The Megyn Kelly Show - Rittenhouse Media Insanity and the Dangers of China, with Sen. Tom Cotton, Jason Whitlock, and Jesse Singal ｜ Ep. 208

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.640 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.860 We are beginning at this hour to learn a bit more about the awful attack last night on people attending a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

00:00:25.120 A community tradition they have been doing every year for the past 60 years.

00:00:28.820 Have you heard about this?

00:00:30.000 Have you seen the video?

00:00:31.400 My God.

00:00:32.680 As of right now, we know that five people were killed, more than 40 injured after a driver plowed into a crowd.

00:00:39.840 And if you see the video, you see this red truck going so fast.

00:00:43.800 I mean, the folks did not stand a chance.

00:00:46.760 We don't know the ages yet of those who were killed, but among the injured, at least, are children.

00:00:53.540 You can see there's one video circulating online where there's a little girl and she's clearly,

00:00:58.700 Oh, she looks like three, I mean, three and a half, four at the max.

00:01:01.700 And the truck just misses her. 1.00

00:01:04.880 But then it plows into a whole group of marchers where they're celebrating. 0.85

00:01:09.500 It's it's disgusting.

00:01:10.620 Fox News is reporting at this hour that the driver of the truck is a thirty nine year old man with a long criminal history who was out on bond, that he's being questioned by police.

00:01:23.040 Right now, the early reports first, they said they might be terrorism.

00:01:27.220 They haven't ruled it out.

00:01:28.040 Now it seems like they're leaning toward this is not a terrorist act.

00:01:30.980 This guy might have been fleeing some sort of knife violence.

00:01:34.340 He may have been involved in in some way earlier.

00:01:36.980 So we're trying to figure out more.

00:01:38.460 And we will keep you updated on any new developments as they happen over the next two hours.

00:01:41.940 And while you may have taken a break from the news over the weekend, the left wing media did not.

00:01:47.940 They were in overdrive reacting to Friday's acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:01:52.240 And to those of you who experienced that with us, thank you so much for being there with us while it happened.

00:01:58.620 It was pretty extraordinary after our in-depth coverage of it all week to have it unfold live on the air while we were at the mic.

00:02:04.300 And, you know, the YouTube response has been great.

00:02:07.060 And we appreciate you guys sort of trusting us with those moments.

00:02:09.360 But there were the usual media attacks on the jury and the system in the country this past weekend that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white privileged.

00:02:18.460 OK, you know, he's the poor kid of a single mom, but OK, he's got white skin.

00:02:23.180 So I guess that just makes him privileged in our society. 0.92

00:02:25.200 That's you know, you know that line vigilante, domestic terrorist, nationalist led off by a judicial system built on white supremacy. 0.92

00:02:33.860 The jurors are now racist. 0.99

00:02:35.600 The judges are racist. 0.93

00:02:36.640 Kyle Rittenhouse is right. 1.00

00:02:37.560 You're a racist. 1.00

00:02:38.080 I'm a racist. 1.00

00:02:38.620 Everyone's a racist. 0.96

00:02:40.780 But the media managed to sink to new lows as well, claiming now that anyone, anyone who goes out and protests in support of Black Lives Matter is going to be hunted down and killed. 0.95

00:02:50.240 There's no one better to react to this insanity than Jason Whitlock.

00:02:53.200 He's here with me today.

00:02:54.220 Very happy about that.

00:02:55.760 Also, Jesse Single will be here later on the media coverage of the trial and the case.

00:03:00.260 Plus, President Biden admitted that he did not watch one second of the trial, but felt very convinced and comfortable saying he was angry over it.

00:03:09.640 He watched nothing, but he's very angry and concerned over the verdict.

00:03:12.960 Well, thank you for your totally uninformed opinion.

00:03:15.340 And when asked if he stood by equating Kyle Rittenhouse with white supremacists, the president deflected and suddenly didn't feel it was appropriate to answer the question.

00:03:24.440 Wow.

00:03:25.300 Where was that sense of reticence, of reluctance to comment on these public matters a year and a half ago while he was running for office?

00:03:31.880 I'm also going to be joined today by Senator Tom Cotton.

00:03:35.040 Really looking forward to that.

00:03:35.920 We've been trying to get him on for a while.

00:03:37.900 We'll ask him about Joe Biden's statements now.

00:03:41.260 He has said publicly he believes the president needs to apologize to Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:03:45.300 How likely is that?

00:03:46.520 We're going to talk to him as well about his new call for a total boycott of the U.S. Winter Olympics in Beijing.

00:03:52.560 And by the way, some some Chinese media are responding to this senator in no uncertain terms.

00:03:59.580 We'll see what he thinks.

00:04:01.880 We'll talk about it.

00:04:02.880 But first, I want to get to Jason Whitlock.

00:04:04.600 He's host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock on Blaze TV.

00:04:08.540 Jason, a pleasure to have you here.

00:04:10.300 Thank you, as always.

00:04:11.320 I mean, the media, it wasn't unexpected that they were going to lose their minds after completely misrepresenting this case from the start.

00:04:18.440 You know, I mean, for a year since August 2020, when it happened, they've been telling us that this white kid, Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three white people, is a white supremacist because he was trying to keep the peace and help others at a Black Lives

00:04:31.700 rally riot.

00:04:33.020 We knew it was going to be a riot.

00:04:34.020 We knew it wasn't going to be a protest.

00:04:35.040 As late as night, they were burning things and so on.

00:04:37.020 It would make it sound like it was one of these lovely like we're just going to hold up our little placards.

00:04:40.900 There was none of that.

00:04:41.740 There was rioting and burning and arson and looting.

00:04:43.500 OK, so I want to tee it up with a budded soundbite of how the media sounded over the weekend.

00:04:51.260 For those of you who were living your lives and had the good sense not to listen.

00:04:55.100 Here you go.

00:04:56.960 This jury sent the final and loudest warning to white America about the dangerous rise of white nationalist terror in this country. 0.98

00:05:04.460 Like if I'm walking around and I'm a white nationalist, you know, coward little kid when they are 15 and I see somebody drive by with a Black Lives Matter bumper sticker and I feel threatened, I can open fire. 0.73

00:05:16.160 This country was built on the idea that white men had a particular kind of freedom from the slave catchers on the right to inflict violence in the name of protecting property. 0.80

00:05:30.740 Anyone who supports Black Lives Matter should be very afraid. 0.95

00:05:33.620 Now we can see people baiting violence to have a reaction, very serious problem for activism, because now we're being told that someone can cross state lines with a semi-automatic rifle and kill people.

00:05:50.760 Today, what we were told was that white self-defense trumps everybody else's sense of safety and protection. 0.97

00:05:57.360 The fact that white supremacists roam the halls of Congress freely and celebrate this little murderous white supremacist. 0.97

00:06:03.220 You matter. 0.94

00:06:04.100 Every time one of these verdicts come out, it's easy to feel like you don't, but I'm here to tell you that you do.

00:06:11.600 You matter.

00:06:13.120 You matter so much that the second you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun he shouldn't have in the first place and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you.

00:06:24.700 Oh, boy.

00:06:26.940 Your thoughts on it, Jason?

00:06:28.300 Uh, that's great acting.

00:06:32.220 They should all win Oscars or Emmys or whatever.

00:06:36.560 Uh, it, it, Megan, the only thing, it would be easy to laugh them off, but they're executing a very clever strategy.

00:06:45.220 And, and it's why they all have the same talking points and why we've heard so much about, he crossed state lines, he crossed state lines.

00:06:52.700 Well, then they are 15.

00:06:54.140 He didn't cross state lines with a gun.

00:06:57.480 Uh, he lived one mile from the border of Wisconsin.

00:07:00.840 He had family in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

00:07:03.380 He had a job in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

00:07:05.460 He was there the night before, but they all have the same talking points because it's an orchestrated strategy to cast everything in this racial camouflage.

00:07:16.900 So that they can actually execute their real agenda, and that is to demonize and to paint the American narrative arc as one that has focused on racial injustice from start to finish.

00:07:32.900 And it's an argument they're trying to make to justify a rewriting of the Constitution, a dismantling of Western civilization, a dismantling of Judeo-Christian values that used to define this country.

00:07:46.900 It's a tactic.

00:07:48.640 It's not an accident. 0.98

00:07:49.840 It's, it's, it's talking points that have been distributed to all of the useful idiots of corporate media and all the people in collusion with China and big tech with all the billionaires that want to move America to make it more like communists run China. 1.00

00:08:08.680 And, and so I, as stupid as it sounds and as stupid as they sound and as tempting as it is to laugh them off, they're executing a strategy that's working right now. 0.99

00:08:20.940 They have us all talking about the lies that they propagate and we can never have a discussion about the truth. 0.99

00:08:28.600 And, you know, the truth is that America's narrative arc actually bends towards justice and that this country through the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was embedded with certain Judeo-Christian values that set up a conflict between good versus evil and good was winning for about 200 years.

00:08:53.100 Uh, but here in the last 50, 60 years, evil is winning and, and they've, they're, they're corrupting American values so that they can argue we need a new constitution and that we were founded on racism and nothing has ever changed.

00:09:09.420 And this country doesn't work, even though people from around the world are beating down doors, black people included beating down doors to get in this country. 0.98

00:09:17.260 They got a successful propaganda campaign going on that none of that's true and this is the worst place on earth. 0.99

00:09:25.600 It's so crazy when you hear the misinformation and also this, this type of talk, um, MSNBC's Jason Johnson, uh, was the one who kicked off that butted soundbite saying Kyle Rittenhouse was, was about to kill those two guys with no consequences because they were race traitors. 0.97

00:09:44.240 The two white guys who got killed. They were race traitors who stood against the core conceit of white supremacy. What? What? No, I love it. Even Nicole Hannah-Jones, um, she tweeted out in this country, this is after the verdict, you can even kill white people and get away with it if those white people are fighting for black lives. 0.97

00:10:04.780 This is the legacy of 1619. Sure. I'm sure convicted pedophile, the guy who loved to rape nine year old boys. Um, Joseph Rosenbaum was there and was running around yelling the N word, uh, that night. I'm sure he was there fighting for black lives. 0.98

00:10:20.120 Who are they kidding me that they were race traitors trying to stand against the core conceit of white supremacy supremacy? They wanted to, they wanted violence. They wanted to participate in riots. They wanted to cause trouble. Nobody, none, not one of those guys who got shot that night was there to support black lives. 0.99

00:10:35.700 I wish that people would ask themselves like, well, hold on. We're throwing black lives matter rallies, but we're attracting white people with long criminal records. We're attracting pedophiles to that. That's who's coming to align with us or to participate in whatever it is we're doing. 0.95

00:10:56.540 That should make you question yourself because again, over social media, you'll see anytime someone says something, particularly if you're black, if you say something that has any conservative values, any religious values, they'll say, you should judge who's supporting you. It's all Trump supporters. And therefore you must be wrong or you must be.

00:11:17.640 Well, if pedophiles and domestic abusers and other people with criminal records are the ones coming out and supporting you, doesn't it say something about your message? If, if every time there's a black lives matter rally, there's a high percentage, half the time there's looting, there's arson, there's violence, there's mayhem. Doesn't that say something about you and your organization? 0.51

00:11:43.420 Because Dr. King and that generation from the 1950s and 60s had all kinds of protests, all kinds of protests and faced incredible racial hostility. But those protests weren't marked by arson, violence and looting by the people allegedly supporting Dr. King and them.

00:12:05.560 So the Black Lives Matter crowd should be asking, what kind of energy are we putting into the air that pedophiles are running to join us and that every one of our martyrs or virtually, virtually every one of our martyrs has a long criminal history?

00:12:22.820 What is it about your organization that attracts that group and picks those types of martyrs and heroes to rally around? They should be asking some questions of themselves.

00:12:36.300 There was some crazy talk. Now, the Cuomo brothers both felt the need to weigh in. Andrew Cuomo, disgraced, deposed, forced to resign New York governor, said today's verdict is a stain on the soul of America, sends a dangerous message about who and what values our justice system was designed to protect.

00:12:53.940 You mean the very same justice system that's coming after you criminally now? I guess you don't like it. I understand.

