The Megyn Kelly Show - The Truth About the ICE Shooting in MN, and Dangers of Marijuana, with Dave Aronberg, Phil Holloway, Ashleigh Merchant, and Alex Berenson ｜ Ep. 1226

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00:00:45.720 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:57.440 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:58.880 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:00.580 It has now been over 24 hours since the fatal shooting of a female driver by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

00:01:08.780 And we're getting a much more clear picture of what happened.

00:01:12.300 The media all over X, the mainstream, have lost their effing minds.

00:01:19.140 They've lost their minds about this.

00:01:22.080 The local authorities in Minnesota and Minneapolis are gone.

00:01:27.280 They're too far gone to be reasoned with.

00:01:30.300 They're going to get an ICE agent killed.

00:01:33.580 That's what's going to happen.

00:01:34.420 They're not going to be happy until an ICE agent is dead.

00:01:37.400 I realize a woman died yesterday.

00:01:40.400 I'm sorry, but that was her own doing.

00:01:43.580 Who among us would not understand that if we did not respond to law enforcement surrounding our car,

00:01:50.060 telling us to get out, we were endangering ourselves.

00:01:53.400 Who among us would expect to live if we pressed the accelerator with a cop in front of our SUV?

00:02:01.000 Like, that's what she did. 0.90

00:02:03.620 Everyone would know you are putting your own life in danger.

00:02:09.180 There's so much to get to.

00:02:12.080 There is a stunning development that just happened in this story that we, I believe exclusively, just confirmed.

00:02:19.340 DHS Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned in media interviews yesterday that the ICE agent who shot the driver in Minneapolis was involved.

00:02:27.760 He was involved in a prior incident last June that was very similar to what happened yesterday.

00:02:33.260 Well, we now have the video of that incident, and we've confirmed with the government that this is the relevant video that Kristi Noem was referencing.

00:02:43.980 This is video of the incident she was referencing involving this same officer.

00:02:49.820 He was dragged during an ICE arrest just this past June and got seriously injured.

00:02:58.140 This same guy, this poor ICE agent.

00:03:02.340 Per the Department of Justice, on June 17th, 2025, law enforcement officers attempted to arrest Roberto Carlos Munoz Guatemala,

00:03:11.600 a convicted sex offender, on an immigration order.

00:03:15.120 By the way, this is what ICE officers are trying to do.

00:03:17.120 This is the terrible work that these lunatics are out there protesting against.

00:03:21.740 They'd rather have Mr. Guatemala have access to their children, I guess.

00:03:26.360 Because this agent that they're now demonizing as a murderer was the one who stopped him, along with his fellow ICE agents.

00:03:34.240 The guy was uncooperative.

00:03:35.560 He refused to follow instructions.

00:03:37.100 After warning him several times, an agent, who is the same agent involved in yesterday's shooting,

00:03:43.520 broke the back window of the suspect's car so that he could open the vehicle from the inside.

00:03:48.600 The man then accelerated his car.

00:03:51.500 Look, you can see it's the same agent.

00:03:53.360 The guy had a mask on yesterday, but the same hair.

00:03:56.340 As he sped away, the agent's arm became trapped between the seat and the car frame.

00:04:00.200 You can't see the agent in this video we're showing, but we are showing the car rushing away from the scene.

00:04:05.400 The agent is on the driver's side toward the back, so you cannot see him being dragged.

00:04:09.920 But he's being dragged, and that's undisputed, for more than 100 yards.

00:04:14.360 While the maniac driving the car is weaving back and forth in an attempt to shake him from the car,

00:04:19.480 completely immune to the thought of running over him or what other damage he was causing.

00:04:24.740 The agent was eventually jarred free from the car, but suffered significant injuries to his arms and hand.

00:04:30.660 Look at this.

00:04:31.500 If you're not listening, if you're only listening to this, you've got to go and check out our YouTube at three minutes after the hour.

00:04:36.120 His arm looks mutilated.

00:04:38.720 It's a shot of him in his hospital bed where you can't see his head, but you can see his arms and his legs.

00:04:44.520 And that arm clearly shows the damage of what he had just been through.

00:04:48.200 Okay, this is incredibly relevant to what this guy's perception of the danger was.

00:04:56.080 Now, we'll get into the legal standard, which is more of whether it was objectively reasonable for him to think this woman was going to run over him.

00:05:02.800 But that incident will play into whether it was objectively reasonable.

00:05:06.540 Other ICE agents and other cops have been watching this happen time after time.

00:05:11.820 It's happened over 100 times that ICE agents have been charged, rammed or dragged by so-called watchers.

00:05:22.020 They're calling her like an observer.

00:05:24.300 You know, like we're just we just have eyes on the cop.

00:05:26.240 You are much more than an observer, madam.

00:05:29.200 These guys are putting their lives on the line every day to arrest people like Mr. Guatemala, who is molesting kids. 0.99

00:05:36.440 That's what they're doing there.

00:05:37.960 That's what Mayor Jacob Fry appears to object to, not to mention Governor Tim Walz.

00:05:43.220 What a shock.

00:05:44.920 Okay, now we're going to walk you through the key videos from yesterday showing what happened in detail.

00:05:49.760 That video we brought to you yesterday at the end of our show was ultimately the video that President Trump tweeted out as well.

00:05:56.880 It is critical.

00:05:58.140 So many of the people who jumped down the throats of these cops didn't see it or ignored it

00:06:03.040 because it was an inconvenient to show her actually accelerating into the cop who shot her.

00:06:09.100 But it's all there on tape.

00:06:11.720 We'll begin with the moments leading up to the shooting.

00:06:14.080 Currently, there are no videos we've seen showing what happened leading up to the incident.

00:06:19.700 But there is a witness account that 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, she's the one who was shot, Renee Good,

00:06:27.300 was blocking traffic, hoping to impede ICE investigations.

00:06:31.340 That's what she was doing there, all right?

00:06:33.740 Her wife has admitted it.

00:06:36.280 Democrats are calling her, as I pointed out, a, quote, legal observer.

00:06:40.400 Wrong.

00:06:41.420 What's been reported so far about her background makes clear she was there to agitate,

00:06:46.840 and her actual job had nothing to do with the law.

00:06:51.300 She was a poet.

00:06:53.380 Woke up to some commotion.

00:06:54.860 I heard some whistles going on out front, so I came downstairs to see what was going on.

00:06:58.820 She wasn't even dressed, and there was a car, the Honda Pilot that's crashed over there now.

00:07:04.640 It was a car blocking the two lanes of Portland traffic, and the ICE agents got out,

00:07:10.240 and they were saying, get out of here, get out of here.

00:07:11.920 She was the main car leading the protest, is my understanding.

00:07:16.860 I talked to another guy who was driving behind her, but she was very successful in blocking traffic.

00:07:27.900 She was doing what she was set out to do, and so they wanted to get her the hell out of there.

00:07:34.620 Yeah.

00:07:35.020 So it looked like she was impeding ICE vehicles.

00:07:38.160 Definitely, yeah.

00:07:38.860 That was her goal.

00:07:40.940 This is a sympathetic witness to her.

00:07:43.160 The clip goes on.

00:07:44.060 She's very angry at ICE.

00:07:45.920 If anything, this woman had a reason to lie to make the woman driving the car, Renee Good, sound better. 1.00

00:07:51.600 But there she is on camera saying very clearly that this woman who was ultimately shot was leading the protests and impeding the traffic across this Portland Avenue,

00:08:05.560 that she was parked perpendicular to the traffic.

00:08:08.640 Now, that'll get you arrested pretty much 10 times out of 10.

00:08:11.900 So this is not a fan of ICE, and clearly her eyewitness testimonial is not favorable to Ms. Good.

00:08:20.480 In this still image, you see a federal agent who we believe is the agent who eventually fires at Ms. Good.

00:08:27.380 The agent is being followed closely by a female protester.

00:08:30.800 She has identified herself as Renee Good's wife.

00:08:34.960 She has her phone up, likely recording him.

00:08:37.560 The agent also has a phone in his hand, likely recording her.

00:08:41.900 Did the agent have a negative interaction with these women that caused him to begin recording, too?

00:08:47.560 We don't know yet.

00:08:48.880 But clearly something was going on before, and it wasn't needlepoint.

00:08:53.540 We have not yet seen the actual video that was on the cop's phone.

00:08:57.600 But here's video we do have of that moment and what happened afterward.

00:09:00.880 Again, they both appear to be recording each other's actions.

00:09:03.380 You see a gray truck pull up.

00:09:05.640 We talked about that yesterday.

00:09:06.820 Two federal agents step out.

00:09:08.200 The driver of the maroon SUV, Ms. Good, says, what's going on?

00:09:13.140 The officers quickly walk up and tell Ms. Good to get out of the car and then to, quote, get out of the fucking car. 1.00

00:09:19.940 Things are escalating.

00:09:21.400 Good's window is down.

00:09:22.580 She's looking directly at them.

00:09:24.520 There is no way she did not hear the commands to get out of her car.

00:09:28.940 Repeated commands.

00:09:29.760 She then puts her car into reverse. 0.60

00:09:33.100 And here is the part of the video with sound of the agents making the commands and her beginning to reverse.

00:09:43.280 No!

00:09:45.880 We believe that's her wife yelling no and recording.

00:09:50.060 Right as Good reverses her car, you're about to see the agent who fired the shot move in front of the vehicle near the driver's side headlight.

00:09:58.680 But it's video.

00:10:03.960 There's one guy on the side who's blocking the agent at issue, but you can see that there is an agent in front of her car.

00:10:14.440 I mean, it's right there, black and white.

00:10:17.180 At first, you only see the agent at the driver's side door, and his body is kind of blocking the shooting cop.

00:10:23.460 He's fighting to get the car door open as Good goes into reverse.

00:10:28.180 The agent who fired the shots moves into the frame in front of the SUV.

00:10:34.020 Good is still reversing backward.

00:10:36.180 She immediately puts it in drive and starts accelerating forward toward the cop.

00:10:42.440 There was zero hesitation between Good reversing the vehicle and putting it into drive and clearly pressing the gas.

00:10:50.020 By the way, this cop clearly would have heard the car begin to accelerate.

00:10:54.560 About two seconds passes between the tires moving forward and the gunfire.

00:10:59.660 The same agent then fires two more rounds.

00:11:02.320 At that point, the SUV keeps moving forward before eventually crashing into a parked car.

00:11:07.460 And the bullet hole that you can see is in the front windshield.

00:11:11.780 The front.

00:11:13.320 That's where he took the initial shot to stop her from running him over.

00:11:18.740 The agent, again, who we understand was the one to fire the shot, did walk down toward the crashed SUV before walking back up and telling others to call 911.

00:11:30.200 There was another angle of the shooting that we brought to you yesterday, which I mentioned, which is key.

00:11:35.180 This video was obtained by the local ABC affiliate.

00:11:38.520 We've circled the agent and we've slowed down the video.

00:11:41.720 Look at this.

00:11:42.440 I'm sorry, but he's getting run over when he fires the shot.

