29:03.340 And that was because of Barack Obama, not because of fucking David Axelrod.

01:29:06.440 And David Plouffe, and all of these guys, and the Pod Save America guys, who were junior

01:29:10.660 fucking speech writers in, um, uh, you know, on Barack Obama's Senate staff, who have been 0.91

01:29:15.900 dining out on the, on the relationship with him for years, making millions of dollars.

01:29:20.600 The Anita Dunns of the world, who's made 40, 50 million dollars off the Democratic Party. 0.98

01:29:25.680 They're all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody

01:29:31.280 else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, and how to garner

01:29:35.320 more votes than any president that has ever won.

01:29:37.500 What influence does Jake Tapper have over anything?

01:29:39.580 He has the smallest audience on cable news.

01:29:42.240 And beyond that, I think that the book is right now on Amazon that he put out.

01:29:46.300 I mean, his ratings just went to shit after he put the book out.

01:29:49.840 You know, they did a two-week infomercial for it.

01:29:52.340 I mean, it was such a money grab.

01:29:53.720 You know, you feel like you, you, you might like him if you had dinner with him, you know,

01:29:58.660 like maybe just a drink, like a short, well, maybe he, he can't, maybe if he had, he did

01:30:02.500 his crack and you had your non-tequila drink, you could have an interesting conversation

01:30:06.560 for 10 minutes.

01:30:07.580 He's not wrong about what, anything he said there.

01:30:10.980 No, this is the thing, like there's something very serious in what Smug said, uh, because

01:30:15.120 right now, Jamie Harrison, former head of the DNC, his first guest on his new podcast was

01:30:19.200 Hunter Biden, but it was, it was a much different conversation than Hunter had with Callahan.

01:30:23.480 And, uh, in, in this conversation, what you see is a man who he's completely wrong to frame

01:30:30.900 himself as a victim of the political establishment.

01:30:33.740 Like that is absolutely laughable.

01:30:35.140 It is true that Jake Tapper and others in the political establishment decided to aim their

01:30:40.020 fire at Hunter Biden.

01:30:41.060 And as soon as it was clear, the Biden family was no longer going to be in a position of

01:30:44.900 power.

01:30:45.340 So yes, it's true that there was this big book by a major CNN anchor that was going after

01:30:49.340 the family.

01:30:49.860 Of course, it only happened after they were out of power, but what Hunter Biden is doing

01:30:54.000 there is attacking the democratic establishment.

01:30:57.920 He is actually believably, even though he's wrong about like 90% of the stuff that just came

01:31:03.460 out of his mouth, he's believable in his sentiments.

01:31:07.300 And he comes across as like authentically angry.

01:31:10.960 And by the way, he was spitting some facts about the pod save bros.

01:31:14.500 Like he was, he was cooking.

01:31:15.540 Those guys do live in their like Hollywood mansions and then tell the democratic party

01:31:20.820 what it needs to do to regain the trust of voters, um, based on their experience in Washington,

01:31:25.800 uh, 10 plus years ago at this point.

01:31:28.140 So he's not entirely wrong about that, but I think what the truth, the kernel of truth,

01:31:33.180 I should say in smugs point is that what Jamie Harrison is never, ever, ever going to do

01:31:38.140 is sincerely attack the political establishment.

01:31:41.320 And that's why people like Joe Rogan period.

01:31:45.240 God, that's so right.

01:31:46.460 That's so right.

01:31:47.060 So, so by the way, this other guy, Jamie needs to understand that the first rule of news is

01:31:52.040 when you make news, put out the news, don't sit on the news.

01:31:55.740 Don't wait months to release the news.

01:31:57.480 You will get scooped on the news.

01:31:59.340 So there is your news lesson of the day from a news person, Jamie.

01:32:03.160 He had Hunter Biden long before this YouTuber Callahan had him and he didn't put out the news

01:32:10.460 and the news was very interesting.

01:32:12.880 It was Hunter Biden trying to tell us what actually happened between George Clooney and Joe Biden

01:32:19.340 at that LA fundraiser.

01:32:21.640 And it's a very different story than the one George Clooney and Jake Tapper have been telling us.

01:32:27.480 Here it is.

01:32:29.340 George Clooney, before that event, and it literally threatened to pull out of the event.

01:32:37.860 How many times?

01:32:39.220 Five, six times over and over again, saying that he was so upset because my dad refused to recognize

01:32:47.060 the arrest warrant for Netanyahu and would not commit to not allowing Netanyahu to enter the country

01:32:55.320 after the ICC warrant went out for his arrest.

01:33:00.660 And the reason is, is that George Clooney, as if we were supposed to know this,

01:33:03.980 is because his wife was one of the principal architects of that, of that warrant.

