The Megyn Kelly Show - Smith's Slap Fallout and Dems and Unions Coziness, with Sen. Tim Scott, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Lee Smith

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.

00:00:14.940 Florida's controversial bill that critics have dubbed the Don't Say Gay Bill has now been signed into law, but the firestorm is far from over.

00:00:23.420 Meanwhile, Democrats are doing all they can to prevent a red wave this November and beyond, while President Biden has now introduced his massive budget.

00:00:32.400 I'm excited to speak about all of this with my first guest, who's making his debut appearance on this particular show.

00:00:38.780 South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is here. Senator, great to have you.

00:00:42.520 Thank you, Megyn. Good to be with you. Hope you're doing well.

00:00:44.440 All right. I'm doing great. So, I mean, I have my glasses on today because I'm getting LASIK in two weeks and I'm excited about it, so you can't wear a context.

00:00:51.620 Congratulations. But I almost wish I couldn't see the numbers next to this budget. It's huge.

00:00:57.560 It's huge. 5.8 trillion. All I can think is so much spending.

00:01:04.200 And you explain to me what this is about, because as I understand it, mostly spending proposals and tax hikes, President Biden tried to get through before and failed to.

00:01:14.800 And now he seems to try to be improve his chances of getting what he wants with a few carrots to Republicans like, oh, more defense spending and more funding for cops because he needs a win before the midterm elections.

00:01:27.700 Well, Megyn, you hit the nail on the head. The bottom line is that this is a messaging bill for election years.

00:01:33.180 This is not what will happen. This is what he wants the American people to hear about, not actually what he's going to accomplish.

00:01:39.640 The truth is that, yes, I would love to see more military spending.

00:01:43.400 We desperately need it, especially in the face of global challenges around the world.

00:01:47.980 And frankly, you think about the genocide led by Putin in Ukraine.

00:01:52.040 Certainly, we should have more resources.

00:01:53.720 We should be able to be in two places at the same time from a military standpoint.

00:01:57.520 Second, I'd say that after defunding the police, after that strategy literally took millions upon millions of dollars out of the pockets of law enforcement agencies, making officers more vulnerable.

00:02:09.320 Certainly, we should have the conversation.

00:02:11.100 I've been having that conversation with the Democrats for several years.

00:02:14.540 They prefer the issue than the solution.

00:02:17.580 So outside of those two very important issues, messaging, messaging, messaging.

00:02:22.080 And I don't know that he's actually interested in getting something done.

00:02:26.600 If he was, he would be at the table with folks like myself working on police reform for the last three years, at least seven years since I first started working on the issue.

00:02:36.760 And the Democrats have literally stiffed on me, literally the stiff arm.

00:02:40.920 And so I got to just say, it is refreshing to have a conversation with someone who understands and appreciates the necessity of common sense and the American people leading first.

00:02:51.860 And that is not the conversation that the Biden administration is having with anyone.

00:02:55.680 Yeah, that's right.

00:02:56.960 And the thing about the police really that caught my attention to more than 32 billion he's proposing and spending to fight crime here at home, 20.6 billion at justice, another 3.2 billion for state and local law enforcement grants for hiring cops.

00:03:11.140 My note in my own outline reads, how about you stop making it totally impossible for them to do their jobs first?

00:03:18.260 Who's going to take your money to go do the job of policing when you're trying to tie their hands behind their backs on virtually every aspect of their job, not to mention the constant public shaming?

00:03:30.520 Well, Megan, let me just hit on that point, because that's such an important point.

00:03:34.940 Police officers today are literally being shamed in streets, pushed around.

00:03:41.760 They are having more violence against them than in the history of the country.

00:03:46.680 In the last two years, what we've seen, Megan, is a 70 percent increase in officers being shot.

00:03:54.260 Let's just think about what that means to the officer running into danger without feeling like the government is behind them.

00:04:03.780 In big blue cities all across this country, homicide rates are up nearly 50 percent, if not higher.

00:04:11.100 And yet officers are being shot.

00:04:13.360 Seventy percent increase in officers being shot in the last two years.

00:04:17.180 Put those two statistics together.

00:04:19.340 Further, it's an ugly reality for people growing up in poverty and in communities living on the margins like the one I grew up.

00:04:27.600 I can't imagine anything worse than 80 percent plus African-Americans agree with me on recent polling.

00:04:34.240 They want more policing or the same level of policing in their neighborhoods.

00:04:38.560 You don't get there by defunding the police, by shaming the police and by taking away the necessary qualified immunity

00:04:45.560 that keeps them at work and able to defend themselves.

00:04:50.260 This is just asinine.

00:04:52.600 And frankly, there aren't Democrats who actually support the president's move for more funding for the police

00:04:58.220 because they've been running in the opposite direction for the last half decade.

00:05:02.500 So this is not only a reversal.

00:05:04.820 This is simply a political reversal, not an actual reversal.

00:05:09.000 And that's that's shameful, to be honest with you.

00:05:10.940 Without any accountability for those dead cops or dead citizens who have had to suffer the consequences of the defunding of the cops,

00:05:18.520 as you point out, many of whom live in African-American communities and haven't wanted this from the beginning.

00:05:25.380 But they're the ones suffering and having lost loved ones.

00:05:27.780 And now we're supposed to pretend they never had these positions.

00:05:30.820 And Megan, to that point, think about the increase nationwide homicides are up in the last two years by about 44 percent.

00:05:40.480 Eighty five percent of that increase are African-Americans and Hispanics being killed.

00:05:46.960 So when you talk about separating the issue of funding the police and community peace, it's a it's not a binary choice.

00:05:56.480 If you want to do one, you have to do the other.

00:05:59.260 And this administration seems to be deaf as it relates to the importance of making sure our officers are as safe and as prepared as possible to do the work.

00:06:11.960 And that will always translate into safer communities on a consistent basis.

00:06:17.640 That's the history of our country.

00:06:19.220 We've gotten better, not worse, until we started seeing this defund the police actually get traction around the country.

00:06:27.960 Mm hmm. And now now they're quietly trying to walk it back.

00:06:31.220 Let's talk about a little bit more in the in the on the money front, because I know you've been sounding the alarm in this record inflation.

00:06:36.600 And now some analysts are predicting it's going to go up to nine percent soon, nine percent within the next couple of months.

00:06:43.040 I mean, that's just so eye popping.

00:06:45.420 But in the meantime, his plan seems to be to, quote, tax the rich.

00:06:49.700 OK, that's always the rich is always it always feels good when it's the rich, as long as it's not you.

00:06:54.420 You know, are you not in the rich?

00:06:55.540 And the problem with the rich is it always trickles down to the not rich at some point.

00:06:59.300 The thing about the taxing of this rate that two things that I wanted to raise with you.

00:07:04.600 He wants the corporate tax rate to go from 21 percent to 28 percent, which I think makes us uncompetitive with our with our sort of fellow G6 countries who are more like 22 percent corporate tax rate.

00:07:16.200 Plus, I don't know that it's what small businesses need or businesses need in America right now is extra taxes.

00:07:21.020 They're suffering to a lot of them, not like Jeff Bezos, but like the more the smaller businesses.

00:07:25.940 But secondly, what about this proposal to tax unrealized gains?

00:07:31.760 He wants the super rich 100 millionaires or more.

00:07:34.960 I mean, if you have 100 million or more to pay taxes on like if their stocks go up, they got they have to pay the tax on the on the unrealized gains, even if then the next week the taxes go down and those unrealized gains are now losses.

00:07:52.400 Yes, Megan, you asked two very important questions.

00:07:56.340 Let me just say it simply.

00:07:58.040 The president and his administration fundamentally misunderstands the American economy.

00:08:04.180 They obviously have not spent any time working in the private sector.

00:08:08.500 Fifty years in the government is not good for understanding how the real works.

00:08:12.880 Real world works.

00:08:13.920 Kitchen table economists, also known as moms around the country, get this better than anybody else.

00:08:19.160 Corporations write the check, but people pay the tax.

00:08:23.340 That's something we should always remember.

00:08:24.860 So when you take the tax from 21 percent to 28 percent, you're only increasing by about a third the burden on everyday people who are buying those products.

00:08:34.400 Number one.

00:08:34.780 Number two, as you said, according accordingly to our competitors, G6 or OECD countries, a 28 percent tax makes us completely uncompetitive.

00:08:46.700 Twenty two percent makes you mediocre.

00:08:49.980 There are countries today that are trying to get into the teens in their corporate tax rate.

00:08:55.320 That means that we're heading in the wrong direction.

00:08:57.520 And then the second part, really important part.

00:09:00.720 Never, ever in American history have we seen a tax on an unrealized gain.

00:09:08.740 So you say you sell something and you make a profit.

00:09:14.160 We tax you on that.

00:09:15.340 This is suggesting, well, if it goes up in value, we're going to tax it.

00:09:20.740 Well, like you said, what happens when it goes down in value the next day, the next month, the next year?

00:09:26.100 That is a ridiculous nightmare.

00:09:29.200 Unlike most people, this administration thinks that empowering the IRS to have more time on your kitchen table is a good thing.

00:09:36.940 That's a terrible idea.

00:09:38.580 And so taking away the 20 percent haircut that we gave small businesses in the 2017 tax cut so that they would hire more people and invest in more equipment, taking that away only slows the growth of this economy.

00:09:54.000 We can't do that.

00:10:23.980 And some of these targeted groups that they want to vote for them in November do very well.

00:10:29.260 But it's just an ideological commitment to spending and taxing, spending and taxing.

00:10:35.000 Let me let me shift gears with another favorite issue that's in the news today of the Democrats, and that is unions.

00:10:41.280 And I know you've done a lot on this and are actually doing a lot to try to create a more sort of worker friendly right to work environment in our 50 states.

00:10:50.400 The news just broke that this is from some GOP lawmakers in the House, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

00:10:59.380 They are claiming now that the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's top two largest unions, was sending edits to the CDC on school reopening guidance in a way we didn't know.

00:11:09.960 We knew that there had been coordination prior, and now we learned that it was much more, I don't know, incestuous than I would like, sending that their AFT's senior director of health was emailing the CDC director, wanting the following line included in the reopening guidance for schools.

00:11:29.320 Quote, in the event, high community transmission results from a new variant, a new update of these guidelines may be necessary.

00:11:35.420 In other words, paving the way for more school closures directly from the unions.

00:11:40.040 I mean, once again, more proof they care way more about their teachers than they do about the students, which we've known for a very long time.

00:11:48.280 They need to be in school. Your thoughts on it.

00:11:49.940 Well, there's no doubt that the Democrat Party, and especially the progressive wing, I'm not sure that there's actually a difference anymore, has been wed to the labor unions more than they have to the kids.

00:12:04.160 So big labor is more important than little kids.

00:12:06.680 And that manifests in multiple ways.

00:12:09.280 The mandates that you're talking about and the writing of policies from the CDC because of this intimate connection with big labor union is a massive problem for the little kids and their parents.

00:12:22.280 One of the reasons why we are the party of parents is we want to make sure that parents are much more in charge of the education pathways of their kids.

00:12:29.900 What stands in the way of that?

00:12:31.620 Big labor unions in education.

00:12:33.680 Example, in Chicago, while we're seeing kids not having to wear a mask around the country, in Chicago, the teachers union is literally signing contracts that requires what they want, not what OSHA and the courts have said.

00:12:51.020 So we see that all over the nation.

00:12:53.760 But that is a spotlight on the power of the labor unions in education.

00:12:59.300 And it's something that has to be broken.

00:13:01.220 It's one of the reasons why, Megan, for the first time, at least in my lifetime, African-American support of school choice is over 70 percent.

00:13:11.900 Hispanics, around 77 percent.

00:13:14.500 Working class families, 80 percent.

00:13:17.960 Something is fundamentally broken in education.

00:13:21.360 And the parents want to be responsible for their kids and hold big labor unions accountable for the misdirection of America's education system.

00:13:32.820 I mean, I know that one of these unions donated something like a million dollars to the Democratic super PAC.

00:13:39.680 But the numbers have got to be huge.

00:13:41.640 They've got to be way bigger than that for the Democrats.

00:13:43.460 700 million plus.

00:13:44.380 Beholden seven.

00:13:45.520 OK, so well, it's basically from labor unions, what the NRA used to be to the GOP.

00:13:51.060 And I realize the NRA has lost some of its power.

00:13:53.280 That's what the unions are to the Democrats.

00:13:55.600 I mean, that's because I think to myself, why?

00:13:58.180 Why are they so beholden to this group of people who, you know, when you see the voters saying we want to be able to fire bad teachers and we don't necessarily want the agendas of Randy Weingarten.

00:14:07.160 And we definitely don't want to be forced to join a union if we decide to become teachers.

00:14:12.760 But we have to.

00:14:13.540 And a lot of the right.

00:14:14.220 So when you see that pushback, you think, why?

00:14:16.900 Why are the Democrats so beholden to them?

00:14:18.400 And it's just sheer cash.

00:14:20.560 Absolutely.

00:14:21.380 Ninety percent of labor union spending on politics, on elections, go to Democrats.

00:14:28.000 Now, interestingly enough, Megan, about 40 to 45 percent of the members of unions vote for Republicans.

