The Megyn Kelly Show - The Minaj Moment, Vance vs Crockett, Creepy New Epstein Photos, and Charles Murray's Faith Journey

00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome to after party it's christmas week but we're of course still

00:00:11.660 working right now at least this is going to be our last show of 2025 we're excited to see all

00:00:17.540 of you in 2026 as a reminder there will be happy hour episodes available this friday and next

00:00:24.500 friday so make sure you subscribe over in the podcast feed apple spotify whichever podcast

00:00:30.020 feed you use that's where i answer questions directly from all of you that you send to

00:00:34.240 emily at devilmaycare at media.com and also the after party emily instagram i spent i don't know

00:00:40.260 i think it was probably close to three hours taping happy hours last week so got some good

00:00:45.840 stuff pre-taped you sent in some super super interesting uh and fiery questions dare i say

00:00:51.580 so i take a stab and go through them live actually today's guest on after party is charles murray

00:00:58.440 one of my very favorite authors and thinkers it is always a rare privilege to be able to pick the

00:01:06.740 brain of somebody whose work you hold in such high regard coming apart is of course i think the most

00:01:13.880 important book about journalism that is not particularly a book about journalism so we are

00:01:19.580 going to have charles we pre-taped this last week so i'll be in the chat which is exciting as well i

00:01:25.500 get to talk to all of you as soon as we toss to the murray interview but we have a lot to get through

00:01:31.280 tonight busy busy busy news week leading up to christmas make sure you subscribe not just on the

00:01:37.780 podcast feed also the youtube feed we appreciate it now uh just dropped a sean ryan's interview with

00:01:45.640 hunter biden that's all a lot but it just dropped and uh as we were prepping the show a couple of

00:01:52.480 clips started popping um and so we're gonna we're gonna take a look at a clip of hunter biden talking

00:01:57.800 about his father's immigration policy is he defending it not really uh we're gonna be talking about nikki 0.80

00:02:03.420 minaj at amfest and her interview with erica kirk jd vance reacted to that jasmine crockett reacted

00:02:10.760 to jd vance kind of in general uh just more stuff from i actually think the theme of tonight's

00:02:19.340 opening uh that i'm going to get to in just one moment is uh what should make the left nervous

00:02:25.600 about the democratic party going into 2026 don't get me wrong the right has a lot to be nervous

00:02:29.720 about as well but uh we're going to talk a little bit about the dc police chief who's leaving her job

00:02:34.700 uh incredible but if you haven't seen this yet just incredible compared herself to jesus so make

00:02:41.260 sure you stick around for that one dave chappelle dropped a new special on friday where he actually

00:02:46.620 talks about charlie kirk he talks about israel so we are going to dive into that and i'm actually

00:02:52.260 going to do a breakdown of some things i went through all of the new epstein pictures i haven't

00:02:56.740 gone through all of the files myself yet i don't know that anybody could uh and this is actually being

00:03:01.800 in real time i mean even just tonight there are new developments as people get through files as

00:03:06.780 ryan grimm at drop site gets through some of these files uh but i wanted to pull out a few things just

00:03:12.020 for that i saw going through the pictures uh don't want to repeat too much the rest of the media's

00:03:17.000 coverage of this but just uh dive into a couple of the pictures uh so stay tuned for those and speaking

00:03:23.040 of ryan he thinks that i ended elise stefanik's gubernatorial campaign i strongly disagree

00:03:28.260 so we will have that for you in just a bit as well first let me say over the years i've been

00:03:35.900 clear about this i'm not just pro-birth i'm pro-life and being pro-life means standing with

00:03:40.740 mothers not only before their baby is born but long after and that is exactly why i partner and

00:03:46.300 partner very proudly with pre-born pre-born doesn't just save babies they make motherhood abundantly

00:03:51.100 possible they provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in need

00:03:55.540 and then they stay with real practical help including financial support for up to two years

00:04:02.860 after the baby is born this is what true christ-centered compassion looks like not just for the baby but for

00:04:08.560 the mother too and here's where you can make a huge difference just 28 just 28 provides a free

00:04:16.800 life-saving ultrasound one chance for a mother to see her baby when she does she is twice as likely 1.00

00:04:22.680 to choose life that is so huge it's so easy pre-born is trying to save 70 000 70 000 babies this year

00:04:29.580 so don't just say you're pro-life live it help save babies and support mothers today go to preborn.com

00:04:36.640 slash emily or call 855-601-2229 that's preborn.com slash emily we love preborn so much support them if

00:04:45.900 you can we appreciate it all right i promised that the theme of tonight's opening would be

00:04:51.720 things that should make democrats nervous going into 2026 midterm cycle let's roll this clip this

00:05:00.260 is going to be a little bit of a trumpian weave so bear with me i'm going to start with nikki minaj

00:05:05.740 and i'm going to end on hunter biden along the way we are going to have pit stops with jasmine

00:05:12.040 crockett and hakeem jeffries and the dc police chief it sounds like a stefan sketch but stay with

00:05:19.300 me here let's take a look at nikki minaj who was the surprise guest at turning point usa's first 0.72

00:05:25.000 america fest without charlie kirk minaj the surprise guest was interviewed on sunday with erica kirk

00:05:31.400 on stage here's s1 you have amazing role models like the assassin jd vance our vice president and when

00:05:44.640 i say that

00:05:45.560 if you're listening minaj just realized trust me there's nothing new under the sun that i have not

00:05:56.380 heard so you're fine yes we did i love you

00:06:04.620 you have to laugh about it truly i have been called every single thing and you know what god is so good

00:06:14.980 you let it roll right off your back and this is what's so beautiful about this moment because if

00:06:20.840 the internet wants to clip it who cares i love this woman she's an amazing woman she has a soul 0.56

00:06:27.500 and a heart for the lord and words are words but i know her heart and it doesn't even matter and you

00:06:34.980 say what you want to say because i know your heart i do not judge that thank you

00:06:40.740 okay now let's watch this next clip of nikki minaj talking a little bit about young girls 1.00

00:06:47.360 and beauty standards this is s2 why would we now need to make other people downplay their beauty

00:06:55.300 so that we can feel no that's not how it works i don't need someone with blonde hair and blue eyes

00:07:02.380 to downplay their beauty because i know my beauty do you understand it doesn't bother me that a woman 1.00

00:07:10.560 feels and says that she's beautiful why shouldn't she feel that why have we gotten to a point where

00:07:18.780 certain colors or certain kinds of people have to be afraid of loving themselves and loving the way

00:07:25.460 they look like it's isn't that wild and so for little girls i don't want what was done to

00:07:34.720 little black girls done to little white girls i don't want it done to any girls i want all the 1.00

00:07:40.920 girls in the world to know that you are unique you are beautiful you are you and you can compliment

00:07:49.020 another girl you can compliment another woman and still know that you are epic and amazing we need to

00:07:55.720 nurture young girls yes whether they are black white asian hispanic they still need to be nurtured

00:08:04.680 they cannot continue to pay for other people's sins so they haven't done anything wrong amen

00:08:10.740 now you probably didn't have nikki minaj giving a stinging rebuke of critical race theory on stage 0.99

00:08:21.060 at a turning point usa conference on your 2025 bingo card i did not either but minaj is interesting

00:08:27.840 because she's kind of slowly in real time been working out uh maybe a heterodox is the right way to

00:08:34.660 put it heterodox political beliefs she's pretty clearly started as somebody you could put on the 0.65

00:08:41.480 left uh maybe just kind of like mainstream democrat but she talked a little bit about what changed for

00:08:47.480 her and i have a quote right here she said i just got tired of being pushed around sometimes you just

00:08:54.820 get tired of it at another point she said we're not allowed to think out loud anymore she also said

00:09:01.800 we're the cool kids meaning the right uh she said at one point god as she was praying said to her

00:09:10.600 where have you been i've been waiting for you because she's was talking a bit about returning

00:09:14.900 back to her faith and it raises so many different there are a lot of threads that we can pull on here

00:09:22.200 so first of all we start with the kind of crt and it wasn't really named nobody was talking about

00:09:28.860 critical race theory and a technical academic sense but nikki minaj speaking from her heart and

00:09:35.200 very graciously by the way i have a couple of other points to get to on on that but uh speaking from

00:09:40.880 her her heart graciously eloquently and wearing her heart very clearly on her sleeve with great