01:33:08.800 Anytime they're doing these pictures, as you know, there's somebody standing next to the president.

01:33:13.000 Mr. President.

01:33:13.720 Says Mr. President.

01:33:14.600 Jamie Harrison, chair of the-

01:33:15.820 George Clooney.

01:33:16.400 Yeah, right.

01:33:16.980 Not because my dad didn't know who George Clooney was, because I was literally whispering,

01:33:19.980 literally, I was whispering in his ear saying, Dad, fuck him.

01:33:23.260 And he claims in his arrogance that my dad, the president of the United States,

01:33:29.260 didn't know who the actor was.

01:33:32.600 And to say something that is so patently untrue in order to justify what you did afterwards

01:33:38.660 is cowardly, is weak.

01:33:43.980 Very interesting.

01:33:45.460 He's saying that his dad, if you heard the longer clip, he's saying, of course,

01:33:49.180 Joe Biden knew who George Clooney was, A, because he's George Clooney, but B, because

01:33:52.820 there had been this ongoing threat by Clooney not to attend the fundraiser,

01:33:56.980 including four or five emails and exchanges just in the days leading up to the fundraiser,

01:34:01.120 because he was so angry that Joe Biden wasn't going to enforce the arrest warrant from the ICC

01:34:07.140 that Amal Clooney orchestrated working for the U.N.

01:34:10.820 You know, she's supposed to be this human rights lawyer. 1.00

01:34:13.600 So she wanted to see Netanyahu arrested.

01:34:16.660 She wanted Joe Biden to do what she said he had to do.

01:34:20.640 And Biden wasn't doing it.

01:34:22.500 And Hunter says George Clooney made this a big thing.

01:34:25.460 He actually tried to use it as leverage, like his appearance at the fundraiser,

01:34:30.000 tried to use that as leverage to make him do the arrest of Netanyahu.

01:34:33.780 So Hunter's overall point is, of course, he knew who George Clooney was.

01:34:36.900 This is bullshit.

01:34:37.780 And George Clooney just had his stupid star nose in it out of joint because his sweet

01:34:43.120 Amal didn't get her way.

01:34:45.180 Very interesting stuff.

01:34:47.220 It is really interesting.

01:34:48.180 I mean, it's a completely different story.

01:34:49.480 And it's one that's super newsy because it also, as you just outlined, involves the

01:34:53.460 president of the United States being threatened by a donor and Hollywood celebrity over this

01:34:58.800 arrest warrant for a sensibly an ally of the United States of America, somebody who Biden

01:35:04.480 was aligning himself with.

01:35:06.120 So it's a much more interesting story, a much more newsy story this way.

01:35:10.840 And it makes you wonder who the source is in the Tapper book, because it now sounds like

01:35:17.420 it probably came from Clooney's camp, given that Clooney.

01:35:20.120 It's clearly George Clooney.

01:35:21.280 And Clooney, if he's being honest, has been around these lines, these meet and greet lines.

01:35:28.380 It should have been more than a meet and greet because it was probably a smaller group if

01:35:31.780 he was the big headliner in this fundraiser.

01:35:34.700 But he knows that you have Gary from Veep whispering in the president's ear, George Clooney.

01:35:40.160 So if he said if he leaked that, it's pretty interesting because he knows that if they're

01:35:45.780 saying, Mr. President George Clooney, they're not saying, Mr. President, don't you know this

01:35:50.720 is George Clooney?

01:35:51.680 They're just they're just kind of at the same time.

01:35:54.680 Should you really have to say, Mr. President George Clooney?

01:35:57.440 Probably not.

01:35:58.160 Maybe Biden had that very familiar, vacant look in his eyes.

01:36:01.200 But I get that.

01:36:02.660 But what what Hunter seems to be saying here is that Clooney had a motive to lie.

01:36:06.600 He was pissed at Joe Biden and he had a motive on top of, you know, just his eyes and ears

01:36:13.260 and what he saw with Joe Biden to bring him down.

01:36:16.020 He was pissed off about the Amal thing.

01:36:18.080 And not only did he lie in his op ed, but he lied when he obviously talked to Jake Tapper

01:36:22.260 and maybe Alex Thompson in the working of that book.

01:36:25.740 And honestly, it would have been valuable for Hunter to come out before now.

01:36:29.020 I don't think he could have saved his father, but it's very interesting to hear him as obviously

01:36:32.700 a smart man.

01:36:33.500 He's articulate and he's smart.

01:36:35.140 You can hear him putting, you know, his thoughts together in a persuasive way.

01:36:39.260 It's probably less compelling when he uses it here in SOT 16.

01:36:43.300 But I'll let you be the judge.