00:12:58.280 His brother Chris on CNN says it's hard to believe that somebody chasing you is going to beat you to death. Really?

00:13:04.680 What about when they put their their hand on the barrel of your AR-15 while yelling F you after having just told you that they were going to kill you?

00:13:11.520 Is it hard then? Is it hard to believe when they chase you and then they beat you with their skateboard in your head?

00:13:16.480 How about the third guy who chased him and then pulled out a Glock on Kyle Rittenhouse?

00:13:20.620 That's really not so hard to believe somebody might beat you to death or hurt you.

00:13:24.180 I mean this so he tweets out president of the NAACP or said said actually I think it was on MSNBC that this was worse than the Emmett Till trial, that the Kyle Rittenhouse trial was worse than the Emmett Till trial, the trial of white men in Mississippi who who tortured poor 14 year old Emmett Till for daring to speak to a white store owner and then was killed and put in the river.

00:13:53.060 And he's the he's the young man whose mom insisted on having an open casket funeral so America could see what had happened to her son.

00:13:59.540 This was worse than that.

00:14:01.740 They will say anything in pursuit of political power.

00:14:05.280 And that's all this is.

00:14:06.940 It's a tool.

00:14:07.920 It's a strategy to gain political traction and to seize political power.

00:14:13.740 There's nothing Derrick Johnson.

00:14:15.380 isn't willing to say in pursuit of political power to analogize Kyle Rittenhouse in this verdict that involved four white men, four white men got into a conflict.

00:14:30.180 Kyle Rittenhouse was white.

00:14:31.480 The three men he shot were white.

00:14:33.140 Like, this really doesn't have anything to do with black people.

00:14:38.300 I know it was an alleged protest around Black Lives Matter.

00:14:42.940 This was for white people in conflict.

00:14:45.720 And for people to suggest that there was no threat here, there's a will for ignorance. 0.95

00:14:51.080 And then there's just ignorance.

00:14:52.420 And I don't know which one this is, but there are videos of people getting brutally beaten in Kenosha, Wisconsin during those that week of rioting and violence that we saw there.

00:15:06.960 Citizens that try to protect their property, their business, try to protect themselves, surrounded by swarms and gangs.

00:15:14.980 And if Kyle Rittenhouse didn't have a gun and wasn't willing to use it, if they had knocked him to the ground and he was unable to defend himself, there was going to be a swarm of people beating and brutalizing him because that's what we saw happening in Kenosha during this time.

00:15:33.020 This is a clear case of self-defense.

00:15:36.740 The jury, despite all the pressure from the media and other outside forces, reached the right conclusion.

00:15:45.840 You have a right to defend yourself in America.

00:15:51.040 Kyle Rittenhouse, we, Megan, we spent a lot of time or the media has spent a lot of time second guessing Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:15:58.320 And I said this on my show last week and I stand by it.

00:16:01.580 But I'm not really against people second guessing Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:16:06.720 Hey, why did you go there?

00:16:07.840 You're just 17.

00:16:08.920 Well, that's all fine.

00:16:10.580 As long as the other side is comfortable with people questioning George Floyd.

00:16:19.080 Hey, man, why were you arguing with the police for 30 minutes?

00:16:22.120 Why were you jacked up on fentanyl?

00:16:24.660 Why did you refuse to get into the back of the car?

00:16:27.920 People can ask those questions.

00:16:30.760 If we can question Kyle Rittenhouse, why he was there, blah, blah, blah.

00:16:35.060 We should be allowed to question George Floyd and some of his behavior that contributed to what eventually the tragic events that took his life.

00:16:44.080 He contributed to that.

00:16:45.560 But again, we can't ask those questions, but we can question everything about Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:16:49.260 And Megan, I'm just sorry.

00:16:51.600 A 17-year-old boy whose family has strong ties to Kenosha, lives in Kenosha, he has every right to go defend his community.

00:17:03.400 That's right.

00:17:04.200 His dad lives there.

00:17:05.480 It's right across the border from where he lives in Illinois.

00:17:07.520 People who live in Illinois cross the border to Kenosha to get a cup of coffee.

00:17:11.200 This is not particularly unusual.

00:17:12.600 But wait, I got to end with this.

00:17:15.580 We've heard from so many in the media, so many of our politicians right on up to the president, that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist.

00:17:23.380 We heard this long before that now infamous shot of him in a bar with members of the Proud Boys, which we'll get to in a second, became public.

00:17:33.000 They called him a white supremacist because he showed up at at this protest and he was not on the side of the rioters.

00:17:41.820 And by the way, I just want to make clear for that he did show up at this bar when he was let out on bail.

00:17:48.120 And he was there with his mom and another family member.

00:17:51.880 And there were members of the Proud Boys there.

00:17:54.080 And the Proud Boys surrounded Kyle and asked for a photo with him.

00:17:57.720 It is at the time he was 17 years old.

00:17:59.700 His lawyers say he didn't know who this was, didn't know the Proud Boys from anybody.

00:18:03.820 They got a photo with him and they all were doing the OK sign, which, according to some, in some circumstances can be a symbol of white power.

00:18:13.720 It can mean white power. 0.92

00:18:15.420 Now, Kyle's lawyer said kid didn't know what that meant.

00:18:18.200 There's no evidence that he did.

00:18:19.780 They scoured Kyle Rittenhouse's social media to find any evidence.

00:18:23.680 The prosecution, his lawyers turned over everything, all of his phones, all of his social media.

00:18:27.400 They didn't find one piece of white nationalist propaganda or white supremacist propaganda or following of any accounts that might support or anything about Proud Boys.

00:18:37.720 All they have on him is he showed up that night and he wasn't on the BLM side.

00:18:42.260 He was trying to keep the peace.

00:18:43.720 And secondly, he walked into that bar, got surrounded by a bunch of guys who made the hand symbol.

00:18:49.060 And then he did it, too, which for all of human history has been known as the OK sign.

00:18:53.100 But now has been co-opted by some.

00:18:55.160 That's it.

00:18:55.820 All right.

00:18:56.800 So finally, he has the chance to speak.

00:18:58.920 And Tucker's going to have him on tonight for his first interview at 8 p.m. on Fox.

00:19:03.380 And here's a promotional clip in which not only does the alleged white supremacist not sound like a white supremacist, he says it's a BLM supporter.

00:19:12.680 Listen.

00:19:14.420 I tell everybody there what happened.

00:19:16.780 I said I had to do it.

00:19:17.980 I just I was just attacked.

00:19:19.600 I was dizzy.

00:19:20.960 I was vomiting.

00:19:21.920 I couldn't breathe.

00:19:23.760 This case has nothing to do with race.

00:19:26.320 It never had anything to do with race.

00:19:28.540 It had to do with the right to self-defense.

00:19:31.220 Right.

00:19:32.300 I'm not a racist person.

00:19:33.940 I support the BLM movement.

00:19:35.240 And I support peacefully demonstrating.

00:19:38.080 And I believe there needs to be change.

00:19:40.960 I believe there's a lot of prosecutorial misconduct, not just in my case, but in other cases.

00:19:46.460 And it's just amazing to see how how much a prosecutor can take advantage of somebody.

00:19:52.880 How do you like that, Jason?

00:19:57.160 I will say he and his handlers are clever.

00:20:02.160 I'm not sure if he authentically supports the BLM movement, but I think it's a very smart thing to say. 0.96

00:20:08.640 I think the kid wants his life back and he has given and sacrificed enough.

00:20:15.380 And so he's saying all the right things to hopefully get his life back and be able to move on with the rest of his life.

00:20:22.300 Hats off to him.

00:20:24.000 Yeah.

00:20:24.460 People need to be honest about what the evidence is and is not against Kyle Rittenhouse, both in this case and when it comes to the white nationalist charge.

00:20:32.880 By the way, the other piece of that is the Anti-Defamation League reportedly scoured all of his social media and determined that there were no connections to any extreme movements or white nationalist groups and so on on any of those accounts.

00:20:47.220 So people can just stop.

00:20:48.760 They can just stop it.

00:20:51.020 Jason, always a pleasure.

00:20:52.000 Thank you so much, Jason Whitlock, everybody.

00:20:53.580 Coming up, Senator Tom Cotton on Rittenhouse, on China and on what the FBI is doing to parents and James O'Keefe.

00:21:04.000 Don't miss that.

00:21:11.800 I'm joined now by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas.

00:21:17.020 And Senator, it's great to have you here.

00:21:18.640 Really looking forward to our conversation.

00:21:20.220 Thanks for having me on, Megan.

00:21:21.200 Good to be with you.

00:21:21.820 All right.

00:21:22.380 So let's kick it off with Rittenhouse and Joe Biden.

00:21:24.660 I know you've said Joe Biden owes Kyle Rittenhouse an apology because he did smear him as a white supremacist early on in this case.

00:21:32.940 And there's simply no evidence of it.

00:21:34.360 I mean, truly, I've now disclosed to the audience the entirety of the evidence.

00:21:38.680 He showed up at that riot that night trying to keep the peace and hurt any help anybody who got hurt.

00:21:45.560 And then when he was out on bail, he went to a bar with his mom, which you're allowed to do in Wisconsin, even if you're 18.

00:21:51.360 And he got surrounded by a bunch of guys from the Proud Boys who wanted a picture with him.

00:21:55.200 And then they all made the OK symbol.

00:21:56.880 That is literally it.

00:21:58.320 There was absolutely no evidence Kyle knew who those guys were, what the Proud Boys are, what that OK symbol has come to mean in some circles.

00:22:05.700 But for the rest of America, it still means, OK, that's it.

00:22:11.000 OK, so based on that, he gets called a white supremacist.

00:22:13.420 I mean, over and over.

00:22:14.920 If you're on the left, you've probably called him that.

00:22:17.580 And Joe Biden was asked by reporters this weekend about whether he'd like to disavow that and what his reaction was to the jury.

00:22:25.360 And here was his first reaction before he had his handlers write him a paper reaction.

00:22:29.360 Listen, I just heard a moment ago, I didn't watch the trial.

00:22:34.540 So I stand by your past comment waiting to him to white supremacy.

00:22:42.060 Well, look, I stand by what the jury has concluded.

00:22:46.560 The jury system works and you have to abide by it.

00:22:49.480 And then he came out, Senator, afterward in a paper statement, clearly written by somebody else and and changed his message to, oh, wait, I'm angry and concerned.

00:22:58.640 I'm angry.

00:22:59.340 While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge the jury has spoken.

00:23:06.280 Meanwhile, he didn't watch any of the trial.

00:23:07.580 Your thoughts on it all?

00:23:08.500 Well, Megan, Joe Biden does need to apologize to Kyle Rittenhouse publicly for slandering him as a white supremacist.

00:23:16.120 There's no evidence at all of that or that Kyle Rittenhouse harbored any racial animus.

00:23:22.180 As you described, he went to Kenosha, where his father lives, to help protect property and persons when the Democratic authorities in charge in Wisconsin refused to do so.

00:23:36.840 Kyle Rittenhouse had every right to be on that street just as much as the three criminals who assaulted him and perhaps tried to kill him.

00:23:45.520 And certainly as much as the hundreds of rioters and looters.

00:23:49.860 So Joe Biden should not be angry and concerned about this jury's verdict.

00:23:55.240 What makes me angry and concerned is that you have Democratic authorities all around the country who have ceded streets in so many cases to left wing militias.

00:24:04.260 Mm hmm.

00:24:05.380 Absolutely right.

00:24:06.240 And the history of what they did in Wisconsin, just not only refusing to call in the National Guard when they knew that there were going to be riots the night of the Jacob Blake now deemed lawful shooting by police.

00:24:17.720 But the governor there was inciting people with tweets trying to pile on a rush to judgment in that case, which was later ruled a justified shooting not only by the Wisconsin Wisconsin AG, but by Merrick Garland.

00:24:31.100 And so they were pouring fuel on a fire.

00:24:33.540 And that is why Kyle Rittenhouse felt like he had to be there.

00:24:36.680 Doesn't mean you have to agree with his presence, but that's why he felt like he needed to be there.

00:24:41.300 And then the jury agrees that all he did that night was defend his own life when it was threatened repeatedly.

00:24:48.280 Can I ask you, though, about we played a soundbite in our first segment of the media reacting and still white supremacist, white supremacist.