00:14:34.060 So they literally have no control over how their dues are being spent.

00:14:38.980 It's one of the reasons why in my Employees' Rights Act, the legislation that I've sponsored, we're trying to make sure that we empower the union members to decide whether or not you can use their dues for elections, whether you have to maintain the union if after a few years you haven't had a vote.

00:14:56.740 We want to make sure that the workers of the future are in charge of the workplace.

00:15:01.080 And what the Democrats want is centralized control of every facet of your life to include your workplace.

00:15:08.580 That's the wrong direction for America.

00:15:10.460 That's going backwards, not to our future.

00:15:13.760 The latest polling on President Biden shows the American public doesn't have a lot of faith in the leadership he's showing and the direction he's taking the country.

00:15:21.500 And some of these issues we're discussing are on the list of what they don't like.

00:15:24.620 Just to bring you up to speed, the audience, the latest NBC News poll shows he has an approval rating of 40 percent.

00:15:31.220 The erosion in his approval rating has been across the board among key demographic groups.

00:15:35.400 Black respondents have gone from 64 percent approval in January to 62 now.

00:15:39.240 Women from 51 percent approval to 44 now.

00:15:41.900 Latinos from 48 to 39 now.

00:15:44.180 Independents from 36 to 32 now.

00:15:46.240 All these issues factor in.

00:15:49.080 One of the issues, of course, is also Ukraine.

00:15:52.260 Seven in 10 Americans expressing low confidence of his ability to deal with Russia's invasion.

00:15:57.760 How do you think it's going, his response to Ukraine?

00:16:00.460 And how could we be doing better?

00:16:02.820 Well, the answer are basically two words.

00:16:06.360 Biden blunders.

00:16:07.560 On the Ukraine front and on the global stage.

00:16:10.360 I haven't seen this number of missteps in a row in my lifetime by a United States president.

00:16:16.700 The American presidency is ultimately the platinum standard of leadership.

00:16:21.680 And now it might be copper because literally we've lost a lot of the shine on the leadership posture that we have held in this world for my entire lifetime.

00:16:31.280 It cannot be going much worse for the administration as it relates to their inability to make a decision and stick with it.

00:16:37.920 He says one thing.

00:16:38.840 A secretary of state says something else.

00:16:40.620 President says something.

00:16:42.120 Vice president says something else.

00:16:43.240 But here's what the Ukrainian people, the liberty loving, freedom defending people of Ukraine want.

00:16:49.060 They want the resources to defend their nation.

00:16:52.040 And too often our president has been slow in delivering the resources and the weapons they need to do the work.

00:16:59.540 I think they can actually win this conflict.

00:17:02.960 The administration refuses to acknowledge that there's a chance that they could win.

00:17:06.500 And so when it comes to swift bank sanctions, instead of sanctioning 80 percent of the banks, he should have already sanctioned them all.

00:17:14.220 Energy sanctions.

00:17:15.340 This should have been on the table from day one.

00:17:17.420 And it has not even entered into the conversation seriously in the administration.

00:17:21.680 But Congress, we are seriously looking at those steps.

00:17:25.100 Also, President Zelensky said it so well when he said there are too many jets on Earth and not enough in the sky.

00:17:34.380 What he was saying is if you won't give me a no-fly zone, and frankly, I'm not sending American troops there personally if I had a vote.

00:17:40.940 But I would give him the jets so that he can create his own no-fly zone by having the air power to defend his space.

00:17:50.000 Why the president has been shuffling his feet on this important topic, I have no idea.

00:17:56.680 And real-time intelligence.

00:17:58.500 If he knew where the targets were real-time, this could be a very different conflict.

00:18:04.400 You know, the pushback on the jets is that's essentially, you know, Russia's already said we're going to see that as the United States sending jets in World War III.

00:18:13.700 Well, there's no question that the Russians continue to look for a reason to talk about escalation.

00:18:20.380 The fact of the matter is every time President Biden takes a step back, so the Russians and Putin take a step forward.

00:18:27.600 There are very, very few things that we can do to stop de-escalation.

00:18:33.120 Giving the Ukrainians the resources and the weapons necessary to do so is one of the things I believe that Putin would respond to.

00:18:41.560 He's a thug.

00:18:42.760 He responds to power.

00:18:44.660 Without that, he doesn't respond at all.

00:18:47.080 So when you tell President Putin, here are some areas that you should not actually have cyber attacks,

00:18:53.800 well, that's telling him exactly where to hit.

00:18:56.840 We need American strength now more than ever, and we see that by a president who's willing to stand toe-to-toe and say,

00:19:05.460 no more, here are the resources that Ukraine needs to win this conflict.

00:19:10.200 Now, a president who was definitely more bellicose in his language was Donald Trump.

00:19:15.400 And, well, I guess it depends on who you're talking about, but he was certainly seen as more of a strong man than Joe Biden, I think it's fair to say, by the American people.

00:19:21.860 He came out in an interview, I think it was yesterday, saying now's the time for Vladimir Putin to release whatever he has on Hunter Biden and the Hunter and the Biden family with respect to this Hunter corruption probe that we now know the DOJ is in the midst of.

00:19:37.880 And, you know, this guy could be arrested.

00:19:40.420 Hunter Biden could be potentially facing criminal charges.

00:19:42.980 And now there's questions about how linked it is to our sitting president, whether he's been compromised by his son's financial dealings and so on.

00:19:50.760 It's all being investigated.

00:19:51.600 President Trump's critics, no surprise to you, are slamming him for appealing to Vladimir Putin at a time like this to release dirt on Hunter Biden.

00:20:01.980 Do you think it was out of line?

00:20:04.260 And what do you make of the newest information on the Hunter Biden probe?

00:20:08.680 Well, we should thank New York Post for leading on this charge during the election cycle.

00:20:14.620 The truth of the matter is that the American people deserve to know what is in those emails.

00:20:20.240 We should have the ability to understand and appreciate perhaps any negative information that any country has against the sitting president of the United States son and family or the president himself.

00:20:32.740 So I do think that more information on this is incredibly important as it relates to asking for the information from President Putin.

00:20:42.380 I would not recommend that.

00:20:43.740 I do believe that without any question that the emails themselves are now available.

00:20:48.780 The DOJ is doing the work.

00:20:50.460 We need to see that work finished and understand that that is the right direction for our country.

00:20:57.280 Yeah, it's an interesting point because one Trump's specific demand was that that allegation that the form, the wife of the late mayor of Moscow paid Hunter Biden some millions of dollars.

00:21:09.780 And he wants that investigating.

00:21:11.960 He wants the proof one way or the other.

00:21:14.120 And of course, the media's response is a big yawn, like, oh, this has been looked at.

00:21:18.580 No, it hasn't.

00:21:19.620 It actually hasn't because the media won't do its job.

00:21:23.260 Now, behind the scenes, the DOJ is apparently starting to get interested.

00:21:26.420 But so far, the media has paid no attention to this.

00:21:29.620 Well, Megan, to your point, the media has been whitewashing the Biden family for a very long time.

00:21:37.560 This administration benefits from literally no bad coverage.

00:21:42.000 And what the American people want from the media is objectivity.

00:21:45.800 Thank God for your show.

00:21:47.740 Thank God that you call balls and strikes, that you're not interested in choosing a side.

00:21:53.260 You're interested in right versus wrong, not left versus right.

00:21:57.120 That's a position we would love all the media to take.

00:22:02.120 It would give us confidence as the American people when we're making decisions about really important conversations.

00:22:08.820 And frankly, without objectivity in the media, who do you believe?

00:22:13.660 You try to figure it out on your own.

00:22:16.080 And that's very difficult in today's environment.

00:22:19.560 I hope that people like yourself continue to provide objectivity when I like it and when I don't.

00:22:26.320 Because at least then we're having a serious conversation about the issues that matter.

00:22:31.380 Thank you.

00:22:31.720 I appreciate that.

00:22:32.440 And I do say things that my audience, I know they don't like, but I think they know I'm an honest broker.

00:22:36.880 You know, I'm in his pocket.

00:22:38.620 And that we need that because so much of the media cannot say the same.

00:22:41.920 All right.

00:22:42.400 Quick couple of hits on other things.

00:22:44.080 I know that you're not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but we just learned that Susan Collins of Maine says she will vote yes for Ketanji Brown Jackson.

00:22:50.720 Not a huge surprise.

00:22:52.420 I mean, it used to be that unless the nominee were a complete lunatic, everybody would vote yes.

00:22:57.260 I mean, the standard was pretty low once once nominated for voting yes.

00:23:01.900 Now it's gotten much more partisan.

00:23:03.700 But does that do you have any idea how you're going to vote when it goes to the full Senate?

00:23:07.440 Megan, my staff, we are still doing all the research we can on not only her rulings as a judge, but also how the superior courts have overturned her rulings.

00:23:19.640 That's an area that gives me some pause.

00:23:22.960 She obviously is a smart, bright, likable person.

00:23:26.360 But the truth is I'm more interested in her judicial philosophy than I am her personal temperament.

00:23:32.920 If you conflate the two together, you can come to some easy conclusions.

00:23:36.740 If you separate the two, it's a harder fact-finding mission that I'm on that will lead me to the best decision on how I'm going to vote for her.

00:23:46.540 What did you make of the Cory Booker, you know, Spartacus moment where he had a Spartacus moment with Kavanaugh?

00:23:51.540 I'm Spartacus.

00:23:52.320 I'm releasing the documents.

00:23:53.920 Hello.

00:23:54.280 We've all already seen them.

00:23:55.180 They've been released.

00:23:56.060 This time it was this sort of Oprah-esque moment with this very distinguished jurist.

00:24:01.860 Like, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you.

00:24:06.160 I mean, it was really kind of with the T.

00:24:08.460 I don't know.

00:24:09.260 He's so over the top.

00:24:10.420 But what did you make of that?

00:24:12.280 Well, listen, I think he was certainly very passionate about supporting the first African-American female to possibly serve on the bench.

00:24:21.260 And frankly, I think that's a sign of American progress, that we have such diversity and contention for the highest offices in our land, including our court.

00:24:31.180 But more importantly to me than the color of one's skin or your gender, it's the content.

00:24:36.760 It's how will you judge Americans fairly going forward?

00:24:40.860 Are you prejudiced by your own philosophical disposition or not?

00:24:45.360 And to me, that matters more than what you look like.

00:24:48.840 And I catch a lot of challenging comments sometimes for that comment.

00:24:53.280 But the truth is, I'm willing to stand for America, even if it requires me to stand in a different position than people that I respect.

00:25:01.720 I just don't appreciate some of the rulings that I've seen.

00:25:04.860 Yeah. All right.

00:25:06.780 I know you got to go, but I got to ask you about 2024 because Donald Trump has basically suggested if he runs again, it will not be with Mike Pence as his number two.

00:25:17.180 And you are often mentioned not just as a potential presidential candidate if he does not run, but as a very possible vice presidential running mate with President Trump.

00:25:27.680 Would you would you accept the post if offered?

00:25:30.720 That's a great question, Megan, as you probably know, I'm up for reelection right now.

00:25:37.040 And as a fan of the SEC, the best football conference in college football, the best thing to do is win Saturday and then discover what's beyond it after Saturday's game.

00:25:47.980 And I have a Saturday game, so I'm not that interested in talking about presidential politics.

00:25:54.120 I do hope that we win the majorities in the Senate and the House this cycle so that we have a great contrast based on principles, why the American people should take a second look at the Great Opportunity Party.

00:26:08.640 All right. Now, Great Opportunity Party. I like that.

00:26:11.060 Now, I don't understand any of the sports references you just made, but I think that was neither a yes nor a no.

00:26:16.380 So you're keeping the door open. That's going to be my headline for it.

00:26:19.820 What a pleasure. It's so nice to speak with you again, Senator Scott. Thanks for being here.

00:26:23.260 Thank you, Megan. Thank you. And thank you once again, sincerely, for your show.

00:26:27.800 I like objectivity and it is something that is missing in media.

00:26:32.140 So I'm very passionate about following people who lead us in the right direction and not in their direction.

00:26:38.360 Oh, I appreciate it. It's an honor.

00:26:40.540 Yes, ma'am. God bless. Take care.

00:26:42.580 All right. So coming up, we are going to dig into the very latest on Ukraine with a journalist who's been pushing back on a lot of these sort of mainstream narratives.

00:26:50.560 His name is Lee Smith, and he's also just done a five part series for our pals over at The Daily Wire on China and its immense influence in so many areas of America.

00:27:01.120 You may not even realize. So he is going to be fascinating.

00:27:04.520 Stay tuned for that.

00:27:05.640 Joining us now to discuss the latest on Ukraine is journalist, author and narrator of the brand new Daily Wire investigative docu-series, The Enemy Within, which is all about China, Lee Smith.

00:27:25.800 Welcome, Lee. So good to have you here.

00:27:27.520 Megan, thank you very much for inviting me on today. I really appreciate it.

00:27:30.360 And it'll be a pleasure, I'm sure, speaking to you.

00:27:33.060 Oh, I can't wait. I really want to get into the China stuff.