01:36:47.320 The only difference between crack cocaine and cocaine is sodium biocarbonate and water and

01:36:52.800 heat.

01:36:53.500 Literally, that's it.

01:36:54.780 And those things are pretty much free if you go to like a science store.

01:36:58.520 This is free.

01:36:59.240 You can go to a, your neighborhood convenience store and just get, anyway, I don't want to

01:37:06.580 tell people how to make, how to make crack cocaine, but it literally is a managed jar

01:37:10.640 of cocaine and baking soda.

01:37:12.100 How different is the experience?

01:37:13.420 Oh, it's vastly, vastly different.

01:37:15.320 And like for real, I, I, I feel really reluctant to kind of have some euphoric discussion.

01:37:22.080 I know you're not asking me to do that, but have some euphoric discussion about crack cocaine.

01:37:26.800 I think this might be kind of the opposite here.

01:37:28.620 Okay.

01:37:28.840 No, I, it's the exact opposite.

01:37:30.660 I'm saying I don't want to have the experience of some euphoric recall.

01:37:36.060 That's how powerful crack cocaine is.

01:37:38.660 Does crack cocaine make you act any differently?

01:37:41.340 No.

01:37:41.820 Is it safer than alcohol?

01:37:44.540 Probably.

01:37:45.160 People think of crack as being dirty.

01:37:47.260 It's the exact opposite.

01:37:48.700 When you make crack, what you're doing is you're burning off all the impurities so that

01:37:52.800 it could bind with the sodium bicarbonate, which makes it smokable.

01:37:56.260 That's all.

01:37:58.560 I'm now sending you crack at tomorrow's after party.

01:38:02.220 I think we've settled.

01:38:04.120 We're done with the tequila.

01:38:05.720 We're moving on to crack cocaine.

01:38:07.860 It's got to be clean, Megan.

01:38:09.560 So that's actually, it sounds like a good plan.

01:38:12.480 Crack is the new maha. 0.99

01:38:14.460 That's, that's where the public health conversation needs to go.

01:38:18.620 Someone I'm cribbing from Twitter again.

01:38:20.240 This was so funny and I wish I could give credit to whoever said this, but they were like,

01:38:23.480 that was like watching LeBron James talk about basketball, listening to Hunter Biden talk about

01:38:27.340 crack.

01:38:28.700 And I will say some of their conversation about addiction, I found to be genuinely compelling

01:38:35.100 and moving.

01:38:36.340 And Hunter Biden is clearly very smart.

01:38:37.960 And he has had a hell of a life starting with that crazy car accident and all of the things

01:38:42.860 that his family has been through, awful, crazy stuff, wild stuff.

01:38:48.420 But it is sort of, this is a really hot take, what the Democratic Party needs in a way that

01:38:53.960 reminds me of what, I know it's apples and oranges, but there's, there is something here

01:38:59.020 with, with Donald Trump coming down the golden escalator in 2015 and calling bullshit on everything

01:39:05.020 that Jeb Bush and these establishment Republicans were saying in front of the public and kind

01:39:10.800 of hashing out, forcing them to confront, um, the, the problems that had been brewing and

01:39:17.140 had gone unaddressed.

01:39:18.240 I mean, the 2012 Republican autopsy after Mitt Romney lost, uh, was basically a prescription

01:39:23.420 of what not to do, but everyone here in DC thought it was exactly what you should do.

01:39:27.780 Uh, and so Hunter Biden coming in and kind of, you know, uh, spearing some of the sacred

01:39:34.020 cows in the Democratic Party, um, it actually might help jostle something better loose as crazy 0.97

01:39:40.380 as that sounds.

01:39:41.420 Uh, it might be kind of, it's, it's like crack.

01:39:44.400 It's what the doctor ordered, Megan.

01:39:45.560 Yeah, it's the problem is when you really delve into it, you know, what he's criticizing

01:39:49.980 is like people like Anita Dunn who made $40 million off the Democrat party. 1.00

01:39:54.500 Um, hello, hello, McFly.

01:39:59.200 What, what have you been doing for your entire adult life?

01:40:03.460 Do we have to talk about what was on that laptop and how he was just a grifter off of 0.74

01:40:07.480 his dad's name and the, you know, the Biden corruption.

01:40:09.560 All right, last but not least, I've got to get this in before we go.

01:40:11.840 The other EJ, Eliana Johnson has been off because she had a baby.

01:40:17.620 She's had a new baby boy.

01:40:20.140 His name is Louis.

01:40:21.700 He's six weeks old and here she is with little Louis and older sister, Arielle.

01:40:27.320 God bless them.

01:40:28.480 Good luck to them.

01:40:29.820 Beautiful and growing family.

01:40:31.480 So happy for her.