00:24:56.300 Here's some of the political reaction just to give you a flavor.

00:25:00.140 Representative Cori Bush yesterday or it was over the weekend, the judge, the jury, the defendant.

00:25:05.260 It's white supremacy in action.

00:25:07.160 This system is not billed to hold white supremacists accountable. 1.00

00:25:10.180 It's why black and brown folks are brutalized and put in cages while white supremacist murderers walk free. 1.00

00:25:15.160 Gavin Newsom out in California. 1.00

00:25:17.920 America today, you can break the law, carry around weapons built for a military, shoot and kill people and get away with it.

00:25:22.340 That's the message we've just sent to armed vigilantes across the nation. 0.91

00:25:25.240 Then you've got this lunatic, New York Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who's chairman of the DCCC Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, saying it's disgusting and disturbing that someone was able to carry a loaded assault rifle into a protest.

00:25:37.960 Sir, this was no protest. 0.78

00:25:39.480 It was a riot against the unjust killing of Jacob Blake.

00:25:43.800 OK, Jacob Blake is alive.

00:25:45.420 He was shot.

00:25:45.960 He's not dead, sir.

00:25:47.300 An unarmed black man.

00:25:48.700 That's not true.

00:25:49.280 He was armed with a knife, as your own attorney general Merrick Garland found, not to mention many others.

00:25:54.240 And take the lives of two people, injure another and face absolutely no consequence.

00:25:57.520 Well, he was on trial for his life in prison, facing first degree murder charges.

00:26:01.420 So there was a consequence.

00:26:02.960 You tell me whether this is sincere belief by these people or they just want to stir the pot to sort of animate some faction of their base. 0.99

00:26:12.240 Well, many of them are deeply ignorant and uninformed, Megan. 0.91

00:26:17.140 As you said, Sean Patrick Maloney couldn't even get the basic facts straight that Jacob Blake was not, in fact, killed. 0.98

00:26:23.220 He was shot in part because he resisted arrest, an arrest that was started because a female associate of his had called the police, fearing for her own safety.

00:26:34.320 Rather, Jacob Blake walked around the vehicle and tried to receive retrieve a knife from it.

00:26:40.560 So these people can't even get their own basic facts straight.

00:26:44.160 I would also say that a lot of these kind of foolish charges of white supremacy or racism on a matter that had really nothing to do with race are just a veiled attack on the Second Amendment rights of every American to defend himself and to defend his family.

00:26:59.700 In the end, that's what Scott or Kyle Rittenhouse was doing. 0.52

00:27:03.820 He was present on the streets of Kenosha with others trying to protect property and persons.

00:27:09.280 They have every right to do so.

00:27:11.380 And when they're threatened with death, as Kyle Rittenhouse apparently was by the demented child rapist who ended up assaulting him or was being assaulted or threatened by other criminals as he was, he has every right to defend himself.

00:27:26.340 Every American has every right to defend himself and his family and his property.

00:27:32.400 That's really what the left is attacking here is our Second Amendment rights and our right to protect ourselves.

00:27:38.260 You know, what's interesting, Senator, is the narrative is now shifting in some corners on the left.

00:27:42.200 And the more centrist left, I guess, that realizes they can't really blame this on white supremacy.

00:27:47.880 I mean, forget, you know, Cori Bush and MSNBC.

00:27:50.780 But, for example, The New York Times, The Daily, which I listen to their podcast by hosted by Michael Barbaro.

00:27:56.820 I like keeping an eye on the left and the right.

00:27:58.540 Right.

00:27:58.700 See what they're saying in both pockets of the media.

00:28:00.320 They, by the way, just said two out of the three assailants coming after Kyle Rittenhouse were unarmed.

00:28:05.740 I think Kyle didn't feel that Anthony Huber beating him over his head with a skateboard was unarmed, nor did they mention, you know, in that particular phrase that he was reaching for Kyle's gun.

00:28:17.180 OK, but anyway, they shifted and I'm hearing the discussion shift to the problems, really, self-defense laws meeting open carry laws.

00:28:27.140 The problem is, you know, we had these self-defense laws that were meant really to cover you in your home if somebody tried to burglarize you or hurt your family.

00:28:35.340 But we're really supposed to be able to be used by somebody out on the street with an AR-15 who's basically asking for trouble.

00:28:44.740 So I see that's that's where they're going to go with it.

00:28:47.200 They're going to try to crack down on these laws that allow open carry, that apply self-defense out in the public square if you're armed and so on.

00:28:53.860 What do you think?

00:28:55.360 I think that's exactly right, Megan, is that the left is going to try to crack down on every American second man at right to defend himself and herself.

00:29:05.080 Again, Kyle Rittenhouse and anyone else who's a law-abiding citizen with a firearm that night had a right to defend himself, other innocent civilians and defend the property that those rioters were trying to destroy.

00:29:17.920 It is very alarming that you have the left today trying to defund the police, trying to delegitimize our law enforcement system and then to deprive Americans of the right to protect themselves.

00:29:29.020 And that's what ultimately the Second Amendment is about.

00:29:31.340 Sure, it protects our right to keep and bear arms for things like hunting or skeet shooting, but that's not what our founding fathers had in mind.

00:29:38.740 They knew that every person has an inherent right to defend himself and his family and his property.

00:29:43.680 And if more Democrats are going to continue to allow rioters and looters to rampage through our streets, to break into stores and go on stealing sprees, as you've seen again in San Francisco in the last couple of days, then it's thank goodness we have that Second Amendment right.

00:30:01.040 Thank goodness we have the ability to keep and bear arms and to protect ourselves and protect other innocent lives.

00:30:06.320 Because in the end, as much as we depend on law enforcement to deter crime, to catch criminals, to prosecute them in the heat of the moment, in most cases, when the police are minutes away, every second counts.

00:30:23.000 And that's why people have the right to defend themselves.

00:30:25.440 When our country was founded, it was very rural.

00:30:28.460 There weren't huge urban centers and people did have to defend themselves.

00:30:32.200 It wasn't so you didn't pick up a phone and call 911.

00:30:35.600 It was up to you.

00:30:36.880 And some arguments you hear on the left about, well, now we're modernized.

00:30:40.580 We have the police.

00:30:41.440 We have these huge urban centers.

00:30:43.180 You know, not everybody needs to be armed, right?

00:30:45.020 It's like, well, why don't you try talking to people who live down in rural Arkansas or Texas or along the southern border where you've got illegal immigrants coming across armed, connected with cartels, looking to hurt anybody who gets in their way.

00:30:57.460 Tell them they don't need a gun.

00:30:58.380 And now, even in busy cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin, where you have a governor or a mayor who won't send out the police, who won't call up the National Guard, which is what happened in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting on night one, you're going to see that same lawlessness and people left to their own devices.

00:31:17.440 Like, you raise a very good point.

00:31:19.000 Unless the Dems enforce the law, including against rioters and looters, people are going to be left with no choice.

00:31:25.600 Yeah, and if someone like Kyle Rittenhouse or other concerned citizens had been at riots in New York City or Chicago or Washington, D.C., cities and states with draconian and, in my opinion, unconstitutional gun laws, what we probably would have seen is a murder trial of the death of the person who was defending innocent lives and property because they wouldn't have been able to carry a firearm.

00:31:51.600 But thank goodness the state of Wisconsin, like so many other states, to include mine, recognizes that every American has the right to keep and bear arms, to include carrying them outside the house, to defend themselves, because when seconds count, the police are minutes away.

00:32:06.060 And for the record, Kyle Rittenhouse is not on camera running around just randomly shooting people.

00:32:10.260 You know, this whole nonsense of him being an active shooter.

00:32:12.220 He had the opportunity to do that many, many times, and he didn't.

00:32:15.640 And in fact, was was trying, was yelling friendly, friendly, friendly when he was being chased by Joseph Rosenblum at Rosenbaum.

00:32:23.820 And and the guy didn't listen. 0.93

00:32:25.300 The crazed child molester did not listen. 0.63

00:32:26.860 Who who knew?

00:32:27.440 So let's just talk for a minute before I move on about.

00:32:31.400 I just how pernicious this is, Senator, because I know it's like kind of make fun of the political left and these, you know, sort of race baiters who are constantly pulling, you know, that trick. 0.96

00:32:42.720 Oh, everyone's a racist, a white supremacist. 0.82

00:32:45.480 John Cass, who we love Chicago, he used to work for the Chicago Tribune. 0.97

00:32:48.260 Now he's an independent media.

00:32:49.560 Brilliant, brilliant.

00:32:50.420 I highly recommend everybody read his article.

00:32:52.300 It's called If Only Kyle Rittenhouse Could Ask Biden and Media, Have You No Sense of Decency?

00:32:57.780 He talks about how what if they had gotten away with it?

00:33:01.280 What if the jury hadn't seen through this and had been unduly influenced by these people?

00:33:05.800 And this is a quote from his piece.

00:33:08.080 If they'd succeeded, the kid who cried on the witness stand could have been sentenced to life in prison.

00:33:13.400 How would he survive inside a kid like that?

00:33:16.000 He wouldn't.

00:33:17.240 A kid like that wouldn't survive five minutes.

00:33:19.120 The media that twisted and shaped the facts to suit a political narrative and politicians who benefited from narrative support would have moved on with their lives.

00:33:28.800 And as they heaped glory on themselves, Rittenhouse, if put in a state prison, would be dead or wish he were dead every minute of his life.

00:33:37.660 He says, don't forget what these politicians, prosecutors and media have done, because if you do, you're inviting the next mob to grab Lady Justice and bend her to their political will.

00:33:52.280 Well, that's well said.

00:33:54.300 And I want to point out that the jury should be commended for doing what is always a difficult job under extraordinary circumstances.

00:34:01.360 You know, the jury is often the jury is an institution in our society is often portrayed as a check and a balance on the executive branch, on prosecutors in particular.

00:34:11.540 And it is that, as we saw in this case, you had what I think borders on prosecutorial misconduct to include prosecutorial incompetence.

00:34:21.040 If you remember when the prosecutor held the rifle up and had his finger on the trigger, one of the most basic violations of gun safety practices.

00:34:28.820 But the jury is not just a bulwark against an overreaching executive and prosecutor.

00:34:35.400 It's also a bulwark against the mob.

00:34:37.120 The jury stands between the accused in our society and the mob.

00:34:41.800 And in too many places and too many times across human history, that is not the case.

00:34:45.820 And mob justice prevails.

00:34:47.980 But thank goodness we live in a country in which each of us is, if accused of a crime, can be judged by a jury of our peers, not by the mob.

00:34:55.780 So that's right. Social justice, mob justice does not reign inside a courtroom. 1.00

00:35:02.260 The laws govern and actual justice reigns inside our legal courts.

00:35:07.140 And it drives the media and the political left crazy.

00:35:11.880 But it's the way it ought to be.

00:35:13.640 I'm going to ask Tom Cotton right after this break about a push now, including from Democrat Jerry Nadler, to have Kyle Rittenhouse prosecuted at the federal level by Merrick Garland's DOJ.

00:35:24.560 And there's plenty more to talk to Tom Cotton about.

00:35:27.640 Lots going on with, speaking of Merrick Garland, the FBI now doing something with respect to parents, tagging them for potential threats against school board members.

00:35:38.400 They haven't dropped that.

00:35:40.040 And Senator Cotton's been making a lot of it.

00:35:41.660 We'll ask him about his letter to Merrick Garland.

00:35:44.320 And remember, everyone, you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips when you subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:35:56.000 If you prefer an audio podcast, sometimes that's easy.

00:35:58.640 You can walk around, get your errands done while listening.

00:36:00.600 You can just subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:36:06.760 There you'll find our full archives with more than 200 shows, including our show from Friday when we were live on the air as the Rittenhouse verdict came in.

00:36:17.200 Thank you.

00:36:47.200 Thank you.

00:37:17.200 All three of the persons who were assaulting Kyle Rittenhouse and whom he shot are white.

00:37:22.060 So it's not clear to me what a white shooter and three white people who were assaulting him could possibly provide the grounds for a federal civil rights charge.

00:37:33.640 If anyone is going to be engaged in further legal action here, I would think it would be Kyle Rittenhouse against all of the media companies that slandered him.