00:11:49.180 You can clearly see her hit him.

00:11:53.580 That's what happens.

00:11:54.860 It's blurry, but you see him put his foot back to brace himself as he was hit by the car before he fires and moves to the side.

00:12:02.420 Here's an image of his leg backward appearing to brace himself.

00:12:07.340 You've got to watch this on our YouTube channel if you're just listening to this now.

00:12:10.740 We've added an arrow pointing toward his leg so you can see what we're talking about.

00:12:15.880 Okay.

00:12:16.280 This guy knew he was about to get hit.

00:12:19.920 We also noticed something else, something interesting that will be huge if it gets released to the public.

00:12:25.040 The agent who fires his gun, as I referenced, is holding up his cell phone still.

00:12:31.780 Still.

00:12:32.680 Likely still recording when she accelerates toward him.

00:12:37.740 Here's a closer image.

00:12:38.740 You see his hand holding what appears to be his phone.

00:12:41.460 So there is likely video of this incident from the agent's vantage point.

00:12:46.420 And if this does go to trial, that will be extremely important evidence.

00:12:51.560 From this image, you can see where one of the bullets entered.

00:12:54.660 Again, the driver's window.

00:12:56.780 There's also another video taken by another eyewitness that shows agents telling a man who says he's a doctor that he can't go near the victim to help her.

00:13:08.460 Watch this.

00:13:08.920 Can I go check up polls?

00:13:13.220 No.

00:13:13.900 Back up.

00:13:14.640 Now.

00:13:15.200 I'm a physician.

00:13:16.260 I don't care.

00:13:17.020 I understand.

00:13:17.700 We got EMS coming.

00:13:18.640 I get it.

00:13:19.580 Just give us a second.

00:13:21.060 We have medics on scene.

00:13:23.300 We have our own medics.

00:13:24.440 Where are they?

00:13:25.460 Where are they?

00:13:27.640 How can I relax?

00:13:28.780 You just killed my fucking neighbor.

00:13:30.700 You caught butter in the fucking face.

00:13:32.780 You killed my fucking neighbor.

00:13:34.200 How do you show up to work every day?

00:13:36.560 How the fuck do you do this every day?

00:13:39.700 How do you protect Mr. Guatemala, lady, to molest the children of Minneapolis? 1.00

00:13:45.740 That's the real question.

00:13:47.200 So now they're ripping on the cops because they didn't let some rando who claimed to be a physician they had no idea whether he was have access to the crime scene and the woman who was behind the wheel of the car apparently already dead.

00:14:02.420 They did call 911.

00:14:03.760 They did have EMS on the way, as you heard the officer say there.

00:14:08.160 There's no obligation to let some rando come over and corrupt your crime scene.

00:14:13.980 All right.

00:14:14.860 There's not.

00:14:15.760 And there's no obligation to let yourself be run over by a dangerous instrumentality, which is what a car is, certainly an SUV.

00:14:25.980 But any car that you are being fed so many lies by the mainstream media right now, not to mention the Democrat officials in Minnesota, you really do have to pay attention to understand the law and what's real.

00:14:39.000 And that's why we have the panel we do today.

00:14:41.980 We've got Dave Ehrenberg, Phil Holloway and Ashley Merchant.

00:14:44.980 They are all lawyers, really great lawyers and hosts of the MK True Crime show on the MK Media Podcast Network.

00:14:52.020 If you just Google MK True Crime or search it on the podcast app, you will see their podcast.

00:14:58.060 And it's amazing.

00:14:59.140 You can get all of their expert analysis by subscribing at mktruecrime.com.

00:15:03.360 Okay.

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00:16:07.040 Guys, welcome to you all.

00:16:08.820 So this is incredibly frustrating.

00:16:11.020 I want to start with you, Phil, because you're a former law enforcement officer,

00:16:15.280 and the demands that are being put on this ICE agent by the local authorities, by the Democrats, by the protesters in the streets,

00:16:26.080 that, like, in that split second, he should have assessed that she didn't really want to run him over,

00:16:32.180 that possibly he wasn't in mortal danger, that really there was no need to fire,

00:16:38.100 because maybe it was just going to be a gentle run over something, maybe just a foot and not his entire body.

00:16:45.880 Especially now that we know this same guy got dragged 100 yards six months ago at a different ICE stop and was seriously injured.

00:16:56.500 Like, it's completely irrational, and it's not consistent with the legal standard that's going to get applied to this case.

00:17:03.700 No, and I want to talk about that legal standard, because what we have seen, once again, as we typically do in law enforcement shootings,

00:17:10.940 is we see the left and those on social media looking at this through the 2020 hindsight

00:17:17.820 versus the objective analysis that's supposed to apply.

00:17:22.140 And look, we see this breathless hysteria also setting in, rather than this calm, thoughtful, legal analysis.

00:17:30.060 And I might say, before I tell you that legal analysis, I want to point out, Jacob Fry, the mayor there,

00:17:35.360 I wonder if he's, like, certifiably insane in light of his abhorrent comments that were clearly designed to fan the flames of this hysteria.

00:17:44.760 The Supreme Court told us in a number of cases, but really the seminal case involving use of force is Graham v. Connor from 1989.

00:17:51.520 And they clearly said, specifically in their ruling, that all police use of force must be reasonable,

00:17:59.140 and that reasonableness must be judged, listen to this, from the perspective of the officer on the scene,

00:18:05.200 from the officer you just showed in those videos in front of that car, hearing that revving of that engine,

00:18:11.240 seeing those tires spinning, and having been through this before and hospitalized and damn near killed,

00:18:16.580 we're supposed to look at it from his perspective, not the 2020 lens of hindsight.

00:18:21.700 Because these officers, as the court tells us correctly, because I've been there,

00:18:26.520 these are split-second judgments. These are tense, uncertain, they are rapidly evolving circumstances,

00:18:32.380 and lots of factors have to be considered, such as, what is the suspected crime?

00:18:36.620 Whether the suspect poses an immediate threat of safety to not only the officer's safety, but others in the area.

00:18:42.340 And we saw other officers there, we saw civilians there.

00:18:45.860 There's no telling what this woman might do if she's allowed to just gun it 1.00

00:18:50.240 and start tearing out of there, whether a foot jammed to the floor or the accelerator.

00:18:55.700 And so all of those things have to be taken into consideration,

00:18:59.240 and that's what we call objective reasonableness.

00:19:02.360 Not the 2020 hindsight that we see coming from all of the breathless hysteria on the left,

00:19:08.680 but that is the law.

00:19:09.800 And it's a shame we can't wait for an investigation to reveal all these things

00:19:15.240 before you have the mayor and the governor come out there making these really,

00:19:19.360 really reckless and inflammatory statements.

00:19:21.580 Here's a little of Jacob Frye, the mayor, last night.

00:19:26.720 He went on Anderson Cooper and kept, the absurdity of what he did is going to be obvious to all three of you.

00:19:34.160 I'm going to let it play and then I'll get your reaction.

00:19:36.160 Listen to this, up two.

00:19:38.640 There's obviously a huge disagreement about what the videos show.

00:19:42.140 Have you completely made up your mind or do you still have questions?

00:19:44.940 I'm not going to preempt the investigation that will be taking place, but I got two eyes.

00:19:51.280 I mean, what you saw was the victim taking at least like a three-point turn.

00:19:55.500 This was clearly not with any sort of intention to run somebody over.

00:20:00.240 You don't need a legal degree to know that that does not authorize the use of deadly force.

00:20:05.440 That being said, again, I'm not going to preempt an investigation.

00:20:08.100 That being said, again, the narrative that ICE is spinning immediately after this was that this was purely self-defense,

00:20:17.620 and I'll say it again, is bullshit.

00:20:20.240 I'm not going to prejudge anything, but everything DHS is saying is bullshit.

00:20:24.760 Just for a good measure, he did it again with Caitlin Collins in an equally absurd moment.

00:20:28.980 Let's play that, Sot 10.

00:20:29.940 After you told ICE to get the F out of the city, I've seen a lot of Republicans here in Washington criticizing those comments,

00:20:38.700 saying that you're escalating tensions with that.

00:20:41.260 I'm so sorry if I offended their Disney princess ears.

00:20:45.420 On the one hand, you got someone who dropped an F-bomb, and on the other hand, you got someone who killed somebody else.

00:20:50.980 F-bomb, killing somebody.

00:20:53.520 I think the more inflammatory action is killing somebody.

00:20:56.560 You should also understand the importance of de-escalating tense situations, not killing people and yanking out a gun.

00:21:04.740 And so, again, I'm not going to preempt the investigation.

00:21:08.640 I mean, I wonder, Ashley, how you de-escalate when somebody's ramming their car at you.

00:21:13.080 Like, in that split second, just say, like, please, do you make the prayer symbol with your hands?

00:21:20.260 Like, what exactly are these cops supposed to do?

00:21:23.060 Well, that's one of the things I keep thinking about.

00:21:24.860 You know, how could he have de-escalated the situation at that point?

00:21:27.720 And was it reasonable?

00:21:29.420 Really, what we're looking at, and everyone's talking about when this goes to court, if this goes to court, there's two different ways it could go to court.

00:21:35.280 I think it's important to sort of distinguish the two different ways.

00:21:38.700 One is a civil case if the family of the deceased filed a civil lawsuit.

00:21:42.340 The other is a criminal case if this officer was charged.

00:21:45.060 And I don't think either of those are likely to be successful.

00:21:47.520 And the reason is that, you know, the standard that Phil talked about, this reasonableness standard, that's a civil standard.

00:21:53.420 So the 11th Amendment says you cannot sue the government unless the government says you can sue them.

00:21:57.840 And there are certain carve-outs.

00:21:59.100 And one of those is for excessive use of force.

00:22:02.000 And that's what you were just asking about, this de-escalation.

00:22:04.560 You know, did they have to actually use de-escalation techniques, or was this authorized?

00:22:09.300 And what the law also says is that you can take into account all of this officer's experience.

00:22:14.860 And Justice Kagan said that in a very recent opinion, that you can take into account that this officer had been a victim of another brutal car, crash, car running down, you know, something like that.

00:22:25.480 Yes, dragging, exactly.

00:22:27.120 So what's in that officer's mind?

00:22:28.700 You know, what's reasonable in his mind?

00:22:30.540 The other instance is if he was charged criminally.

00:22:32.880 And when I see the mayor, all I'm thinking about is they're going to try and do some type of criminal charges.

00:22:37.380 You know, that's immediately what I'm thinking because we've got this significant tension between state authorities, you know, local authorities, and the federal government.

00:22:45.380 And all we're hearing from everybody local is we want you out, we want to prosecute.

00:22:49.900 So I'm thinking their probably next step is going to be to try to use some type of a criminal case, you know, something against this officer.

00:22:56.100 And he's going to be in a position where he's got to defend himself and use self-defense as a theory.

00:23:00.260 So he's had to defend himself in person.

00:23:01.980 Now he's going to have to defend himself in court.

00:23:03.760 But I think he'll be successful.