01:40:32.720 He's so cute.

01:40:34.280 I know.

01:40:34.900 So hopefully she'll be, I didn't even know she was pregnant. 0.91

01:40:36.780 I never get to see her, you know, cause I only get to see the top half of you gals 1.00

01:40:39.780 and it's very rare to see her, but she was pregnant and she had a baby and I'm so excited

01:40:43.760 for her.

01:40:44.620 Yeah.

01:40:44.780 She's a hard worker.

01:40:45.560 You'd never know.

01:40:46.860 I know she's, she's nose to the grindstone.

01:40:48.740 All right.

01:40:49.340 Emily's going to stick around.

01:40:50.280 We're going to continue this discussion because obviously we're not done with Hunter.

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01:41:45.360 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

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01:42:43.740 Offer details apply.

01:42:44.840 And I'll tell you what, I know exactly what happened in that debate.

01:42:50.120 He flew around the world, basically, and the mileage that he could have flown around the

01:42:54.260 world three times.

01:42:55.240 Yeah.

01:42:55.480 He's 81 years old.

01:42:56.820 He's tired as shit.

01:42:58.160 Give him Ambien to be able to sleep.

01:43:00.140 He gets up on the stage and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights.

01:43:03.160 And it feeds into every fucking story that anybody wants to tell.

01:43:06.660 And Jake Tapper with literally how many anonymous sources.

01:43:10.440 If this was a conspiracy, Andrew, you know this, somehow the entirety of a White House

01:43:17.760 in which you literally living on top of each other has kept their mouth shut about, you

01:43:22.820 know, like what?

01:43:23.560 And what's a conspiracy?

01:43:24.700 Yeah.

01:43:24.960 That Joe Biden got old?

01:43:26.580 Yeah, he got old.

01:43:28.240 He got old before our eyes.

01:43:31.040 Okay.

01:43:31.660 So the news that Biden was on Ambien heading into that debate is new.

01:43:38.740 No one knew that.

01:43:39.500 And many people are asking how much Ambien he was on because the debate took place two

01:43:44.440 weeks after he had returned stateside from that international trip.

01:43:48.280 He'd been hauled up at Camp David.

01:43:50.140 So, you know, the internet asking how much Ambien had he possibly taken?

01:43:54.540 My God, this sort of hangover effect.

01:43:58.980 I will give you one.

01:44:00.140 He's he rips on Pod Save America, and I'll get to them in a second.

01:44:02.460 But there was a funny response to the whole thing from Tommy Veeder, who's on that podcast

01:44:06.320 as follows.

01:44:07.180 It's good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward and

01:44:12.180 hold himself accountable for how his family's insular, dare I say, arrogant at times approach 0.89

01:44:16.180 to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we're all now living with.

01:44:21.080 It was good.

01:44:22.240 It was good.

01:44:22.740 Your thoughts on the news that it was the Ambien, Emily.

01:44:26.000 It was the Ambien.

01:44:26.820 You know, Sam Stein, he actually is at the Bulwark now, pointed out the timeline here is crazy

01:44:33.880 because the Europe trip, I think, was over by a week plus before the actual debate itself.

01:44:41.820 Biden had everyone remembers this because it was so bizarre at the time, which was bizarrely

01:44:46.960 only a year ago, but he had been holed up at Camp David for the week before the debate.

01:44:51.800 And everyone was thinking, what is going on?

01:44:54.200 He needs a week to do debate prep at Camp David.

01:44:57.960 Like he's not even at the White House.

01:44:59.780 This is very strange.

01:45:01.300 He's clearly taking this seriously.

01:45:03.560 But he needs a full week.

01:45:05.960 And the idea that that he was he had been back for 13 days.

01:45:09.860 He had been back from Europe for 13 days.

01:45:11.500 He'd been at Camp David for seven days.

01:45:13.800 I mean, so, again, this is just an argument against him being the president of the United

01:45:18.860 States if he needs that level of a drug cocktail to recover for two weeks after a trip to Europe

01:45:26.420 where you're representing, you are not just representing, you are governing on behalf of

01:45:30.920 the American people.

01:45:32.000 Like that's not just an argument for a poor debate performance, although I think politically,

01:45:36.100 just to go back to this comparison we're drawing between Hunter and Donald Trump,

01:45:39.620 if Hunter at the time had come out and been like, hey, my dad was on Ambien, everyone

01:45:44.100 would have been like, oh, yeah, that makes way more sense.

01:45:46.520 Please stop trying to tell us he had a cold.

01:45:48.860 Like there's something to just like getting rid of this faux like it's just a scripted

01:45:56.120 Democratic Party talking point bullshit that Trump kind of got rid of in the Republican

01:46:00.900 Party.