00:37:43.460 And for that matter, Joe Biden, who was a private citizen last year when he used his megaphone to accuse Kyle Rittenhouse falsely and without evidence of being a white supremacist.

00:37:52.260 That'd be more likely to be the legal action you see, not some specious lawsuit from Merrick Garland.

00:37:58.620 That's a very good point.

00:38:28.620 It's not like Nick Sandman of Covington, where all he did was stand on court steps and get his picture taken and then got smeared by CNN and others.

00:38:36.780 Kyle found himself on in the news for a year because of something, you know, he did.

00:38:41.620 So I don't know. I'm not sure what his chances would be in a courtroom because I think they'd probably find him a limited public figure.

00:38:46.440 Anyway, I'd still like to see him try because he was really wrongly maligned.

00:38:50.000 And as John Cass points out, the stakes are so high.

00:38:53.000 If you just give them a pass, they're going to keep doing it.

00:38:56.540 The media and the politicians, they have no skin in the game. None.

00:39:00.520 Yeah, that's right. And, you know, you may be right on your legal analysis, Megan.

00:39:05.540 You're certainly a much smarter lawyer than I ever was.

00:39:08.300 I'm such a good lawyer. I had to quit the law and join the army.

00:39:11.040 But I'd say this. If I was sitting in if I was sitting in Comcast's corporate executive suites,

00:39:16.700 I'm not sure I'd want to try my hand with the jury of Kyle Rittenhouse, Seuss, NBC and MSNBC or the way they've defamed him for the last year.

00:39:24.280 That's a good point. He's being very kindly modest because he went to Harvard Law and I went to Albany Law.

00:39:30.340 No offense to my alma mater, but Tom Cotton does not have trouble in the in the intellectual department.

00:39:36.580 OK, let's talk about Merrick Garland for a second, because now there's a report by The Wall Street Journal that they are now issuing what are called threat tags directed by the head of FBI's criminal division

00:39:47.500 and the head of FBI's counterterrorism division, that they are now flagging all assessments and investigations into potential criminal threats, harassment and intimidation of educators with a, quote, threat tag.

00:39:58.860 This is, again, back to Merrick Garland's enthusiastic embrace of the National School Board's push to treat parents as criminals, possibly domestic terrorists.

00:40:08.380 And Garland told the both bodies of Congress that he wasn't going to do that, that he was only going to get out and go after violence and threats of violence.

00:40:15.720 Andy McCarthy, who I trust, says the threat tag is basically just an organization system for the FBI to organize parents into like, you know, OK, the FBI guy in California doesn't know what is happening with the FBI guy in Virginia.

00:40:27.920 So they all have a massive file if they just tag us all with these threat tags if they're trying to find all the parents who have been bad.

00:40:35.620 So it doesn't make me feel any better. And to me, it's just proof that they are going forward with this.

00:40:40.360 As Merrick Garland said, it is real. It wasn't just an appeasement of the national school boards or of Joe Biden in a momentary lapse.

00:40:46.680 They really want to come after parents who get out of line at these school board meetings.

00:40:51.540 Yeah, Megan, I think they're dancing to the tune of the school board associations, radical leftists, who its own board is repudiated now by rescinding the letter that kicked all this off.

00:41:00.560 But I also think they were acting in concert with the teachers unions, people like Randy Weingarten, who shut down our schools for more than a year and are forcing toddlers to wear masks when they go back to preschool or pre-K or kindergarten.

00:41:14.240 I mean, Merrick Garland has proven to be totally out of his depth as the attorney general.

00:41:18.940 Maybe he was a good judge when he could sit up in an ivory tower and read and write about the law with five employees who worship the ground he walked on.

00:41:24.780 But to be in charge of our Department of Justice, 150,000 employees on sensitive matters, like investigating parents who go to school boards to complain that their schools are closed and their kids have to use remote learning or complain that their kids have to wear masks in classes or they're being indoctrinated to hate America is far beyond, far beyond his skill sets to succeed in that job.

00:41:44.900 So what he's doing, I'm afraid, is deferring to the radical leftists that they've installed in the Department of Justice that do want to crack down on parents who are merely going to school boards to complain about what they see as misguided policies.

00:41:58.380 This is just one example of the politicization of the Department of Justice.

00:42:02.100 That's why I've said Merrick Garland should resign in disgrace.

00:42:05.120 It's crazy. I mean, I heard you saying to him, thank God you're not in the Supreme Court.

00:42:09.200 Remember that when Barack Obama couldn't get him, you couldn't get him a confirmation hearing because Mitch McConnell stopped it.

00:42:15.320 And it was like, well, you know, the Republicans could do worse with a Democratic appointed nominee to the Supreme Court than Merrick Garland.

00:42:22.900 He seems pretty moderate. You know, like even some Republicans seem to like the guy.

00:42:27.700 Now that you actually see him in office, you tell me, but he seems much further left than I thought he ever was.

00:42:35.120 He's both ideologically to the left and he's incompetent.

00:42:39.840 Again, he's letting these radical ideologues run his department.

00:42:43.080 But Megan, we have it on pretty good authority from sources inside the FBI that they did not take seriously the school board association.

00:42:49.260 In fact, they kind of laughed it off until they were directed by Merrick Garland's front office at the Department of Justice to take it seriously.

00:42:55.880 And that's why Merrick Garland sent out a nationwide memo to all of his U.S.

00:42:59.060 attorneys directing them to come up with a plan on what they were going to do to crack down on parents and sick the feds on them when they went to a school board to complain about that board's policies.

00:43:07.340 Well, and he had a couple of reasons to do that, right? His boss, Joe Biden, wanted it done.

00:43:11.960 We've seen that because he coordinated with the school board association on the letter.

00:43:15.400 Joe did. Biden did before it ever got to Merrick Garland.

00:43:18.140 And to Merrick Garland is conflicted on this.

00:43:20.940 His son in law makes tens of millions of dollars.

00:43:23.520 His organization does off of pushing CRT materials in in these schools, which is in large part what the parents are yelling about at the school board meetings.

00:43:34.260 It would be much better for his family if they went away.

00:43:36.720 And he did. He wouldn't even answer whether he had sought an ethics opinion on that, even though his own ethical rules required that of him.

00:43:45.720 Yeah, and it really does get back to that point, Megan.

00:43:48.540 So many on the left are gaslighting Americans and parents by saying, oh, critical race theory is not taught in schools.

00:43:53.480 But it really does get back to teaching kids, no matter what their age, at what level of intellectual sophistication, that race is the most important thing about you.

00:44:03.580 That there are certain races that are oppressive and certain that are victimized.

00:44:06.880 That's why, for instance, up in northern Virginia, another element of the parental backlash was when they shut down AP and gifted and talented programs or when they stopped admissions at public, restricted admissions at public high schools like Thomas Jefferson.

00:44:24.180 They did those things, again, because they were unhappy that there are so many Asian Americans in those classes and not enough black kids.

00:44:31.460 It all gets back to the left's obsession with race and trying to indoctrinate kids as young as pre-K to see the see the world through the eyes of race.

00:44:41.840 That's why Ibram X. Kendi, one of the charlatans who promotes critical race theory, has a children's book.

00:44:49.300 That's crazy. Who would ever subject their child to that?

00:44:52.000 I mean, he he had one of the tweets out in the wake of the in-house verdict.

00:44:56.540 It reads as follows.

00:44:57.620 They're fighting to maintain white male supremacy, which is to say they are defending law and order, defending their America, where white men can rule and brutalize without consequence.

00:45:09.500 You mean like Derek Chauvin?

00:45:11.120 Because I think he he faced he was a white man who faced some serious consequences for his acts with respect to George Floyd.

00:45:17.720 But this is how they see America, guys like Kendi.

00:45:20.520 And it's to your point about the schools and the divisions on race.

00:45:24.220 This is at the college level.

00:45:25.300 But there was a story in about Rittenhouse today.

00:45:29.320 There's some university in Massachusetts, Fitchburg State.

00:45:32.840 They hosted several processing spaces segregated by race.

00:45:36.520 Right. More and more.

00:45:37.120 We segregate by race in response to the verdict.

00:45:39.620 The diversity and equity and inclusion group announced it, saying we're creating space for our community to process the not guilty verdict.

00:45:45.760 In the case where Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois native.

00:45:49.460 OK, not not relevant.

00:45:50.680 He was just across the border from where his dad lived, by the way, shot and killed two people who were protesting.

00:45:57.800 OK, they were writing.

00:45:59.100 They weren't protesting anything.

00:46:00.260 The wrongful death of Jacob Blake.

00:46:02.180 OK, again, he's alive, people.

00:46:04.500 He is alive.

00:46:05.000 These people, they don't know anything that they're talking about.

00:46:08.100 But, yeah, segregation by race is the answer. 0.98

00:46:10.080 That'll solve our racist problems.

00:46:11.480 Yeah, and, you know, Megan, this is so often the case in these riots, whether they're in Kenosha or in New York or in Minneapolis.

00:46:20.820 It's many times minority owned businesses that are being destroyed, barbershops or sandwich places or dry cleaners, oftentimes that don't have enough insurance to cover the damage.

00:46:32.240 But these rioters, they don't care.

00:46:34.400 They just are going out to rampage because they want to condemn all of America as systemically racist.

00:46:43.260 I mean, that's what critical race theory does.

00:46:45.540 And in fact, I mean, I would say that people like Ibram X.

00:46:49.100 Kendi sound like, you know, secessionists like Jeff Davis or sound like John Calhoun or Roger Taney in the Dred Scott decision.

00:46:56.040 But I don't even have to imply that one of Ibrams Kendi's books is actually entitled with a verbatim quote from Jefferson Davis.

00:47:05.820 It's so crazy.

00:47:06.660 You don't have to peel the onion layers back very far to get to just how racist those thoughts and comments are.

00:47:12.820 And yet still, we we reward them with millions of dollars and big platforms.

00:47:16.820 Senator Tom Cotton, we want to talk to you about what's happening to James O'Keefe and a dust up with China right after this break.

00:47:22.820 Don't go away.

00:47:26.040 Senator Tom Cotton is my guest today, and he has been fired up about China from the Wuhan lab to the Olympics coming up next year.

00:47:38.520 And now they've apparently disappeared one of their most famous citizens and a star tennis player who used to be number one in the world.

00:47:46.420 We'll get to that one second.

00:47:47.340 But I want to start with James O'Keefe and what Merrick Garland's DOJ is doing to him.

00:47:51.020 He's the guy behind Project Veritas, which is sort of it's a journalistic outfit, but it agitates mostly left leaning entities like CNN or certain politicians, the Biden administration or big tech.

00:48:03.860 And then suddenly we see James O'Keefe's associates, two of his employees, had their homes raided by the FBI looking for Ashley Biden's diary.

00:48:14.840 What appears to have happened is a year ago while he was still a candidate, she appears to have left her diary behind in a hotel room and somebody found it.

00:48:23.080 And then they were sort of peddling it to people, you know, journalistic outfits.

00:48:27.800 O'Keefe was one of those people who was on the receiving end of the offer.

00:48:30.100 He didn't publish it.

00:48:30.880 He couldn't verify it.

00:48:32.200 He actually wound up turning it over to law enforcement a year later, right after he publishes a couple of negative reports about the Biden administration, about big tech and the vaccines.

00:48:40.720 He's got whistleblowers.

00:48:41.860 They raid the homes of his two associates.

00:48:45.280 And then he goes out and complains about it.

00:48:47.100 And then they raid his home.

00:48:48.480 Then they raid his home.

00:48:49.780 And you are stepping in.

00:48:51.140 It's outrageous.

00:48:51.580 Have you're a journalist or support journalism at all for a president and his DOJ to be doing this to a journalist is outrageous.

00:48:57.000 And your point in writing a letter to the DOJ about this was what?

00:49:02.440 Well, Megan, I wanted to highlight this incident, which you just laid out well.

00:49:06.920 You know, there's still some things we don't know, but everything about it smells rotten.

00:49:09.800 And it seems almost designed to deter anyone daring to think about sharing or publishing any information that's critical of the Democrats and certainly critical of Joe Biden and his family.