00:09:46.880 production value by the way from turning point usa now if i had to think about nikki minaj speaking at 0.97

00:09:53.180 like 2011 cpac uh it's just it's different now right her her saying quote we are the cool kids

00:10:01.100 hits totally differently uh when it's coming from a person on the right uh in 2025 almost 2026 because

00:10:10.740 donald trump is now the president he has this whole vibe shift post 2024 so it makes more sense to see

00:10:16.780 something like that and it does make it it does kind of for me at least watching that it it underscores

00:10:24.560 the shift in the culture and especially for younger people but nikki minaj had the everyman's reaction

00:10:31.500 to critical race theory in that video and let's put up how jd vance responded he said nikki minaj said

00:10:37.740 something at amfest that was really profound i'm paraphrasing but she said just because i want little

00:10:42.900 black girls to think they're beautiful doesn't mean i need to put down little girls with blonde 1.00

00:10:47.040 hair and blue eyes vance continues we all got wrapped up over the last few years in zero sum

00:10:53.000 thinking this was because the people who think they rule the world pit us against one another nikki 0.99

00:10:59.060 minaj rejects that we all should and bundled into that package actually from vance is this idea that

00:11:06.820 the people who rule the world were trying to pit us or they think they rule the world were trying to pit

00:11:11.400 us against one another that gets to what nikki minaj was saying about being tired of people

00:11:16.660 telling her what to think saying we are not allowed to think out loud anymore and that is actually very

00:11:23.280 profound as well because we think now in published social media she's been using x a ton by the way

00:11:30.740 lately uh but we think in like these social media bites or you have a thought you post it because when

00:11:37.660 you open up your social media to check in what's going on it tells you to post what's on your mind

00:11:41.860 literally that's what happens when you open the apps so it comes out on instagram it comes out on

00:11:46.360 tiktok it comes out on x it comes out on live videos it comes out on videos that are published and

00:11:51.780 as you go through life your thought process your thinking is happening aloud and along the way

00:11:59.280 you're not allowed to sort of be on that journey right and that was very interesting to hear nikki 0.95

00:12:04.660 minaj say because she's somebody who has been absolutely getting attacked wildly getting

00:12:10.220 attacked for again thinking aloud she's clearly been on somewhat of an ideological journey and you

00:12:16.880 can see how at points in that journey when she started getting this pushback it was like pushed her

00:12:24.340 maybe further in the other direction because she realized that uh the side she was disillusioned with

00:12:30.580 was also trying to get her sort of clinging to her jealously clinging to her and trying to get her 1.00

00:12:36.420 not even to think freely and that's again i mean i remember 10 years ago people on the right saying

00:12:41.960 yeah i think when i was in college uh our like conservative student group hosted a lecture that

00:12:48.600 was i want to say the title was like conservatives are the real rebels on campus or something like

00:12:53.060 that which on an intellectual level was totally true at the time because if you're at a liberal

00:13:00.140 college campus like i was it was complete ideological uh ideal ideological conformity right the people

00:13:08.180 who uh styled themselves as as hipsters had the least interesting and rebellious worldviews imaginable

00:13:17.060 now though that is not just on an intellectual level right like it's kind of cringe to think back on

00:13:23.520 that in 2011 uh or 2012 when mitt romney was the gop candidate right um but now it's not just intellectual

00:13:31.620 it's cultural and it's it's it's hitting people in the heart and i think that was very very interesting

00:13:37.440 to hear from nikki minaj not just about the speech creativity question but also about the race question

00:13:44.280 let's take a look now i told you it was going to be a weave at jasmine crockett uh well let's let's first

00:13:50.760 play jd vance on jasmine crockett this is from sunday s3 oh jasmine crockett this is the turning

00:13:57.740 point speech the record speaks for itself she wants to be a senator though her street girl persona 1.00

00:14:07.740 is about as real as her nails

00:14:11.160 all right so jasmine crockett then responded this was also on sunday s4 the fact that he said i have a

00:14:20.020 quote-unquote street girl persona i'm sorry but anybody that you talk to knows my credentials

00:14:25.300 they know that i've gone to school they know that i'm educated i never tried to put on some random

00:14:31.380 story about where i came from but at the end of the day i am who i am and i am authentic and that is

00:14:37.680 actually what they are fearful of is my authenticity because it rings true with every single american

00:14:43.340 whether they're a texan or not baby let's talk about your record because the only reason you're the

00:14:48.260 vice president is because the current president tried to have his last president killed i have

00:14:53.300 been a black woman my entire life i promise you there are other people just like jd vance who have

00:14:59.680 tried to do the same racist tropes my entire life and somehow i ascended and became a u.s congresswoman

00:15:05.860 it will not be different when i become a u.s senator and we can have a conversation when i get to the senate

00:15:11.780 floor if he wants to talk okay when i get to the senate floor now jasmine crockett of course is 1.00

00:15:17.540 running in what i believe to be the most interesting democratic primary of 2026 against timu richie

00:15:22.880 cunningham james james tallarico uh down in texas they want to take on john cornyn or to be fair whoever

00:15:29.580 wins that texas republican primary and for crockett to say on the one hand it is a racist trope to refer

00:15:37.680 to her as a street girl uh from jd vance and then to say on the other hand she is just totally authentic

00:15:45.920 you see the struggles of the nascent crockett senate campaign because she wants to pretend now

00:15:53.620 that she didn't intentionally uh talk like she was on the street about republicans and about other

00:16:03.440 democrats which she did i mean i call it uh i wrote a piece recently calling it stylistic populism

00:16:10.420 something like that i don't even remember my own quote but uh and that's different from like policy

00:16:15.560 populism crockett wants you to think that she's populist because of the way that she acts um but 1.00

00:16:22.120 she wants to govern the way hakeem jeffries says right the way the democratic establishment wants her to 1.00

00:16:28.080 and so that's not authentic and i think people the more she tries to be a different version of jasmine

00:16:34.720 crockett now that she knows she has to run statewide and not just in her district are going to be able 0.98

00:16:40.340 to see if she really wants to push that she's authentic uh if that's going to be her message people are

00:16:46.180 going to be able to see pretty easily through it because it defies believability for many different

00:16:52.760 reasons speaking of hakeem jeffries he got asked i told you this was a weave i feel like if there are

00:16:58.340 pulitzers for weaves this should be a contender uh follow along with me here hakeem jeffries got asked

00:17:04.480 about the somali investigation and here's s6 how minority leader jeffries responded

00:17:11.740 thank you leader jeffries um house oversight committee chairman james comer is accusing minnesota

00:17:18.280 governor tim waltz and ag keith ellison of not cooperating with the committee's investigation

00:17:22.700 into some of the widespread fraud happening there with the social services in the state

00:17:27.040 do you think they should cooperate with the committee's investigation and do you have concerns

00:17:31.080 about what's happening in the state james comer is a joke an embarrassment an unserious individual

00:17:37.620 and a malignant clown a malignant clown that's actually not a bad turn a phrase there from jeffries but

00:17:47.460 um it's his inability to just say yes just say yes this is a serious serious investigation

00:17:58.620 just say yes you politically i'm talking politically you take it away from republicans if you just say

00:18:07.400 sure we are happy to open the books have them come in if tim waltz did something wrong tim waltz

00:18:14.280 did something wrong we should get to the bottom of this to respond by calling comer a malignant

00:18:20.580 clown rather than addressing any of the substance at all uh jeffries is lucky that's going to get

00:18:26.540 buried in the pre-christmas news cycle because again they have they are genuinely struggling here

00:18:33.920 to come up with a coherent substantive response to some of republicans best most powerful talking points

00:18:42.980 now 2026 is a midterm year as we've been discussing and that's tough for the republican

00:18:49.360 party when donald trump is not on the ballot and this goes without saying the trump coalition does

00:18:54.820 not historically turn out for other republicans we have 10 years of data basically at this point we're

00:19:01.400 looking at a decade of information at this point remember those 2018 midterm elections were bruising

00:19:07.560 for republicans at the time harry antin said it wasn't a blue wave it was a blue tsunami and not

00:19:12.360 without reason it actually really was record high turnout letter let record high turnout levels for

00:19:18.400 carried democrats over the edge that is because donald trump's base is lower propensity voters the

00:19:24.720 republican party is being remade into a party with lower propensity voters that is less affluent voters

00:19:31.000 the democratic party is becoming the party of the affluent which will benefit them