00:23:04.900 I mean, this was clearly self-defense is would a reasonable officer have thought that he was in fear for his safety, his safety, or other people's safety.

00:23:14.080 And I want to point out, you know, you were talking about something about how the mainstream media has sort of portrayed this.

00:23:19.420 I like to sort of play a game with myself where I look at the mainstream media articles, and then I go and I actually try to find the videos.

00:23:25.800 And I try to compare what I think happened to what I think after I actually look at all the videos.

00:23:31.460 And my opinion significantly changed.

00:23:33.300 And it always does.

00:23:34.980 And I let it on purpose.

00:23:36.680 You know, I don't say anything.

00:23:37.820 I don't make a firm opinion when I see just the reports.

00:23:40.340 But my opinion changed significantly because everybody was shown a very, very edited clip.

00:23:45.960 And it wasn't the whole – it wasn't all the clips.

00:23:47.900 Yeah, and the clips that you showed a few minutes ago tells a very different story.

00:23:51.720 When you see the other side of what happened, it is a whole different ballgame for me.

00:23:55.920 And I think it's a whole different ballgame for everybody.

00:23:57.560 Yeah, and I wonder if the mayor has actually seen all of those things, you know, and if he knows about what this officer had suffered from before.

00:24:03.960 And I'll tell you, that's coming from someone who – we file civil rights cases against officers when they are in the wrong.

00:24:08.800 So, you know, like we are regularly in this office evaluating this standard and talking about it.

00:24:14.560 And does it rise to that level?

00:24:17.040 You know, do I wish it would have ended differently?

00:24:18.580 Of course.

00:24:19.080 But do I wish that the officers weren't in that situation in the first place?

00:24:21.740 Yes.

00:24:22.220 Do I wish that everybody handled it after differently?

00:24:24.680 Yes, 100%.

00:24:25.780 But that doesn't mean that it's illegal, doesn't mean that it's a crime, doesn't mean that it's something that rises to a case for a civil lawsuit either.

00:24:33.400 Dave Ehrenberg, you're a recovering prosecutor.

00:24:36.520 And, you know, my understanding is that this is not going to be a state case at all because of the supremacy clause.

00:24:45.940 Because you have a federal officer performing a federal duty and that if the state tried to indict him, the feds would assert jurisdiction over this and then would probably dismiss the case.

00:24:58.380 And ultimately, Trump might pardon him on federal charges.

00:25:01.460 But we heard just today, this morning, that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension just revealed that federal officials have reversed course because originally, I guess, they were sitting back and letting the state handle things.

00:25:13.080 And the investigation into the investigation into the killing of this woman will be conducted by the FBI without the assistance of the local state authorities.

00:25:22.100 And this relates, I'm told, back to 1890 Supreme Court case in Renegle, which established that states generally lack jurisdiction to prosecute a federal officer for actions taken within the scope of their official federal duties, a principle derived from the supremacy clause.

00:25:36.840 So your thoughts on whether the locals, as angry as they may be, will have a shot at this officer.

00:25:44.720 Megan Goodby with you and my colleagues, Ashley and Phil, you mentioned a key phrase, within the scope of their official duties.

00:25:50.680 That gets the local authorities the ability to prosecute if they say that he was not acting within the scope of this official duties.

00:25:59.300 It was not reasonable.

00:26:00.860 And they could move ahead and prosecute.

00:26:02.700 The feds would perhaps try to assert jurisdiction and take over the case, but the state does have the right to move forward with it, and then it would go into state court.

00:26:12.920 What would happen, because he's a federal official, it would get removed to federal court, so you'd have a federal judge and you'd have a jury pool that would be from the entire state of Minnesota, not just from that one area.

00:26:23.740 And so there are advantages to going into federal court.

00:26:26.880 The judge would not be a local elected judge.

00:26:29.340 It'd be a federal appointed judge for life.

00:26:32.100 So, no, the state is not out of this entirely.

00:26:35.080 In fact, state law makes it easier to prosecute a law enforcement officer after George Floyd than federal law does.

00:26:42.500 So I do think that the state is going to be involved.

00:26:43.580 But only if they have jurisdiction.

00:26:44.920 I mean, but that exception, Dave, is for a cop who is not acting within the official scope of his duty.

00:26:51.800 So you're talking about somebody who's like driving to the movie theater and behaves like a moron or decides to make some citizen, some arrest in his off-duty time and he handles it poorly and he it's an ex-girlfriend and he behaves inappropriately.

00:27:06.040 Then you can make the argument.

00:27:07.440 He wasn't acting within the scope of his official duties and we can go for him.

00:27:10.180 There's no question this guy was acting within the scope of his official duties here.

00:27:13.960 The state's not going to win that argument.

00:27:15.460 This, if at all, will be a federal case, which is very good for him.

00:27:18.540 Well, it's up to the judge to decide whether or not the state can make its case that this was so outside any reasonable test that he is not acting within his scope and he could have easily just walked aside.

00:27:32.220 He didn't have to shoot into the car.

00:27:33.740 You know, it's interesting how different people seeing this video.

00:27:36.160 It's like a Rorschach test to see how they interpret it.

00:27:39.580 The law does allow, and I've done a lot of these cases, Megan, as state attorney, because I have to review these cases at the local level.

00:27:47.100 We had about 100 of them, and I would say, based on what I saw, that there's enough here to at least take it to a grand jury and let them make a decision.

00:27:54.760 I don't think it's as clear cut as Kristi Noem or you guys have been saying.

00:27:58.980 By the way, just if I can go back to Kristi Noem, I agree with Phil and with Ashley that I wish that our elected officials would have handled this differently.

00:28:07.180 We need someone to take down the temperature, and they're just ratcheting it up.

00:28:10.600 And that includes Secretary Noem, to be fair to me.

00:28:12.660 She said that she instantly started blaming Biden and the locals, and she said that Ms. Good weaponized her vehicle and intentionally attempted to run a law enforcement officer over and rammed them.

00:28:24.340 I think that's a little premature to say that.

00:28:26.760 I didn't see that in my video.

00:28:28.200 I saw that she was trying to drive away.

00:28:30.500 She was given an order to stop.

00:28:31.900 She was given conflicting orders.

00:28:33.020 One said stop.

00:28:34.020 Another said get out.

00:28:35.480 And she was trying to drive away. 0.80

00:28:37.060 The wheels were turning.

00:28:38.560 So I'm not so sure that there was a real risk for the law enforcement.

00:28:40.180 Get out is not inconsistent with stop.

00:28:42.060 Get out of the fucking car is what they said.

00:28:44.400 That's not inconsistent with stop.

00:28:47.360 Well, apparently there are eyewitnesses, and you can hear on the video where one of them says, yeah, get out of the effing car.

00:28:52.920 The other one, though, says get out of here.

00:28:56.140 And so perhaps she was trying to look like she was trying to get out of here. 0.97

00:28:58.800 I know that all eyewitnesses said that, but I have to tell you, it's very annoying watching these eyewitnesses appear all over CNN right now because, you know, here's what happened.

00:29:07.780 There was an officer and he moved.

00:29:09.500 Shut up. 0.95

00:29:10.240 We have a video.

00:29:11.480 No one cares what the fuck you saw.

00:29:13.440 Sorry.

00:29:14.100 With your from your poor vantage point.

00:29:16.820 And now with revisionist history, want to tell we we can see it.

00:29:20.380 It's on tape.

00:29:21.620 It is not additive to have these rando witnesses, all of whom are part of the protest crew.

00:29:26.340 Phil, try to tell us, oh, this is how it went down.

00:29:29.600 We can hear we can hear what the officer commanded.

00:29:32.480 It's on the tape.

00:29:33.980 And very obviously, this woman knew that they wanted her to stop and to get out of the vehicle.

00:29:39.620 And there's no the reason Christy Noem said she intentionally tried to ram the guy is because she's putting two and two together.

00:29:46.000 The cop was standing in front of her vehicle and she pressed down on the gas.

00:29:52.020 You only need an IQ slightly above that of a hamster to realize it had to be intentional.

00:30:00.240 Yeah.

00:30:00.820 So these witnesses, such as they are, they're certainly not objective witnesses.

00:30:05.300 They certainly aren't trained in the law, no matter how much they try to portray them as legal observers.

00:30:11.700 And so we do want to take that with a grain of salt.

00:30:14.020 But we can use the variety of videos that are out there.

00:30:17.260 And that's just part of the investigation.

00:30:19.380 But, you know, I want to point back to something that Dave mentioned.

00:30:22.800 What Dave was laying out was the blueprint for if the state wanted to bring charges,

00:30:28.680 they would do like they did to Giuliani and those in the Trump-RICO case here in Fulton County.

00:30:35.140 They would bring stake cases and they would say that their behavior, their conduct was inconsistent with their federal duties.

00:30:43.920 And therefore, you know, it's not – therefore, they were acting outside the scope.

00:30:47.520 I'm not saying that that's a winner of an argument.

00:30:49.700 I'm saying that's what they're going to do so they can conceivably get an indictment.

00:30:54.320 And then it would be removed, as Dave said.

00:30:56.420 But the state prosecutor stays with the case.

00:30:58.960 Correct.

00:30:59.020 And so Trump could not come in and issue a pardon.

00:31:03.420 It would be in federal court with a federal jury, drawn from the federal jury pool, I guess.

00:31:08.680 But the federal prosecutors would stay on the case.

00:31:11.460 So this could be if the state of Minnesota wants to do it.

00:31:12.940 The federal prosecutors would stay on or the state prosecutors?

00:31:15.620 No, the state prosecutors stay on.

00:31:17.680 So this is not something that Trump could come in and issue a pardon for.

00:31:21.560 That's why you see the FBI and the federal law enforcement taking over all aspects of this investigation.

00:31:27.520 They're trying to take away any evidence or any ability for the state to have something on which to build a prosecution.

00:31:35.440 That's what this is all about.

00:31:37.480 But this – look, the common denominator here in all these cases, and we see it here.

00:31:42.280 And to Ashley's point, if they just would have complied, if they would have just, you know, not stuck their nose in a place where it didn't belong, such as, you know, law enforcement activity and progress,

00:31:53.480 you can't just barge in and start taking over what law enforcement is doing.

00:31:57.520 And when you're told to stop, you're supposed to comply because this is the common denominator.

00:32:02.180 This is what always happens.

00:32:04.560 And then when the worst happens, then, you know, the left and those who are obviously in protest of the ICE activities,

00:32:12.140 they now have the martyr that, unfortunately, we kind of all suspected might eventually arise in all of this.

00:32:20.020 And so now it's all going to become basically a martyrdom thing with them.

00:32:24.280 They're already trying to make it into that, Ashley.

00:32:26.140 They're saying, oh, she was a mother of a six-year-old boy whose dad died a couple of years ago.

00:32:31.640 She was only 37.

00:32:32.380 And that's exactly why 99% of women in that circumstance would never, ever have put themselves in that position because we're all, that's why I believe, I can attest to this personally,

00:32:46.880 as a mother, you are more scared when the airplane hits turbulence, even if you're the only family member of yours on it.