00:49:20.520 The Garland Justice Department has insisted they follow their own regulations, but they just filed a document in court on Friday that also disputed that Project Veritas can be considered a journalistic organization.

00:49:32.200 So I don't know how to square those.

00:49:33.460 I don't know how to square that circle.

00:49:35.660 But I think this is a case of pretty clear Department of Justice overreach against a political critic of the president.

00:49:44.560 As you said, they use no-knock warrants to raid some of these homes.

00:49:49.440 It is so early in the morning when there's no risk of destruction of evidence.

00:49:54.340 I mean, when you've already conducted raids in the days beforehand, obviously, if someone had destroyed evidence, they would have had more than enough time to do so.

00:50:03.480 When James O'Keefe's lawyers asked the Department of Justice not to pilfer through his phones and devices, they refused, forcing him and his lawyers to go to court.

00:50:12.400 And the court probably ordered them to stop doing that if they were doing it and referred it to a special master.

00:50:17.920 So everything about this case suggests the Department of Justice has violated its own regulations, has targeted political critics of the president who are a journalistic organization, even if you don't like the nature of journalism, and has used what you might call the process as the punishment here.

00:50:36.760 So anyone who is involved in this, I think, has a lot of explaining to do.

00:50:42.240 And if they don't want to explain it right now, then I would just be – I'd tell them to be mindful that when Republicans are in charge of the Congress again in 14 months, they're going to explain it then.

00:50:52.400 Yeah, right.

00:50:53.000 Because has he responded to you?

00:50:55.040 I know you sent a letter to the DOJ saying – you sent it on the 15th.

00:50:58.380 You said, I want a response by the 19th, which was Friday.

00:51:01.000 Did you get one?

00:51:01.640 No, they haven't, but the lack of a response is, in a way, its own response, or that document they filed on Friday is its own response, in which they claimed they followed their regulations when they were investigating journalistic organizations.

00:51:14.940 But then they said that Project Veritas is not a journalistic organization.

00:51:18.480 Imagine, imagine, Megan, the outcry, the outcry if the Department of Justice had done something like this to the New York Times or to CNN.

00:51:26.800 It would be nonstop wall-to-wall coverage.

00:51:30.380 And that's – in this administration, just imagine if the Department of Justice had done this in the last administration to those organizations like the New York Times that are often viewed as nothing but a conveyor belt for people inside the Department of Justice or elsewhere in government to leak information.

00:51:47.000 Which brings me to another troubling part of this case.

00:51:50.480 How did the New York Times know about these raids almost immediately?

00:51:54.480 It's pretty clear the Department of Justice has been leaking sensitive, confidential, or attorney-client information to New York Times, again, in an effort to intimidate and embarrass the president's critics.

00:52:07.260 It's so crazy.

00:52:08.080 I mean, Joe Biden was not even president when this diary went missing, however it went missing.

00:52:13.400 And the allegation from whoever got their hands on it was trying to shop it around was that there was explosive material that would be very damaging to Joe Biden in the diary.

00:52:23.240 My team has found the information.

00:52:25.740 It is available on the Internet.

00:52:26.780 We won't repeat it here because it's not verified.

00:52:28.640 But if it were true, it would be explosive.

00:52:31.020 But he wasn't even the president.

00:52:32.820 And you put out in your letter that the Department of Justice doesn't even have jurisdiction over such a thing, such a small alleged crime, the theft of a diary.

00:52:40.720 By the way, the journalist is never on the hook unless the journalist does the stealing him or herself.

00:52:45.980 You know, we publish stuff all the time as journalists that we get from somebody who did the stealing.

00:52:50.780 You know, that's Pentagon Papers.

00:52:52.160 You could a lot of stuff.

00:52:53.260 President Trump's tax returns.

00:52:55.280 You're not supposed to have it, but you get the pass if you're in the press.

00:52:57.960 So O'Keefe shouldn't be on the hook for that, even if he had published it, which he didn't.

00:53:03.080 But you asked the question of how do you even arguably have jurisdiction over a diary?

00:53:07.200 Because there are thresholds below which we won't let our feds get involved. 0.71

00:53:12.240 Yeah, let's let's assume the very worst about what James O'Keefe and Project Veritas might have done.

00:53:18.900 Assume for the sake of argument, Megan, as they say in court.

00:53:21.420 And I have no reason to assume this about Project Veritas or James O'Keefe, but let's assume that they did, in fact, steal that diary.

00:53:28.660 OK, why is that a federal case?

00:53:31.680 What possible federal law was violated by stealing a diary, for goodness sake?

00:53:36.540 It's not like you robbed a bank.

00:53:38.320 It's like you're trapping young girls across state lines.

00:53:41.980 What federal law could possibly have been implicated?

00:53:44.320 And if it was, as I write my letter, the National Stolen Property Act, Megan, well, it's got a $5,000 threshold.

00:53:50.720 Is someone's personal diary really worth $5,000?

00:53:54.260 And then finally, even if it is, the feds don't bring every case just because there is a federal case.

00:54:00.380 They often defer to local authorities or they decline to prosecute it at all.

00:54:04.040 So apparently, if you're the daughter of a presidential candidate, you can have the Department of Justice sicced on your dad's political critics because your diary wound up in someone else's hands.

00:54:17.180 Wow.

00:54:17.400 And if you're the son-in-law of the sitting attorney general, you might be able to sic him on parents objecting to your critical race theory agenda in schools, and then he won't even answer any questions about it.

00:54:26.820 See how it works?

00:54:28.000 All right, let's shift gears and talk China.

00:54:30.500 A lot going on with them.

00:54:31.660 And I heard you say recently on, I think it was Fox, I can't remember, but you were saying that if China invades Taiwan, we should be prepared to shoot down their aircraft and sink their ships.

00:54:42.720 And, you know, the conventional wisdom in response to that is, but we won't because we don't want another conflict and we're too weak to get in a conflict with China, which is sort of a, that squares the circle.

00:54:55.680 Because the fact that we're projecting weakness and the debacle that we had in Afghanistan is what I think you believe might lead China to do this in the first place. 0.90

00:55:04.100 So how likely do you actually think it is that China would actually invade Taiwan?

00:55:08.400 Well, Xi Jinping has made it clear that he views this as part of his personal legacy to solve what they view as a 75-year-old wound before he might leave office in 2027.

00:55:20.880 I think it could be much earlier than that, Reagan.

00:55:22.560 I think it could be next year after the Olympics where the party of Congress in which Xi will presumably be anointed with his third term in office.

00:55:29.400 And I think by being unwilling to say explicitly that we will come to Taiwan's defense, and if necessary, we will sink Chinese ships, we will shoot their aircraft down, and we will target the missile fields on mainland China they're using to attack Taiwan. 0.84

00:55:43.260 We simply make that attack, that invasion, more likely.

00:55:47.300 The most effectual way to preserve the peace, as George Washington said, is to be prepared for war and for your adversaries to know that you are prepared for war.

00:55:55.060 We send exactly the opposite signals, both with our policy decisions these days and by not explicitly condemning.

00:56:04.320 But something weird is happening right now with China.

00:56:06.600 They kind of have to be a little good until the Beijing Olympics, right?

00:56:10.120 Because they don't want to see an international boycott of those Olympics.

00:56:13.480 And I know that that's something that you're now calling for, not just a diplomatic boycott, which the administration has said it might consider, where it won't send its officials.

00:56:22.340 But, you know, the athletes can still go, you want a full boycott, just given their human rights abuses, I gather, and the one to two million Uyghurs in concentration camps and effectively being tortured. 0.80

00:56:33.220 And now we get news of this star tennis player.

00:56:37.040 Her name is Peng Shui, who was formerly world number one, ranked number one on women's doubles, I think it was.

00:56:43.400 And she's gone.

00:56:44.400 She came out and suggested that she had been the victim of a sexual assault by a top ranking official in China.

00:56:51.140 And then they apparently disappeared her.

00:56:56.080 She was kind of gone.

00:56:57.200 She posted online that she didn't consent at first. 0.58

00:56:59.280 She was crying the entire time that this one former member, again, of the Communist Party over there, that his wife was guarding the door while he sexually assaulted her. 1.00

00:57:07.980 She says, I'm still going to speak the truth about us.

00:57:10.000 Within minutes, the post was taken down.

00:57:11.620 She disappeared. Search engines in China are scrubbed of her.

00:57:14.980 Even text mentions of her are flagged by state surveillance.

00:57:17.880 Her social media account disappeared.

00:57:19.720 And it's only when finally the White House spoke out and said something like, we're concerned, that then they put out some video of her over the weekend.

00:57:28.100 I don't know.

00:57:28.480 It was very sketchy.

00:57:29.840 And the Women's Tennis Association here in America has been much better than our NBA in calling out China, saying, this is crazy. 0.98

00:57:36.680 We need real proof that she's OK and not just basically a hostage doing hostage videos for you now.

00:57:43.320 What do you make of it?

00:57:44.040 Yeah, well, Megan, first off, I do want to commend the organized tennis for standing up to the Chinese Communist Party, unlike LeBron James and the panda huggers at the NBA. 1.00

00:57:56.120 On the broader question of the Olympics boycotts, I called last week for a complete and total boycott of the games to include our athletes, their coaches, their staff.

00:58:06.940 Calling for a diplomatic boycott is basically just standing by the status quo.

00:58:11.400 It's extremely unlikely that any official delegation will be traveling to Beijing during their given their coronavirus lockdowns.

00:58:17.120 I first began to raise alarms about this question last summer when I began to study more carefully about the risks our own athletes might face.

00:58:27.200 That's the first and primary reason to call for the boycott.

00:58:29.880 I sent the Biden administration a letter.

00:58:31.680 They wrote me back in restricted channels, even though there's nothing classified in that letter.

00:58:35.460 They're just embarrassed that they have no answer to protect our athletes from ubiquitous electronic surveillance or from DNA harvesting to advance the Chinese Communist Party's advanced biotechnology program. 0.90

00:58:47.120 Or simple hostage taking, as China showed itself more than willing to do to get back a senior Huawei executive earlier this year.

00:58:55.500 The administration has no plan to protect our own athletes and coaches and staff.

00:59:00.460 That's why we should leave the civilized world in boycotting the games.

00:59:04.020 A second reason, as you point out, Megan, is that this is a government that is today, not in the past, not allegedly, but today, engaged in genocide against religious and ethnic minorities in its country.

00:59:15.200 That's not my opinion.

00:59:16.620 That is the Biden State Department's opinion.

00:59:19.420 They are systematically, for instance, imprisoning minorities in gulags. 0.97

00:59:25.460 They are systematically sterilizing or raping ethnic women as a form of ethnic cleansing. 0.83

00:59:32.940 We should not give any legitimacy to the Chinese Communist Party. 0.99

00:59:38.200 This is the winter games.

00:59:39.720 It's not the summer games.

00:59:40.780 It is more than possible right now to rebid these games to another country.

00:59:45.600 I mean, there's probably half a dozen countries in Europe right now that have the ski slopes and the ice rinks and the other facilities that are needed to conduct these games in a civilized nation.

00:59:55.480 That's right.

00:59:56.540 And meanwhile, you know, we'll see.

00:59:58.740 It doesn't doesn't seem like they're prepared to do that.

01:00:00.780 Joe Biden administration.

01:00:01.600 I want to tell you that the Chinese media has responded to your call for a complete boycott. 0.96

01:00:06.640 The editor in chief of The Global Times, which is the CCP's newspaper, said on Twitter that he called you political rubbish. 0.99

01:00:14.980 You are, quote, political rubbish, said attacked you for, quote, lies and said that you lack the least self-awareness. 0.99

01:00:22.420 Would you care to respond? 0.99

01:00:23.780 Well, you know, Megan, this is just an ongoing saga from the Chinese Communist Party directing their ire at me.

01:00:31.260 Last year, I was sanctioned for pointing out that the Wuhan coronavirus almost certainly originated in labs in Wuhan that studied the coronavirus.

01:00:40.700 So, you know, my wife and I have not been able to take our second honeymoon to China.

01:00:44.520 And I guess I won't be attending any of these games.

01:00:47.500 The Biden administration doesn't announce a diplomatic boycott either, since the Chinese Communist Party seems to take an inordinate interest in my criticisms.