00:27:35.620 I mean, I love what you've been saying and writing on Ukraine, but I'm into the China thing, too.

00:27:40.320 OK, so Ukraine, the latest today, this is from The New York Times reporting, is that they have achieved their, quote, most significant progress yet in peace negotiations.

00:27:49.140 As of yesterday, Moscow promising to reduce, quote, by multiples the intensity of its military activity around Kyiv and to its north.

00:27:57.740 Ukrainian officials for the first time outlining potential concessions over territory occupied by Russia, proposing that negotiations about the status of Crimea, which is the Ukrainian peninsula of Moscow seized in 2014,

00:28:10.080 might be conducted over a 15 year period with Ukraine refraining from trying to take the peninsula back by force on and on it goes.

00:28:19.360 That's somewhat of a glimmer. That's a glimmer. I'll take it.

00:28:22.380 Take a glimmer in the midst of the past, you know, six weeks where there hasn't been much.

00:28:26.920 Who knows? Because the Russians can't be trusted on their promises.

00:28:30.520 And both sides are in the midst of spewing propaganda to us, which is one of the points you've been making.

00:28:38.060 It's such a great frustration. Lee, I was on spring break over the past two weeks.

00:28:42.320 I literally heard like on Tucker. He's got the general that who he loves saying it's over.

00:28:47.960 Russia's one. Then I listen to my pals over to commentary, which is a right wing podcast more.

00:28:54.900 But they they're open neocons saying Ukraine's winning. Right.

00:28:59.840 So like what? What? Right.

00:29:02.320 Like these are technically people who are on the same side of the political aisle who cannot agree even just on the facts.

00:29:08.220 And there's a reason we can't agree on the facts, which is we're being shoveled a bunch of B.S. from virtually every corner.

00:29:14.060 Well, look, I mean, it makes sense that we're getting propaganda from Moscow and propaganda from Kiev.

00:29:19.240 These both of these parties are at war. And, you know, we all know the old expressions that truth is the first casualty of war.

00:29:27.220 So war propaganda is to be expected coming out of these two countries, out of these two sides.

00:29:33.140 One of the issues that I was trying to get at in that article that you that you kindly mentioned is that why do we have so much propaganda coming from American officials, coming from our press?

00:29:45.580 It's it's very hard to figure out what's going on. And one of the main issues is this.

00:29:49.660 I think that a lot of I think a lot of Americans are sitting at home, especially a lot of Trump supporters.

00:29:55.700 They're sitting at home and they see the same figures showing up on TV, the same figures who pushed Russiagate, the Russia collusion narrative.

00:30:03.600 They see the same figures who were responsible, who testified, who testified in the House impeachment hearings against Donald Trump.

00:30:12.080 And these are the people that were expected to believe to be telling the truth about what's happening in Russia and Ukraine.

00:30:18.160 And that's the essential point. Why aren't the why isn't the American public getting a clear picture?

00:30:24.780 And the idea that that now we have a lot of officials and I'm sure you've seen this, Megan, as well, both on, you know, both both in the media and social media, people's people's opinions, their their takes, their understanding, they're being dismissed as pro Putin.

00:30:38.660 And it's quite shameless, really. I mean, the idea that the idea that for Americans to be asking questions about what's going on, to not be clear about what's going on and to have been misled for six years by the same people who are now calling them pro Putin, it's it's very bad for the country.

00:30:57.140 It's very bad for our political discourse, which was polluted by Russiagate. Right.

00:31:03.400 And so now we're seeing some of the wages of Russiagate. It wasn't just a political scandal within within the beltway.

00:31:10.600 It was also a national security issue. And now we're seeing how it's affected, affected our national security establishment and how it's affecting how Americans live and speak with each other and understand the world abroad.

00:31:24.500 You're being kind and saying we've that these folks have been lying to us for six years. Right.

00:31:28.660 Like, look back at the Afghanistan papers and all the lies they told us about that, not to mention Iraq.

00:31:32.860 You know, we could spend the whole week talking about those misleadings.

00:31:36.480 You're absolutely right. I'm just speaking specifically the same people who were saying Putin, Putin, Putin and Trump.

00:31:42.860 These are the same people who are now like the Obama, one of Obama's former ambassadors to Russia, Michael McFaul.

00:31:50.720 I mean, this was a guy who was pushing Trump, Trump, Putin, the collusion narrative for six years.

00:31:57.140 And now he's a guy that's coming on and trying to explain what Vladimir Putin is up to in normal circumstances.

00:32:03.960 This would be very important. Right. The idea that a former ambassador, former American ambassador to Moscow could provide genuine insight into what's really happening.

00:32:13.400 But these clowns squandered their credibility by lying specifically about these issues for the last six years.

00:32:20.100 So let me ask you, I mean, I'll disclose that I like Mike McFaul because I know him personally a little bit and I got to know him before my interviews of Putin when I was at NBC.

00:32:28.620 I don't I take your point. Russiagate was made up. There was no truth to it.

00:32:32.640 And in fact, the whole thing was generated by Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, which the media had absolutely no interest in investigating at the time or now even post Trump's presidency.

00:32:41.580 It just like didn't happen. But I don't know whether you can say people like that were actively misleading.

00:32:48.640 I my belief is and it could be my own naivete. And this is not necessarily true of like a James Clapper.

00:32:54.780 But my belief is that they just have such a negative view of back in Russiagate, certainly Vladimir Putin, but way more than that, Donald Trump, more than Putin, Donald Trump, that that like they believed it because they needed to believe it.

00:33:09.640 It was easy for them to believe. And some of that same dynamic colors their commentary today.

00:33:15.080 I mean, unfortunately, I think there are millions of Americans who are left to believe that Donald Trump is controlled by Vladimir Putin.

00:33:25.960 And I imagine for several generations, this will be taught in schools in blue areas around the country.

00:33:32.660 And it's a tragedy for the country, this amount of misinformation.

00:33:35.580 But I think that people who are really have some expertise in the subject that they would understand they would understand what reality really looks like and what they were pushing was was not reality.

00:33:45.940 It was a political operation that's done tremendous damage to the United States.

00:33:49.860 And now we see part of it. Americans should understand what's happening in Eastern Europe.

00:33:55.720 I mean, this is a major land war, right?

00:33:58.060 This threatens to and I'll just say something about China right now, that what we're seeing in Eastern Europe now is the rise of a new order, right?

00:34:06.460 Which includes Russia. It includes it includes China as well.

00:34:10.600 We see that China and the Russians are partnered.

00:34:13.220 It also includes Iran because there's something very important happening here.

00:34:16.820 While Joe Biden and while the Biden administration is digging in hard on Putin regarding Ukraine, in Vienna, Biden team negotiators are dealing with Russian negotiators over the Iran nuclear deal, right?

00:34:33.020 So while we're talking about or what the Biden team is talking about, sanctioning Russia and going hard on Putin, what the Iran deal will do, it will flood Putin's war chest.

00:34:42.580 It will flood them with billions of dollars and will turn Iran into an arms client for Russia as well as for China.

00:34:49.340 And it will turn Iran into a nuclear client for Russia as well.

00:34:54.080 So this is really one of the major things that we're seeing happening in Eastern Europe now, the rise of this new anti-U.S. order.

00:35:01.140 And that's why it's so important for experts, whether it's on CNN or MSNBC or Fox or wherever, to not spend their credibility so lavishly, because it really is important for the American public, American voters to understand what's happening right now.

00:35:21.900 Why do you think that the I mean, it's really the Obama Biden sort of duet?

00:35:26.900 Why do they want this this Iran deal so badly?

00:35:29.800 I mean, it's like Trump got us out of it.

00:35:32.060 Why? Why?

00:35:33.340 Especially given that we need Russia to make it happen.

00:35:36.080 Why now wouldn't we be like, you know what?

00:35:38.400 We're going to table that, you know, because we all know it's not actually going to stop Iran from getting the bomb.

00:35:43.860 Oh, in fact, most people think exactly the opposite.

00:35:46.100 So why?

00:35:47.640 Why are they so dead set on continuing this pursuit?

00:35:50.900 I mean, I think there are there are a couple of reasons.

00:35:53.120 I mean, I think that one of the things that, you know, you put it very well, Obama and Biden, sort of the Obama Biden faction of the American, you know, the American political establishment.

00:36:04.400 I think that what they wanted to do was they wanted to realign.

00:36:08.180 Right.

00:36:08.580 They wanted to realign American interests in the Middle East.

00:36:11.360 And they were tilting against traditional American allies like Saudi Arabia, like Israel.

00:36:16.100 In order to embrace Iran and why they wanted to do that is very peculiar, because our relationship with Saudi Arabia, almost 80 year relationship with Saudi Arabia has been one of the engines of American prosperity.

00:36:31.180 The idea that we've been tied to tied to the world's the world's greatest producer of oil in Saudi Arabia.

00:36:39.140 And believe me, I know that there are plenty of problems with our relationship with Saudi Arabia and plenty of problems also with Saudi Arabia itself.

00:36:46.980 But the idea of throwing away this relationship in exchange for a terror state, it's it's it's it's a terrible thing what's going on.

00:36:55.480 And you're right. It's not going to stop them from getting a bomb.

00:36:58.160 And what I try to explain to people, because, you know, a lot of the technical details are very difficult.

00:37:02.600 So different friends who aren't obsessive lunatics like I am.

00:37:07.040 I say, just look at the idea of the sunset clauses, what the sunset clauses mean is the different restrictions on Iran will expire over time.

00:37:16.020 And once they've expired, Iran's nuclear weapons program will be entirely legal.

00:37:22.280 It's now under the protection of the U.S. security umbrella in terms of in terms of the joint comprehensive plan of action.

00:37:31.660 That's what they're doing. They need to make sure that Iran is going to get the bomb quickly,

00:37:35.700 because one of the things that the Biden administration has to deal with is the fact that when Donald Trump came in and he withdrew from the deal,

00:37:44.900 the Iranians were very upset about that.

00:37:47.280 And so there is no way to stop a next Republican president, whether it's Donald Trump in 2024 or someone else or someone else in 2028.

00:37:55.980 There's no way to write in prohibitions against an American president getting out of it.

00:38:01.720 So what are they going to do? They have to ensure that Iran gets the bomb, which is terrible.

00:38:07.260 It's terrible news. And again, this this rising order that we're seeing in Eastern Europe,

00:38:12.920 Iran is a part of that because we see Iran's relations with Russia and we see Iran's relations with China, China and Russia.

00:38:20.300 So it's really it's really a momentous time looking at it, looking at it with some sort of historical distance.

00:38:29.580 But we are living in the middle of it and it threatens, you know, it threatens our peace and prosperity.

00:38:35.800 And China, meantime, so the third sort of pole of this triumvirate is just mercenary in every transaction it approaches.

00:38:44.180 Right. It's just like we're going to make money. We're going to exploit you.

00:38:46.440 We're going to take over large factions of your community, even though we're going to lead you to believe it'll be exactly the opposite.

00:38:52.000 You can influence us. We'll have a partnership. It'll be mutually beneficial.

00:38:55.940 Right. And then before you know it, they're everywhere. They're ubiquitous.

00:39:00.280 And this is one of the sort of points of focus of your five part series for The Daily Wire.

00:39:06.120 Tell us about it. Thank you.

00:39:07.620 We had an author from The Wall Street Journal on recently talking about how the Chinese have completely taken over Hollywood and how every movie you see now has been cleared essentially by the Chinese or at least would be acceptable to the Chinese and has pro China propaganda and often anti-American propaganda, which will please the Chinese.

00:39:24.100 It's insane. But you your look is more expansive. It touches on Hollywood.

00:39:29.280 It's more expansive. Right. Yeah. We look at Hollywood.

00:39:32.220 We look at we look at Anthony Fauci and his dealings with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:39:37.540 We look at the Biden, the Biden family and the Biden administration.

00:39:40.940 We also look at American universities. We look at the media.

00:39:45.500 We we we really cover a lot of stuff. We look at the NBA and LeBron James, a whole bunch of different things.

00:39:50.640 I think the important the important issue and what I really want viewers of that series to come away with is that the most important thing is this, is that it's our own our own ruling class, our own leadership.

00:40:05.340 Right. That has done this. China. The biggest part of China's messaging operation is this.

00:40:11.900 We are too big. We are too inevitable. We're a five thousand year old civilization.

00:40:16.380 We refer to as the Middle Kingdom. Nothing can stop us.

00:40:20.500 What's happened in the United States is, is that we've opened the door to the Chinese.

00:40:25.180 It's every industry. I'm sure you've had the same experience as I have when you're trying to shop for something, whether it's sneakers, whether it's whether it's one of the sports watches, whether it's a tracker.

00:40:36.880 Everything is manufactured in China right now.

00:40:39.960 Who have the idea that we need to ship out all of American manufacturing to China?

00:40:46.920 It's disastrous. Pharmaceuticals. Everything is manufactured in China right now.

00:40:52.640 And if you look at how the American university system is so dependent on Chinese students, we talk about Chinese, Chinese espionage and how the DOJ and the FBI is running them down.

00:41:03.240 I'm sure you saw that the DOJ canceled this program where they were looking at they were looking at Chinese espionage within the United States and the Chinese foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy in Washington boasted of having told the Biden administration, this is racist and it's terrible.