00:32:54.480 You are more scared when you have a near miss in a vehicle when you have children.

00:32:58.520 It's all about, oh, my God, I can't deprive my children of their mother, and I also want to be there for the rest of their lives.

00:33:04.960 And especially if you were a single mom.

00:33:07.020 She had no business doing this, Ashley.

00:33:11.020 Right.

00:33:11.560 That's the thing for me.

00:33:12.600 You know, you have to make different decisions as a mother.

00:33:14.620 I need to be home for my kids.

00:33:15.840 You know, why do I need to be there?

00:33:17.240 And this is a tense situation.

00:33:19.620 Why would you want to put yourself in a tense situation like this?

00:33:22.360 There are organized protests.

00:33:24.120 Do you really need to have your car in the middle of a street clearly blocking folks?

00:33:27.900 I mean, it was clear.

00:33:28.720 It was there to block.

00:33:29.880 There's no reason that she would have been parked other than that.

00:33:32.240 So she's there to sort of agitate the situation, a situation that doesn't need to be agitated.

00:33:37.000 Is the outcome awful?

00:33:38.480 Yes, the outcome's awful.

00:33:39.820 But should she have been there in the first place?

00:33:41.580 No.

00:33:42.200 And when the officer said to stop and open her door, this is what you do.

00:33:46.000 You put your hands up.

00:33:47.180 Because if you haven't done anything wrong, then you're going to talk to them.

00:33:50.120 You're going to have a pleasant conversation, and you're going to be on your way.

00:33:52.420 And that's how it should go down.

00:33:53.720 You know, the second that she didn't obey that command and that she started to drive her car,

00:33:58.480 that's when things escalated.

00:33:59.640 That's when things really changed.

00:34:01.160 And so had she done that simple thing?

00:34:03.120 Right.

00:34:03.360 Had she done that simple thing that I wish she had done?

00:34:05.820 You know, I wish she was here for her child.

00:34:07.320 It's awful.

00:34:08.160 I wish she had just put her hands up. 1.00

00:34:09.680 The police could have made sure she got out, you know, safely.

00:34:12.660 I mean, the thing that you have to think about is all the thing that the police are thinking

00:34:16.620 about right then.

00:34:17.380 They are thinking about all the different places the shots could come from, all the different

00:34:20.660 places that the cars could come from, if there's a bomb.

00:34:23.020 I mean, there's a lot in their head.

00:34:24.180 And that's why we give them a lot of leeway in the law with this reasonableness standard,

00:34:28.440 because they're thinking of things that we aren't used to.

00:34:31.160 You know, we're not involved in those type of situations.

00:34:33.600 They are.

00:34:34.500 And so when they've got all that going on, they have a heightened, just a heightened level

00:34:39.620 of fear for being run over, especially this officer, you know, since he's had that

00:34:43.280 before.

00:34:44.140 And so, you know, but I did want to mention on that supremacy clause thing, it's going to be

00:34:47.640 exactly, if the state folks do or the local folks do charge this officer, it's going to

00:34:52.620 be just like what we saw with the Trump case, because we had that same argument here in Fulton

00:34:56.380 County.

00:34:56.880 We had that argument that they were acting, that certain folks in that indictment were

00:35:00.480 acting within their federal scope of duty.

00:35:02.160 And we had that hearing in the 11th Circuit.

00:35:04.720 We had the hearing in the local federal court.

00:35:07.100 And then we had that argument in front of the Supreme Court.

00:35:09.320 And so, you know, it's one of those things that could definitely happen.

00:35:12.360 And the downside, anyone in the system knows that when you're charged, you're already losing

00:35:17.560 because you're having to hire a lawyer.

00:35:19.620 You're having to get arrested.

00:35:20.780 You're having to get arranged.

00:35:21.760 You know, you've got that thing against you.

00:35:25.120 And so even if the local government shouldn't be able to charge because of the supremacy

00:35:29.420 clause, it doesn't mean it's going to stop them.

00:35:32.300 And once you get a charge, you are losing at that point.

00:35:36.380 You know, you may not be going to prison in the long run.

00:35:38.140 But once you are criminally charged, that is significantly going to affect your life.

00:35:43.360 The difference, of course, is that, you know, during the Trump cases, Trump was not president.

00:35:48.200 And those guys had absolutely no promise of an out clause that when it was a state prosecution.

00:35:52.940 I think this guy's got a very good argument that this should be decided under federal law,

00:35:56.460 that the supremacy clause should apply, that the state has no business prosecuting him.

00:36:01.180 And if it stays at the federal level, I think Trump, A, won't pursue a prosecution,

00:36:04.520 but B, will pardon him if it goes further.

00:36:07.460 I do want to point this out, though.

00:36:09.180 Dave, let me talk to you about this, since you seem more empathetic toward the narrative

00:36:14.540 of the woman driving the car.

00:36:16.880 There was a case in Baltimore.

00:36:18.820 It happened in 2018.

00:36:20.500 The cop was named Amy Caprio.

00:36:23.400 She responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle.

00:36:26.040 A second call confirmed that a home was being burglarized by four suspects associated with the vehicle.

00:36:32.480 It was later determined to be a vehicle that had been stolen, a Jeep Wrangler.

00:36:36.120 Officer Caprio arrived at the area.

00:36:38.460 She located the suspicious vehicle, the Jeep.

00:36:40.640 She then followed the vehicle into a cul-de-sac where the suspect driving it turned the car to face

00:36:46.820 Officer Caprio's patrol car.

00:36:49.840 She exited her vehicle with her weapon drawn and ordered the suspect out of his car.

00:36:56.280 The suspect opened the driver's door of the Jeep as though he was going to comply with her order.

00:37:01.660 When she began approaching the suspect, he immediately retreated back into the Jeep.

00:37:08.900 And this is what happened.

00:37:10.280 It's on tape.

00:37:11.340 It's disturbing.

00:37:12.360 As the Jeep continued to advance, Officer Caprio got off one shot.

00:37:17.140 WJZ won't show the rest, but a somber jury saw and heard Amy Caprio dying from massive crushing injuries.

00:37:23.920 In about two seconds, that guy took her life, not by some massive acceleration, not by some dramatic movie-like ramming, just by a quick acceleration right into her.

00:37:39.700 You can see she's got the weapon drawn.

00:37:41.640 She did not see it coming.

00:37:42.900 And there was absolutely no time for her to save her life.

00:37:46.260 She should have fired. 1.00

00:37:46.920 She should have shot him in the face the same way this cop did.

00:37:51.840 And I just think the average juror is going to understand that these cops put their lives on the line to protect the communities every day.

00:37:59.080 And that unlike us, they're not in their air-conditioned studios, you know, completely safe with their cup of coffee, making these judgments.

00:38:08.360 They have a split second to decide whether their life is in danger or not.

00:38:14.500 Megan, that is such a tragic case you bring up.

00:38:16.920 Yeah, I remember that one.

00:38:17.980 And courts look at what's called the totality of the circumstances, including the events leading up to the shot.

00:38:23.440 In the Caprio case you mentioned, there's a difference here.

00:38:26.560 The officer there was in a cul-de-sac.

00:38:28.840 She did not have the ability to easily get out of the way.

00:38:31.780 She was cornered, had limited mobility.

00:38:33.880 The argument for the prosecutors, and I agree with Phil and Ashley, that state prosecutors could pursue this case.

00:38:39.180 And even if it does go to federal court, it's still state prosecutors, that there's a created danger factor here.

00:38:44.580 So what they'll argue is that for the ICE agent to intentionally shoot someone like that because he was in threat of a reasonable fear of his life, you have to show that he didn't have a clear out.

00:38:58.780 Ms. Caprio didn't have a clear out. 1.00

00:39:00.920 She was in a cul-de-sac, was cornered.

00:39:02.800 He chose to fire.

00:39:04.600 He could have stepped aside.

00:39:06.240 And if you look at the manual from the – well, but if you look at the – here's the problem.

00:39:11.080 There's another problem with that, Megan, is that there was an updated manual for the Department of Homeland Security that said that you can't create the risk.

00:39:18.960 You can't actually stand in front of a car and create a risk.

00:39:21.860 By performing an arrest?

00:39:24.100 In this case, the argument is going to be that the ICE agent intentionally stepped in front of a moving car to justify the shooting, and that would be a problem.

00:39:31.960 So that's going to be what they did.

00:39:33.160 When he was standing there, it wasn't moving.

00:39:36.020 They were effecting an arrest.

00:39:37.240 She was stopped.

00:39:38.220 Then she chose to ram him.

00:39:40.200 That's what actually happened.

00:39:41.800 I know in this theoretical land where she's driving down the road, he's not allowed to put himself in front of the car and then say, okay, I shot her to protect myself.

00:39:49.100 That's not what happened.

00:39:51.060 But he did get in the path of the vehicle, and then her wheels started turning to what looked like she was trying to get away. 0.99

00:39:58.240 Now, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have complied.

00:40:01.200 She should have complied.

00:40:01.980 But the fact that her wheels started turning and that he shot once – he shot three times.

00:40:07.100 So apparently the first shot he may be able to get away with, but the second and third –

00:40:10.800 No, totally disagree with that.

00:40:11.940 I mean, redhead left. 1.00

00:40:12.700 I think it's a call.

00:40:13.240 Totally disagree with that.

00:40:13.900 Let me just say, Phil Holloway, the law is if deadly force is appropriate, they don't judge you based on one bullet or three.

00:40:23.840 The only question is whether you had a reasonable fear for your safety or that of others.

00:40:30.080 And if the answer to that is yes, you don't get thrown in jail because you fired three times instead of one.

00:40:35.780 Go ahead, Phil.

00:40:36.260 Yeah, I must disagree with my good friend Dave with all due respect.

00:40:40.460 He's doing the thing.

00:40:41.580 He's using the 20-20 hindsight that we can have to fly-spec the officer's actions and how he reacted.

00:40:49.940 He's doing exactly what the Supreme Court says you're not supposed to do.

00:40:53.620 And Ashley was right earlier.

00:40:54.660 This does come from a civil case, but it is applied also in criminal cases throughout the United States.

00:41:00.120 It's objective reasonableness from the standard of the officer.

00:41:03.420 Is your life reasonably – are you reasonably in fear for your life or the safety of others nearby?

00:41:09.520 And, you know, specific things like that where you're picking it apart with the 20-20 lens, perfect lens of hindsight, is not the appropriate analysis.

00:41:18.660 And so, Megan, you're absolutely correct.

00:41:20.960 Once lethal force is authorized, you're – you know, you can use lethal force no matter what that looks like.

00:41:26.640 You don't get a demerit for firing more rounds than you needed to because anybody who's ever gone to the firing range, particularly a law enforcement training firing range, and you're doing, you know, some type of shooting under excited circumstances, you don't have – you don't know which of your rounds may have hit where they're supposed to hit.

00:41:47.020 So, you need to fire multiple rounds.

00:41:49.740 That's, in fact, what law enforcement is taught.

00:41:52.060 So, I think that there's no way you slice this.