01:00:56.880 So you couldn't get your civilized world.

01:00:59.880 You couldn't get your op ed published in The New York Times on, you know, keeping order during the Black Lives Matter riots that we saw in summer 2020.

01:01:08.280 That was the reason that that guy, the editor, you know, he got he got, you know, pulled because he wanted it.

01:01:14.740 He supported your op ed.

01:01:15.980 I mean, they published it, but then the guy got fired for allowing it.

01:01:18.660 You can't you're definitely not getting anything published in in The Global Times.

01:01:22.300 So, I mean, your options are getting slimmer and slimmer, Senator, by the minute.

01:01:26.840 Well, not surprising, given how much The Global Times, The New York Times have in common.

01:01:32.360 Well said.

01:01:33.120 Oh, wait, can I just ask you real quick, because we have another guest coming up.

01:01:35.760 But what is your prediction on BBB?

01:01:37.860 It passes the Senate.

01:01:38.840 Joe Biden says it will pass.

01:01:40.300 And Schumer says it'll pass by Christmas.

01:01:42.980 I certainly hope it doesn't pass by Christmas or Thanksgiving or any other time, because it would be terrible for American families at a time when folks are paying more for gas than they have in many, many years on the drive to grandma's house or can't even get the food they need for Thanksgiving or the presents for Christmas.

01:01:58.320 If they can, they're paying historic rates for it.

01:02:00.480 The last thing we need is trillions of dollars of more spending.

01:02:03.560 But what's your prediction?

01:02:04.400 Some of which is going to rich homeowners in places like California and New Jersey whose taxes are too high in the first place.

01:02:10.000 Others of which are going to pay for welfare from households that don't even have a breadwinner, much less someone even looking for work.

01:02:15.980 So this is not what America needs right now.

01:02:17.800 You're not going to give me a prediction whether it passes, whether Manchin and Sinema get on board?

01:02:22.680 I'm hopeful that we can stop this terrible bill in the Senate.

01:02:25.100 That's all I'll say on that, Megan.

01:02:26.680 All right.

01:02:27.100 We'll continue watching it.

01:02:28.360 Such a pleasure.

01:02:29.160 Come back again.

01:02:29.700 There's so much more I want to talk to you about.

01:02:31.740 Great to be on with you.

01:02:32.600 Happy Thanksgiving.

01:02:33.140 Oh, to you, too.

01:02:34.420 Thanks, Senator.

01:02:35.400 Coming up, we're going to be joined by Jesse Singel.

01:02:38.020 And we're going to dig into Jesse's coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse for more than a year and how the media is botching the story still.

01:02:48.780 Right now, I'm joined by Jesse Singel.

01:02:50.800 He is co-host of The Great Podcast, Blocked and Reported with Katie Herzog.

01:02:56.060 That's in our archive.

01:02:56.880 We had them both on together and you will love it.

01:02:59.400 They're hilarious together and brilliant apart, too.

01:03:02.180 He's also the author of The Quick Fix, Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social ILS.

01:03:08.480 And Jesse's been tracking the media coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse since right after the shooting last year.

01:03:12.820 So, Jesse, have they learned their lesson?

01:03:15.940 Now the jury of 12 people have come out and said, not guilty in all charges.

01:03:20.900 Did the media get the message, wise up and start owning the many lies that it has been telling us for the past year and a half?

01:03:28.040 Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of doubling down so far.

01:03:31.620 And, you know, I don't want to overstate this because I do think along the way there was some good journalism, you know, by outlets like The Times and The Washington Post and The New Yorker.

01:03:39.620 But especially when it comes to more opinion-oriented pundits, it really does seem like they're doubling and tripling down on the idea that Kyle Rittenhouse was a dangerous white supremacist vigilante who was just seeking to cause trouble.

01:03:52.720 And there's just very little evidence to support that account.

01:03:55.040 Mm-hmm. Yeah, The Times, I agree, they did better than cable news, but that's really not tough to do.

01:04:00.920 I mean, that is thinnest kid at fat camp.

01:04:04.800 The Times early on criticized Kyle Rittenhouse for, quote, lionizing the police.

01:04:09.220 Social media showed strong support for officers.

01:04:12.340 So? So? What is that? Why is that relevant?

01:04:14.680 New York Magazine, terrible, said Trump's leap to defend Rittenhouse is pathological.

01:04:20.400 Or it's a deadly message that he wants to send to future would-be racial justice protesters.

01:04:25.040 In other words, suggesting Trump wants anybody who shows up at a Black Lives Matter innocent protest with no violence to know that they could get shot with impunity. 0.85

01:04:33.800 I mean, utter nonsense. We could go on. 0.69

01:04:36.480 Daily Beast printed out, teen vigilante kills unarmed Kenosha protester who threw a plastic bag at him. 0.99

01:04:42.060 Oh, you mean the convicted pedophile who was telling him, I'm going to kill you if I get you alone, and then was grabbing for his gun and saying, F you, while he did. 0.85

01:04:49.460 Like, the misrepresentation, Scarborough said that he unloaded 60 rounds on people. 0.99

01:04:53.380 Total lie.

01:04:54.180 I wonder why, you know, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy came out. 1.00

01:04:57.580 I wonder why a deranged white nationalist Trump supporter, deranged white nationalist, would show up to a protest with a rifle and start shooting people. 0.99

01:05:05.740 And we can go on. 0.99

01:05:07.080 So there are so many examples of it, of it, Jesse.

01:05:09.380 And now that, to me, you tell me, but I feel like they can't let it go because it's too important to them, the narrative that we are a white supremacist nation, that Kyle, just because he has white skin, despite his socioeconomically disadvantaged status, is privileged and has to be held up there and protected by said white nationalist system.

01:05:27.160 Yeah, I think the sort of tribalistic psychology here is really weird.

01:05:30.560 I mean, a lot of the folks who, in my view, did the worst and most dishonest takes on Kyle Rittenhouse, I agree with them on most political stuff.

01:05:39.020 I mean, I really am.

01:05:39.820 Yeah, you're not a Republican.

01:05:41.180 No, I'm on the left, and I was disgusted by Trump.

01:05:44.080 And I mean, I could go down the list. 0.99

01:05:45.520 It's sort of pathetic. 0.91

01:05:46.440 I have to recite my, you know, showing that I'm on the right side. 0.97

01:05:49.420 The point is, there's this tribal poll where you need to show you're one of the good ones by trying to one-up the last guy about how much you hate Kyle Rittenhouse.

01:05:57.120 And I think that's really, that's not how good journalism and good punditry work.

01:06:02.040 You need to look at the facts, at what actually occurred.

01:06:04.380 You can't speculate or try to mind-read someone.

01:06:07.220 That's exactly right.

01:06:08.260 And it's dangerous.

01:06:10.240 They're playing a very dangerous game.

01:06:13.380 This isn't like, oh, we're going to get you fired, or we're going to get you to lose your status as an influencer, right?

01:06:20.460 This is a young man's life.

01:06:23.340 Just hold your judgment.

01:06:25.740 Let the legal process play out.

01:06:28.980 There will be somebody trying to put Kyle in jail for the rest of his life, and he will have a defender, and both sides will be represented.

01:06:35.380 And there's no reason to try for a year to poison the jury pool against him.

01:06:41.480 Well, I mean, the reason is you get attention, and you get retweets, and you get page views for writing inflammatory stuff.

01:06:48.060 And there's a lot less of an appetite for sort of good, in-depth journalism.

01:06:52.180 So when I mentioned the Times, there was a New York Times Magazine article that really attempted to carefully explain what happened that night.

01:06:59.060 And, you know, I was a staffer at New York Magazine.

01:07:01.900 I had access to the page view data.

01:07:04.200 Generally speaking, a piece like that, that represents tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of work and resources on the part of the Times,

01:07:11.020 it's not going to get you as much attention as, like, a really inflammatory column that gets shared both by people who like it and who hate it.

01:07:19.540 That's very true.

01:07:20.620 And, of course, the deliciousness early on of trying to tie it all to Trump was too much to resist.

01:07:28.600 And I don't believe Trump should have commented on this case, just like I don't believe Barack Obama should have commented on Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.

01:07:34.640 And I don't think Biden should have weighed in on this case either, right?

01:07:37.620 I just think, like, especially when you're the president or running to be, you have a special obligation to stay the hell out of it because you have a lot of influence.

01:07:44.220 And it's unfair to the person who's on trial.

01:07:47.100 You know, at best, it's unfair.

01:07:48.220 At worst, you're poisoning the trial in a way that could screw up the whole result.

01:07:53.660 Let me ask you about – hold on a second because we have the budded soundbite.

01:07:58.440 And this, I think, comes from Matt Taibbi on the sort of some of the narratives that have come out.

01:08:04.340 The one that we hear over and over is horror of horror, he crossed state lines, Jesse.

01:08:08.860 Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines.

01:08:11.360 And then usually you hear with an illegal gun, which turned out not to be true.

01:08:16.160 But here's something Matt Taibbi put together that kind of gets to the heart of it.

01:08:19.640 Listen.

01:08:20.180 Driving across state borders.

01:08:21.800 He's driving across state lines.

01:08:23.380 He's crossing state lines.

01:08:24.540 Across state lines.

01:08:25.540 Across state lines.

01:08:26.300 Across state lines.

01:08:27.180 If you look at the Rittenhouse case, he crossed state lines.

01:08:30.040 Drives up to events.

01:08:32.460 Across state lines.

01:08:33.500 Came across state lines.

01:08:34.880 Kyle Rittenhouse, who traveled across state lines.

01:08:37.460 From out of state.

01:08:38.140 Out of his own state.

01:08:39.100 Came across state borders.

01:08:40.280 Whenever you have a situation where a 17-year-old is crossing state lines, it's a white teenager. 0.99

01:08:47.060 He crosses a state line, drives 30 minutes into Kenosha.

01:08:50.240 Remember, he came across the line.

01:08:51.580 He crossed state lines.

01:08:52.900 Crossed state lines.

01:08:53.880 Across state lines.

01:08:55.120 He crossed state lines.

01:08:55.940 Kyle Rittenhouse, who crossed state lines.

01:08:59.800 That's so great.

01:09:01.940 What's with the obsession?

01:09:03.140 Yeah, I mean, and it's not just sort of not picking the worst pundits.

01:09:08.380 The ACLU put out a statement and mentioned this.

01:09:10.440 Even the ACLU.

01:09:12.080 We've known for a long time this is completely irrelevant to the case for a couple reasons.

01:09:15.540 One is, under Wisconsin law, at worst, his possession of the rifle was a misdemeanor.

01:09:21.300 It turns out it's not even that for technical reasons I think you've discussed on a previous episode.

01:09:25.440 He also didn't cross state lines with it.

01:09:28.380 His friend or his friend's stepdad bought it for him and gave it to him in Kenosha.

01:09:32.280 Also, he's from Antioch, Illinois, which I believe is on the Wisconsin border.

01:09:36.400 And he had close ties to Kenosha.

01:09:40.160 This is like, you know, I'm from Boston and Western Mass is very close to Albany.

01:09:43.760 It's like someone who works in Albany but lives in Western Mass.

01:09:46.540 Oh, they crossed state.

01:09:47.420 It's just, it's completely meaningful.

01:09:49.680 It's helpful, though.

01:09:50.800 Meaningless.

01:09:51.160 Anyone who mentions that, you immediately know you don't have to take them seriously.

01:09:54.220 It's like a flag saying, don't take me seriously.

01:09:56.880 That's a good point.

01:09:57.860 Yeah, exactly right.

01:09:58.540 It just, I think they think it's, it makes him sound more nefarious.

01:10:02.160 Like he's, he's at home.

01:10:04.000 He's putting on his camo.

01:10:05.580 He grabbed his AR-15.

01:10:07.220 He drove halfway across the country.

01:10:10.060 Yeah, no, he's saying, I hope I can successfully sneak across the Illinois-Wisconsin border,

01:10:14.680 despite all the fortifications there.

01:10:18.060 Exactly.

01:10:18.500 But, you know, it just sort of speaks to me, to their duplicity in trying to make a story

01:10:24.320 sound worse than it does.

01:10:26.600 The reaction, of course, has been insane from the press.