01:46:01.280 And now Dems have this handicap because they still nobody has forced them to get rid of it

01:46:05.840 yet.

01:46:06.060 And it's why they're so bad on shows like Rogan.

01:46:08.460 You're so right.

01:46:09.480 It's so interesting to hear a Democrat saying what he thinks is the truth.

01:46:13.560 And I believe him that Biden was on Ambien.

01:46:15.960 And I realize he's using it as an excuse and a crutch.

01:46:18.400 But still, it is interesting to hear a Democrat just completely saying like all that stuff he

01:46:22.960 said about Anita Dunn and the pod save guys and George Clooney.

01:46:26.800 You know, it's true.

01:46:27.740 I mean, he had a good point.

01:46:28.960 Like, who is this asshole to tell Joe Biden who'd been in service for 52 years in the public

01:46:34.020 eye when it's time to step down?

01:46:36.240 Like, that would have been a great response at the time.

01:46:40.380 He should have brought that howitzer out this time last year.

01:46:44.540 It was literally a year ago yesterday that Biden stepped down.

01:46:47.180 And can I say that's actually also interesting because it reminds me a little bit of how Republican

01:46:51.460 candidates were with Fox News back in 2015.

01:46:54.540 And Trump, like, why would nobody else say what Hunter Biden just said about the pod save

01:46:58.860 guys?

01:46:59.340 It's because they want to, at least in the sort of Democratic Party establishment, it's

01:47:03.760 because they don't want the pod save guys with a very popular podcast to go after them.

01:47:08.040 They want to be able to go on the show.

01:47:09.260 They want to not get criticized by these guys.

01:47:11.320 And it does remind me again, a little bit of what Trump just blew up on the right back

01:47:15.540 in 2015.

01:47:16.060 He went after Fox News like right away.

01:47:18.920 I mean, he had his own motivations for doing it.

01:47:20.700 Yeah, I'm sure you do.

01:47:22.200 He had his own motivations for doing it.

01:47:24.080 But that sort of created a permission structure where everyone just got freer and looser.

01:47:28.960 And it ended up being better for the Republican Party in terms of, like, sharpening its policy

01:47:34.100 positions and leveling with voters at least more than it had been before.

01:47:38.780 And that's an interesting observation.

01:47:42.160 Yeah, you're so spot on.

01:47:43.400 Here, we've been teasing it.

01:47:44.440 Here's him slamming the pod save guys.

01:47:47.260 He went on.

01:47:48.280 But here's part of it.

01:47:49.080 Sot 14.

01:47:50.520 For some reason, the intelligentsia of the Democratic Party with 2020 hindsight believes that Joe

01:47:59.160 Biden should have considered not running again because of their perception that he was too

01:48:06.800 old.

01:48:07.200 And so then the drumbeat began.

01:48:10.460 And the New York Post wrote, I mean, the New York Times, on a near daily basis, egged on

01:48:18.060 by the pod save America saviors of the Democratic Party with, what, four white millionaires that

01:48:29.360 are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly fucking 0.89

01:48:38.700 hills, telling the rest of the world what black voters in South Carolina really want.

01:48:42.980 They're trying to take South Carolina away as the first primary state.

01:48:46.860 The first time in history that the heart and soul of the Democratic Party gets to have its voice

01:48:54.280 heard first after 50 years of Iowa and New Hampshire with 3% black population states.

01:49:03.780 I thought it was less.

01:49:05.320 Less than that.

01:49:06.160 New Hampshire's got to be closer to one.

01:49:07.820 Closer to one.

01:49:08.460 I saw a few blacks in my house.

01:49:09.320 Finally.

01:49:09.940 And you know what?

01:49:10.620 You know what you have?

01:49:11.600 You have the pod save America motherfuckers saying, you know, I don't think South Carolina

01:49:15.300 was only there because of Joe Biden and Joe Biden, and that's what he did to save his own

01:49:19.840 cell.

01:49:20.400 His cell.

01:49:20.880 Why should South Carolina have the body? 0.79

01:49:22.640 What the fuck?

01:49:23.900 I mean, are they out of their fucking minds?

01:49:27.160 He's a lawyer.

01:49:28.000 I hope he wasn't like this in court.

01:49:29.380 That doesn't work as well with the judge.

01:49:31.060 What the fuck, your honor?

01:49:33.960 I mean, he's like, this is Hunter's moment and he knows it.

01:49:37.840 It's like America is ready for Hunter Biden.

01:49:41.100 And I genuinely think that that's true because Democrats are right now, like in political

01:49:46.280 playbook this morning, Democrats were talking about what a disaster Hunter Biden was because

01:49:51.100 they felt like they had energy talking about Trump and the Epstein story, that there was

01:49:56.120 all this momentum.