00:41:53.860 You should have just shot him in the leg.

00:41:55.440 Oh, that's easy for you to say.

00:41:57.080 Eliminate the threat.

00:41:58.180 Eliminate the threat.

00:41:59.420 First of all, you don't get unlimited shots.

00:42:01.160 The first shot, like I said, I'm not saying it's justified or not.

00:42:04.380 I'm just saying that is a better argument.

00:42:06.320 I still think that since he could have stepped away, since the wheels of the car were turning away, it wasn't a high-speed moving vehicle, I think he could have avoided the car.

00:42:15.520 There were a lesser means than to shoot her dead.

00:42:17.440 So, I think that this is the kind of case that can go to a grand jury.

00:42:19.880 Crazy talk.

00:42:20.200 He should have been – so, you're sitting there.

00:42:21.980 You've already been dragged six months earlier to within an inch of your life.

00:42:24.860 The car, instead of complying, suddenly now is accelerating.

00:42:28.640 And what you should do is look down at the wheels and see which way they're going.

00:42:32.840 Oh, okay.

00:42:33.380 I think she might be getting ready to take a left, not to ram me.

00:42:37.160 That's insane, Dave.

00:42:38.500 It happened in two seconds.

00:42:39.900 Well, it is true that you do give him the grace of what's happening in that moment.

00:42:45.260 And Phil is right.

00:42:46.340 You can't be a Monday morning quarterback.

00:42:48.260 But, like, I saw the video like you all did.

00:42:50.340 It didn't look like to me she was trying to ram.

00:42:52.120 It looked like she was trying to get away. 0.93

00:42:54.300 And he had a chance to also move away without having to shoot her dead.

00:42:57.000 Did she not see the fact there was a cop in front of her car?

00:43:00.340 Well, she – yeah.

00:43:01.020 Well, one of them, apparently, coroner witnesses, said, get out of there.

00:43:04.460 And so she's trying to get out of there. 1.00

00:43:06.140 The cop who pushed himself –

00:43:07.400 The witness bullshit.

00:43:08.680 I've had it with the witness bullshit.

00:43:10.140 We have tape.

00:43:11.320 Here's – you sound like CNN's Whitney Wilde, who's an idiot. 1.00

00:43:15.140 Sorry.

00:43:15.460 But she is.

00:43:16.740 Her reporting has been so pathetic.

00:43:19.260 I mean, everything she touches turns to crap.

00:43:21.900 But here's her report on CNN yesterday.

00:43:24.240 I was like a maniac watching CNN and MSNBC yesterday.

00:43:27.720 I, like, was texting my team nonstop because the examples of terrible reporting and bad behavior were legion.

00:43:34.320 Here's one from her.

00:43:35.580 Saw 20.

00:43:36.840 I spoke with one man who saw it play out.

00:43:38.800 And that man told me that he did not see anything that he believed suggested that any of those ICE agents were ever in grave danger.

00:43:48.560 Let me walk you through what we're seeing here on the ground right now.

00:43:51.580 There has been a crowd here for several hours in the aftermath of the shooting.

00:43:55.300 People here are very angry.

00:43:58.360 What you're hearing now is, you know, a lot of anger that's being directed toward the Minneapolis Police Department.

00:44:04.900 Okay, Phil, by the way, this is the same woman who decided to cross-examine Nick Shirley on his report on the Minneapolis fraudsters running the daycares.

00:44:15.580 Are you true?

00:44:16.460 Are you true?

00:44:17.380 That was her big Walter Cronkite moment while she was cross-examining Nick Shirley.

00:44:21.920 Do you speak English as your first language, Whitney?

00:44:24.880 Because that's an incomprehensible question.

00:44:27.720 And now she's back saying, well, I spoke with an eyewitness who said he had no grounds to shoot.

00:44:32.180 Oh, well, thank you so much.

00:44:33.460 That's so illuminating.

00:44:34.520 That's terrific.

00:44:35.280 Thanks.

00:44:35.580 You found some rando who's against the cop truly advancing the discussion, CNN.

00:44:39.840 Go ahead, Phil.

00:44:40.820 Yeah, so once again, let's just talk about eyewitnesses.

00:44:44.500 I mean, we've talked about on our MK True Crime show, we've talked about eyewitnesses and the inherent unreliability when they're simply trying to give a recollection of what they saw factually when something occurred in their presence.

00:44:58.900 And it's just oftentimes not reliable.

00:45:00.940 But when these people go so far as to then give the legal analysis in conjunction with it when they have no training or no knowledge or anything about what the law actually says, then it just becomes theater of the absurd.

00:45:14.600 And the fact that you have left-wing media going out and giving these people a voice and allowing them to say this on their air is just more of the echo chamber.

00:45:25.440 And the only thing that that does is it serves to continue to pour gasoline on the flames that are already starting to rise up of civil unrest.

00:45:37.220 And I guess what they want in Minneapolis is I guess they want more George Floyd 2.0 kinds of riots to hit the streets.

00:45:45.500 I think that the politicians there think that that somehow helps their cause, if you will.

00:45:52.100 But I think history will tell us that that's very short-sighted.

00:45:55.100 If you wanted riots, would you behave differently than Mayor Frye is behaving?

00:46:01.600 No, if I wanted riots, I would do exactly what he did.

00:46:04.040 And that's the only conclusion that I can draw from watching him and the governor out there walls as well is that they seem to want and thrive in this type of civil unrest.

00:46:14.440 And I think that's insane.

00:46:15.900 I think it's irrational for any mayor to want that for their community.

00:46:19.500 What they should say, and a rational person would say, even a Democrat, if they were rational, I'm sure that Dave, if he were the governor there, he would say, look, let's just come back.

00:46:28.060 He would handle it well.

00:46:28.860 Let's wait and see what the investigation reveals.

00:46:32.900 Dave's not going to go on there.

00:46:34.160 No other reasonable person is going on there and saying they need to get the fuck out and that they are the ones causing the problems.

00:46:40.880 That would not happen if you had reasonable and rational people at the helm of government in that location.

00:46:46.640 And it's not just the local Democratic governors.

00:46:48.760 It's also the media, Ashley.

00:46:50.800 One of my insane just pulling my hair out moments yesterday was watching MSNBC.

00:46:55.820 Here's Katie Turr, who decided to book the former Minneapolis police chief who was there during the George Floyd saga.

00:47:04.720 Listen to this exchange.

00:47:05.820 SOT 22.

00:47:07.780 Joining us now, former Minneapolis chief of police, Madaria Arradondo.

00:47:13.280 Does this feel like deja vu to you, sir?

00:47:15.420 Oh, you know, first, thank you for having me.

00:47:19.440 You know, sadly, it does.

00:47:22.200 As it's been mentioned by your reporters on the ground, you know, it's been five and a half years and the city is still trying to heal.

00:47:31.360 This feels for many out here in Minneapolis like a fresh wound reopened.

00:47:35.440 Clearly, from Mayor Jacob Fry's press conference today, anger is probably an understatement in terms of how he's feeling.

00:47:44.740 I mean, they're just dumping the kerosene on the fire, Ashley.

00:47:50.520 They really are.

00:47:51.280 And this really needed de-escalation.

00:47:53.020 And you know what's interesting?

00:47:54.220 Listening to Dave's point, listening to your point, Megan, both can be true.

00:47:58.580 Both of these facts could be true.

00:48:00.440 She could have not intended to run over that officer.

00:48:03.480 Like Dave said, he doesn't believe she intended to.

00:48:05.420 And the officer could have believed she'd intended to.

00:48:08.680 Both of those can be true.

00:48:09.680 And if both of those are true, it's still not wrong what he did.

00:48:14.340 And so that's a way that this could be de-escalated, you know?

00:48:17.540 And the local government could accept both of those as true.

00:48:21.060 I mean, we don't have to say we think she was trying to run over that cop.

00:48:23.940 She doesn't have to have been trying to run over that cop.

00:48:26.160 But if he thought she was, that's enough.

00:48:28.720 And it could just stop there.

00:48:29.960 And then we wouldn't have this risk of bringing in the National Guard against the federal troops, you know?

00:48:34.140 I mean, if we just take it down a notch, the local government just takes it down a notch,

00:48:39.100 doesn't equate it to, you know, to awful, horrible shootings from years ago, and just think about it.

00:48:45.100 This could have just been an accident.

00:48:47.440 Bad things happen.

00:48:49.140 People make mistakes.

00:48:50.740 It doesn't mean that the officer did something criminal or did something illegal.

00:48:54.980 It's just that it's a tinderbox, Dave,

00:48:57.400 because the media and the local officials have been disparaging ICE at every turn for months now.

00:49:05.700 They are setting the scene for a violent encounter.

00:49:10.220 I swear, it's like they wanted this to happen.

00:49:14.320 I mean, let me play this one soundbite from CARE.

00:49:17.060 You know, this is the Council Against or whatever for Islamic Relations.

00:49:20.980 It's a pro-Muslim group.

00:49:22.900 And this is their Minnesota director, Jailani Hussain.

00:49:26.780 Listen to this person's reaction to what happened yesterday, 23.

00:49:29.460 I would just say that this young woman is a hero.

00:49:33.500 She's someone who stood up to defend her neighbors and then to lose her life.

00:49:43.000 She's a patriot, a true patriot.

00:49:44.700 And the type of people we need in this country to stand up against police like President Trump

00:49:48.560 and these horrible ICE agents who think that they are above the law, they're not above the law.

00:49:52.860 Great. He'd like dozens more just like her.

00:49:56.640 Other mothers who are now going to leave their children without moms to raise them. 1.00

00:50:00.600 I'm sorry, Dave. That's irresponsible.

00:50:03.240 I agree.

00:50:04.340 I think that when you have a child, you need to be more careful before you're putting yourself in that situation.

00:50:10.560 At the same time, I do think there's shared blame to go around here.

00:50:13.520 I think that, first off, on my side of the aisle, the mayor and the governor,

00:50:17.080 I don't know, since when did it become in fashion now to start throwing F-bombs?

00:50:20.180 I guess that's to replicate Trump.

00:50:22.100 I know.

00:50:22.440 We're trying to outdo Trump, I guess.

00:50:23.760 I don't like that.

00:50:24.380 I can do it on a podcast, but they should not be doing it as officials.

00:50:27.920 Yeah.

00:50:28.160 When I was an elected official, I was a state senator and state attorney.

00:50:30.640 I never did that.

00:50:31.480 And I guess that's what's going on these days is try to show authenticity.

00:50:34.800 I don't agree with it.

00:50:36.200 I do think that part of the reason for the problem is that Trump's policies have been confrontation.

00:50:41.900 I would prefer de-escalation.

00:50:43.340 I do think you throw thousands of ICE agents in Minnesota because you want to own the lives.

00:50:47.460 You're upset about the Somali corruption there. 1.00

00:50:50.180 I do think this is a powder keg, and I just wish people would take down the temperature.

00:50:54.020 As a prosecutor, I will say this just to go back where we're saying I don't want to dismiss

00:50:58.200 the third and fourth shots.