01:10:30.580 And so we talked about earlier, the Pauls, but these know-nothing celebrities and sports

01:10:37.660 figures really take the cake.

01:10:39.520 I mean, they truly, I tweeted out something over the weekend saying, you ask any of these

01:10:43.940 people, these, especially the athletes and celebrities tweeting out about this case, ask

01:10:47.660 him to name two out of the three people who took, who Kyle shot.

01:10:51.360 Just two out of three, even, even one.

01:10:52.980 I'll take one, one out of three.

01:10:54.260 Ask him to say the name of the judge.

01:10:56.520 Do they even know what it is?

01:10:57.620 Nevermind how to pronounce it.

01:10:59.000 Nevermind ask them what provocation laws in Wisconsin.

01:11:01.700 If they can't answer those questions, they should shut the hell up about this case.

01:11:04.820 They shouldn't have an opinion.

01:11:05.920 They didn't watch it.

01:11:06.740 Joe Biden admits he didn't watch any of the trial and yet still he's angry in the verdict. 0.99

01:11:10.100 Shut up. 1.00

01:11:10.840 Shut up. 1.00

01:11:11.380 You forfeited your right to have an opinion because you're not informed and you should 1.00

01:11:14.800 not be fostering any opinions on it since you have none based in fact.

01:11:18.880 Okay.

01:11:19.060 So here's a couple of examples.

01:11:21.260 Of course, Colin Kaepernick weighs in.

01:11:23.340 I would bet everything I own, Colin Kaepernick knows nothing about this trial.

01:11:26.920 Absolutely nothing about this trial.

01:11:28.720 He talks about how what we just witnessed was a system based built on white supremacy, validating 1.00

01:11:33.480 the terrorist acts of a white supremacist.

01:11:35.880 This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. 0.99

01:11:38.800 White supremacy cannot be reformed.

01:11:40.380 But this brings me to my favorite tweet.

01:11:41.880 This is the winner, Jesse.

01:11:43.040 This is a winner.

01:11:43.640 And trust me, I look through a lot.

01:11:45.500 Mark Ruffalo.

01:11:47.920 Okay.

01:11:48.380 You ready? 0.96

01:11:49.860 We come together to mourn the lives lost to the same racist system that devalues black

01:11:56.720 lives and devalued the lives of Anthony and Jojo.

01:12:03.700 Jojo.

01:12:04.220 Joseph Rosenbaum is Jojo, right?

01:12:06.140 Yes.

01:12:07.180 Anthony Huber and Jojo. 0.97

01:12:08.120 So our convicted child molester who faced 11 counts of child rape for raping boys as

01:12:15.660 young as nine, who was fresh out of the mental institution, not on his meds and so on.

01:12:20.720 He's now Mark Ruffalo's little Jojo.

01:12:23.760 And he finishes it up with, quote, there is no doubt that people who face this young man

01:12:27.300 were more afraid of him than he was of them.

01:12:30.900 What the hell does he know about anything?

01:12:32.420 I think the problem here is, so, you know, I think the cat's a little bit out of the bag

01:12:37.860 in the age of social media, everyone's going to chime in on everything.

01:12:40.600 I am more frustrated with journalists than with Mark Ruffalo.

01:12:44.300 But I do think given that the whole thing that started all this was looting and rioting

01:12:49.420 in Kenosha and that there's obviously some connection between what people say on social

01:12:53.720 media and how angry and scared people get, at a certain point, people need to take responsibility

01:12:58.400 if they're going to have huge platforms and acknowledge that they could be contributing

01:13:01.540 to genuinely dangerous situations that, you know, I'm not saying anyone's going to start

01:13:05.740 rioting just because Mark Ruffalo said that.

01:13:08.160 But when you have 10,000 people spreading the same misinformation, making the same inflammatory

01:13:12.580 claims, at a certain point, there's a risk that you're lighting another Tinder box.

01:13:16.720 I just think people should recognize that.

01:13:19.440 Mark Ruffalo has 7.7 followers on a million, 7.7 million followers on Twitter.

01:13:24.400 You know, I do think you need to be more careful.

01:13:27.320 You need to be more responsible.

01:13:29.380 Mark Ruffalo, come on this show.

01:13:31.080 I'm begging you.

01:13:32.200 I'm begging you.

01:13:33.420 I'll give you time to study.

01:13:34.760 You don't even have to do it like this week.

01:13:35.940 Mark Ruffalo, come on Blocked and Reported first.

01:13:37.620 Come on.

01:13:38.560 It's a much bigger platform.

01:13:41.160 It'll be super fun.

01:13:42.300 You can take the whole week to study.

01:13:43.720 I won't ambush you.

01:13:44.520 I'll give you a whole week to study.

01:13:45.500 Come on.

01:13:45.880 And then let's see if you can answer some basic questions about Jojo and Anthony.

01:13:51.960 I mean, like the lunacy.

01:13:54.580 So now-

01:13:55.340 But the other thing is, though, like if he wants to make a substantive point here, there's

01:13:59.100 probably some substantive points you could make about how the situation got so out of

01:14:02.920 control.

01:14:03.400 And also, from my point of view, I don't like the open carry laws in Wisconsin.

01:14:08.060 We might disagree on that.

01:14:09.140 At least that is a substantive fact-based point to make, that those laws should be different.

01:14:13.740 Make that point if you want.

01:14:14.580 That's totally different from distorting the facts of the case.

01:14:17.300 I agree with you 100%.

01:14:18.300 I don't want to see that law changed, but I completely agree that's an appropriate discussion

01:14:23.160 to have.

01:14:24.140 There's nothing wrong with saying, do we need to reevaluate that?

01:14:26.620 And then the two sides can duke it out.

01:14:28.400 But they know what the facts are.

01:14:30.000 They've been, they've literally been testified to in a court of law.

01:14:32.780 And a lot of them, from the witnesses who are victims, like who are on their side, from

01:14:39.140 Gage Grosskreutz to the others who are not on Kyle's side, who give Kyle some of the best,

01:14:44.420 most exonerating testimony there was.

01:14:47.060 And still, they won't admit it, right? 0.99

01:14:49.840 Still, they talk about Kyle Rittenhouse like he's just this white supremacist who was a lunatic 0.99

01:14:55.100 armed vigilante who went there with a desire to kill people.

01:15:00.020 So I don't, I, to me, it's very disturbing because you, you can't, you can't stop it.

01:15:05.380 And there's no willingness to sort of be honest about what you got wrong and go back and correct

01:15:09.580 it.

01:15:09.760 And then we're seeing similar things when it comes to, you know, the fake narratives

01:15:13.460 about the Steele dossier and Russiagate, uh, even, you know, the kid, Nick Salmon and

01:15:19.100 Covington, you know, like, I don't remember big, long, you know, we're really deeply sorry.

01:15:23.620 Like they don't do that.

01:15:24.500 They just move on and hope they don't get sued.

01:15:26.520 And in that case they did.

01:15:28.080 All right, let's talk about Kyle Rittenhouse talking to Tucker.

01:15:31.160 He apparently has been shooting a documentary with Tucker Carlson's team throughout the trial.

01:15:36.960 Some people are horrified by this.

01:15:38.680 I'm like, why?

01:15:40.220 I like most journalists would have loved that opportunity on the left and right.

01:15:45.160 It was going to come out differently depending on who you choose.

01:15:48.040 Um, but I saw people sort of horrified that he was doing this.

01:15:51.360 Um, and here for what it's worth is part of the trailer for a Tucker's longer piece.

01:15:57.820 The interview of Kyle is tonight.

01:15:59.420 He's doing a longer piece based on that documentary, I think in December.

01:16:02.240 So watch.

01:16:05.280 It's the stuff that keeps you up at night.

01:16:07.420 Like once you finally do get to sleep, your dreams are about what happened and you're waking up in a, in a dark, cold sweat.

01:16:15.880 Yeah.

01:16:17.660 You had dreams about what happened?

01:16:20.180 Every single night.

01:16:23.780 It's, it's quite scary actually, because the dreams feel so real and they're not the same at all.

01:16:30.600 They're all different.

01:16:31.580 They're the different scenarios that run through your head during the day.

01:16:34.720 Like what could have happened?

01:16:36.240 Like I'm, I'm alive, but what could have happened?

01:16:40.180 Like, what if I wasn't alive or what if I did let Mr. Rosen all steal my gun?

01:16:46.280 It's those type of dreams.

01:16:47.680 The outcome of it's bad, but almost every outcome is either me getting seriously injured or hurt or dead.

01:16:56.360 Those are just the dreams I have on a daily basis.

01:17:02.240 First of all, your thoughts on the documentary and the fact that Kyle is doing a sit down with Tucker tonight.

01:17:08.720 Yeah, I've seen very little of it other than the trailer.

01:17:10.780 I mean, I, I guess the, uh, democratic nominee who's now president called him a white supremacist publicly.

01:17:18.120 If after that, you're surprised that he seeks out right-wing figures who are supporting him.

01:17:23.680 And in some cases holding up him up as a hero, which I absolutely don't think they should.

01:17:27.860 I, I just, I'm not going to level judgment against him.

01:17:31.340 I obviously, I'm not a fan of Tucker Carlson.

01:17:33.300 I'm not a fan of certain aspects of the right-wing media ecosystem that are lionizing Kyle Rittenhouse,

01:17:38.060 but it's the most predictable thing in the world.

01:17:39.880 Should, should he have sought out to, uh, to go on the mainstream outlets where every hour he's

01:17:44.320 being called a white supremacist?

01:17:45.840 That's not really realistic, is it?

01:17:47.800 Exactly right.

01:17:48.420 Who else would he speak to?

01:17:49.500 And Tucker had his back right from the beginning, um, because he doesn't see everything through a

01:17:53.700 racial prism.

01:17:54.440 I mean, he doesn't just have a knee jerk, like, okay, this has got to be something about 0.87

01:17:57.880 our white supremacist nation reaction.

01:18:00.820 And, um, I think Kyle's making the right choice because Tucker does have a very important voice,

01:18:05.700 especially on the right half of this country.

01:18:08.060 And that's the half that was willing to give him an open mind throughout this past year.

01:18:12.580 I don't think Republicans were defending him in every turn.

01:18:15.380 I didn't see that amongst the entire GOP.

01:18:17.780 Like I saw the entire sort of left-wing press piling on.

01:18:22.000 Um, but Tucker was there early.

01:18:23.860 So I think he, he's doing the wise thing and he should have one chance or a few chances

01:18:29.360 to, to offer his take, right?

01:18:32.100 It's not like he's celebrating.

01:18:33.380 I don't think he's going to be out there like, yeah, it was great.

01:18:35.200 You talk about, you heard his humanity there.

01:18:38.200 He's throwing up.

01:18:39.200 Sure. 0.99

01:18:39.380 This has been a damn nightmare for this kid. 0.99

01:18:41.700 You saw it when they read the verdict. 0.99

01:18:43.720 Why can't we have some testimonial to the pain that this irresponsible coverage and irresponsible

01:18:48.760 prosecution, in my view, puts one through?

01:18:50.720 Yeah, I was actually, I was at a bar over the weekend with some folks who disagreed on this

01:18:55.900 and, um, folks who I'm otherwise on the same side politically as, and, and I think our,

01:19:00.700 our sticking point was they could not believe that he actually came there and saw himself

01:19:05.940 rightly or wrongly as sort of a defender of Kenosha or someone who could help maintain

01:19:10.220 order.

01:19:10.720 Uh, they really could not believe that they, they thought that he was only there to cause

01:19:14.480 trouble.

01:19:14.880 And, and to me, that's really what the divide stems from.

01:19:17.840 I don't think it's good.

01:19:19.200 I don't think it should be celebrated.

01:19:20.400 I think it was a disaster that we literally had paramilitaries basically patrolling the

01:19:24.580 streets of American city.

01:19:26.260 But I, I just, I, if there was evidence that he had gone there seeking to antagonize protesters

01:19:31.120 or kill someone, I would, I would highlight that there, there is none.

01:19:34.220 And, um, I just think that's the real divide right now among some on the left, because there's

01:19:38.600 a lot of disagreement on my side about this kid.

01:19:41.140 Well, that's exactly right.

01:19:41.960 But they, among all those things, like why he was there, was he there to cause trouble?