01:49:57.460 Ball was in the Democrats court going after hammering Trump on the Epstein stuff.

01:50:00.800 And then Hunter comes in and starts sucking up a bunch of oxygen with this unnecessary three

01:50:05.260 hour interview with Andrew Callahan.

01:50:06.660 But actually, there's something interesting about that, which is they don't I mean, of

01:50:11.280 course, it's bad for the Democrats, the centrist Democrats who are leaking to playbook

01:50:16.600 because their power is threatened by Hunter Biden.

01:50:20.480 As silly as that sounds, Hunter Biden now has nothing to lose because he knows that his

01:50:25.180 family is not like completely is out of power.

01:50:28.420 There is no more Biden dynasty or aspirations for a Biden dynasty.

01:50:32.680 James Biden, Frank Biden, Valerie Biden.

01:50:34.840 And they don't have power in the lobbying world anymore because they can't trade on their name

01:50:39.600 in the same way they used to be able to.

01:50:41.220 So he's now sort of unfettered and free to go out there and say whatever you want.

01:50:45.100 That is free to the dumb establishment.

01:50:47.240 Free things that pardon his dad gave him before he left office, the blanket pardon.

01:50:53.420 So, Emily, what you're saying is that I should reach out to him about joining the MK

01:50:56.680 Media Podcast Network.

01:50:58.060 Is that what you're doing?

01:50:58.800 That's what I hear.

01:50:59.760 I mean, that's that's my advice.

01:51:01.280 But I have to imagine, Megan, you think that's a good idea, too.

01:51:03.600 Yeah, I'm sure people would watch it.

01:51:06.180 I'm going to I feel like it's not on brand, but I bet he would do well if he came over

01:51:11.080 and probably would really stir up Hunter Biden.

01:51:15.580 Not going to lie.

01:51:16.340 Probably listen.

01:51:17.100 I'd probably download it at least for a time.

01:51:19.260 Emily, thank you.

01:51:20.100 A pleasure.

01:51:21.200 See you soon.

01:51:22.160 Thanks, Megan.

01:51:23.540 OK, so she had a run because she's got a lot of work to do. 0.99

01:51:26.220 She's got another show.

01:51:27.560 She's got a couple of other shows.

01:51:28.660 But we're going to keep going here because we do have, for example, a response from the

01:51:33.640 pod Save America guys to the attack that the foul mouth Hunter Biden launched on them.

01:51:38.680 And here's that in Sop 14B.

01:51:40.640 It must be just so hard for Hunter Biden to watch all these people dining out on somebody's

01:51:45.500 name.

01:51:46.440 You are on the board of Burisma because of who your dad is.

01:51:49.780 And that is what people hate about Washington.

01:51:52.320 And it was part of the problem.

01:51:54.580 One thing we know is that Hunter Biden throughout Joe Biden's presidency was a terrible liability

01:52:00.780 for him.

01:52:01.760 You should be ashamed of the ways in which you made your father's political life worse.

01:52:07.380 And like the idea that we're going to listen to you now.

01:52:09.880 Like, give me a fucking brace.

01:52:11.180 Ridiculous.

01:52:11.900 I know you're angry personally, but you're not the fucking victim here.

01:52:16.080 We're all living with what happened in this election.

01:52:18.640 And you got a pardon.

01:52:19.660 You're fine.

01:52:20.220 It's just an utter lack of self-awareness.

01:52:23.620 It's the shamelessness that really gets you in the end.

01:52:28.280 So he won't be welcomed with open arms by the more establishment type Dems.

01:52:34.440 You can see the war unfolding over there on the left.

01:52:37.680 And it's interesting.

01:52:38.580 I mean, it's very interesting.

01:52:39.640 I don't it doesn't seem to me like Hunter Biden's done talking.

01:52:42.060 He's welcome to do some of that talking right here.

01:52:45.440 I think we'd have a very interesting conversation anytime.

01:52:48.280 Come on.

01:52:48.680 We'll give you a fair shot.

01:52:50.660 OK, moving on.

01:52:51.780 Not from Hunter.

01:52:52.620 I want to get play a couple more.

01:52:54.140 Here he is with thoughts on why we should keep illegals in the country. 1.00

01:52:59.320 Stop 15.

01:53:00.680 All these Democrats say you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about

01:53:05.900 illegal immigration.

01:53:07.400 Fuck you.

01:53:08.520 How do you think your hotel room gets cleaned?

01:53:10.500 How do you think you got food on your fucking table?