00:50:59.980 Apparently, there was a fourth shot, too.

00:51:02.100 Like I said, I do think the defense is going to wrap all the four shots into one split-second

00:51:07.660 moment, as Phil said, because he and Asher are great lawyers.

00:51:11.040 As a prosecutor, I would be looking at shots three and four because by the time those rounds

00:51:16.140 were fired, the car was already moving past the agent, and the threat, if there was one,

00:51:20.040 was over.

00:51:20.760 So I don't think we should dismiss that outright.

00:51:23.520 Okay.

00:51:24.040 We'll put a pin in it for now because we're going to take a quick break.

00:51:26.500 We're going to come back, and we've got to discuss what happened yesterday with Nick

00:51:30.660 Reiner, Rob's son.

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00:53:29.240 For what matters most.

00:53:30.580 Back with me now, Dave Ehrenberg, Phil Holloway, and Ashley Merchant.

00:53:38.580 They are all lawyers and hosts of the MK True Crime show on the MK Media Podcast Network.

00:53:44.800 Just go check them out.

00:53:46.360 Go to your podcast, type in MK True Crime, or go to YouTube.com and search that, and you

00:53:51.300 will find their great show, which is Crushing It.

00:53:53.620 Before we move on from Minneapolis and over to what happened at the Nick Reiner arraignment

00:54:00.280 yesterday, I would be remiss if I did not give a shout-out to the sign language interpreter

00:54:06.240 who works for Mayor Jacob Frye, because I'm sorry you couldn't miss this woman's performance. 0.95

00:54:13.820 I actually thought it was excellent.

00:54:15.900 She was channeling his emotions, which I think is her job.

00:54:20.180 Just right.

00:54:21.020 You might have missed it, but here, watch.

00:54:23.620 But I do have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE.

00:54:32.900 To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis. 1.00

00:54:37.360 We do not want you here.

00:54:40.360 Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are

00:54:45.340 doing exactly the opposite.

00:54:47.700 People are being hurt.

00:54:50.000 Families are being ripped apart.

00:54:51.660 Long-term Minneapolis residents that have contributed so greatly to our city, to our culture, to our

00:54:59.180 economy are being terrorized, and now somebody is dead.

00:55:02.700 That's on you.

00:55:06.460 And it's all...

00:55:07.580 This woman is badass. 1.00

00:55:09.460 Is she not?

00:55:10.200 I'm sorry.

00:55:11.020 They can make her break you. 1.00

00:55:11.980 She needs a Grammy. 1.00

00:55:13.360 She does.

00:55:14.620 She deserves a special shout-out, because sometimes they're really bad, and we call them out for

00:55:18.340 that, too.

00:55:18.700 The ones who, like, they're too big.

00:55:21.480 And they're...

00:55:21.760 You know, this woman's just channeling the emotion. 1.00

00:55:23.580 If you were hearing impaired, you watched her, you'd know exactly what was being said, and

00:55:28.640 the tone with which it was being said.

00:55:30.060 So hats off to that lady, whoever she is. 1.00

00:55:32.980 Okay, let's head west to California, where Nick Reiner was supposed to be arraigned yesterday,

00:55:39.660 but instead of getting arraigned, we had an attorney withdrawal.

00:55:44.560 Alan Jackson, his high-profile criminal defense attorney, the guy who represented Karen Reed

00:55:49.640 successfully and got her a not guilty last summer, had been hired.

00:55:54.360 We talked about, geez, how can he afford this?

00:55:56.540 I think we all agreed somebody was paying him, because he doesn't do pro bono, even if

00:56:01.520 it's going to be for a lot of attention.

00:56:03.520 And now he bails, saying, actually, it's not going to be me.

00:56:08.760 And he offered a little bit more.

00:56:10.720 He wouldn't say why.

00:56:11.820 He said he was prohibited by ethical rules from explaining why, but he's out.

00:56:15.640 A public defender is in, and he offered the following in SOT 31 on his way out.

00:56:21.400 I'm legally and I'm ethically prohibited from explaining all the reasons why.

00:56:26.220 I know that's a question on everybody's mind.

00:56:28.300 We expect the public defender to step in.

00:56:30.460 They've already been appointed and very capably protect Nick Reiner's interests as he moves

00:56:36.620 forward through the system.

00:56:38.360 But be clear.

00:56:39.860 Be very, very clear about this.

00:56:41.540 My team and I remain deeply, deeply committed to Nick Reiner and to his best interests.

00:56:50.480 What we've learned, and you can take this to the bank, is that pursuant to the laws of

00:56:55.920 this state, pursuant to the law in California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder.

00:57:04.220 Print that.

00:57:05.420 Print that.

00:57:06.320 Okay.

00:57:08.260 I just want to say that, Alan, you can save your righteous indignation for a case that

00:57:14.180 doesn't involve a young man who clearly nearly decapitated his parents.

00:57:18.420 Okay?

00:57:19.220 Because this is not a media problem for your client.

00:57:22.540 It's a, you took a knife and murdered your parents.

00:57:26.260 Loving parents, by all accounts, problem.

00:57:28.860 So just stop with your, oh, the media, print that.

00:57:31.980 Okay.

00:57:32.540 All right.

00:57:33.280 And exit stage left.

00:57:34.620 Goodbye.

00:57:35.240 So I gleaned there, Phil, actually this is for Dave, that he made a distinction between

00:57:42.080 factual innocence and legal innocence.

00:57:44.960 That's why he said pursuant to the law, which I had some friends, multiple actually, send

00:57:50.780 the clip to me, confused.

00:57:52.340 Lay people didn't quite understand.

00:57:54.460 They thought he was actually saying he didn't do it.

00:57:56.760 And that's exactly what he wanted them to think, Dave.

00:57:59.300 Right.

00:58:00.040 All true.

00:58:00.900 We're in total agreement on that.

00:58:02.820 This is a lawyer who is known as a true believer, right?

00:58:05.900 And you can see by his comments, he didn't have to go there.

00:58:08.500 He's not working for them anymore.

00:58:09.880 And yet he had to say, not guilty of murder.

00:58:12.280 Well, okay.

00:58:12.920 If he's legally insane, then he would be not guilty.

00:58:16.320 If it's manslaughter, he would be not guilty of murder.

00:58:18.340 So that's where he's going.

00:58:19.820 As far as why he withdrew, I think Phil, Ashley, and I are all in agreement.

00:58:24.440 We had to do with money.

00:58:25.480 The family out of the estate was apparently paying his fees and they probably decided,

00:58:30.880 you know what?

00:58:31.400 It's not worth it anymore, especially if you hire a pit bull like this who may turn the

00:58:36.880 spotlight on the Reiners, the victims, and perhaps try to accuse them of something untoward.

00:58:42.060 We're not paying for that.

00:58:43.460 So I think that's the reason why he's out.

00:58:45.720 It's because of money.

00:58:46.440 And who is going to drain the family trust down to God knows what, Phil?

00:58:51.660 I mean, this kind of a defense could cost several million dollars.

00:58:56.140 Oh, yeah.

00:58:56.660 I mean, millions and millions of dollars.

00:58:58.200 And look, that type of grandstanding is not my style.

00:59:01.620 I understand other people's might be inclined to do it, particularly when they're on the courthouse

00:59:05.220 steps with the cameras rolling.

00:59:06.800 But that being said, and this is, I said this on your AM update this morning, and to expand

00:59:12.340 on that, look, he would have had to do, there's two reasons.

00:59:15.820 It could have been a conflict of interest or it's going to be money.

00:59:18.380 Those are the two things that come out and make sense to me, theoretically.

00:59:22.620 So he's going to have to do a conflict check going into the case.

00:59:25.780 Before he can take on a client, a lawyer is supposed to make sure they don't have any

00:59:28.840 conflicts of interest that would keep him from taking the case.

00:59:31.700 So presumably he did that.

00:59:34.540 He's no slouch.

00:59:35.380 He would have done that and would have known about a conflict of interest, unless in the

00:59:39.160 unlikely scenario that maybe a conflict arose in the last couple of weeks, which seems unlikely.

00:59:44.900 But he was right there, Johnny on the spot, representing Nick Reiner right after this happens.

00:59:49.860 And so to me, that suggests that there was some money promised that was not delivered for

00:59:56.380 whatever reason.

00:59:56.980 It could be that the heirs of the estate have decided that they don't want, presumably,

01:00:01.540 this is all in a trust.

01:00:02.740 They may be trust beneficiaries and they don't want the corpus of that trust being spent on

01:00:08.160 his defense.

01:00:08.960 And so the heirs may not be in agreement or the money just may not be there.

01:00:12.640 Or for whatever reason, he did not get paid what he was expected to get paid.

01:00:17.140 And so that's why he's out.

01:00:17.480 I mean, we kind of know it was money, don't we, Phil?

01:00:19.360 Because they didn't replace him with another storied defense attorney out in California.

01:00:24.680 They replaced him with a public defender.

01:00:27.300 For now.

01:00:27.740 And there may be a retained lawyer that gets in later.

01:00:29.980 But in the short term, it makes sense for the court to go ahead and have a public defender

01:00:33.780 do the arraignment.

01:00:34.660 And they can always hire another lawyer later.

01:00:36.500 But you remember, Jackson was right there going to the crime scene and all this, having

01:00:40.320 the cameras follow him around right after this happened when it was in the spotlight.

01:00:44.220 And so I'm sure that discussions were had about what my fee is going to be.

01:00:48.820 But then when Mr. Green did not get delivered as agreed, then, you know, suddenly he has

01:00:56.620 to get out.

01:00:57.140 And that's, in my opinion, there's a lot of speculation.

01:01:00.160 It's educated speculation.

01:01:02.080 But I think that's what happened.

01:01:03.980 Oh, yeah.

01:01:04.220 OK.

01:01:04.560 So but what the most interesting thing, because no one really cares about the lawyers, Ashley,

01:01:09.040 but the most interesting thing is the telegraphing of what the defense is going to be.

01:01:13.640 And it seems pretty clear he is telegraphing that he's going to plead not guilty by reason

01:01:18.100 of insanity.

01:01:19.000 Now, I really do want to talk about this because we talked about it when this case first went

01:01:22.680 down and we talked on this program about the insanely high burden to prove that the

01:01:29.760 defense would have to prove it.

01:01:31.100 Usually in a criminal prosecution, the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

01:01:33.660 But if you're going to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, the burden of proof is

01:01:36.420 on you as the defendant.

01:01:37.460 And the and it's so high.

01:01:39.280 It's high in all courts in California.

01:01:40.940 Very, very high.

01:01:41.640 It's we talked about a case in which a guy was like sucking people's blood.

01:01:47.220 He was drink.

01:01:48.000 He drank the blood of a rabbit.

01:01:49.340 Like they were like, no, not.

01:01:51.800 Nope.

01:01:52.200 Not insane enough for us.

01:01:53.520 Not you're guilty.

01:01:55.000 So it's very, very high.

01:01:56.620 But I that was before we learned that he had switched his medication, allegedly, right

01:02:02.340 before the murders and had been going kind of nuts, like his behavior had been escalating.