00:19:35.780 in midterm elections and historically the party in power struggles in midterm elections period so the

00:19:42.660 structural conditions in 2026 are as rough for republicans as they were in that record bruising

00:19:49.800 2018 midterm 2018 midterm cycle so again structural conditions not super favorable to republicans but

00:19:57.260 but uh there are ways for republicans to perhaps prevent the blue wave from becoming the blue tsunami

00:20:05.740 and tying democrats to the anti-menage perspective on this tying democrats uh to total complete and total

00:20:17.560 nonchalance about what happened uh with the immigration system whether it's somalia or whether it's

00:20:24.260 the biden administration there are a whole lot of democrats on the ballot who supported that and voted for

00:20:29.060 that or on the record chastising republicans for that uh so do i think republicans should be nervous

00:20:36.160 yes but i do think we see examples also of democrats still clinging foolishly to identity politics and not

00:20:43.680 fully appreciating how powerful how powerful what nikki minaj now sees in the left how powerfully that can be

00:20:53.280 turned against democrats i think minaj's comments were the everyman comments and i do just want to play

00:20:59.580 a little bit here of hunter biden hunter biden on sean ryan this dropped right before we went to air

00:21:06.580 uh so i didn't have a chance to watch the full thing yet but this is one of the interesting clips

00:21:11.680 that popped from the interview this is hunter biden on his father's immigration policies we can roll it

00:21:17.440 a vibrant immigration but we don't want immigrants that are coming here illegally draining us of 1.00

00:21:25.100 resources and also um uh and and and being prioritized above people that are actual literal heroes

00:21:33.660 that are coming home that are uh that are still recovering from uh 21 20 years of of endless war

00:21:41.860 or anybody else in our society right right sure he sounds like james tallarico when he went on

00:21:53.360 jubilee and said the biden administration's immigration policy was a failure now this is how

00:22:01.420 democrats seem to be deciding to deal with the historic proportion of the biden administration's

00:22:09.520 immigration failure going into 2026 they want to just say that it was bad that they need to distance

00:22:16.660 themselves from it bad the question then that you need to ask every democrat is what is your policy

00:22:23.520 what would you have done differently what do you believe a just immigration system looks like

00:22:30.440 what would your administration have done differently than the walls administration in minneapolis

00:22:36.760 there are questions uh that democrats will end up sounding no matter how hard they try more like

00:22:43.180 jasmine crockett than anyone else on if you pull pull at those threads because fundamentally their policy is

00:22:50.760 not popular with the american people and it's not changing we don't really have evidence of substantive

00:22:56.260 shifts in these policies and so that that for as nervous as republicans should be some of this should

00:23:03.540 make democrats nervous as well because they are trying to work out what will be uh a politically

00:23:10.080 palatable line of messaging in 2026 and again if republicans play their cards correctly they should be able

00:23:19.180 to neutralize some of that because at the end of the day um these these issues whether it's race or

00:23:27.880 immigration the right now has the cultural momentum it's hard in a 2026 midterm election cycle that is

00:23:35.240 probably heavily going to feature the economy to do that and health care to do that when republicans

00:23:40.960 refuse to come up with a coherent health care plan put it on the floor and vote get it through the senate

00:23:46.420 and then get the president to sign it so no excuse to them on that one but uh there are ways again

00:23:53.800 that democrats attacks on this can be can be neutralized because they're still not fixing

00:23:58.960 some of the obvious glaring glaring problems another thing jd vance said in his speech is quote

00:24:06.100 we don't persecute you this is tp usa amfest speech we don't persecute you for being male for being

00:24:11.180 straight for being gay for being anything the only thing that we demand is that you be a good or great

00:24:15.620 american patriot now i'm talking about the politics of this and obviously the substance and the politics

00:24:22.060 overlap just the the middle of that venn diagram is the most important part um but again that's not

00:24:30.040 the messaging that you hear from the left uh and so if the right can pull that off convincingly uh

00:24:38.920 you have to be looking at like i went and looked back today at how glenn youngkin won in 2020 he was

00:24:45.100 marrying class and culture in a way that wins and merle sears did not and youngkin won sears lost youngkin

00:24:54.160 won in a better cycle sears loss and lost badly in a worse cycle but the way that you make these

00:25:02.180 attacks on dem identity politics stick is correctly address them as a class issue um and obviously that's

00:25:12.140 a different question on on the economy and tariffs and uh we could open up that can of worms but for

00:25:17.240 now i'm just going to stick with this if you are able to say as jd vance did in his speech which you

00:25:22.740 heard him say the people who think they rule you think that they can control the way you talk etc or

00:25:29.880 he put this in his ex post this was quote this was because the people who think they rule the world

00:25:33.780 pit us against one another you know who else says a version of that bernie sanders bernie sanders

00:25:40.700 uh and that is because it's effective um there's a reason bernie sanders and aoc were bringing

00:25:46.360 people in red states to these massive fighting oligarchy rallies and it's because rather than

00:25:52.180 talking about the culture war they were alluding to it in these ways by saying um the people who

00:25:58.460 think they will rule the world pit us against one another pit us against one another so if you

00:26:04.220 can combine those two things in 2026 you can maybe and obviously deal with health care deal with the

00:26:10.780 economy no small matter uh but just saying that the right still has these really powerful political

00:26:16.780 tools in its arsenal because dems are incapable of turning the ship around uh it doesn't mean that

00:26:25.160 some of them aren't trying it doesn't mean that some of them have this kind of foggy inclination of

00:26:29.720 what to do better and where they're going wrong but they're struggling enormously because there are

00:26:35.980 still so many interests deeply rooted uh that they have to be careful not to alienate all right

00:26:42.400 i do want to play this video i didn't work it into the weave you can take my weave pulitzer away from me

00:26:47.740 but i really want to work this video of outgoing dc police chief pamela smith it's it's not just a good

00:26:54.380 video because i live in dc and it uh is is extra amusing because of this now smith's um police

00:27:01.180 department is i think pretty seriously credibly accused of fudging numbers to make it look like

00:27:08.040 crime was less of a problem uh even before the trump takeover the police union for example was

00:27:13.160 had been crying foul for a long time before the trump administration uh stepped in in washington dc

00:27:20.780 and took over uh law enforcement or uh stepped in and uh superseded dc law enforcement on on some

00:27:26.700 stuff augmented dc law enforcement on some stuff so pamela smith is is on her way out amidst some of

00:27:32.720 these investigations and here's how she did it here's how she went out blaze of glory so i'm going to the

00:27:40.480 bible when i say this to my haters okay f you

00:27:47.280 no it's not a drop the mic moment watch me in this space here we go i forgive you

00:27:59.920 i forgive you

00:28:05.840 because the bible makes it very clearly when jesus was hanging on the cross

00:28:12.800 when he slayed to his father even in the pit of agony and defeat he said father

00:28:18.620 forgive them for they know not what they do god bless you and god to you it has been my pleasure to

00:28:25.880 man this is a wendy's she's at an mpd press conference with the mpd logos behind her a

00:28:37.580 formal press conference and is clearly working something out that is not merely professional

00:28:43.080 but deeply personal on the crowd at that metropolitan police department press conference

00:28:50.320 in which pamela smith compared herself in this beautiful christmas season sort of an easter message

00:28:57.500 to jesus on the cross

00:29:00.500 there are no words although i will say i feel much safer knowing that pamela smith and whatever the

00:29:11.540 hell that was is not going to be the head of the police department in our nation's capital

00:29:18.420 anymore that's sort of a heartwarming place to leave it i have so much more to talk about

00:29:24.220 dave chappelle jeffrey epstein and the new york senator race i'll probably have to keep

00:29:29.800 some of that a little pithy because i just went on so long talking about uh 2026 it's coming up real

00:29:37.780 fast but i have to introduce this interview i got to do with charles murray who is out with a very

00:29:44.840 important new book um that i read and i was going to interview him um before obviously before i read

00:29:52.640 the book and read the book and it is it's called taking religion seriously you're going to hear all

00:29:58.280 about it in the interview i'm going to jump in the chat so if you're watching this live on youtube i'll

00:30:02.640 be right there uh it is one of the most interesting one of the most interesting analytical um analytical

00:30:12.620 what's the best way to put it deep dives as murray tries to verify over the course of his recent life