00:41:20.220 You have to get rid of it. The fact is this. There are only 13,000 FBI agents in the United States.

00:41:27.480 Let's say they're doing their job. There are hundreds of thousands of Chinese students here, visa holders, hundreds of thousands.

00:41:36.140 The whole system is set up to make it impossible to catch people spying, taking sensitive, in some cases, classified information from the United States.

00:41:47.880 It's really the responsibility of our own leadership, of our own political corporate officials, our cultural leaders, because it's not just Hollywood.

00:41:57.800 It's the arts community as well. And as I said before, it's sports. So it really starts right here for Americans to understand what our own leadership is doing and how they're the ones who are betraying us to the Chinese Communist Party.

00:42:12.780 And that's why the series is called The Enemy Within, because that's the fundamental problem.

00:42:16.680 We can't stop what China is doing to the United States until we have our own leadership on our side, on the side of the American public.

00:42:26.360 I mean, if we don't, if we don't, if we change no policies and we don't try to disentangle, what does the United States look like in terms of China's influence?

00:42:36.340 What does the world look like in terms of China's influence in, let's say, 30 years?

00:42:39.980 Well, you know, you mentioned something before that we thought for many years by granting China most favored nation status in trade, that we would influence China and we would make them more democratic.

00:42:52.660 What's happened instead? It's the habits of autocracy have rubbed off on our leaders, everything from desire for social credit system to a mass surveillance state.

00:43:05.080 That's what it will look like. That will get increasingly worse.

00:43:08.460 And one of the things that I try to explain, a lot of people are wondering why so many things are happening, why, whether it was turning off, whether it was turning off Keystone, whether it was vaccine mandates, all these different things.

00:43:21.420 It looks like the people who are governing our country are not working on behalf of the interests of Americans.

00:43:29.800 Why is that? And one explanation is this.

00:43:32.700 They are primarily loyal to their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.

00:43:39.880 I'm not saying loyal to China. I'm saying what's important to them is this is the source of their wealth, power and prestige.

00:43:47.680 It's an enormous network. So for us to look at this, we have to understand it from inside because it's them who's protecting the Chinese Communist Party.

00:43:57.480 Hmm. I mean, if people had any doubt, just just look at what happened in response to covid and the investigation into how it came to be and how now some five to six million people are dead worldwide and the total disinterest in getting real answers on that.

00:44:15.120 Lee Smith, thank you so much for being a brave voice out there in the ether who I know you get a lot of pushback, but I love reading you. I appreciate it.

00:44:22.900 That's very kind. Thank you so much, Megan. And thanks again for having me on.

00:44:25.680 You bet. And don't forget, folks, you can find more interviews like the ones we just did with Senator Tim Scott and with Lee Smith on video by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly, or by downloading our show and listening to it as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:44:42.960 Chris Rufo, the one and only God, he's been invaluable, hasn't he, in this whole critical race theory fight and so on.

00:44:54.600 He got a hold of some absolutely insane comments from Disney's top executives in an internal meeting and take a listen to one of them.

00:45:05.180 This is Carrie Burke, who is the president of Disney.

00:45:08.800 I'm here as a mother of two queer children, actually, one transgender child and one pansexual child and and also as a leader.

00:45:22.300 One of our execs stood up and said, you know, we only have a handful of queer leads in our content.

00:45:29.100 And I went, what? That can't be true.

00:45:32.240 And I and I and I realized, oh, it actually is true.

00:45:36.180 And I hope this is a moment where.

00:45:38.400 Shoot, the 50 percent of the tears.

00:45:42.140 Sorry, I'm coming.

00:45:46.020 We don't we just don't allow each other to go backwards.

00:45:48.920 Yeah. So Disney and she have apparently made clear that they are going to be putting as many, you know, the acronym they use now is so long.

00:45:57.200 L.G.B. T.Q.

00:45:59.280 I.A. Two Spirit goes on and on and on.

00:46:01.320 All these folks in as many Disney movies as possible that they want these characters to become ubiquitous in the Disney movies.

00:46:10.040 And I think that is totally unnecessary and out of line.

00:46:15.060 I don't want you to work out your woke ism on my kid.

00:46:19.120 OK, do a movie that teaches tolerance, kindness, support for your fellow human beings.

00:46:25.400 Don't shove two spirit people, which, by the way, is not a thing.

00:46:29.860 And pansexual. I had to look it up.

00:46:31.740 You know what that means? It means you're attracted to everybody.

00:46:33.520 So you're by, I guess.

00:46:34.960 But that's that's not a thing.

00:46:36.160 That's already a thing.

00:46:36.940 They already have a letter.

00:46:37.580 I'm sorry, but please, all these glommers who just want attention.

00:46:41.280 It's a new thing.

00:46:42.100 Remember the Willow Smith one?

00:46:43.240 And she was like, I'm this thing that means I just I only want to have sex with people I care about.

00:46:48.780 Well, you mean normal?

00:46:49.760 That's normal.

00:46:51.000 Anyway, it's good to know.

00:46:53.520 I we owe a debt of gratitude to Carrie Burke for being so explicit about their plans and certainly Chris Rufo for letting us all know about them.

00:47:01.820 Beware. You beware.

00:47:03.300 Don't put a Disney movie on in front of your kid before you fully come to understand.

00:47:07.580 What it's going to be promoting, who it's going to be starring and what agenda they're pushing.

00:47:12.320 They're no longer the Disney of yesterday.

00:47:14.220 We'll be right back with Kelly's Court.

00:47:20.380 Now it's time for Kelly's Court.

00:47:22.680 Before we get to the guys in Kelly's Court, I want to clarify.

00:47:25.600 I wrongfully impugned Willow Smith.

00:47:28.280 She's actually polyamorous, which means she has intimate relationships with more than one partner, meaning she's non monogamous.

00:47:37.580 OK, that she that does not make one queer.

00:47:41.360 That means you're basically that's what most men on Earth want.

00:47:46.120 Then the person I was referring to was actually Andrew Cuomo's daughter who came out and declared herself queer because she's, quote, demisexual, which means you only have sex with people with whom you have an emotional attachment.

00:48:00.180 And in her case, I would say that is virtually every woman on Earth.

00:48:03.100 I mean, it's like, what are why are these people trying to be like special and declare their sexual preferences and the pansexual, the demite?

00:48:10.640 Like, shut up.

00:48:11.500 Just shut up.

00:48:12.280 OK, back to Kelly's Court.

00:48:14.640 On the docket today, could Will Smith be prosecuted for slapping Chris Rock, even though Chris Rock himself has declined to press charges?

00:48:25.000 Jim Jim Carrey certainly wants to see that.

00:48:26.740 He spoke out about it yesterday.

00:48:27.700 We'll also ask whether Hunter Biden will actually be indicted on his ongoing federal tax probe and whether Clarence Thomas should be forced to recuse himself or even resign as AOC is demanding over his wife's politics and texts.

00:48:44.340 It has emerged she sent to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff during and in the wake of the election challenge and the January 6th capital riot.

00:48:56.440 Joining me now to discuss it all, Mark Eiglarsh, a former prosecutor, now criminal defense attorney, and Arthur Idala, trial attorney.

00:49:03.900 He's got the same pedigree as Mark, and now he's managing partner at Idala, Bertuna and Caymans.

00:49:09.120 Good to see you guys.

00:49:10.480 Hey, Meg.

00:49:10.900 And Megan, can I get a dictionary of all those words that you just said about people's sexuality?

00:49:16.340 Because number one, I don't know what they mean.

00:49:18.260 And number two, I am so with you.

00:49:19.860 Like, who cares?

00:49:21.320 Like, should Mark be like, I'm the guy who likes big butts?

00:49:24.640 And I'll be like, I'm the guy who likes big boobs.

00:49:26.520 Or I'm the guy who likes skinny people.

00:49:27.940 Or I'm the guy, come on.

00:49:28.780 I am wife sexual.

00:49:32.740 That's it.

00:49:33.400 Just her.

00:49:34.300 I'm grooving on that.

00:49:35.500 This guy who likes big boobs.

00:49:36.900 Again, you mean you're a man.

00:49:38.380 It's like, I don't, these people who are trying to act special and glom on to the actually, you know, sort of LGBTQ crowd.

00:49:47.240 If I were LGBTQ, I'd be mad.

00:49:49.220 I'd be like, you know what?

00:49:50.060 Get out of my lane.

00:49:51.140 You don't get to glom on to my letters.

00:49:53.000 Your thing is not real.

00:49:54.220 Mine is.

00:49:55.420 Nobody's discriminating against somebody who likes to have intimate relations with more than one partner.

00:50:01.440 Or who will only have sex with people with whom they have an emotional attachment.

00:50:06.360 How about this Michaela Cuomo girl trying to, like, declare herself in, like, a protected class because of that?

00:50:13.140 No, you're not.

00:50:14.140 They want attention.

00:50:15.380 They want attention more than anything else.

00:50:17.320 It's a way to get the camera on them.

00:50:19.620 And look, for Miss Cuomo, maybe it's a way to get the camera off her dad and only on her.

00:50:23.440 But it's, in my opinion, it's ridiculous.

00:50:25.700 Shut up.

00:50:26.380 Do your own thing.

00:50:27.160 How do you do it?

00:50:27.760 And if someone discriminates against you because of it, then bring it to someone's attention.

00:50:31.720 But until there's that violation, then go have fun and do it on your own time and your own way.

00:50:37.380 Yeah, and keep it to yourself.

00:50:38.480 Yeah, and I will say that it doesn't matter who you're attracted to, as far as I'm concerned.

00:50:43.560 I love you no matter what.

00:50:44.800 It's okay.

00:50:45.720 Yeah, honestly, I agree with that.

00:50:47.880 But I do think, for the record, I think Michaela Cuomo might be demisexual, only has sex with people with whom she has an emotional attachment.

00:50:55.320 But I think her father is more polyamorous, like Willow Smith, meaning he likes intimate relationships with more than one partner at a time.

00:51:04.820 Okay, sorry.

00:51:05.180 I'm making my bad guy.

00:51:06.320 Here's my armchair.

00:51:07.440 Under the circumstances.

00:51:09.100 Let's see how it all plays out, Megan.

00:51:11.620 This is crazy.

00:51:12.640 This is what we're talking about in today's day and age.

00:51:14.840 What I read in the papers.

00:51:15.920 Okay, so speaking of the Smith family, let's go from Willow to Will and the slap seen round the world.

00:51:24.920 For those of you living under a rock, Will Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock at the Oscars a couple of nights ago because Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith having her head shaved.

00:51:36.060 She has no hair.

00:51:37.360 And he said, you're looking good for G.I.

00:51:39.360 Jane, too.

00:51:39.880 Something like that.

00:51:40.460 Because G.I.

00:51:40.880 Jane was a movie with Demi Moore, and she shaved her head to become part of the armed services.

00:51:45.400 Anyway, Will Smith takes the stage.

00:51:47.300 He slaps Chris Rock unprovoked.

00:51:49.180 And then he sits back down in the audience and he yells, keep my wife's name out of your effing mouth.

00:51:55.140 Nobody did anything.

00:51:56.360 Will Smith won Best Actor.

00:51:57.980 He was celebrated the whole night long.

00:51:59.900 He wound up not apologizing to Chris Rock that night, but to the Academy.

00:52:03.660 Since then, he said he's apologizing to Chris as well.

00:52:06.700 He's a work in progress.

00:52:07.880 He's trying to do better.

00:52:09.260 Good job, PR people.

00:52:10.320 That was a better statement.

00:52:11.600 And now there's a real question about whether the LAPD, I guess it would be, should file

00:52:17.080 charges against him, even though Chris Rock says he doesn't want that.

00:52:21.980 He's not filing charges or asking for criminal charges.

00:52:25.220 Mark, what do you make of it?

00:52:26.900 OK, so let me start off with when I woke up and I read that Chris Rock declined charges to

00:52:33.560 be filed.

00:52:34.180 I was upset.

00:52:35.160 I really wanted Smith to pay for it.

00:52:39.120 Then my position kind of changed.

00:52:42.140 This is personally.

00:52:43.200 I'll go legally in a second.

00:52:44.540 When I saw his apology, he hit every note he needed to hit in that apology, whether he

00:52:48.960 wrote it or his publicist wrote it or they wrote it together.

00:52:52.320 He said what needed to be said to get me off the ledge.

00:52:55.680 I'm now calm saying that violence of any kind is poisonous and and that his actions were

00:53:01.360 unacceptable because I was most concerned about people looking at this A-list actor and

00:53:06.060 thinking that now we're going back to the 1800s where we're going to have duels to the

00:53:09.900 death.

00:53:10.240 And that shows our romantic sides to our wives.

00:53:13.700 Forget it.

00:53:14.260 That's ridiculous.

00:53:15.200 But I think from a legal perspective, you don't bring charges.

00:53:18.680 I don't know if the prosecution can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:53:21.900 I think that that any reasonable hypothesis like potentially Chris Rock believing that

00:53:28.040 this was acceptable touching, maybe not in the moment, but it wasn't against his will.