01:53:13.360 Who do you think washes your dishes? 1.00

01:53:15.340 Who do you think does your fucking garden? 0.82

01:53:17.040 Who do you think is here by the fucking sheer fucking just grit and will that they figured

01:53:25.820 out a way to get here because they thought that they could give themselves and their family

01:53:29.800 a better chance?

01:53:30.640 And he's somehow convinced all of us that these people are the fucking criminals.

01:53:35.460 OK, so once again, it's a leftist.

01:53:39.480 How many of them have we seen exposing his racism on camera in defending illegals that 0.98

01:53:45.520 every single time?

01:53:46.880 Remember, we saw the one Dem saying who's going to wipe your ass actually on camera?

01:53:51.020 Who's going to wipe your ass? 0.98

01:53:51.940 Like when you're older and you need help, this guy, who's going to who's going to clean your

01:53:55.960 hotel room?

01:53:56.740 They're all illegals. 1.00

01:53:58.160 I'm like, who's going to tend to your garden?

01:53:59.780 I mean, I've got gardeners that they're legal.

01:54:02.480 We make sure that the people who come on our property are legal, are here legally for many

01:54:07.520 reasons.

01:54:08.320 Morally, it's right.

01:54:09.360 Legally, it's right.

01:54:10.300 And I'm a public figure and I don't need that bullshit coming into my life.

01:54:14.060 Um, honestly, like Abby will tell you, she's our first screener for anybody who wants to

01:54:17.760 work for me.

01:54:18.160 And, you know, in the home context, we make sure that everybody who comes here is legal.

01:54:22.760 What?

01:54:23.260 How about you, Hunter?

01:54:24.580 Who have you been having working on the Biden family estate?

01:54:27.020 A bunch of illegals because I'm going to send Tom Holman to come visit you. 1.00

01:54:30.100 This isn't going to help me in my quest to get an interview with him.

01:54:32.440 But in any event, it's amazing.

01:54:34.380 This is where the Democrats always go, that every Hispanic who's here is like some absolute 1.00

01:54:40.280 low life, who's wiping ass and working in like the hotel janitorial. 0.93

01:54:47.180 Now, there's anything wrong with that, but they can't envision a Hispanic person who came

01:54:51.360 to the United States legally or otherwise ascending to anything higher than menial labor.

01:54:56.440 That's that's how they view them.

01:54:58.380 That's how they talk about them.

01:55:00.200 Um, and I think it's really, truly their own racism because just because you're here illegally 0.98

01:55:05.080 doesn't mean you're not capable of more than that.

01:55:07.520 It's tough, but there are plenty of left wing employers who will employ you and give you

01:55:11.460 a shot.

01:55:12.020 But in the minds of these Dems, they never ascend above the bottom rung of American labor.

01:55:18.200 And they use this as a tool to try to stop the deportations.

01:55:22.740 I'm sorry.

01:55:23.760 Some of these folks actually come here as doctors from their home countries.

01:55:28.420 And then, yes, rightfully, we make it a little difficult for them to get jobs and ascend to

01:55:32.460 that same post here.

01:55:33.600 But go back home.

01:55:35.220 The answer is to go back home where your medical degree counts not to stay here.

01:55:40.740 Um, okay.

01:55:41.660 Last but not least, he's got thoughts on why the Democrats lost the election.

01:55:46.320 And I'll play that.

01:55:47.380 This is from a different interview.

01:55:48.420 The one we were watching was from Andrew Callahan, who's got a YouTube channel called

01:55:52.020 Channel 5.

01:55:52.940 And I played you one from the podcast with the former head of the DNC, Jamie Harrison,

01:55:57.840 um, who just launched his podcast.

01:56:00.240 Because the Democrats have decided that this guy, Harrison, is their new Joe Rogan.

01:56:03.600 He literally has 400 followers, 400 at his YouTube channel.

01:56:08.000 So it's not going that well because he's interviewed Hunter.

01:56:11.160 And who else did he have?

01:56:12.480 Somebody else.

01:56:14.040 Uh, Tim Walsh.

01:56:15.360 Okay.

01:56:15.960 And with all that, he's gotten 400 followers.

01:56:18.700 In any event, here is Hunter telling Jamie Harrison, uh, why he thinks the Dems lost the

01:56:24.400 presidential election in SOD 18.

01:56:27.720 And I will tell you why we lost the last election.

01:56:30.860 We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party.

01:56:36.800 That's my position.

01:56:38.140 We had the advantage of incumbency.

01:56:40.260 We had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration.

01:56:44.340 And the Democratic Party literally melted down.

01:56:49.100 Yeah.

01:56:49.280 And, uh, or portions of it, portions of it.

01:56:53.700 Okay.

01:56:55.180 This is just revisionist history.

01:56:57.580 Joe Biden, no matter what he says, ambien or not, lost his ability to run for re-election

01:57:02.640 the night of that debate.