01:02:07.720 Will that matter that the medication twist?

01:02:10.540 Yes, it actually could matter significantly.

01:02:13.540 And the reason is, as a defense lawyer, you have to make an analysis.

01:02:16.600 You have to really decide if you want to do a self, if you want to do this type of defense,

01:02:20.120 if you want to go forward with a mental health defense.

01:02:22.180 And the reason is, you might end up serving longer in jail than you would otherwise.

01:02:26.380 Let's just say that he got, if he went to trial without a homicide, without this defense,

01:02:30.400 this psych defense, he could get life with the possibility of parole.

01:02:33.280 Well, let's say that he was committed.

01:02:35.200 He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and he was committed.

01:02:37.620 He's not released until he is no longer a danger to himself or others.

01:02:41.980 If it was a medication issue, he could be properly medicated and then he could be released quickly.

01:02:47.500 But if it's one of those issues that actually isn't related to medication, it's very hard.

01:02:51.740 You can't really cure someone.

01:02:53.340 And so then he would be facing a much longer time in prison, potentially the rest of his life.

01:02:57.440 So, you know, normally the decision's not that difficult in a case of this caliber.

01:03:02.000 But if you have a client who's charged with something like, let's say, a theft or a drug case,

01:03:05.300 and they have a mental health defense, a lot of times you don't want to use it

01:03:08.100 because they might actually stay in custody in that actual mental facility far longer than they would

01:03:13.640 if they just pled guilty and did the time.

01:03:15.380 So I think that might have factored in.

01:03:16.900 I also think this mental health defense might factor into why Alan Jackson had to leave

01:03:20.660 because it's not just the lawyer's money.

01:03:22.780 When you're a private attorney, you also have to have money for the experts.

01:03:26.940 And mental health defenses are extremely expensive.

01:03:29.700 And so the family may not have been willing to pony up all that extra money.

01:03:32.720 Or if it's the public defender, the public pays for it.

01:03:35.300 You get court-appointed experts.

01:03:36.840 So that may have also factored into the decision.

01:03:39.240 You know, I don't know, though, Phil.

01:03:41.420 I enjoyed your interview on AM Update this morning.

01:03:44.320 I listened to it as a consumer because Emily Jashinsky does AM Update on Wednesday nights into Thursday.

01:03:48.960 And I thought it was good.

01:03:49.860 You were making very good points about, we didn't discuss the medication specifically,

01:03:53.400 but, you know, they're going to ask whether he knew right from wrong the day of the murders

01:03:57.780 and when doing the murders.

01:03:59.080 And you were making the point that there is plenty of evidence he did, medication or no medication.

01:04:05.820 Yeah, we actually talked about that.

01:04:07.380 I think it may not have made it into the final version of AM Update.

01:04:10.480 But, you know, Ashley's point's correct.

01:04:12.960 You know, he's going to approach this, any lawyer.

01:04:16.100 I say he, it could be a she. 1.00

01:04:17.160 There's a female court-appointed lawyer now. 1.00

01:04:19.880 And whoever the lawyer is, he or she or maybe the group of them, are going to have to pursue two things.

01:04:25.860 Was he, did he know right from wrong?

01:04:28.080 Was he insane at the time this happened, if he's the one that did it?

01:04:31.320 And even if so, is he now presently competent to stand trial?

01:04:35.260 In other words, can he, you know, can he assist in his defense?

01:04:39.360 If he was acutely under the influence of some type of chemicals that caused some type of psychosis at the time,

01:04:46.940 that's not going to excuse him from criminal responsibility.

01:04:51.460 But even if it did, or if there was something else, we have evidence that shows he took steps to hide his behavior

01:04:57.980 and to hide the crime such that he would have known right from wrong.

01:05:02.280 And so that's going to, I think, destroy any insanity defense.

01:05:05.560 Well, I think he kind of went to a hotel, right, and, like, he took, they say, like, shut the blinds

01:05:11.600 and did all these things right in the aftermath to kind of get himself away from it.

01:05:16.940 In other words, it's hiding behavior, and it's the type of thing that shows a consciousness of guilt.

01:05:21.320 But as far as the competency to stand trial, if he's under the influence of drugs to the point that he's just out of his mind.

01:05:27.780 Which, just to be clear, is a different issue.

01:05:29.100 It's a different issue than pleading insanity as your main defense.

01:05:33.120 First, they have to cross the bar of, can you even stand trial, or are you too far gone to even do that?

01:05:38.740 Yeah, they would do both.

01:05:39.920 And if he's under the influence of substances to the point that he can't assist his lawyer, well, that's temporary.

01:05:45.140 You put him in jail, and you remove access to the drugs that he's on, at least the ones that, you know,

01:05:50.760 the illegal drugs that cause psychosis, then that can pass.

01:05:54.200 That can be a temporary kind of situation that resolves by the time he goes to trial.

01:05:58.620 Dave, your thoughts?

01:05:59.260 I would argue that his actions in advance of the murders also shows that he was not legally insane,

01:06:06.660 because he had a heated argument at that party with his parents.

01:06:09.600 So there's the motive.

01:06:10.800 Got in a fight, and he acted on it.

01:06:12.540 So I think, based on what Phil said, which is his attempts to evade afterwards,

01:06:17.240 and his actions beforehand, it shows that he knew the difference between right and wrong.

01:06:21.220 So it's going to be very hard for him to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, much

01:06:25.820 easier for him to be found not competent to stand trial, which is a different standard,

01:06:30.040 as you guys said, which is whether he can assist in his defense and whether he understands

01:06:34.120 the nature of the proceedings in front of him so that the public defender may just try

01:06:38.660 to say he's not competent.

01:06:40.280 Let's send him to the mental institution for years.

01:06:42.620 Well, you get sent off to a mental institution until you're brought back to competence.

01:06:46.620 And in Florida, which I think California is similar, that this could take years.

01:06:50.200 That's why this trial isn't happening anytime soon.

01:06:52.840 And if he's never brought back to competency, then he could be set free at some point.

01:06:58.120 Are the mental institutions to which these folks who are in this situation get sent like

01:07:03.920 a club fed?

01:07:05.160 You know what I mean?

01:07:05.620 Like, can the system be gamed where you're off on like the Martha Stewart type camp where,

01:07:11.180 you know, it's not so bad?

01:07:13.260 They're ugly facilities.

01:07:14.600 You don't want to be there.

01:07:15.600 There is a term they use in the law.

01:07:16.880 It's called malingering, where they decide that you're faking it.

01:07:21.000 And there are people who fake it.

01:07:22.940 But as far as the institutions, no, you don't want to be in these mental institutions.

01:07:26.980 It's not pleasant.

01:07:28.380 No.

01:07:28.520 And they can force medicate you.

01:07:29.740 So let's just say he's not competent and maybe he needs medicine and he doesn't want

01:07:33.460 to take it.

01:07:33.900 They can actually do a hearing to force medicate.

01:07:36.940 So, you know, they hold you down and inject you with psychotropic medication.

01:07:40.040 He is going to be forced to sit for a trial at some point.

01:07:42.780 And I mean, I think we all agree.

01:07:45.200 He's going to go with an insanity defense and he's going to blame this new medication.

01:07:47.780 They have competency school.

01:07:51.140 It's crazy.

01:07:52.100 But they actually, at the mental health facilities, they have what's called competency school.

01:07:55.540 And they will sit people in a classroom and they're like, that's your lawyer.

01:07:58.680 That's a judge.

01:07:59.560 These are how to answer the questions.

01:08:01.020 Here's how to sit there.

01:08:02.080 And they give you so much medication.

01:08:03.880 So, I mean, you're called.

01:08:05.440 Are they trying to get you found competent or are they trying to teach you how to be

01:08:10.120 found incompetent?

01:08:12.000 It's once you've been found incompetent, they're trying to make you competent so that you can

01:08:15.940 sit in court and look competent, really.

01:08:18.700 I mean, they're just trying to get you out of the facility.

01:08:20.720 Yeah.

01:08:20.880 Okay.

01:08:21.140 They just want you out.

01:08:22.240 Well, it doesn't look good for Nick Reiner.

01:08:23.980 But so he hasn't technically been arraigned, right?

01:08:26.260 That's all been postponed given the fact that the lawyer withdrew.

01:08:29.160 Now we've got a public defender and we'll see what the next move is.

01:08:33.080 But I mean, I think it's fair to say it's not looking good for Nick Reiner as of today.

01:08:38.380 Very spirited debate and segment.

01:08:41.060 Thanks, Dave.

01:08:42.200 Sorry if we were too hard on you, but you always keep it interesting.

01:08:44.720 Love you all.

01:08:45.300 Thanks so much for being here.

01:08:46.860 Good to see you.

01:08:47.300 Love the show.

01:08:48.140 Thanks, Megan.

01:08:48.720 Thanks for having us.

01:08:49.400 This was fun.

01:08:49.920 Likewise.

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01:09:13.620 Coming up, a deep dive into the dangers of today's cannabis with Alex Berenson.

01:09:20.740 And he knows of what he speaks.

01:09:22.620 Don't miss this.

01:09:23.400 Been wanting to do this segment for a while.

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01:12:26.220 Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly.

01:12:31.280 I've got some exciting news.

01:12:33.480 I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM.

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01:13:03.300 Now we're going to turn to a topic I've been wanting to get to for a long time, and that

01:13:08.060 is the topic of cannabis, marijuana.

01:13:10.340 Last month, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to reclassify marijuana as a

01:13:15.580 Schedule III substance instead of the Schedule I classification it holds today.

01:13:20.540 That makes it easier to get.

01:13:22.060 The order also called for additional research to be done about the benefits, alleged, of

01:13:27.320 medical marijuana.

01:13:28.560 Well, my next guest has been sounding the alarm on the dangers of today's marijuana for years.

01:13:32.480 Cannabis, in particular, is how he likes to refer to it.

01:13:35.100 His name is Alex Berenson, and he has been right about so much, it's almost scary.

01:13:39.360 He's an independent journalist.

01:13:40.920 He is author of Tell Your Children the Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,

01:13:47.260 and also Unreported Truths on Substack.

01:13:51.340 Alex, it's an honor to have you.

01:13:53.260 Love your reporting.

01:13:54.440 You're literally saving lives with your reporting, and you take so much shit for it.

01:13:58.640 I just deeply, deeply respect you and follow you avidly.

01:14:02.680 You were right about so much during COVID.

01:14:07.320 They banned you.

01:14:08.820 They censored you.

01:14:10.320 They smeared you.

01:14:12.500 And all along, you're trying to save lives.

01:14:14.840 And you've been sounding the alarm on marijuana for a long time now.

01:14:20.180 And when these cases keep coming up of these shooters, and everybody says, what can we do?

01:14:28.480 It's a free country, you know, like people, you can't, like what?

01:14:32.260 Okay, the Republicans say, fortify this off targets, and we need more mental health.

01:14:36.220 And the Democrats say, seize all the guns.

01:14:38.420 And you're over there, jumping up and down, going, hello, hello, hello.