00:53:33.200 It wasn't unlawful.

00:53:34.120 He would need to state that for this to be a provable case.

00:53:37.360 Really?

00:53:38.140 I don't know.

00:53:39.400 We see that all the time, don't we, Arthur, in like domestic violence cases where the woman

00:53:43.500 won't cooperate and they're like.

00:53:45.280 Holly weird.

00:53:45.960 This is Holly weird.

00:53:46.820 It's a little different, Megan.

00:53:48.200 I know, but there's that's part of why they might charge him.

00:53:51.180 Go ahead, Arthur.

00:53:52.100 But no, you're correct.

00:53:53.140 It is most typical in domestic violence cases where you have a victim who is so under the

00:53:59.900 control of her assailant and usually dependent, whether that's financially dependent,

00:54:05.380 child care dependent, emotionally dependent, that they don't have the courage to come forward.

00:54:10.380 So law enforcement, if they have the evidence, so if they've seen it or if it's on tape and

00:54:15.100 they can bring the charges, they will bring the charges, what's called sui sponte.

00:54:18.380 We mean all on their own.

00:54:20.360 But it's not typical in like a street fight.

00:54:23.120 If cops roll up on the scene and two guys just had a fight and no one's asking for the

00:54:27.860 other to get arrested, it's not typical for a police officer unless someone is really

00:54:32.240 badly beaten.

00:54:34.060 And here, Mark, I understand what you're saying, but I don't know the depth of their relationship

00:54:39.400 because I keep hearing mixed messages about Chris Rock and Will Smith and how close they

00:54:43.980 are or aren't.

00:54:45.360 But, you know, if if one of my buddies, you know, I emcee a lot of these things, right?

00:54:49.700 And I rag on people.

00:54:50.760 And if one of my buddies came up and whacked me, I don't think I would want the police to

00:54:56.060 be involved.

00:54:56.840 I'd want to work it out between the two.

00:54:58.240 Now, of course, there's not hundreds of millions of people, you know, whatever, tens of millions

00:55:02.620 of people watching.

00:55:03.940 So, you know, I don't know if this is a police intervention.

00:55:06.800 I will tell you what my takeaway was.

00:55:08.660 And I agree with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wrote a real rough article about it, is it really

00:55:16.160 hurt the black community and the image of the black community that they're fighting and have

00:55:20.320 been fighting so hard to change the narrative.

00:55:23.820 And I can relate to that as an Italian-American, you know, in this 50s and 60s and 70s, when,

00:55:29.040 you know, a lot of people, including my immediate family, to raise the level of what people think

00:55:35.360 of Italians and then movies like Rocky Balboa and Vinnie Barbarino and Welcome Back Carter

00:55:42.040 and Casino, they just enhance that whole image.

00:55:45.280 Oh, all Italians are this and that.

00:55:46.880 And, you know, I can tell you the black community is really disappointed that Will Smith and,

00:55:53.140 you know, you have a black-on-black man.

00:55:55.340 It really hurt their mission.

00:55:58.600 I didn't look at it that way.

00:56:00.160 And again, this might be me, and I know that there's others who see it differently.

00:56:03.520 But what I saw, and I think most people saw too, is that hurt people hurt people.

00:56:09.240 So this is a guy that Will Smith is deeply hurt.

00:56:14.200 You can just see he's troubled.

00:56:15.380 He was laughing, Mark.

00:56:16.560 He was laughing at the joke.

00:56:18.260 Did you see him hysterically laughing at the joke before his wife got upset?

00:56:22.160 Arthur, this goes back way before the joke.

00:56:25.760 It's not about the joke.

00:56:26.940 Someone who's going up on stage and smacking him under these terms and conditions, there's

00:56:32.060 a history here, and it also shows you what he's going through, the pain and what kind

00:56:37.160 of hurt is inside what he's going through.

00:56:39.880 That all-

00:56:40.420 His wife had an affair because they had an open marriage and his wife went and had an

00:56:44.020 affair.

00:56:44.500 By the way, if it's an open marriage, it's not an affair, right?

00:56:47.540 It's-

00:56:48.060 Right.

00:56:48.520 She too is polyamorous from the sound of it, like the daughter.

00:56:52.060 Again, into more intimate relationships with more than one partner at a time.

00:56:56.840 But listen, if it's an open marriage, and listen, there are all sorts of speculation

00:56:59.800 about whether it's an open marriage on both sides and what his preferences are and so on.

00:57:03.360 Who the hell knows what's going on in their private marriage?

00:57:05.780 But I didn't see somebody who was dealing with personal pain, Mark.

00:57:09.080 I saw somebody who wanted to look like a tough guy, who saw an opportunity to look like

00:57:12.180 a tough guy.

00:57:12.920 Okay, we can go back, you know, I mean, I guess through every decade of his life and say,

00:57:15.980 well, what made him want to act like a tough guy?

00:57:17.540 Who made him feel less than a tough guy that he felt the need to go up into there and act

00:57:20.600 like that?

00:57:21.020 Okay, I don't care.

00:57:22.060 I really don't care.

00:57:22.760 I don't care why the prisoners who go to prison do it.

00:57:25.620 And I don't care why Will Smith did it.

00:57:26.980 I feel like, all right, he did something bad.

00:57:29.340 He should be held to account.

00:57:30.380 They shouldn't take away his Oscar.

00:57:32.000 But I'd like to see some punishment, something with teeth, because it was bullshit.

00:57:35.500 And I continue to look at poor Chris Rock, who was totally humiliated.

00:57:41.360 And I know people don't look at him like, oh, you know, he's humiliated.

00:57:44.880 He's a weakling.

00:57:45.700 He's-

00:57:46.060 But you tell me, guys, isn't that how you'd feel?

00:57:50.020 You'd feel humiliated if somebody like that got up.

00:57:52.660 Will Smith, of all people, one of the biggest stars on earth, smacks you.

00:57:56.280 You don't smack back.

00:57:57.220 You don't even know what to do.

00:57:58.680 And everyone's looking at it.

00:58:00.080 Yeah, here's my biggest problem with it.

00:58:02.940 We haven't heard yet from Chris, and there's a reason why.

00:58:05.680 Maybe he wants, again, he's coming to Florida here.

00:58:08.240 I've got tickets for his concert.

00:58:09.480 He wants to sell it out.

00:58:10.860 Maybe he doesn't want to say anything.

00:58:12.580 But the problem is, so many of the reports led people to believe, I think erroneously,

00:58:18.460 that he knew of her condition and then chose to make that joke.

00:58:23.100 I'm fairly certain he didn't.

00:58:25.260 And if he didn't, then it's just an honest mistake.

00:58:27.840 Like, that's the problem.

00:58:29.340 And even if he did, even if he did know, it does make the joke, you know, a little bit

00:58:33.720 more of a prick joke.

00:58:34.700 But it doesn't excuse what Will Smith did.

00:58:36.960 It doesn't rise to the level he gets smacked.

00:58:39.020 And here are two things, Mark.

00:58:40.900 He sold more tickets to his shows yesterday than he did the whole month before.

00:58:47.380 So, and, you know, I, Megan, you know, he was humiliated for five minutes, but pretty

00:58:53.900 soon thereafter, when he got up there, Will Smith, and he's hysterically crying, the narrative

00:58:58.680 changed.

00:58:59.500 Like, you know, he was the man who was the gentleman who showed class, who showed dignity,

00:59:05.720 and he's coming out by all accounts as he was the hero.

00:59:09.460 So the other thing that we're, to your point about Will being just a bully, people who

00:59:15.300 I've spoken to in Hollywood, Chris Rock is a relatively slight man physically.

00:59:20.320 He's not known as a tough guy at all.

00:59:22.120 If that was Woody Harrelson up there, or Samuel L. Jackson, or someone who could kick Will's

00:59:27.720 butt back and really push back.

00:59:29.840 Or like The Rock.

00:59:31.780 Can you imagine if it were The Rock?

00:59:33.200 He wouldn't have gotten up there and done that to The Rock.

00:59:35.840 No, no, of course not.

00:59:36.960 I mean, maybe he would have screamed, and you know, as horrible as the smack was, when

00:59:41.220 he screamed, especially the second time from the seats, he was absolutely unhinged, unhinged,

00:59:47.720 like spit flying out of his mouth.

00:59:50.880 And I agree with you, there should be some form of discipline.

00:59:54.100 The last words of his statement was, I hope the Academy invites me back.

00:59:58.400 I see nothing wrong at all with them saying, you could be nominated for the work you do as

01:00:04.900 an actor, but no, you have lost your privilege, at least for a period of time, to come back

01:00:09.920 here and attend this award show.

01:00:11.240 Well, they'd be insane to do that.

01:00:12.340 Are either of you condoning his arrest?

01:00:14.000 You're not suggesting he should be arrested in spite of-

01:00:16.020 No, not at all.

01:00:16.880 I'm not saying, but I'm excited.

01:00:18.560 I'm condoning he should be thrown out of coming back to that award show.

01:00:23.160 No, listen, for sure.

01:00:24.020 Anyone else, anyone else would have been arrested.

01:00:26.520 Yeah, I agree on that.

01:00:27.140 Anyone else would have been arrested.

01:00:28.620 I don't think he should be arrested.

01:00:29.140 If it was a non-celebrity, if it was a non-celebrity who went up and smacked Chris Tucker, they would

01:00:36.240 have been arrested on the spot.

01:00:37.640 Like security would have ran on the stage and, sorry, they would have ran on, they would

01:00:41.600 have ran on the stage and arrested him right there and then.

01:00:44.260 Okay.

01:00:44.480 But I have to say that the Academy is insane if they don't invite him back next year because

01:00:47.980 their ratings have been plummeting.

01:00:49.600 They used to get 40 million.

01:00:50.580 Now they get 10 million last year.

01:00:51.840 This year they got 15 million.

01:00:52.940 I guarantee you, A, that was in part because last year was COVID and the movies hadn't

01:00:57.400 been made and so on.

01:00:58.680 But they got a bump for sure out of this.

01:01:00.600 When what happened to me probably happened to millions of people where I got a text from

01:01:04.440 a friend saying, oh my God, did you see what just happened?

01:01:06.460 Then you tune in and they get the ratings bounce if you happen to have a Neilson box.

01:01:09.780 The numbers went up 550,000.

01:01:13.880 Half a million people immediately got that text.

01:01:16.080 Yeah.

01:01:16.440 So they got 15 million.

01:01:17.660 Let me finish my point.

01:01:18.400 So they got 15 million.

01:01:19.320 So next year, everybody's going to tune in if he's there waiting to see whether he does

01:01:22.560 something else.

01:01:23.220 I mean, you know he won't, but you got to see him sitting in the audience next year.

01:01:27.460 You would tune in just to see that.

01:01:30.100 I don't know.

01:01:30.460 Judge Kelly, how do you punish him?

01:01:31.580 You said you want something with teeth.

01:01:33.500 So what's the teeth that you punish Will Smith?

01:01:36.460 Let's see.

01:01:37.220 Like, I don't know.

01:01:38.320 You can't mandate a donation.

01:01:40.420 That's what I'd like to see.

01:01:41.400 Like a hefty donation.

01:01:42.420 That's not going to hurt him.

01:01:43.320 To a worthy cause.

01:01:44.380 Well, I would if we made it big enough.

01:01:46.100 10 million hurts everybody.

01:01:47.300 That's like, unless you're Jeff Bezos, you feel that.

01:01:50.380 I don't know.

01:01:50.740 A negotiated deal where he has to make a donation to a worthy cause that, you know, like helping

01:01:55.960 impoverished children, whatever it is, but something to make him pay.

01:01:59.740 Anger management programs.

01:02:01.320 Anger management programs.

01:02:02.680 How about that one?

01:02:03.220 Guys, the harm to me is the message that it sent to so many people and a lot of women

01:02:09.660 who expressed, I wish my man loved me like that, and that somehow it's okay.

01:02:14.600 This is the new normal to act that way.

01:02:17.440 So he needs to do more than just put out that letter of apology, which was a great start

01:02:21.600 as far as I'm concerned.

01:02:22.400 I wonder what you guys thought about it.

01:02:24.040 But to speak more about how violence of any kind like that is unacceptable and repulsive.

01:02:30.680 I need more.

01:02:31.300 I have to tell you, I did not feel the.

01:02:33.800 I did not feel like that's what I, you know, I want my man to do.

01:02:36.660 I feel like I, one of the things, one of the many things I love about my man is that he

01:02:41.060 is able to control his emotions.

01:02:43.660 And that's what I like in a man.

01:02:45.000 I don't want a man who's overly emotional and like constantly, you know, losing it.

01:02:49.420 He can regulate his own emotions.

01:02:51.360 And he, I can tell you right now, would have had a stern face in response to a joke like

01:02:55.060 that and would have dealt with it man to man behind the scenes later.

01:02:59.340 And I think that's what Will Smith is now wishing he did.

01:03:01.860 I've got to tell you this.

01:03:02.780 A couple of things.

01:03:05.140 I have a couple of soundbites you've got to hear because they're so good.

01:03:08.460 So let's just start with this one.

01:03:09.660 Jim Carrey.