00:30:24.200 christianity and boy does he come to an interesting conclusion so uh we're gonna go to charles murray

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00:31:44.740 slash emily pds debt.com slash emily without further ado i give you charles murray

00:31:50.740 i'm so happy to be joined now by one of my very favorite authors ever charles murray who is out

00:31:57.800 with a new book called taking religion seriously he's of course a scholar at the american enterprise

00:32:02.100 institute the author of what i think is one of the most important books of the last couple decades

00:32:06.440 coming apart i reference it all of the time charles murray thank you for being here oh i've been

00:32:11.040 looking forward to it i just finished taking religion seriously i'm absolutely going to be

00:32:16.240 ordering tons of copies uh for christmas gifts so i encourage other people to do the same uh and i have

00:32:22.400 a lot of questions charles i want to start with this line uh you write the big bang gave me good reason

00:32:28.400 for thinking that the creation of the universe was a mystery with a capital m the fantastic brute facts

00:32:34.340 of the big bang forced me to rethink everything and i just wanted to start at that point because it

00:32:40.720 seemed like that was maybe one of your starting points could you walk us through a little bit

00:32:44.920 why that moment was so important for you well a little background to it is that uh i am no good at

00:32:52.580 spiritual perceptiveness which i consider to be a trait in human beings that runs from low to high

00:32:58.720 and uh some people have more than others and i have very little my wife has a lot uh but uh i don't

00:33:06.540 and so when i started to get interested in religion largely because of my wife uh

00:33:12.100 i was not going to have a road to damascus moment in an ordinary sense of that term

00:33:18.760 that's just not in my makeup but i did have a road to damascus moment when i read a little book

00:33:24.580 called just six numbers by a guy named martin reese who's astronomer royal used to be uh in great

00:33:32.600 britain and he made the point in this little book non-religiously not a religious book that the

00:33:40.340 big bang was accompanied by a variety of settings if you want to think of it that way of physical

00:33:47.900 settings that if they all hadn't been exactly where they are then we would live in a universe of black 0.97

00:33:55.500 holes and nothing else or live in a universe of uh radiation and no stars and no planets and of

00:34:02.480 course it's incorrect to say we would live in a universe like that because that universe would

00:34:06.860 not support life well i finished this little book and by the way the odds against all these settings

00:34:13.020 being right by accident are literally trillions to one and i got done with that and i said i can't

00:34:20.080 believe i'm thinking this but i think the only plausible explanation is that the universe was

00:34:26.280 created with intention that's a huge leap because once you say the universe was created with intention

00:34:34.320 that opens up possibilities of a way different kind of god than i had been willing to consider

00:34:41.440 previously a god who actually might be interested in human beings well and you write about also the

00:34:47.900 anthropomorphification of god in the bible um and then obviously one of your hang-ups towards the

00:34:55.060 end of the book we we learn is the question of divinity uh christ divinity and that's interesting

00:35:01.200 because the question of christ divinity is it's probably difficult from your end because it

00:35:05.500 anthropomorphizes very deliberately god um and that's not just old testament as as you write about but

00:35:12.320 it's the foundation of the new testament too so why talk to us a little bit about why especially

00:35:17.600 a christmas season uh you know despite you know finding the historiosity of the gospels fairly

00:35:23.520 compelling how how do you think about that now in your sort of where you are right now in your

00:35:29.340 your journey well without knowing that i was changing my belief i changed it and that by the way emily

00:35:37.500 happened a lot during the course of writing this book it's not that at discrete moments in time i would

00:35:43.140 say i changed my mind about this the big bang was that was an exception rather it is that i realized

00:35:50.080 15 years after later that i think differently than i did before and in this case i came to believe that

00:35:58.780 jesus had a special relationship with god that is extremely hard for human beings to describe

00:36:05.740 uh but that i would feel a reverence were i to encounter jesus that i would not feel for anybody else even

00:36:17.280 though i'd feel the utmost respect for other great religious leaders and teachers uh that he occupies a

00:36:22.620 special place and i i i evolved from uh a position where i've considered him a great teacher but not

00:36:30.880 uh uh divine to that some that substantially different opinion over 20 years maybe

00:36:37.780 this is uh one line i wanted to ask you about you write for me c.s lewis was the perfect example of a

00:36:46.180 smart person who still believed that stuff and that line stood out to me because there's something

00:36:52.740 from coming apart i think in that line of itself where when you're surrounded by uh so many other

00:37:01.500 smart people who have this kind of conventional wisdom about god and christianity the book is

00:37:08.000 organized uh where you first start thinking about god and then about christianity was that even just

00:37:13.700 maybe culturally a brick wall that you kept hitting up against that was there any part of that difficult

00:37:20.420 for you well you know what happened to me i think probably happened to a lot of people i don't happen

00:37:26.020 to my wife uh may have happened to you at some point and that is you go off to college and you want to be

00:37:32.940 a member of this tribe and uh and you get there and you learn smart people don't believe that stuff

00:37:41.640 anymore when it comes to religion and you don't learn that through courses and lectures you learn

00:37:46.920 that through the ambiance the zeitgeist the milieu in which you live i went off to harvard and none of

00:37:53.720 my friends were religious none of my professors were obviously religion religious the topic was very

00:37:59.400 seldom discussed but if it did come up it was just treated dismissively because smart people don't

00:38:04.640 believe that stuff anymore and so i bought into a kind of secular catechism that looking back on it was

00:38:13.940 so unreflective uh and and i actually give it in the book i won't bother to do that here but i had not

00:38:21.620 examined the empirical reality and evidence for any of the elements of my catechism that's just what the

00:38:29.580 people who's tribe i wanted to join believed and that's where you started thinking again about the

00:38:36.380 big bang the others i mean i was i was surprised by your explorations of paranormal phenomenon near

00:38:41.120 death experiences ndes what was that like again as somebody who maybe sees a lot of those like

00:38:47.020 relegated just again pop culturally culturally to the zone of like evangelical weirdos like myself

00:38:53.520 uh but coming to this from a aggressively rational um um perspective i i just really enjoyed that

00:39:01.440 section of the book what was that like for you charles well you have to understand that i am no more

00:39:06.940 free from internal contradictions than anybody else so so whereas i was a wholehearted materialist

00:39:16.100 in the sense of believing that consciousness exists exclusively in the brain when the brain stops

00:39:22.180 you stop uh there's nothing after that okay so i if you'd asked me for a period of 20 or 30 years

00:39:30.020 i would have said well of course that's true you know how else is consciousness going to exist except

00:39:35.100 through the brain but all that same time i'd always been interested in paranormal phenomena

00:39:39.560 been interested in paranormal phenomena since i was a teenager and i read considerably on it and i didn't

00:39:45.340 discard it on the contrary i i believed uh long before i became uh this eccentric christian that

00:39:53.140 i've become uh long before then i was accepted the reality of esp and you think it would have crossed

00:39:58.760 my mind at that point you know if you accept the reality of esp it's really hard to reconcile that

00:40:05.520 with materialist position on the brain and then i also read early on of the nde literature near

00:40:12.220 death experience literature i read the original uh life after life that uh is it moody broke in 75

00:40:18.840 and i didn't stop to think if nde's are real that sort of has a religious implication doesn't it

00:40:26.720 so it took it was a case of of uh not resisting that evidence i thought it was very persuasive

00:40:33.820 it was it was a case of recognizing the degree to which it was consistent with a lot of religious

00:40:41.520 explanations that i had not taken seriously that's very interesting a lot of and you you address

00:40:48.480 this a bit a lot of people now would maybe say they would they would give the multiverse explanation

00:40:54.160 and as we get higher tech it seems like people are either going one direction or the other they're

00:40:58.800 going back to lower tech or they're going higher higher tech and they're having all of these

00:41:02.480 science fiction like explanations for creation did you uh flirt with that at all charles as you were i know

00:41:09.360 you write about the multiverse and why that's not a satisfying theory from your perspective but

00:41:15.360 why it's not a satisfying theory first place it's all theory right but there is no empirical evidence

00:41:20.800 for it at all it's just theoretically possible and uh you know if you're talking about plausibility

00:41:30.160 in order for this universe to have a reasonable chance of existing

00:41:35.120 by chance there would have to be not just two or three multi-universes there would have to be a

00:41:40.640 couple of million uh just to have a decent chance of of this universe existing now tell me

00:41:47.600 is believing in a million universes more plausible than believing in a universe that was created