01:19:45.860 Was he there to shoot people? 0.95

01:19:47.340 Is he a white supremacist?

01:19:49.100 Believe me, the prosecution would have introduced all of that at trial if they had it.

01:19:53.320 The only, only evidence about alleged white supremacy that they tried to introduce that

01:19:58.920 was kept out was that picture of him with the proud boys when he got released on bail.

01:20:03.880 And I talked about it earlier in the show, a bunch of guys who we didn't know came up

01:20:07.680 to him and wanted a picture with him.

01:20:09.940 And he agreed, he posed and they all made the okay sign and he made the okay sign.

01:20:14.660 And his lawyer leader said he had no idea what the hell that meant, which, you know,

01:20:18.400 for all of humanity has meant okay.

01:20:20.660 Okay.

01:20:21.560 Well, and well, to think that he's flashing a white supremacist sign there, you have to

01:20:25.580 believe that for years he successfully hid his white supremacist allegiances.

01:20:30.080 And then when he was on trial for his life, just explicitly made that.

01:20:33.900 So I see even just making that simple to demonstrate someone's going to screenshot that, but

01:20:37.200 it just, it doesn't really make any sense logically that he would have hidden it so expertly for

01:20:41.860 so long and then sort of explicitly announced to the world, yes, I'm a white supremacist.

01:20:45.960 It's just not, it's not rigorous, high quality thinking to even suggest that.

01:20:50.360 It's so true because not only did he not post anything or follow anybody on his social media

01:20:55.100 that would suggest that because they did pour over that, the defense, the prosecution,

01:20:58.980 the anti-defamation league poured over it.

01:21:01.620 But he willingly voluntarily turned over his phone to investigators, gave him the password,

01:21:07.400 you know, have at it.

01:21:08.440 There would be records on there.

01:21:09.760 That's private.

01:21:10.540 That's not like social media.

01:21:11.620 If you've got some, you know, your texts, they'll show it.

01:21:14.480 That's like what the ADL does.

01:21:16.140 They monitor online extremism.

01:21:18.020 If they could not find evidence of those sorts of ties, it's safe to say those ties don't exist.

01:21:22.280 I just, and that's what the prosecution wanted.

01:21:24.260 Forget the ADL, the prosecutor, Binger, would have loved, especially once he got stopped

01:21:28.860 from introducing that photo with the Proud Boys, to find anything.

01:21:32.320 If he could have introduced white supremacist, it's a BLM, it should have been protest, was

01:21:36.140 riot.

01:21:36.980 It would have been great, but no, it wasn't there.

01:21:39.680 So, you know, we have to deal in fact.

01:21:42.000 But the truth is, even if they had proven it, even if Kyle had some terrible white supremacist

01:21:46.920 ideology, it wouldn't have changed the outcome of his case, in my view, because it really did

01:21:51.340 come down to, not is Kyle Rittenhouse a good or bad person, but was he justified in his

01:21:56.120 belief that he was facing great bodily harm or death at the hands of the three men he

01:22:00.520 shot?

01:22:01.580 Yeah.

01:22:01.920 Although, I mean, to be fair, you should say the same thing about Rosenbaum, who has an

01:22:05.020 incredibly messed up figure, who, like you said, was a convicted pedophile, but it's

01:22:08.680 the same deal.

01:22:09.200 No matter how bad his past was, if in the moment Rittenhouse had just shot him, it still would

01:22:13.520 have been a crime.

01:22:14.300 But there's way too much attention been paid to everything else but the actual moments in question.

01:22:19.640 And there, I think the law is clear.

01:22:21.340 See, I agree with that.

01:22:22.440 And I think the judge made the right ruling in keeping out the criminal pass of these

01:22:26.240 three guys, unless the prosecutor opened the door.

01:22:29.760 And that's how it always works in a court of law.

01:22:31.340 If I put you on the stand and I say, like, are you known for your truth and honesty and

01:22:35.400 for being a good man, Jesse?

01:22:36.460 And you say, absolutely.

01:22:37.700 And, you know, you would never do anything untoward or illy.

01:22:41.620 I mean, and then I'm opening the door for the other side to come in there and just, you

01:22:45.740 know, club you if you had done anything.

01:22:49.280 And I know that you haven't.

01:22:50.100 Um, so they did that at this trial.

01:22:52.480 They actually refer to these guys as heroes, the prosecutor, and and not even just in the

01:22:56.440 closing, even during the testimonial.

01:22:58.320 And it didn't come out.

01:22:59.420 So anyway, a lot of the public is still under the misimpression that these were Boy Scouts

01:23:03.180 just there for to attend a peaceful protest for BLM.

01:23:06.540 Did you think that the just if I can turn the tables, ask you one question, is your view

01:23:11.640 more that this was such an uphill battle in terms of the evidence the prosecution was

01:23:15.660 screwed?

01:23:16.100 Or do you think they actually screwed up as badly as some people say they did?

01:23:19.740 No, they never should have brought the charges.

01:23:21.960 Once they saw those videotapes, they should have said, members of the public, we know you

01:23:25.820 don't want to hear this.

01:23:27.020 But he was he was practicing self-defense.

01:23:29.740 He was attacked by all three men.

01:23:31.500 And if you don't like it, you're going to have to deal with it in your own conscience

01:23:35.300 and your own God.

01:23:36.300 But this is not a case for us.

01:23:37.940 This is not a criminal case.

01:23:39.100 That's what should have happened.

01:23:40.440 That's why I'm I'm angry that Binger even brought it.

01:23:43.200 And I don't excuse the media for misreporting on it or these pundits for sort of running

01:23:46.840 with it in a way that's very dishonest.

01:23:48.880 But Binger's sort of the original sinner because he shouldn't have filed the case.

01:23:53.040 And I think too many people put too much stock in our prosecutors and our criminal

01:23:57.540 justice system.

01:23:58.180 But he was under a lot of pressure.

01:23:59.220 It's also it sort of shows that, you know, you can imagine a situation like Rittenhouse

01:24:04.500 where he did it.

01:24:05.280 He did.

01:24:05.600 You know, he is from a poor background, but he did get a flood of right wing support and

01:24:08.860 money.

01:24:09.120 And he had some benefits there.

01:24:11.160 But it shows you how prosecutors will really overcharge in ridiculous ways.

01:24:14.400 I mean, first degree, intentional homicide in light of those videos.

01:24:17.820 What happens to the equivalent of Kyle Rittenhouse and he doesn't have a giant media

01:24:21.220 spotlight on him or he doesn't have the benefits of donations?

01:24:23.540 I think there's like a principal point to make here.

01:24:26.140 And the ACLU should be on the other side of this and arguing it from the other side.

01:24:29.220 Well, that's what's that's the ultimate irony, right?

01:24:32.140 Kyle Rittenhouse talking in that clip from Tucker about how, you know, prosecutorial

01:24:35.680 overreach.

01:24:36.720 What if he really is a BLM supporter?

01:24:38.240 What if he really is?

01:24:39.140 What if he goes full social justice after this and says the system stacked against defense?

01:24:43.440 You know, it could happen, right?

01:24:45.500 I mean, it really could happen.

01:24:48.000 That would be funny.

01:24:48.780 That would be a good outcome.

01:24:49.780 I think the opposite is more likely.

01:24:51.320 He's he's been embraced by the right, which, you know, I'd rather show him show him the

01:24:56.040 light side.

01:24:56.600 But it's not going to happen given his treatment at our hands.

01:25:00.080 Yeah, that's right.

01:25:01.620 The the numerous misstatements.

01:25:04.040 It wasn't just the cross state lines with an illegal weapon.

01:25:08.000 Miranda Devine in The New York Post.

01:25:09.260 She did a great piece on this, talking about how they say he killed two black BLM protesters.

01:25:15.420 OK, that's not true.

01:25:16.100 Everybody was white. 0.97

01:25:16.800 Even The Guardian on Friday had a piece saying he killed three black men or shot three black 0.99

01:25:21.840 men. 0.75

01:25:22.960 The Independent, I mean, how could they?

01:25:25.340 How could the Independent have a piece like that as a Friday, Jesse?

01:25:28.720 I mean, it's crazy.

01:25:29.700 The other thing is you shouldn't.

01:25:31.780 Rosenbaum definitely wasn't a protester.

01:25:34.040 There's almost no evidence he was.

01:25:35.380 And Grosskreutz's testimony suggested he saw himself as sort of a neutral medic.

01:25:40.100 So I don't obviously saying he shot protesters makes the crime sound worse and more politically

01:25:45.080 motivated.

01:25:45.580 So it feels like, you know, a year, year and a half ago, we're all talking about accuracy

01:25:49.740 in media and not doing misleading headlines and making sure to hold Trump accountable.

01:25:54.060 People's resistance just to accurate, clear journalism is is really disturbing to me because

01:26:00.700 I'm with them that, you know, you should call Trump out for his lies, but you should

01:26:03.840 also describe a politically freighted case like this accurately.

01:26:07.780 And two of the people shot do not appear to have been protesters at all.

01:26:10.860 And by the way, that guy, Gage Grosskreutz, who got shot in the arm, who said he was there

01:26:13.900 to be an EMT, also admitted on the stand that he was carrying a gun that was illegal.

01:26:18.020 It wasn't.

01:26:18.680 It didn't have a proper license for it, that he carries it everywhere.

01:26:21.360 He's very pro Second Amendment and that he did not have any EMT supplies or bag on him

01:26:27.000 that night.

01:26:27.380 And his history, his criminal history is long and hardcore anti-cop.

01:26:33.180 So I don't know what he was doing there that night, but I have questions about whether it

01:26:36.780 was to be an EMT.

01:26:38.180 And the other guy, Huber, was not a good man either.

01:26:41.340 He was also a convicted felon who had hurt his own brother and said he was going to gut 0.99

01:26:46.880 him like a pig. 1.00

01:26:47.760 I could go on. 0.99

01:26:48.640 Anyway, so I've got my doubts.

01:26:50.880 Yeah.

01:26:51.120 No, I mean, I think Grosskreutz did testify he had medical supplies with him.

01:26:54.280 But again, I would just point to-

01:26:55.320 No, no, he denied that he had an EMT bag.

01:26:57.820 Oh, they didn't have a bag.

01:26:58.520 OK.

01:26:58.800 I do think it might be that both of them thought they were trying to take out an active

01:27:01.680 shooter.

01:27:02.160 But the point is, the only thing that matters is what Rittenhouse saw and what happened to

01:27:06.160 him.

01:27:06.320 And I just, it was pretty slam dunk self-defense.

01:27:09.320 Yeah, that's right.

01:27:10.260 And, you know, it is sort of a function of our self-defense law that you can have Kyle

01:27:15.840 believing that his life is in danger and ready to shoot.

01:27:19.160 And even Gage Grosskreutz believing his life is in danger and that he must shoot or defense

01:27:24.920 of others that, you know, Kyle's about to shoot others and he has to take him down.

01:27:27.780 The law sort of puts us in a conflicting situation sometimes where two people can both believe

01:27:34.420 rightly, right, with reason that they're about to get shot to death and fire.

01:27:38.780 But there's no real alternative to that, right?

01:27:42.340 Conflicts happen and they can happen with weapons or without weapons.

01:27:45.720 And the law rightly makes one thing paramount, and that is the state of mind of the person

01:27:51.140 pulling the trigger.

01:27:52.720 We can't start putting people in jail because in good faith they just made a mistake.

01:27:57.720 That's not who we want spending the rest of their lives in jail.

01:28:00.220 So anyway, okay, Jesse, you've done a great job of speaking truth to power and calling

01:28:06.100 out the left-wing media for its lies.

01:28:08.300 And we, as always, are grateful.

01:28:10.060 Thanks for being here.

01:28:11.340 Thanks for having me, Megan.

01:28:12.200 Listen, thanks everybody for watching.

01:28:13.680 Go to youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

01:28:15.180 We'll see you tomorrow.

01:28:17.320 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:28:19.280 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:28:30.220 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly. 0.67

The Megyn Kelly Show - November 22, 2021

Rittenhouse Media Insanity and the Dangers of China, with Sen. Tom Cotton, Jason Whitlock, and Jesse Singal ｜ Ep. 208

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