01:03:10.940 He wants he doesn't understand why the cops are not charging him.

01:03:14.480 And he wants Chris Rock to file a civil suit.

01:03:18.240 Here he was speaking to CBS News yesterday.

01:03:20.260 I was sickened by the standing ovation.

01:03:23.420 I felt like Hollywood is just spineless on mass.

01:03:28.140 And it just, it really felt like, oh, this is a really clear indication that we're not the cool club anymore.

01:03:36.760 They asked Chris, do you want to file charges?

01:03:38.780 And Chris apparently said, no, he did not.

01:03:41.140 He doesn't want the hassle.

01:03:42.120 I had announced this morning that I was suing Will for $200 million because that video is going to be there forever.

01:03:50.840 It's going to be ubiquitous.

01:03:52.920 You know, that insult is going to last a very long time.

01:03:56.420 You do not have the right to walk up on stage and smack somebody in the face because they said words.

01:04:04.060 Well said, right, Arthur?

01:04:05.600 I mean, what about maybe Chris Rock does come around to the point of filing a civil suit?

01:04:10.060 I doubt it, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

01:04:13.780 It's definitely not out of the realm.

01:04:15.240 There's actual limitations from filing, having him arrested or filing a civil suit is way down the road.

01:04:21.240 And I think if he just stays the course, does his shows, Chris Rock, I think he just comes out of this as the bigger man.

01:04:31.780 I mean, his recovery from a professional point of view, his recovery at the award show after getting smacked was nothing short of brilliant.

01:04:39.860 You get smacked that hard physically, you're stunned.

01:04:44.660 Emotionally and psychologically, you're stunned.

01:04:46.500 And I don't need to tell you, Megan, you're already a little bit of a nervous wreck standing up in front of the world about to give an award, a very prestigious award.

01:04:54.460 So he took all of that and he really handled it like a pro.

01:04:58.240 And Mark, you know, regarding his apology, Will's apology, you just saw Jim Carrey get on a screen.

01:05:05.160 You've seen other people get on the screen.

01:05:06.640 If he really genuinely wanted to apologize, even if it was someone else's words,

01:05:11.040 all you do is you hold up your little phone and Instagram and you do it genuinely with looking out at people and saying, I messed up.

01:05:19.760 He's literally he's literally just been voted like the best actor in America.

01:05:26.020 So do a little acting at a minimum.

01:05:28.640 Look into the camera and recite some lines.

01:05:31.260 You do it really well.

01:05:32.840 That's right.

01:05:33.680 He upstaged himself, by the way.

01:05:35.580 He's such a good actor.

01:05:36.440 He stole the greatest moment besides maybe the birth of his children.

01:05:40.240 He stole the greatest moment of his acting career from himself.

01:05:43.960 Yes.

01:05:44.320 No one's going to talk about it that he wanted.

01:05:46.440 They're going to talk about this guy's a nut.

01:05:48.120 And look what he did.

01:05:49.200 And they stole a lot from Coda, which is a huge movie.

01:05:52.360 It's a in terms of people with disabilities.

01:05:55.480 That's a game changing movie for them.

01:05:57.580 I was with a young man last night who's severely disabled physically.

01:06:01.560 And that was his biggest complaint.

01:06:03.500 He's like, this was a movie for my people, my disabled people, not people like I'm polygamist

01:06:09.600 or this or I'm that people who were born without a leg, people who were born without

01:06:13.160 a hand, people who were born deaf or blind, no fault of their own whatsoever.

01:06:18.000 And no one's talking about that.

01:06:20.380 Wow.

01:06:20.960 A movie really focusing on handicapped individuals is the number one movie.

01:06:26.840 Nope.

01:06:27.120 It's about a slap from a guy who got a standing ovation after the slap.

01:06:31.320 Jim Carrey said that in sort of part two of his interview with Gayle King and was making

01:06:35.780 that point about how he took the limelight away from all of those people who had worked

01:06:39.700 so hard and put so much.

01:06:40.920 And if you look at the ABC website, they don't mention this at all.

01:06:45.160 Like yesterday, this was nowhere.

01:06:47.000 They wrote up the Oscars because that's where it aired.

01:06:49.960 They wrote about all the movies.

01:06:51.440 They didn't write about this at all because clearly they want it to go away.

01:06:54.480 They're not happy this happened.

01:06:56.300 Yes, it helped ratings.

01:06:57.120 But it embarrassed the rest of the participants and it stole the focus.

01:07:01.460 Let me say this, Mark Iglesias.

01:07:03.040 There's one person, Chris Rock may not be commenting, but O.J. Simpson is.

01:07:08.760 Oh, my God.

01:07:10.280 Yes.

01:07:11.020 Yes.

01:07:11.880 I had to listen to it.

01:07:13.400 And you do, too.

01:07:14.900 Here he is.

01:07:15.520 No.

01:07:15.920 No.

01:07:16.140 Yes.

01:07:16.760 But the question I've been getting is Will Smith and Chris Rock.

01:07:19.960 Hey, look, it was unfortunate.

01:07:22.000 I think Will was wrong.

01:07:23.860 Look, I understood the feeling.

01:07:27.640 Now, in my life, I've been through a lot of crap and I was raising two young kids and

01:07:31.840 every comedian in the country had an O.J. routine.

01:07:35.320 I don't think I wouldn't want to be slapped a couple of those guys, but you've got to accept

01:07:41.700 it.

01:07:41.980 It's humor.

01:07:42.720 And I didn't even think that was all that ingresious.

01:07:45.580 I thought it was a semi-unfunny joke, but I don't know.

01:07:52.060 I don't get it.

01:07:52.780 Oh, my God.

01:07:54.520 Oh, Megan.

01:07:55.660 Megan.

01:07:56.840 You really gave him his 15 seconds.

01:07:59.240 Please.

01:08:00.280 He's a murderer.

01:08:02.220 Come on.

01:08:03.700 It's a quitting.

01:08:04.500 Take it easy.

01:08:05.420 Counselor.

01:08:06.300 I hear what you're saying, Arthur.

01:08:08.320 I mean, come on.

01:08:09.100 I don't need to say anything.

01:08:10.280 It's hard when you murder two people and then the comedians that take shots at you.

01:08:13.960 It makes you want to go like, what?

01:08:16.100 Go finish that sentence, O.J.

01:08:17.740 Do what?

01:08:18.220 I've been pronouncing the word egregious wrong for my whole life.

01:08:21.900 I didn't realize it's egregious, but OK, I'll fix the way I speak.

01:08:26.680 The thing is this.

01:08:28.140 It was a good joke.

01:08:29.460 Will Smith is laughing at the joke.

01:08:32.200 His wife, who's like a few inches behind him, is rolling her eyes.

01:08:35.200 Then they cut back to Chris Rock.

01:08:36.980 And you don't see whatever interaction happened between husband and wife, but something must

01:08:42.020 have happened because he went from smiling when the camera's on him to now we go back

01:08:45.600 to Chris, who's about to present the award.

01:08:48.560 And then the explosion, you'll hear him go, uh-oh, and he comes up.

01:08:51.800 So then he saw her face.

01:08:52.920 She must have said something.

01:08:54.000 Right.

01:08:54.300 No, he saw her.

01:08:55.800 She handled it very well.

01:08:58.020 You know, she just sort of expressed her disdain with her face.

01:09:00.300 And that was it.

01:09:01.060 And it wasn't even a big face.

01:09:02.120 It was just sort of like, not cool.

01:09:04.340 And he saw that.

01:09:05.420 And then he decided to have a big man moment and make it about himself, which, you know,

01:09:09.060 that's what got us here.

01:09:09.980 Can I say this before we go?

01:09:11.480 Apparently, there's another incident.

01:09:12.600 Can we play this?

01:09:13.220 It's sound by eight.

01:09:13.980 Will Smith slapping a guy who was out of line totally.

01:09:16.800 I guess does this at awards shows.

01:09:18.780 On a red carpet, went up and kissed him.

01:09:21.860 Try to kiss Will Smith.

01:09:23.460 Will Smith, here's that video.

01:09:26.020 Come on, man.

01:09:27.420 What the hell is your problem, buddy?

01:09:29.220 All right.

01:09:32.440 Hey, sorry.

01:09:33.420 You said kiss me in my mouth.

01:09:35.140 He's joking.

01:09:35.580 He's lucky I ain't sucker punching.

01:09:36.740 Oh, sorry.

01:09:37.700 I said that on camera.

01:09:40.560 So for those of you just listening to this, you don't see the actual kiss, but you see

01:09:44.800 Will Smith with the back of his hand smack some guy who tried to kiss him on the cheek.

01:09:50.400 Again, this guy, he's like one of those people who tries to, I guess, get in the news by doing

01:09:54.140 stuff like this.

01:09:55.280 And then Will Smith went on camera and spoke about it not long after.

01:10:00.540 This is, well, I guess it's 2018.

01:10:03.240 The incident happened in 2012.

01:10:04.840 In 2018, he spoke about it and about how he was praised for the smack by Jay-Z, who'd been

01:10:10.380 watching it with Beyonce.

01:10:12.940 Listen to this.

01:10:13.440 I was in Russia, I don't know, it was like probably a year and a half, two years ago.

01:10:19.420 I don't know if y'all remember when the, like one of the reporters tried to kiss me.

01:10:23.380 Oh, yeah.

01:10:23.800 And I slapped him, right?

01:10:26.140 So I was in Russia.

01:10:27.500 So I get back and I'm pissed like that somebody like think because you famous, they get to

01:10:32.060 do whatever they want to do to you.

01:10:33.520 So I'm in my room and I have 10 urgent messages from Jay-Z.

01:10:37.900 It was like, it was such a breath of fresh air to see you just be authentic, right?

01:10:43.820 That's, you know, that's what you were feeling.

01:10:45.520 And that was like one of the first things.

01:10:47.560 And I was like, because I'm like, it was my natural reaction.

01:10:50.740 But it was, it was like-

01:10:51.680 You're invading my space.

01:10:52.200 I'm from Philly.

01:10:52.960 Yo, but I thought that it would be negative and everything.

01:10:55.840 And in this new social media world, it actually, the authenticity was accepted and respected.

01:11:04.240 Listen, I got his back on that one.

01:11:09.240 Somebody invaded his space.

01:11:11.160 He reacted.

01:11:12.460 Same.

01:11:13.020 That is apples to oranges to what he did, where he's essentially saying women need men's protection.

01:11:20.700 They can't stand up on their own.

01:11:22.140 I have to handle this for you.

01:11:23.580 And then he did that.

01:11:24.720 Completely different.

01:11:25.520 I think it's, it could be used against him in a civil suit, potentially Arthur as like,

01:11:31.600 and you enjoyed the accolades you got from Beyonce and Jay-Z and you enjoyed the accolades

01:11:36.540 you got on social media and you saw an opportunity to get them again.

01:11:41.300 That's how I would do the cross.

01:11:42.380 Well, the thing, the thing though, about the first slapping, which was like in 2012 is

01:11:47.380 that all happened so quickly.

01:11:49.940 There is no, no gap like there is with Chris Rock and that whole episode.

01:11:54.560 This is because I watched, I was able to find other video.

01:11:58.220 I mean, the guy really tried to like tongue kiss him on the mouth.

01:12:01.540 Yeah.

01:12:01.880 Some loser.

01:12:02.540 You know, he just, he just turned around and just like, yeah.

01:12:04.980 And that same guy, I think he's been arrested going after Leonardo DiCaprio and others.

01:12:09.220 Yes.

01:12:09.740 And he just like, yes.

01:12:12.440 Okay.

01:12:12.660 Bradley Cooper too.

01:12:13.380 And he like back, backhanded him.

01:12:15.460 He didn't whack him the way he whacked Chris.

01:12:17.520 He just backed him and kept going and you heard what he said.

01:12:19.900 He's like, go ahead and sucker punch him.

01:12:21.400 I agree with Mark is right.

01:12:22.900 I mean, it's, it's really apples to oranges.

01:12:26.080 And I know what you're saying can be used as like prior bad acts, but I don't know.

01:12:31.800 His comments about it, his comments about it are more telling than the actual incident.

01:12:35.920 Nobody would fault Will Smith for, I mean, that guy basically committed an assault on him

01:12:40.220 and unwanted touching assault and battery.

01:12:42.180 Sexual assault, right.

01:12:42.860 A sexual assault.

01:12:43.880 And then he responded to guys.

01:12:44.980 So that's, that's of course team will on that.

01:12:47.120 But his comments about it, I think could be used against him.

01:12:49.980 If somebody gets interested in suing him or pursuing him criminally, I don't think either

01:12:54.440 of those things should happen, but I do think if he's smart, he'll hit some agreement with

01:12:58.740 the Academy that has real teeth in it with money for some cause we can, not some bullshit

01:13:03.200 woke cause that half of us hate.

01:13:04.860 I cannot stop swearing.

01:13:06.480 I've got to find something else to give up for Lent.

01:13:08.640 What's going on with that?

01:13:09.920 I don't, I can't, I don't mind swearing, but I gave it up for Lent.

01:13:13.080 You would never know given the way I talk on this program.

01:13:15.460 But it's, that's what you gave up for Lent.