00:41:53.280 intentionally you want to talk about a commitment to faith i would say that believing the multiverse

00:41:59.840 uh is one which is contradicted every time you walk outside your into your backyard in a startly

00:42:07.040 starry night and look up there and say do i believe there are a million of these

00:42:12.320 nah i don't really think so and and i find the multiverse theory something that only super smart

00:42:19.040 intellectuals can believe yes that's well said there's this this section at the end of the book

00:42:24.640 where you read i was born in 1943 and have witnessed 180 degree flips in the secular received wisdom

00:42:30.640 on child rearing marriage divorce euthanasia abortion acceptable public behavior responsibility

00:42:35.920 for the consequences of one's actions and virtually everything about human sexuality many of these

00:42:40.800 changes do not appear to have been for the better doesn't the evanescence of moral principles in the

00:42:45.200 present age suggest a special need to seek moral bedrock and i just want to ask you about that in the

00:42:50.640 context of charlie kirk's assassination spurring this massive sales of bibles uh the wall street

00:42:57.920 journal reported there was a huge increase in bible sales after that we've seen a lot of conversation

00:43:03.120 about the revival in the last couple of years christian revival in the last couple of years people

00:43:07.120 like ian here salee uh even tom holland uh exploring faith much more christian faith much more seriously

00:43:13.280 i should say and i wonder if some of this you think comes from people just being forced to confront

00:43:19.760 those base level questions in the same way that you were we thought we kind of had solved them and

00:43:25.040 it was like the higher this tech or the more quickly the technology accelerated the more it's it's

00:43:30.960 forced some people to confront those basic basic questions is that off what do you make about that

00:43:37.760 i have a couple of thoughts on that one is that the 20th century was in many ways anomalous

00:43:43.600 and it was anomalous in the degree to which intellectuals managed to avoid thinking about

00:43:51.520 and writing about the the basic questions of the human condition and human existence uh it was an

00:43:58.800 impoverished century philosophically and i think spiritually as well and that's a that's unnatural

00:44:06.960 it is it is deep in the human instincts and especially among people who consider themselves

00:44:15.520 intellectuals to think about these questions that's what college kids should be talking about

00:44:21.040 until three o'clock in the morning when they're sophomores and juniors and that that we moved away from

00:44:27.280 that was i think a kind of adolescence and i like to think of the 21st century as sort of growing out of

00:44:35.200 adolescence and realizing maybe our parents were right about some things after all and this taking

00:44:42.800 the the greater interest in religion now i think is a return to human behavior human beings behaving

00:44:50.560 normally i would also just add one other thing to that which is as you suggest the more we learn

00:44:57.520 the more we face a situation not where science explains away the arguments for god we have a

00:45:06.480 situation where science is raising new findings that religion has answers for that science does not

00:45:15.040 yeah and if folks are interested in that spencer clavin this book does a lot of it too and spencer

00:45:19.120 clavin wrote a book on that uh as well some really compelling stuff justin brierly has done great podcasts on

00:45:24.800 it too um the response i'm curious about since you've published this book because charles one

00:45:30.480 of the things that comes through in all of your work especially this book though is that you are

00:45:34.320 constantly testing your own beliefs and you're genuinely driven by an interest in truth so since

00:45:42.640 the book has been out since you've been talking to friends about it receiving responses about it has

00:45:47.920 anything shifted uh in those conversations since those conversations what's what's been like uh actually

00:45:55.520 the the most revealing interchange i had was after the wall street journal op-ed where i was talking

00:46:01.520 about terminal lucidity a phenomenon where severely demented people dementia advanced dementia uh have a

00:46:09.040 period of brief return to full consciousness uh a day or two before they die and it it provoked a response

00:46:19.440 by steve pinker it was sort of the ultimate child of the enlightenment uh he's written books of course with

00:46:25.680 that in the title in effect uh and if his response i i admire and like steve and i thought his response was

00:46:35.120 silly it was it was content free it didn't engage the substance of what i was doing it was it was

00:46:41.280 sort of way hand waving uh hand waving about evidence that meets a lot of tests of scientific

00:46:47.840 seriousness and there was an interchange not just my response but there was an interchange with the

00:46:53.680 leading scholar on terminal lucidity uh where it just seemed to me that all the science and the hard

00:47:00.160 thinking was on the side of that scientist and that steve for all his other virtues has a kind of

00:47:09.360 invincible faith in unbelief yeah i it sounds right to me i want to put this poll from pew up on the

00:47:18.080 screen this is f2 this is the pew headline says growing share of u.s adults say religion is gaining

00:47:24.880 influence in american life more americans also express a positive view of religion's role in

00:47:30.560 society this was in late october charles and i wonder if you could speak to also as you were

00:47:36.400 researching this book i imagine you did this over the course of uh a while and i'm curious also though

00:47:42.000 if you noticed that they're the pinkers of the world um are less and less uh as as we go forward

00:47:50.160 that as some of this evidence presents itself or i mean not presents itself that's like passive tense

00:47:55.280 but as people discover um new and new evidence that the the pinker religious commitment to being

00:48:02.240 against religion uh is is it fading yeah i mean look at the standing that richard dawkins and christopher

00:48:09.680 hitchens had for example in 2005 2006 where aggressive atheism was chic and it's not chic anymore

00:48:19.120 and and and the the the instead you have all these these harbingers that you mentioned earlier

00:48:26.400 uh that speak to a renewed interest in religion not just as being socially useful which i've always

00:48:35.200 believed but the truth value of religion and uh i find that encouraging i also well i remember a friend

00:48:46.240 of mine who lives in new york and went to catholic church uh the sunday after charlie kirk was

00:48:52.480 assassinated and he said that it had never been that crowded in his entire life that he'd been going to church there

00:49:00.160 and so something's going on but it's it's uh early days yet but the united states has a history

00:49:07.040 of great religious reawakenings and it's conceivable we are at the outset of of another one

00:49:12.720 um what is in the book obviously addresses this um what is what was it for you i mean you talk about

00:49:21.120 the c.s lewis trilemma uh that jesus was either a liar a lunatic or the son of god um was that question 0.53

00:49:29.920 what separated you write a lot about buddhism um christianity from other religions for you i mean

00:49:35.760 i think you you also write about how you you sense that they're all kind of directionally

00:49:39.280 um maybe rooted in in the same thing can you talk to us a little bit about that yeah well i still

00:49:46.240 believe i believe that whatever god may be he is unknowable and i make the comparison that it's within

00:49:59.040 my ability to understand god in the same way it's within my dog's ability to understand me

00:50:04.880 and he can't he cannot know what i'm doing when i sit in front of my computer monitor and tap at a

00:50:10.400 keyboard and similarly i'm i am i and every other human being i believe is is faced with the same

00:50:18.240 problem in trying to understand god but and in that sense i think that human beings in judaism and

00:50:27.360 buddhism and taoism and other great religious traditions have gotten hold of deep understandings about the

00:50:33.840 nature of the nature of the universe and the nature of the beings in that universe they're different

00:50:39.440 parts of the elephant and to me uh christianity presents the most comprehensive and the most

00:50:47.680 persuasive evidence for the outlines of of a god that even though we don't understand him and i shouldn't

00:50:58.560 use the i shouldn't use uh him or her to describe it uh we steve through a glass very dimly indeed

00:51:07.600 but i think christianity's glass is a little bit clearer than everybody else's

00:51:14.000 that's so fascinating well last question charles i remember when charlie kirk's memorial happened

00:51:19.200 some folks in media had very interesting reactions and i'm paraphrasing and i forget who posted this

00:51:25.440 um but it was someone saying i would feel more comfortable oh you know what it was thomas chatterton

00:51:30.160 williams who i like who said something like i would feel more comfortable at you know european

00:51:35.520 something something than at this event in my own country um that there was something so culturally

00:51:41.680 alien to thomas chatterton williams about that giant revival with christian rock and the like and

00:51:49.120 that is totally fair and that's kind of what you write about in coming apart i mean it's exactly

00:51:54.000 what you write about in coming apart so i wonder charles uh what your message would be to folks who

00:51:59.840 who see that and say that is not for me that seems anti-intellectual that seems kind of icky

00:52:07.760 that seems lowbrow what's your message to those folks well i'm reminded of me talking to michael

00:52:15.200 novak the catholic uh social philosopher years ago and i said you know i will find a lot to admire