01:57:04.040 It had been building in the news for quite some time.

01:57:06.260 The entire news media and Democratic establishment was running cover for Joe Biden to try to tell

01:57:12.120 us not to believe our lying eyes.

01:57:13.560 We had seen the whole public, nearly 80% had been pulled and they saw that he was too old.

01:57:21.240 That was the nice way of putting it to run for re-election.

01:57:24.140 It is a joke to suggest that that man had another four years in him as the president of the United

01:57:30.600 States.

01:57:31.120 So while Hunter Biden may be speaking some truths to Democratic power, he is not speaking the truth

01:57:37.280 there.

01:57:37.920 They did not lose the election because they abandoned Joe Biden.

01:57:41.660 They lost it because they didn't have a primary and find some actual vibrant candidate to run

01:57:47.920 anyone with a pulse for that matter.

01:57:50.940 Um, they kept him in too long and then they replaced him with a completely banal, uninteresting,

01:57:57.700 rather stupid, empty candidate who had absolutely no authenticity.

01:58:03.180 That's why they lost.

01:58:04.720 Simple.

01:58:05.420 That's the truth.

01:58:06.280 Not what he just said.

01:58:07.280 All right.

01:58:08.240 Last but not least, Epstein, Emily mentioned Epstein at the tail end of our conversation.

01:58:14.200 There's news on that today.

01:58:16.080 And this is real news.

01:58:17.660 We've been talking about how the DOJ says it's going to move and has moved now to unseal

01:58:22.320 the grand jury, uh, transcripts from the Epstein indictment in 2019 and the Ghislaine Maxwell indictment

01:58:28.680 that happened a couple of years thereafter.

01:58:29.880 And no one's expecting any real bombshells to come out of that, but you know, okay, it's

01:58:34.280 something it's more, feels more like a fig leaf, frankly.

01:58:36.680 But now, um, the number two guy, Todd Blanchett, DOJ has announced that Pam Bondi and he, I believe

01:58:44.900 have, are going to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell.

01:58:47.960 They're meeting with her and they are giving her the chance.

01:58:51.220 They're using the word testify.

01:58:52.860 So I'm not sure what that means.

01:58:54.940 There's no active proceeding that's open.

01:58:57.440 She's got an appeal present, but one would not testify in context of an appeal.

01:59:01.860 So perhaps simply as a deposition or while under oath, uh, about Epstein to tell, you know,

01:59:08.480 the full story.

01:59:09.840 Now we're talking that could get interesting.

01:59:13.080 Uh, and of course you could put it on pay-per-view and fund Trump's presidential library with the

01:59:19.160 proceeds.

01:59:19.740 You could fund pretty much anything.

01:59:21.200 We could pay probably the national debt for what people would, would pay to, to hear

01:59:27.420 that.

01:59:28.320 Uh, so that's something that's real, that really could pay dividends.

01:59:33.440 I don't know whether it will, but the administration is doing a much better job of doing the kinds

01:59:39.140 of things that should, I don't know if they will, but that should satisfy the Epstein skeptics.

01:59:45.600 And they're not conspiracy theorists, the ones who genuinely have questions about what went

01:59:50.300 on there.

01:59:51.300 So anyway, thumbs up for that development and we'll continue to monitor a monitor how and

01:59:56.340 when.

01:59:56.520 And if that actually happens, she also sent out a tweet.

02:00:00.860 Her lawyer did saying something to the effect of, she looks forward to working with the

02:00:04.360 administration, like to make sure justice is done, something like that.

02:00:06.780 It definitely sounded like she's fishing for a pardon.

02:00:08.840 Even, I don't really care what her motivation is.

02:00:11.600 Like, I don't know.

02:00:13.680 I guess we do care about her punishment, but like, is it more important to you that she

02:00:19.200 sits in jail for the next 20 years or that she tell the full scoop on Epstein?

02:00:24.620 There'd have to be a proffer if she was going to get any sort of a pardon based on telling

02:00:29.080 the full truth.

02:00:29.600 It's like, we'd have to see what she's going to say because you can't give her immunity

02:00:33.040 and then have her give up nothing.

02:00:34.920 But things are getting more interesting on the Jeffrey Epstein front and I'll leave it

02:00:38.880 at that.

02:00:39.420 We'll see you tomorrow for Kelly's Court.

02:00:40.780 Brian Kohlberger gets sentenced.

02:00:44.840 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

02:00:46.680 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:00:59.600 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 22, 2025

New Revelations Connect Obama to Russiagate Hoax, and Hunter Biden Starts Dem Civil War, with Matt Taibbi and Emily Jashinsky ｜ Ep. 1113

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