01:13:17.560 I gave up drinking booze.

01:13:18.940 I haven't had a drink in 30 days and I gave up pasta and bread.

01:13:22.620 I've lost 10 pounds.

01:13:23.840 It was a little self-serving, but that's what you gave up cursing.

01:13:26.780 It would have been easier for me.

01:13:28.720 I asked if I could sub in something else and I cannot.

01:13:32.460 Go ahead, Mark.

01:13:33.460 You're probably just cursing because subconsciously you're nervous about your eye surgery coming

01:13:36.820 up.

01:13:37.040 I think that's what it is.

01:13:38.020 You look at you and like hurt people, hurt people.

01:13:42.500 Okay.

01:13:43.880 Stand by.

01:13:44.540 Cause there's a lot more to discuss.

01:13:45.720 We've got to get to Hunter Biden and also to these calls that Justice Thomas needs to

01:13:51.340 step down off of hearing any case involving the January 6th riot or the presidential election

01:13:56.840 challenge and so on because of actions by his wife.

01:14:00.880 All right, let's talk about Hunter Biden.

01:14:08.280 It's getting more interesting.

01:14:10.300 The Wall Street Journal with some in-depth reporting this week on what's actually happening

01:14:14.400 there.

01:14:15.040 And it's not just a matter of this guy who was on drugs, who was just a hot mess.

01:14:19.340 He's, he's appeared to cross some legal lines, though that's under investigation.

01:14:23.700 It's the, uh, U S attorney for Delaware.

01:14:26.780 He worked in this office during both the Bush and the Obama administrations.

01:14:30.000 And was nominated to run it by Donald Trump.

01:14:32.860 So he's been there under, you know, Dems, Republicans, and so on.

01:14:36.860 This began as a tax inquiry during the Obama administration.

01:14:40.700 And then it widened in 2018 to include possible criminal violations of tax laws, as well as

01:14:46.460 foreign lobbying and money laundering rules that he may have violated.

01:14:51.400 The Wall Street Journal recap was that Hunter Biden, again, he's a lawyer.

01:14:55.300 He's 52.

01:14:55.840 Has appeared to quote, leverage his family's name and business dealings with tycoons in

01:15:00.300 Europe and China while seeking, uh, who were seeking to bolster their credibility at home

01:15:04.540 or gain footholds in the U S that, um, the activity accelerated in 2016, the last full

01:15:11.100 year of his father's vice presidential term.

01:15:13.700 And that these foreign tycoons stood to benefit from association with a Biden family name while

01:15:18.400 their money allowed Hunter Biden to maintain a globe trotting lifestyle.

01:15:22.660 I mean, there's like, we knew about the Burisma, this Ukrainian oil and gas company was sitting

01:15:27.400 on the board for 50 grand a month.

01:15:28.900 We knew about that, but it goes on and on about like some company that he was allegedly

01:15:33.240 associated with that got, you know, sweet cars and on and, and like just cash payments that

01:15:39.860 were rolling in all while Hunter was allegedly peddling the Biden name.

01:15:45.580 You know, you pay me, Arthur, you get access, not just to me, you get access to Linda and

01:15:50.560 Linda is the queen of Del Mar.

01:15:52.260 And if you need to get into, you know, Belusio's, which is an amazing Bellini's, Linda can set

01:15:58.680 you up, but you just got to pay.

01:16:00.260 You got to pay the daughter first if you want access.

01:16:02.560 So it's like that times about 10 million.

01:16:05.280 If this was a case, I'll speak of what I know.

01:16:07.560 If this was a Southern district of New York case, a federal, uh, prosecutor's case here

01:16:12.480 in New York city, um, he would definitely be being indicted.

01:16:16.580 The caveat is, you know, being the current son of the current president of the United

01:16:22.480 States, they would definitely want to make sure they have all of their ducks in order.

01:16:26.880 But if he was just a citizen and with the same facts, I mean, they're, I'm representing

01:16:31.940 Rudy Giuliani.

01:16:32.880 They're going after Rudy Giuliani for something very similar, the foreign agents registration

01:16:36.800 act that now that's all they're going after Rudy for.

01:16:39.560 It's just, he didn't fill out a form, uh, but they, you know, they, it's no secret.

01:16:43.380 They, they broke down and break down his door.

01:16:45.240 He opened his door at six o'clock in the morning, he let all the feds in and took all

01:16:48.320 those electronic devices.

01:16:49.800 So they take this stuff very, very seriously.

01:16:53.240 And Megan, I looked into doing my research for Kelly's court, you know, some of the,

01:16:58.220 some of the allegations and there's a lot of tax situations.

01:17:01.800 So they, they, you know, if a company buys you a car, that's income to you, you need to

01:17:08.040 report that.

01:17:09.040 It doesn't appear that that happened to you.

01:17:10.780 They bought him an electric car called a Fisker, which, you know, ranges from not that

01:17:15.000 expensive for a car.

01:17:16.040 It's a very expensive for a car.

01:17:17.220 I don't know what model he got.

01:17:18.420 And there are other perks along the way and just stuff that doesn't, doesn't smell right.

01:17:24.120 You know, when you're a lobbyist and you know, he's allowed to be a lobbyist if he registers

01:17:28.960 and goes through all of the proper channels and says, listen, yes, I do have access to the

01:17:33.700 white house under the Obama administration.

01:17:35.340 My dad happens to be the vice president.

01:17:36.940 That does not mean anyone is going to do anything improper, unethical, illegal, et cetera, et cetera.

01:17:43.320 And here are all these forms that I'm, that are, are transparency forms basically.

01:17:47.780 So people know what I'm doing and here's the money I'm making.

01:17:50.380 And he can't be contingent on him actually achieving the goal that they want.

01:17:55.020 If you do it the right way, it's not a crime, but it does not appear that he did these things

01:17:59.660 the right way, whether they'll have the guts to treat him like they would treat a typical citizen,

01:18:05.660 the son of the president of the United States of America, that remains to be seen.

01:18:10.900 Okay.

01:18:11.040 So now Arthur mentions this FARA and whether they're going to charge him under this.

01:18:17.620 Like, was he, was he lobbying for a foreign country and sort of peddling access?

01:18:22.900 Because the New York Times has pointed out that, uh, Hunter Biden had a familiarity with

01:18:28.780 FARA and a desire to avoid triggering it.

01:18:32.540 Uh, there was at least one email in April of 2014 where Hunter Biden, uh, indicated that

01:18:37.280 Burisma, again, the Ukrainian oil and gas company on whose board he sat for 50 grand a month,

01:18:41.280 given his absolutely zero experience in oil gas, I'm sure he was a great contributor,

01:18:45.120 um, that they quote, need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene

01:18:50.700 directly with domestic policymakers and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S.

01:18:57.660 laws in the strictest sense across the board.

01:19:00.840 And to me, that just is such a classic CYA, but will it save him, Mark?

01:19:06.440 Well, that becomes a more challenging charge.

01:19:09.360 How about start with the really low hanging fruit?

01:19:12.400 He makes a certain amount of money.

01:19:14.560 Did he pay taxes on that money?

01:19:17.280 I don't care who your father is.

01:19:19.200 You either pay taxes or you didn't.

01:19:21.460 Then the defense becomes, well, I was knee deep in addiction.

01:19:25.800 I, my head was all over the place.

01:19:27.440 It wasn't criminal.

01:19:28.540 I thought it was being taken care of when it wasn't, which is why I hear the feds are

01:19:32.280 interviewing people about when he was using drug, what a state of mind was, because they

01:19:36.560 anticipate that as defense.

01:19:38.240 The second thing though, is this is different.

01:19:41.900 Normally we don't get to go into court and defend someone based upon the fact that this is

01:19:45.900 all political, but starts off with, well, that is a fair argument to make under the circumstances.

01:19:52.120 Now, whether it's true or not, who knows?

01:19:54.320 So the feds really have to have a solid case, which is why I will end with how I started.

01:20:00.160 Go after him for tax evasion.

01:20:01.720 If you've got him on that, that doesn't lie.

01:20:03.920 That's so on the subject of it being political.

01:20:06.520 It's going to be a tough argument to make since this investigation began while his dad

01:20:10.540 was the sitting vice president and then continued under a Republican administration and now has

01:20:16.160 continued while his dad is the sitting.

01:20:17.860 Like, that's going to be a tough one to make.

01:20:19.780 I don't like that part, but I don't like that, Megan.

01:20:22.020 I mean, you, you know, you were, you're a lawyer.

01:20:24.960 We're former prosecutors.

01:20:26.260 Like it doesn't take eight years to bring a case.

01:20:28.900 Like you either did it and you may need some time to do an investigation, but why is it

01:20:33.360 going on through, you know, all, all of these years that, that, that doesn't sit well with

01:20:38.280 me regarding how our system is working in this particular case.

01:20:41.880 That's true.

01:20:42.600 But can I ask you a question about the tax evasion, Arthur, because there are reports

01:20:47.280 now, and I think he's confirmed them, that he paid a million dollars to the feds in back

01:20:51.480 taxes and the reporting this week was that, well, that, that was done basically just try

01:20:56.080 to stave off criminal charges.

01:20:57.800 You know, like I was a bad boy.

01:20:59.920 I was a hot mess.

01:21:01.220 I fixed it.

01:21:02.100 I paid what I owed.

01:21:03.040 And then he had to take out a loan allegedly to pay that though.

01:21:05.740 There are reports.

01:21:06.560 He may be worth tens of millions of dollars unconfirmed by us.

01:21:09.620 So I don't know whether that's true.

01:21:11.300 In any event, uh, he did pay the million dollars in back taxes.

01:21:14.140 So does that end it?

01:21:15.200 You know, if you had a client who came to you being charged with tax evasion, does that

01:21:18.500 as a practical matter, put it to bed?

01:21:20.980 Well, it's, you have to cut that deal with the prosecutor, right?

01:21:23.740 That's what we call prosecutorial discretion.

01:21:26.160 So of course that's the goal I'm trying to achieve after I sit with his accountant and a forensic

01:21:30.800 accountant and we find out, okay, yeah, he definitely owes this money.

01:21:33.980 I then go in and try to use my bald head and charm and say, look, he's going to borrow money

01:21:39.080 from grandma and grandpa and uncle and aunt, and he's going to pay all this money back now.

01:21:43.260 Yes.

01:21:43.480 He was addicted to drugs.

01:21:44.880 Yes.

01:21:45.080 He didn't know what he was doing.

01:21:46.080 I could verify that.

01:21:47.260 I have documentation about all of that.

01:21:49.240 This was not an intentional act.

01:21:50.760 It was a negligent act at worst.

01:21:53.120 And he's got the money to pay back the government.

01:21:55.280 So why don't we save everyone's time, effort, and energy?

01:21:58.060 And, um, you know, you can audit them every year for the next decade, uh, to make sure

01:22:02.380 it doesn't happen again, but let's not bring a criminal prosecution and you pray that it works.

01:22:06.800 And as the prosecutor, I say, I love your bald head and I love your passion, but I'm not

01:22:11.380 making any guarantees and what Arthur then would still do is tell his client, listen,

01:22:15.980 you owe that money anyway, pay it.

01:22:18.300 And then let's hope that that'll cause them to use the breast.

01:22:21.160 Can't hurt.

01:22:22.120 What about Mark?

01:22:22.980 You mentioned the fact that that this U S attorney is calling witnesses.

01:22:27.260 I read this too, in front of a grand jury that's investigating this, who can speak to

01:22:31.640 Hunter Biden's drug use.

01:22:33.820 So why would, why would the prosecutor looking into this be calling witnesses who can speak

01:22:39.080 to his drug use in front of the grand jury, as opposed to just interviewing them privately

01:22:44.780 and saying, what should I be thinking about?

01:22:47.320 Was he really out of control?

01:22:48.580 You know what I mean?

01:22:48.900 Like, why would you call them in front of the grand jury?

01:22:51.560 The direct answer is, I don't know.

01:22:53.040 I need to know more about their strategy, why they're doing that, but clearly they're doing

01:22:57.640 it because they, you know, one of the obvious defenses is going to be, okay, well, if I owed

01:23:02.000 that money, my head was not in the right place.

01:23:04.360 I'm trying to negate the mens rea, the state of mind that I intentionally chose not to

01:23:10.600 pay the government money that I thought that I owed them.

01:23:13.300 So I think that that's going to be, they also may be putting, they may also may be calling

01:23:16.720 him in front of the grand jury.

01:23:17.640 I had a case this week where someone came in and the prosecutor wants to speak to them.

01:23:22.560 And I said, you're not speaking to them.

01:23:25.600 But my client really doesn't have the basis to, to invoke their fifth amendment privilege

01:23:30.420 against self-incrimination.

01:23:31.420 Because I don't really think they've committed a crime.

01:23:33.660 So you have to have a good faith basis to invoke the fifth.

01:23:36.380 You can't just do it for no reason.

01:23:38.020 So I said, you want to hear what this person has to say, put them in the grand jury and

01:23:42.160 roll the dice is what they're going to say in the grand jury, but you're not speaking

01:23:45.380 to them beforehand.