00:52:23.760 about the catholic church mike but why is it that you insist on retaining just absolutely unbelievable

00:52:31.280 doctrines like transubstantiation and michael looked at me with that gentle smile of his and

00:52:36.960 he says god needs a church that can talk to everyone and i guess i would say to william thomas chatter

00:52:45.360 thomas william chatterton who i also like i would say thomas god also needs a way to speak

00:52:52.320 to over-educated intellectuals like you and so you go ahead and you figure out your way but don't

00:52:59.360 diss the way that god is speaking to to other people because they can be equally valid even

00:53:05.200 though one is not to your taste charles murray author of the new book taking religion seriously

00:53:11.520 pick up a copy for yourself pick up a copy as christmas gifts really appreciate you being here

00:53:16.400 sir thank you so much for your time i've enjoyed it thank you emily i was just telling everyone in

00:53:23.040 the chat there's nothing worse than having to watch yourself do an interview it's so painful i never

00:53:28.720 watch myself back but whenever we pre-tape an interview i'm forced to watch myself back so

00:53:33.920 thank you uh to everybody in the chat for going through that with me let's talk now about dave chappelle

00:53:39.920 who dropped a surprise special on netflix friday night he talked a bit about charlie kirk and he

00:53:46.160 opened up the israel can of worms let's go ahead and uh watch this mashup of moments from the special 0.72

00:53:52.640 that are going viral online right now and bill maher the famous comedian i've known bill since i was

00:53:58.720 like 18 19 years old and i've never said this publicly language alert of course

00:54:05.600 these motherfuckers act like because i did a comedy festival in saudi arabia i somehow betrayed my 0.95

00:54:11.440 principles well no no i know i didn't i know they said well saudi arabia killed a journalist and and

00:54:18.560 and rest in peace jamal khashoggi i'm sorry that he got murdered in such a heinous fashion but

00:54:26.080 and no buts like you know period and also

00:54:32.240 i mean look bro israel's killed 240 journalists in the last three months so i didn't know y'all was still

00:54:41.840 counting my voice has become more powerful than i intended it to be and i cannot let these niggas do 1.00

00:54:51.280 me like charlie kirk or even worse than that he's wearing a con caepernick shirt somehow co-op me and

00:55:01.440 then make me say the things that they want me to say just in case we need a code

00:55:07.360 but it's got to be something that you know i mean that i would never say oh i know what the code is

00:55:15.280 the code word is i stand with israel thank you very much and good night

00:55:22.800 he throws the mic okay so unlike dc police chief chief pamela smith that was a mic drop moment you

00:55:28.560 heard her earlier in the show telling her it's not a mic drop moment but watch me in the space uh

00:55:33.120 dave chapelle does not need to tell people to watch him in this space now he also that was in dc

00:55:39.200 made a joke about how he was prepared to come to dc and uh be very upset by the law enforcement takeover

00:55:47.600 trump's law enforcement takeover and he was like yeah it's it was pretty clean everyone this is what

00:55:52.960 uh you get with dave chapelle uh at his best which is you cannot in any way whatsoever pin him

00:56:00.480 into one category you cannot put the man in a box at all he also referred to bill mars you heard him

00:56:08.400 there say f that guy see he also talked about his cracker ass commentary uh and listen there are two 0.50

00:56:16.800 different things happening on the surface there's the comedy and then under the laugh lines the punch

00:56:23.520 lines uh there's the substance of it and some of the substance like is you know the the saudi arabia

00:56:32.000 stuff uh dave chapelle doesn't want you to believe necessarily that he's some moral champion he wants

00:56:40.960 you to believe that he is saying whatever he wants to say right that's the that's that's what he's going

00:56:47.440 for at the end when he's like we need a code word so that i'm not co-opted like what he wants to be

00:56:52.800 judged by morally is not being told what to say so if that's his standard as a comedian that he wants

00:56:59.840 the public to judge him by then he's obviously passing with flying colors he talked about how

00:57:05.120 he wanted to bring i think the way he put it was pussy jokes to the middle east mission accomplished

00:57:11.040 dave in saudi arabia uh and that's the he's he's trying to if you want to judge him by what he clearly

00:57:22.000 is is saying is his standard which again is not letting anybody tell him what to say then dave chapelle

00:57:31.920 is passing that he's doing great uh he is one of the greatest that has ever existed uh at being clever

00:57:39.200 with uh going in any direction he wants whether it's politically correct or not uh on the other

00:57:46.560 hand the moral question of dave chapelle going to saudi arabia and justifying it i mean what he's

00:57:56.640 what he's saying basically and it's a little it's a little muddled which is okay because he's a comedian

00:58:02.560 but uh on the one hand he's saying he doesn't care on the other hand he's saying well maybe

00:58:09.840 there's something something good about western comedians taking the saudi's money and making

00:58:16.480 these jokes there were guidelines i think i forget who posted i think it was tim dylan who posted them

00:58:21.360 at the time about what uh comedians could and couldn't say during that festival like they weren't

00:58:26.560 allowed to criticize the government if my memory serves me correctly um and so that is you know if you're

00:58:31.840 a comedian and you want to talk about american politics chapelle's saying that it's easier for

00:58:37.040 him to talk about politics in saudi arabia this is actually a claim that he's made than it is here

00:58:43.200 and it's true dave chapelle has gotten absolutely roasted here uh for saying completely normal things

00:58:49.120 about american politics men and women sex uh biology it's it's true like he's he's absolutely gotten

00:58:57.600 roasted for that but on the other hand uh is he justifying saudi arabia by saying his critics are

00:59:07.120 hypocrites because that may be true but it is not in and of itself a justification do i think he just

00:59:13.200 pointed out correctly a bit of hypocrisy with bill maher yes i don't know what bill maher maybe we'll find

00:59:20.880 out soon uh what his rebuttal would be to that point there are certainly ways that you could address it i

00:59:25.600 don't know how bill maher is going to do it do i think that chapelle just found a a weak spot of

00:59:31.600 vulnerability among his critics yes absolutely but that's not a justification in and of itself

00:59:37.280 so he's he's not getting an a plus here on the moral scorecard but he's also not asking to and so i

00:59:45.280 wanted to uh just i wanted to address that because even when dave chapelle is uh saying things that i don't

00:59:52.480 agree with it's what's what matters is if it's funny and uh you know there are a lot of people

00:59:59.200 on the left who thought dave chapelle was woefully misinforming people about biology i know it's

01:00:04.080 hilarious to think about uh for many years and that he was actively causing harm and potentially even

01:00:10.000 committing acts of violence with his jokes and his words so like even when dave chapelle uh is in

01:00:18.800 uncomfortable territory for the right maybe especially when he's in uncomfortable territory

01:00:22.400 for the right uh chapelle is still doing what comedian should which is transgressing all of the

01:00:29.920 appropriate boundaries but that doesn't mean uh you have to you have to give them an a plus on the uh

01:00:36.240 moral scorecard you can give him a plus for how he wants to be judged which is saying whatever the

01:00:41.520 hell he wants and that's a perfectly acceptable way for a comedian to ask to be judged all right

01:00:49.840 speaking of moral scorecards i went through all of the new pictures that the department of justice

01:00:56.640 has dropped so far in the jeffrey epstein case that was in the document dump that was compelled by the

01:01:05.440 bill passed through congress just about just over a month ago so in that case i am not going to

01:01:14.560 tread the ground that so many excellent journalists have since the document started trickling out on

01:01:21.040 friday what i will do is note a couple of things even tonight as i'm coming to you with this report

01:01:28.720 things are changing so ryan grim of drop site news who by the way is going to be one of our first

01:01:34.240 guests back in the new year first show back in the new year we are going to be doing an epstein deep

01:01:39.200 dive with ryan grim who has definitively uncovered some obvious intelligence for geopolitical connections

01:01:49.200 that epstein or deals that epstein was making with ehud barak and others over the course of many years

01:01:56.080 ryan and i are going to do a deep dive uh based on all of his reporting after he has a couple of weeks

01:02:01.520 here to go through all of these documents and to be clear that is what it's going to take there are

01:02:06.240 thousands and thousands of documents even knowing what's old and what's new is a task for epsteinologists

01:02:13.200 and as closely as i've covered this story i'm not an epsteinologist the epsteinologists are the people