01:23:46.220 And if they really believe this person has done nothing wrong, they may put them in the

01:23:50.020 grand jury.

01:23:51.240 And in a case of with this, with these types of political implications, as a prosecutor, you

01:23:56.560 want to say, look, I put it all out there and the citizens decided.

01:24:00.800 But as Mark and you and I know, if they really want him indicted, they put one FBI agent in

01:24:05.560 there and maybe one financial agent in there.

01:24:08.000 And he's indicted in 15 minutes and the case would move on.

01:24:11.080 But I just thought of something.

01:24:12.180 I actually thought of something as Arthur was speaking.

01:24:14.220 You know, we're so used to the grand jury just doing whatever the heck the feds want,

01:24:17.700 whatever the prosecutors want.

01:24:18.880 And they'll indict a ham sandwich, all that.

01:24:20.920 But maybe there's some grand jury in this universe, and maybe it's this one, that may not

01:24:26.660 indict.

01:24:27.040 And so maybe the issue needs to be brought before them that, by the way, here's this

01:24:31.680 drug problem, but it did not affect.

01:24:34.040 And maybe that's become an issue where they're concerned that would become an issue.

01:24:37.260 And maybe somehow they're doing that to help increase the chances of getting an indictment.

01:24:42.000 Well, the big the big enchilada here would be any involvement of President Biden.

01:24:47.740 You know, that's as much as we care about Hunter Biden.

01:24:50.380 The question is, did Joe Biden get any of this money?

01:24:54.780 Was there any cooperation?

01:24:56.320 Was access provided?

01:24:58.660 Right.

01:24:58.880 He did have a meeting with, I think, some of these Burisma officials, which they chose not

01:25:03.920 to document in the White House logs when he was vice president.

01:25:06.820 So there's some smoke, though no fire yet around him.

01:25:10.740 But Peter Schweitzer, who's been doing a good job on this and on all things Biden related,

01:25:16.000 he's the president of the Government Accountability Institute.

01:25:18.700 He says there are there are several things, and one of them is the probe could implicate

01:25:24.500 the president saying Hunter Biden, if he was doing these deals, you know, and he was at

01:25:29.120 precisely the same time that his father was the named point person on U.S. policy toward

01:25:33.320 Ukraine, that that did happen.

01:25:35.740 He said, look, that's at minimum a coincidence.

01:25:37.760 But if it was more directly orchestrated or producing results for Burisma than that, this

01:25:47.080 could become Joe Biden's problem.

01:25:51.120 And they've got as their main exhibit now the infamous laptop that we were told was disinformation

01:25:56.720 by 50 security officials, by The New York Times, by Politico, by every public, by NPR,

01:26:02.440 I think it was, there was a PBS, one of them, it's kind of the same thing that came out and

01:26:06.260 said, we don't cover stories that are meaningless.

01:26:09.700 It was NPR.

01:26:10.240 We don't cover stories that are meaningless, that have absolutely no import.

01:26:15.620 Meaning the laptop, the same laptop that The New York Times now acknowledges was legit.

01:26:20.080 That's the basis for a lot of the FBI's investigation.

01:26:22.220 That could be the basis for criminal charges.

01:26:24.060 Is NPR turning around and apologizing, acknowledging its mistake?

01:26:28.320 Of course not.

01:26:30.360 So Arthur, your thoughts on how, if at all, they would capture the president in this?

01:26:36.880 Well, I have to make this just a little personal.

01:26:39.020 I'm going to bring it back to Rudy Giuliani.

01:26:40.800 So the morning that they went to Mayor Giuliani's house, I was on the phone with him.

01:26:46.040 And the subpoena was for all of his electronic devices.

01:26:50.560 The warrant was for all his electronic devices.

01:26:52.540 So he's, he handed them all over.

01:26:55.080 It was without any drama.

01:26:57.080 And then they, they pick up from the mayor's home desk.

01:27:00.960 They go, what's this?

01:27:02.180 And he goes, oh, that is a cloned copy of Hunter Biden's laptop.

01:27:08.280 It doesn't say it on there.

01:27:10.000 It's not written on there.

01:27:11.240 He just holds up like one of those little hard drive.

01:27:13.620 And then he tells them that's what it is.

01:27:15.040 And they put it down and they left it there.

01:27:17.380 How do they know that there wasn't all kinds of criminality on that?

01:27:21.860 I mean, he could have said that about the phone.

01:27:23.680 This is Hunter Biden's phone and put it down.

01:27:25.560 So it just shows you the culture inside of law enforcement.

01:27:29.900 And this was not that long ago, months ago, that they don't, they didn't want anything

01:27:33.580 to do with that.

01:27:34.280 Oh, we don't, Hunter Biden, we don't want anything to do with it.

01:27:36.320 I mean, obviously, to Mark's point about why, about a grand jury, they are in the state,

01:27:43.420 the tiny state that adores the Bidens.

01:27:46.280 And it would be naive to say they're not going to do their best in their subconscious not to

01:27:53.280 go after the president.

01:27:54.460 There would have to be such a hardcore black and white connection with Biden for them to

01:28:02.000 go after.

01:28:02.560 Megan, I was in court in Manhattan yesterday.

01:28:04.380 There were protests in front of the Manhattan DA's office because they basically have dropped

01:28:08.960 the case against President Trump.

01:28:11.380 And from the little I know, but it's a little, but it's enough.

01:28:15.300 There was a lot more, you know, there was some teeth in that, that potential indictment

01:28:20.040 than what we've heard about President Biden.

01:28:22.640 So no one's really running to indict a president of the United States past or present.

01:28:27.720 Yeah.

01:28:27.860 You would, the kind of evidence that would rock your world more than that slap did.

01:28:32.080 I mean, it would be like, oh, my good, smoking gun stuff.

01:28:35.880 I bet you if I bet you if Rudy Giuliani said it is it's the infamous pee tape.

01:28:40.660 I have it right here.

01:28:41.600 Here's the pee tape that they would have taken that.

01:28:44.680 They wouldn't have left that one behind.

01:28:46.420 All right.

01:28:46.760 I got to shift gears in the time we have left to Clarence Thomas.

01:28:50.060 There are calls AOC.

01:28:51.280 She's a moron.

01:28:51.840 I hate to even mention her.

01:28:52.680 I really try to avoid it, but she's saying he should resign.

01:28:55.280 She's such a dumbass.

01:28:56.740 I'd like, here I go again.

01:28:58.100 Dumb, dumb.

01:28:58.680 She's a dumb, dumb.

01:29:00.820 Thank you for getting the thumbs up.

01:29:02.360 Give me fond of her.

01:29:03.140 I have sinned.

01:29:03.960 My fellow Catholic.

01:29:04.840 It has been 10 minutes since I cursed.

01:29:09.420 OK, so she thinks he should resign.

01:29:12.280 But a lot of Democrats are saying he should recuse himself off of cases involving the January

01:29:18.760 6th riots because Ginny Thomas, longtime political activist on the right.

01:29:25.640 And she's is I mean, she is like, right, right, right.

01:29:29.580 She's not like moderate.

01:29:30.680 She's like, right.

01:29:33.760 Texting Mark Meadows during the aftermath of the election.

01:29:37.340 She very much did not believe that Trump lost.

01:29:39.860 She's encouraging him to keep fighting.

01:29:42.700 She's sending him YouTube videos.

01:29:44.640 You know, it's the kind of stuff like your uncle sends you where you're like, OK, it's

01:29:49.120 like Trump sting with CIA director or whatever.

01:29:52.100 The biggest election story in history, blah, blah, blah.

01:29:54.740 And like stuff like that.

01:29:58.160 Talking about watermark ballots and conspiracy theories and saying, don't concede.

01:30:03.180 It takes time for the army who's gathering for this to have his back.

01:30:06.760 And, you know, she's she does not want to believe that Trump lost.

01:30:10.860 OK, that's Ginny Thomas's belief for this.

01:30:13.780 Clarence Thomas has to step down, has to recuse himself off of any January 6th case.

01:30:18.040 What do you make of it, Mark?

01:30:19.820 What's what's wrong with him stepping down, Megan?

01:30:22.100 We're not suggesting that he couldn't be fair.

01:30:24.140 What we're suggesting is, isn't there not we?

01:30:26.820 I'm not saying anything.

01:30:27.780 I'm just the argument is, yeah, doesn't it create the image of impropriety?

01:30:31.960 I mean, if you really cared about an issue that he was going to rule on and it was related

01:30:36.680 to this subject matter, shouldn't he?

01:30:38.860 He's done it in the past when it came to something involving his kid's school.

01:30:42.680 I think it was.

01:30:43.660 It doesn't mean he couldn't be fair.

01:30:45.340 It just means we want to make sure that it's beyond reproach.

01:30:48.560 And everybody believes that this is completely and thoroughly fair.

01:30:52.060 That's all.

01:30:53.720 Arthur?

01:30:54.120 I think back to I think back to Uncle Nino, Justice Scalia, and there was a big controversy

01:30:59.780 when he was going to rule on cases involving the vice president at the time, Dick Cheney,

01:31:04.120 because they had gone hunting together.

01:31:06.640 And the way Justice Scalia dealt with that is he wrote a 21 page memo.

01:31:12.520 It wasn't really a decision because there wasn't a case, but he wrote a memo and it cited

01:31:16.140 all kinds of case law.

01:31:17.140 But he also spoke about the facts.

01:31:19.000 And he's like, yeah, we went hunting.

01:31:20.680 There were a dozen people there.

01:31:22.820 When we went out hunting, I was never in his group.

01:31:25.460 I never had a private conversation with him.

01:31:27.440 And of course, we never spoke about the case.

01:31:29.240 He goes, if my judgment is going to be bought so cheaply, then this country is in worse shape

01:31:34.680 than I thought.

01:31:36.100 So I would think that if Clarence Thomas is not going to recuse himself, he owes the citizens

01:31:41.760 of the United States of America some sort of an explanation.

01:31:45.720 I don't think it should just be, hey, this is my decision.

01:31:49.960 Bye bye.

01:31:50.420 I think he should just defend himself.

01:31:53.020 I disagree.

01:31:53.880 He doesn't have to.

01:31:54.560 Well, you disagree with Justice Scalia?

01:31:56.580 Well, listen, God rest his soul.

01:31:58.060 21 pages.

01:31:59.100 So what does it mean?

01:31:59.960 That doesn't have to be the only way.

01:32:02.680 Andy McCarthy had a piece on the National Review talking about how Justice Breyer, who

01:32:06.280 helped pass the sentencing guidelines, he advocated when he was in the Senate to get

01:32:10.000 the sentencing guidelines passed.

01:32:11.160 And then as a judge, he did.

01:32:12.300 He heard a case talking about whether they were constitutional as the justice on the Supreme

01:32:16.060 Court.

01:32:16.400 Didn't.

01:32:16.780 No, no problem.

01:32:17.440 Not not recusing myself.

01:32:18.800 Don't care.

01:32:19.220 Elena Kagan.

01:32:19.900 Same thing on Obamacare.

01:32:20.980 She'd been solicitor general.

01:32:22.000 Less personal.

01:32:22.920 I mean, we start with Will Smith.

01:32:25.460 We know what?

01:32:26.180 Will Smith and his wife.

01:32:27.400 My husband, he absolutely loves Duke.

01:32:30.680 He's in love with Duke.

01:32:31.740 Well, guess what?

01:32:32.440 I love Syracuse.

01:32:33.400 It doesn't mean anything about my feelings on Duke.

01:32:36.100 Like we don't impugn the one spouse's feelings on anything to the other spouse and then tell

01:32:41.300 him he can't sit for the case.

01:32:43.160 Doesn't it look bad, though?

01:32:44.560 I mean, come on, we're talking about the image of impropriety.

01:32:47.300 What's why is it necessary for him to say, no, I don't listen to my wife or she never

01:32:52.800 talks to me about that.

01:32:53.620 So so so no, I'm going to vote on this.

01:32:55.840 Why not just for Megan?

01:32:56.980 There's there's one of the little piece of the puzzle that I don't I don't think you

01:33:00.260 mentioned.

01:33:02.140 Justice Thomas and his wife refer to each other as my best friend.

01:33:06.480 And in one of those in one of those texts, she alludes to my best friend agrees with

01:33:13.080 me, which is code word from my husband.

01:33:16.500 Now he's given he's been handed over.

01:33:18.940 He's your position.

01:33:20.140 Arthur just dropped a big one.

01:33:21.600 Let's go, Megan.

01:33:23.780 The Supreme Court doesn't they don't have to recuse.

01:33:26.140 They don't have to explain why they don't recuse.

01:33:27.940 They're not governed by the same rules as everybody else.

01:33:29.960 And that's worked just fine for a long, long time.

01:33:31.900 Mark and Arthur, you guys are the greatest.

01:33:33.620 Before we go, I got to tell you quickly, actor Richard Dreyfuss joins us tomorrow.

01:33:38.040 He's a legend.

01:33:38.840 I'm really excited for it.

01:33:40.020 See you then.

01:33:42.460 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:33:44.660 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 30, 2022

Smith's Slap Fallout and Dems and Unions Coziness, with Sen. Tim Scott, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Lee Smith ｜ Ep. 289

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