01:02:18.800 who are at the absolute foreground of this and with fresh eyes have already noticed some interesting

01:02:26.240 things uh first there are redactions on these documents that can easily be unredacted if you

01:02:36.960 know how to just do some basic copy and paste actually you can copy and paste text that's redacted

01:02:42.880 pull it into another file and some of these uh are improperly redacted or sloppily redacted

01:02:51.040 another part of this right now is that there is at least one victim whose name a jane doe whose name

01:02:58.400 is in these files unredacted and who is unhappy about it so just some updates so far as this case

01:03:05.360 is playing out secondly bill clinton is now saying that the files should be released despite many of

01:03:11.680 the newly released photos showing for example how close bill clinton actually was with epstein and

01:03:18.560 glane maxwell um on the in a hot tub in a pool uh just gallivanting around on trips with them

01:03:29.200 joking like he's their best pal all of those pictures you can go and look at them uh you can

01:03:35.360 google them you can see he's not a random acquaintance he's obviously a friend and you know the book the

01:03:41.840 birthday book note from clinton largely undermined that as well or went a long way i think towards

01:03:47.360 emphasizing that um democrats are now saying that they are going to chuck schumer for example is

01:03:54.400 is trying to push through a bill that would sue the department of justice uh for not releasing the

01:04:01.920 files soon enough ro kanna democrat and thomas massey republican are drafting inherent contempt charges

01:04:08.480 against pam bondi uh for again not dumping everything because clearly uh you know kanna massey i think it's

01:04:17.040 fair to call them epsteinologists particularly thomas massey um they are there are documents that they

01:04:23.680 want to see that they haven't seen in this batch so far and they're awaiting more and more there are

01:04:29.200 pictures that went up then were taken down pictures by the way of donald trump that were up and then

01:04:36.720 were taken down and then have put back up there was a very bizarre video just tonight that uh people

01:04:43.280 found of it looked like a weird reenactment of jeffrey epstein in his cell with a very strange time

01:04:52.400 stamp it turns out this was a youtube video like a cgi video that got into the fbi files somehow many subplots

01:05:05.520 playing out right now and just like with the jfk files and the mlk files these have been out for 24 48

01:05:13.600 hours some of them very new some of them a couple of days old and putting together the pieces of this

01:05:20.320 puzzle is going to take a long time and my position on this is no smoking gun will be released there will

01:05:26.320 be guns that feel smokier than others but feel hotter than others maybe that's a better way to pull at that

01:05:32.720 metaphor but that doesn't mean uh the government is is likely to actually even have some of these

01:05:40.080 documents in its possession that would it be incriminating uh that would be a smoking gun proving

01:05:46.960 definitively that uh jeffrey epstein was engaged in a sex trafficking ring to blackmail one country of

01:05:57.920 the past of another or vice versa it's very unlikely that anything to that degree ever comes out just as

01:06:05.120 with the jfk assassination the files will trickle out over the course of decades and by uh you know

01:06:12.480 the end of the government's ability to release anything else will be left with a you know what

01:06:18.880 one million piece jigsaw puzzle and you know the most important ten pieces are always going to be

01:06:25.040 missing uh they're just not going to be there and you will just be working really hard over many

01:06:31.440 years to put these pieces together of the puzzle in a way that makes sense um but in a way that

01:06:37.760 probably is unlikely to to result in a full complete picture uh at any time now there will be people who

01:06:44.080 get implicated along the way uh and on the one hand you see democrats now laughably trying to turn the

01:06:50.560 screws to republicans and say and make this about trump because it's an ep it's a it's a midterm

01:06:56.400 year and the epstein uh line is you know so long as it's not like someone's entire campaign it does

01:07:04.080 matter to voters it's it's sort of a litmus test um towards honesty right like does this person is this

01:07:11.360 person willing to say something crazy was happening and if the answer is is no then you look foolish

01:07:17.280 because just about anybody with a brain checks out these files and even you know i know matt taibbi

01:07:22.080 and michael tracy right now are uh doing some interesting work not that i agree with all of it

01:07:27.920 uh i may not even agree with most of it to be honest but they're doing some interesting work and

01:07:31.760 taibbi was on our show talking about how people need to pump the brakes and be careful not to fall for

01:07:36.640 a russia collusion narrative in the epstein files again i don't know that i necessarily agree with that

01:07:41.760 but they are uncovering some really i think sloppy language i'm sure i've done it over the years uh

01:07:47.840 just kind of buying whole cloth stories about epstein and others that with more precise language

01:07:55.120 as taibbi points out are still weird as hell right like there's obviously weird stuff going on and so on

01:08:01.520 that note uh i'm gonna put up here on the screen some of the pictures that i pulled out i did go through

01:08:07.440 all 4 000 of them uh and so i wanted to uh be able to just go through all right so obviously

01:08:15.920 trigger warning here these are pictures from jeffrey epstein's home uh so what we have here

01:08:21.920 now try to make this useful for the listening audience as well but i really do recommend you

01:08:26.240 know some people have collated these images um but you see here a naked woman in the middle of the 0.99

01:08:32.320 street this is a giant almost floor-to-ceiling size painting of this woman naked um looks like she 1.00

01:08:41.520 might have ties uh coming out of her uh out of her wrists uh in what appears to be a sort of the 1.00

01:08:49.040 middle of a dangerous dangerous street um and if you zoom in here uh there is oops there is a clearer

01:08:58.880 version of this image on the left but that looks it's it's epstein and with a little girl on his

01:09:05.520 shoulders uh and it's a also a very big cutout um that picture i've seen making the rounds but one

01:09:12.320 thing i wanted to note here is just its proximity to this other photo um i think that's extremely weird

01:09:19.520 um that's you know if if you're looking at some of the epstein emails and such you can see people do

01:09:27.120 send him pictures family pictures that sort of thing um but here what you're seeing is epstein

01:09:34.160 little girl on his shoulders and then just down the hall this giant naked woman uh going on here 1.00

01:09:40.000 this is a picture of a bedroom and i want to point out again if you zoom in here you see what is pretty

01:09:47.760 clearly a camera we've seen similar pictures released over the years always worth noting that there is in

01:09:54.720 that case a camera pointing directly at the bed directly at the bed uh so it's not inconspicuous

01:10:04.240 somebody would presumably notice it uh but it's pointing straight at the bed there's really no

01:10:10.560 reason to have a security camera right there let alone one pointing where it's pointing here's another

01:10:16.160 one uh you can see it in the corner uh the top right corner in this in this room just another thing

01:10:24.560 to point out um 24-hour video surveillance you see this is a picture there are several of these um

01:10:31.920 24-hour video surveillance a sign that says that seemingly on a door from a hallway and again there

01:10:37.760 are multiple signs that say this but there are a lot of different things this could be it is noteworthy

01:10:43.600 again uh because part of the epstein accusation that by the way i don't think is out of the realm of

01:10:48.880 possibility is that his house was sort of secretly wired up with cameras in a way that people would

01:10:54.400 be induced to have a good time and you know have this like their caligula uh festivities and not know

01:11:03.360 that they were being filmed and then be blackmailed with the contents of it so now without knowing the

01:11:08.480 full context of the house i do just want to say that camera in that bedroom bedroom was not secret

01:11:14.480 necessarily and here you have a sign of 24-hour video surveillance that appears to pretty obviously

01:11:20.160 be for a security purpose so it doesn't make anything impossible it's just again it's something

01:11:24.800 that i noted uh this is another disturbing mural people are picking up on this one uh you can see

01:11:32.560 young boy uh seemingly a young boy it's hard there's a lot of glare uh on many of these pictures

01:11:38.000 that look like they were taken with a digital camera um but doves um naked lots and lots of

01:11:46.000 naked people uh that's another and a seemingly young boy uh another theme that you pick up on

01:11:52.480 is there's on this one i just wanted you to see this it's a single leg of a ballerina tying up her 0.99

01:11:59.280 ballet shoes sticking out of the wall by a bathtub there's a lot of bizarre art and we've already known

01:12:06.560 that about jeffrey epstein's multiple properties there's a lot of bizarre art one of the motifs

01:12:12.640 is um basically faceless women and i have some more examples of that i'll get to in just one moment 1.00

01:12:20.640 but here you see what appears to be a sailor uniform and a girl's school uniform and the sailor uniform is

01:12:27.840 folded on a chair next to the girl's school uniform with what appears to be pretty clearly jeffrey epstein's

01:12:33.840 um that i mean tell me that that that says je um that's pretty i think that's pretty clear uh what

01:12:44.480 you're seeing on that outfit could be a sailor outfit could be another version of a school girl's 0.94

01:12:50.160 outfit because that looks like a skirt that's folded up next to it um so that's another another bizarre

01:12:58.000 thing and this goes this is just a bust there are a lot of these all over the house or there are a lot

01:13:02.240 of pictures of them and again what's interesting about this is there are similar versions of this

01:13:07.840 so where it's just uh the woman's breast the neck is cut off and everything you know below i mean 0.68

01:13:14.640 you can't even see the belly button no arms no belly button or anything south of that so it's just uh

01:13:22.160 uh you know headless faceless legless uh busts of women here we have uh a safe that has been opened 0.85

01:13:33.360 up we know that he's had safes um that were you know files were collected from them here you see a

01:13:37.920 passport you see some cd-rom discs i haven't said that in a long time uh and dusty dusty binders so we

01:13:45.840 don't fully know what information if any has been made public from uh the contents of the safe here's

01:13:53.040 another uh what i want to point out here in a dining room you have a gong you have a magic eight ball

01:13:59.360 on the table and uh this is a bust of what looks like a young boy uh tell me if i'm wrong looks like

01:14:07.040 a looks like a little boy to me and then this bizarre sketch and so i have a zoomed in picture of this

01:14:13.920 bizarre sketch i don't even know how to describe this um it looks like a young boy or girl in a dress

01:14:25.040 seemingly i'm trying to make sense of this just like everyone else's and here is a baby photo so a

01:14:32.160 naked baby in a sink and just for some perspective here that's how big the printout is this is in a

01:14:38.560 kitchen area um and you get the context as you go through the pictures in full because you can piece

01:14:43.440 together what everything looks like and there are different sections but take a look at that

01:14:49.760 a normal enough picture that someone would have of their own baby um very unusual to have it blown up

01:14:57.280 in a kitchen slash dining area even if it's let's say a niece or a nephew uh very unusual and again

01:15:06.000 remember epstein has a lot of pictures of of children uh blown up whether it's him with children

01:15:12.320 or bizarre art uh in big fashion here he has nypd uniforms in a closet

01:15:23.840 pretty odd next one and this is just an idf t-shirt so wanted to go through a couple of the uh

01:15:31.440 pictures that that i flagged as particularly odd that i haven't seen um and kind of contextualize

01:15:39.360 them with everything that i saw in all 4 000 pictures now again to go through 4 000 pictures

01:15:45.120 i wasn't scrutinizing every corner of every single one of them but you you know leave feeling like you

01:15:50.800 were just on the weirdest episode of room raiders ever it makes you queasy every slide is

01:15:55.360 uh stomach churning because the art is is so odd uh and it's it's so palatial and decadent and yet

01:16:04.000 some of it is so run down there's just something clearly very weird going on so i recommend everyone

01:16:12.000 go and and take a look at the pictures themselves because it helps you uh internalize what everybody's

01:16:18.560 discussing and that visual context uh i think is is quite useful so much more to come on this we will be

01:16:25.040 joined as i mentioned by ryan graham the one and only of drop site news and of course breaking points

01:16:30.720 uh folks before we go that was a little bit of music it's a little too early for the music

01:16:38.720 see if we fade it back no i have one more thing to do

01:16:40.960 okay we're still doing the music um

01:16:50.000 so last thing uh that i wanted to say here oh we'll we'll we'll save it for the new year how about

01:16:59.520 that how about i leave everybody in suspense for the new year um because we started wrapping the show so

01:17:05.520 we will keep wrapping the show at this point uh appreciate everybody as a reminder fresh happy

01:17:11.040 hours are going to be out this friday and next friday the show will return the first monday in the

01:17:17.760 new year so that's all the way january 5th we will all be so different by january 5th what will have

01:17:26.000 happened the last little bit that i was going to do was just to say i genuinely don't think that i ended

01:17:31.040 elise stefanik's gubernatorial campaign uh with the question that i asked to president trump in

01:17:37.040 the oval office when he was flanked by zaron mamdani i asked elise stefanik has been referring to

01:17:43.360 the man standing next to you zaron mamdani as a jihadist do you believe that you're standing next

01:17:47.600 to a jihadist trump said no i think i just met with a very rational man and ryan then posted on x

01:17:53.440 this is the question from emily that ended elise stefanik's gubernatorial hopes and i don't

01:18:00.400 think it was helpful oh here it is perfect um i don't think it was particularly helpful to elise

01:18:05.680 stefanik because she had been using the jihadist label over and over and over again on mamdani

01:18:11.200 and immediately put out a statement actually after that question saying she disagrees with the president

01:18:16.720 respectfully that as a mom donny it is a jihadist and i did a whole segment at the time explaining why

01:18:23.760 i you why i used my time questioning the president to ask that particular question i don't consider it

01:18:29.680 punching right i would have asked that question of anybody who was so laughably inflating the

01:18:35.440 definition of a term like jihadist to include zaron mamdani disagree with the man think that he is a

01:18:43.040 an islamist if you want to call him i don't agree with that um but you can you can call him all kinds

01:18:48.960 of things but to call him a jihadist uh completely numbs people to words like that and so whether you're

01:18:56.880 calling him whether you're calling him that whether you're calling you know another person

01:19:02.480 racist or bigoted or whatever it is i just think we have to guard these definitions so jealously

01:19:08.160 because we have rightfully uh stigmatized bigotry in this country uh with blood sweat and tears of

01:19:15.520 people who have literally died or spent their lives given their lives to the cause um of uh trying to

01:19:21.680 change american attitudes i mean this country is incredible we should be so grateful as we go into

01:19:27.680 christmas for how we are able to coexist as harmoniously even though it feels tough and

01:19:32.480 divisive but to have so many different people in one country and living in such close proximity

01:19:38.320 it's historically unparalleled unparalleled uh and as tough as it is and as you know

01:19:44.800 deeply as we need to make some i think changes in public policy and opinion uh it's amazing what

01:19:52.480 we're able to do in this country and we have to guard those those definitions jealously whether

01:19:57.920 it's republicans abusing them weaponizing them for politics or democrats weaponizing them for politics

01:20:02.960 which is what most of the last 10 years was democrats weaponizing them cynically for political

01:20:08.240 purposes because their activist base wanted them to and uh you know at least the phonic i think

01:20:15.440 realized that this was not going to be a winning cycle i think that's pretty obvious i don't think

01:20:20.160 she uh wants to have the the stench of loss on her at this point in her career she actually ducked out 1.00

01:20:25.840 of the house she said she wanted to spend more time with her family all of those things are fair

01:20:29.680 she's she should be jaded she had a rough year she's supposed to be un ambassador that got yanked 0.88

01:20:34.560 then she was not really given her spot back in leadership she was kind of given a spot back in

01:20:39.280 in leadership but uh ended up falling down the rungs of the ladder after going from u.n ambassador

01:20:44.640 uh and was about to run a losing gubernatorial campaign my sense is that trump world is not

01:20:51.120 really fond of stefanik um and maybe that'll change i mean he put out a nice statement uh about

01:20:56.560 her after she dropped out of the race but uh it's it's an uphill battle to obviously win a gubernatorial

01:21:01.840 election in new york let alone when a lot of your strategy was fear-mongering about sarah and mom

01:21:07.600 donny uh and the president which by the way like on economic stuff i think is totally valid but then

01:21:14.800 you have the the president sort of flanked by him in the oval office saying they share a lot of ideas

01:21:18.400 that was overall i think the dagger in the stefanik senate and the the stefanik gubernatorial campaign so

01:21:24.880 now we can play the music i'm excited to send everyone out into christmas you don't even have to

01:21:28.880 wait for what i was going to talk about thanks for tuning in thank you for a great great second

01:21:34.880 half of 2025 we appreciate it make sure to subscribe on youtube subscribe for those next

01:21:41.440 two happy hours until our next after party on january 5th subscribe on the podcast feeds apple

01:21:46.720 spotify wherever it is so grateful to all of you and i hope you have a very merry christmas

01:21:52.480 god bless you all happy new year we'll see you soon

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 24, 2025

The Minaj Moment, Vance vs Crockett, Creepy New Epstein Photos, and Charles Murray's Faith Journey

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