01:14:42.700 I see a common theme in virtually all of these.

01:14:45.760 Would somebody please listen to me?

01:14:47.960 And that is one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on.

01:14:50.620 So you pick it up from there.

01:14:52.720 Well, sure.

01:14:53.240 I mean, so, look, it's interesting, because Tell Your Children came out in 2019, the beginning of 2019.

01:14:59.780 And the left, you know, they jumped it, right?

01:15:02.460 They hated the book.

01:15:03.980 They hated the science.

01:15:05.240 They said I was, you know, I didn't know what I was talking about.

01:15:07.920 I was making things up.

01:15:09.460 I mean, I think the book is its own best evidence.

01:15:12.800 It's, you know, it's an accumulation of studies that were done really over the last 30 years and talking to psychiatrists and talking to people with mental illness and their families about, you know, that cannabis, marijuana, which, you know, a lot of people just use pure THC now.

01:15:30.840 They use vapes, that certainly if you use that over time and if you use a lot of it, and unfortunately, if you start when you're in your teens, your early teens especially, you're at higher risk for developing severe mental illness.

01:15:44.940 Now, there's a lot of other issues around cannabis, but that was the one that I focused on in the book, because to me, that's the one that you, you know, you can't really fix, right?

01:15:55.440 And a permanent psychotic disorder, schizophrenia in particular, that's not something I would wish on anybody.

01:16:02.640 I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

01:16:04.080 It ruins people's lives.

01:16:05.380 It destroys families.

01:16:06.840 It's very difficult societally.

01:16:09.360 So when people talk, well, you know, marijuana, maybe it makes people fat or it makes them lazy or it kind of, you know, ruins their motivation.

01:16:17.740 All those things are pretty clearly true, too.

01:16:20.640 But to me, the problem that has the greatest societal impact is this issue of psychosis.

01:16:26.240 And it's also very, very clear, and I don't think anybody would disagree with this, that psychosis is a risk factor in violence, okay?

01:16:34.640 And it's a risk factor in two particularly bad kinds of violence.

01:16:39.360 The first kind is violence against essentially innocent family members.

01:16:43.500 So people, you know, the crimes where the cops say, we don't understand why this happened, or the neighbors say, we don't understand why this happened.

01:16:50.620 You know, this 18-year-old kid slaughtered his family in their sleep, and we just don't get it.

01:16:57.260 That's almost always psychosis-driven.

01:16:59.440 And when I say almost always, I mean almost always.

01:17:01.760 And so that's one kind.

01:17:05.300 And then the other kind is the kind that you were mentioning at the beginning, which is crimes against strangers.

01:17:11.880 And those can be – they can be stabbings, they can be shootings, but crimes where, once again, it doesn't seem like there's any, like, sense to it.

01:17:19.820 And the reason is there is no sense to it.

01:17:21.560 It's being driven by something inside this person, voices, a feeling that they almost cannot control, even if they know it's wrong.

01:17:30.380 And so there – you know, then there will be a big legal fight afterwards about should this person go to a, you know, a psychiatric forensic hospital for the rest of their lives?

01:17:39.540 Should they be in prison?

01:17:40.360 But it's too late at that point.

01:17:42.120 The damage has been done.

01:17:43.340 So that's what I wrote about in Tell Your Children.

01:17:45.800 And I will say that in the last seven years – and the book came out basically seven years ago to the day – the evidence has only mounted.

01:17:53.380 And I would say even people on the left – and, you know, they probably still think that cannabis should be legal, that THC should be legal.

01:17:59.980 They don't really dispute this anymore.

01:18:01.420 And that's why I'm sort of so upset by what the president did last month because I think there's just so much evidence that this is a mistake societally.

01:18:11.900 And I think, you know, look, this is not his issue.

01:18:14.660 He's got tons of other things to worry about.

01:18:17.300 And he's got some people giving him a lot of money and whispering in his ear, hey, this is not a bad thing.

01:18:22.300 And, you know, it's just not – I doubt that he is up on the ins and outs of this, and it's unfortunate.

01:18:28.800 Yeah, President Trump has never smoked a joint in his life.

01:18:31.820 Exactly.

01:18:33.540 Yeah, he's not a big pot pusher.

01:18:35.580 I'm sure you're right.

01:18:36.220 He's got some constituency that really wanted it.

01:18:38.840 And he figured, like a lot of people do, medical marijuana, that's good.

01:18:42.820 You know, like a lot of people like it.

01:18:44.400 It brings comfort to cancer victims.

01:18:46.580 Why would I not make that easier for suffering people to get?

01:18:50.420 And the answer to that is what?

01:18:51.400 Well, so unfortunately, when you actually look at cannabis and THC in clinical trials, for example, as everybody knows, we've had a terrible opioid epidemic in the United States the last 20 or 25 years.

01:19:05.680 And, you know, people thought, hey, if we legalize cannabis, it will lead to less opioid use.

01:19:12.700 Unfortunately, when you actually study this, you don't see very good substitution.

01:19:17.500 What you see is that people who use cannabis often continue to use opioids.

01:19:21.460 Sometimes they use more opioids.

01:19:23.260 They don't really say that their pain levels have gone down.

01:19:27.860 It turns out that, you know, unfortunately, in general, and this is true of cannabis, it's true of opioids, it's true of other painkillers, getting lasting pain relief from any drug is really difficult to do.

01:19:41.040 Over time, your body adapts to it, and you ultimately oftentimes have just as much pain as you did before, plus you have whatever the negative side effects of the drug use were.

01:19:51.720 And, look, if somebody has cancer and they're a few months from death, if somebody, you know, is terminally ill in some other way, they have ALS, whatever it is they might have, and a little bit of, whether it's cannabis or opioids or something else, is going to relieve their pain, I don't think any of us would deny them that.

01:20:06.960 That is not what the industry is selling to.

01:20:10.600 They're selling to young people.

01:20:12.360 They're selling large amounts of cannabis to people who are physically healthy, usually, at least when they start using.

01:20:18.660 And that's where they make their money.

01:20:20.600 This is all a sideshow.

01:20:21.940 And, you know, one thing, the proof of this, by the way, is that, so the industry, if you look at the stocks, because these are, some of these are publicly traded companies, they went up before the president signed this order telling the DEA to deschedule cannabis, to reschedule it from one to three, as you said.

01:20:38.900 Since then, the stocks have actually gone down.

01:20:41.080 And the reason is that the order actually is crafted in a way the industry doesn't like, because it's so focused on medical marijuana, and people have realized, hey, you know what, because so much of our sales are just recreational, this doesn't actually help us that much.

01:20:55.320 Good.

01:20:56.060 So the medical marijuana thing, it is, I take your point that it's really maybe, it may not be helping people as much as they represent to us.

01:21:05.600 But I did see something interesting about young people recently, and it seems directly linked to this.

01:21:09.860 The alcohol sales, present day, especially for young people, but across the board, are way down.

01:21:19.100 They're lower than they've been in decades.

01:21:21.820 And that's the good news.

01:21:23.900 Nobody would say alcohol is good for you.

01:21:26.420 Though it can be a social lubricant in that way, it is good for very introverted people.

01:21:31.100 Okay, whatever.

01:21:32.720 But the cannabis sales may be replacing that.

01:21:35.980 I didn't see a, like, corresponding chart, but the concern is that a lot of those young people in particular are instead turning to, like, gummies.

01:21:43.520 And that's not good news.

01:21:46.340 No, it's not.

01:21:47.980 And this idea that cannabis is way safer than alcohol is demonstrably untrue.

01:21:52.520 So here's what I say.

01:21:54.000 People say in the cannabis business, well, nobody ever died of smoking too much pot.

01:21:58.860 And it is true. 0.71

01:21:59.940 Nobody ever died or, you know, maybe there's a case of, you know, a five-year-old who ate a ton of gummies and had a seizure and died.

01:22:06.380 It's very rare.

01:22:07.360 We'd all agree about that.

01:22:08.840 Okay?

01:22:09.120 Whereas if you drink too much alcohol, your liver can fail.

01:22:12.100 You can die.

01:22:13.320 But that does not mean that cannabis overall isn't dangerous.

01:22:16.920 And it's dangerous in some of the same ways that alcohol is, meaning it can cause traffic accidents.

01:22:23.680 It causes violence, as we said.

01:22:25.040 It's associated with high risk of suicide.

01:22:28.000 It's associated with mental illness.

01:22:29.780 It also, increasingly, people are realizing cardiologists have done a lot of work.

01:22:35.300 It's associated with heart attacks, believe it or not.

01:22:38.640 And one reason we haven't seen that as much as we would have, as much as we have, well, we've seen some of it.

01:22:45.860 We're likely to see more of it.

01:22:47.340 But the reason kids and young people are obviously very low risk from heart attacks.

01:22:52.640 But it does increase that risk, it seems to.

01:22:55.780 So cannabis is not risk-free.

01:22:58.140 I would say overall it's kind of, if you look at all the risks together, it's roughly the same physical and psychiatric risk as alcohol.

01:23:05.860 So then people say, well, okay, but alcohol is legal, cannabis isn't.

01:23:10.560 And to me, that is the best argument for legalizing cannabis.

01:23:14.720 But it's not a good enough one, and here's why.

01:23:17.020 We don't have to legalize cannabis.

01:23:18.620 We're choosing to do this.

01:23:20.260 The U.S. and Canada are basically the two countries that have chosen to do this.

01:23:24.220 The rest of the world is not following along.

01:23:26.920 And even a country like Germany, where they did move, actually, to legalize, they've now moved away from that.

01:23:33.460 Netherlands and Amsterdam, same thing.

01:23:35.260 They are not moving further around or further down the drug legalization road.

01:23:41.840 Well, how can you say that it's the same danger as alcohol?

01:23:45.120 Because alcohol, you can have three glasses of wine over the course of a week, and you don't have any risk of psychosis.

01:23:54.140 Or, you know, like that, I don't, it seems like there are millions of Americans who drink alcohol and they don't have any of those issues.

01:24:01.360 I really do try to be fair about this.

01:24:02.660 The equivalent of that would be somebody who, let's say, takes one small gummy a week or, you know, a couple a week to try to sleep.

01:24:12.580 If that's your only use of cannabis, are your risks of becoming psychotic very low?

01:24:19.660 Yes, they're very low.

01:24:20.640 They're not zero, but they're very low.

01:24:22.440 The problem is cannabis is addictive.

01:24:24.220 Okay?

01:24:24.560 Cannabis is addictive.

01:24:25.560 The evidence actually is that it's more psychologically addictive than alcohol, less physically addictive, more psychologically addictive.

01:24:32.680 So when we open this to 18-year-olds and we say it's medicine, that encourages them to use in a way that gets them in trouble.

01:24:41.760 I mean, look, almost any drug, if you use it just once in your life, the risks of terrible side effects are low.

01:24:50.120 I mean, obviously, fentanyl and some of the opioids, that's less true.

01:24:54.080 But the problem isn't the person who's able to use once or a handful of times and stop.

01:25:00.380 The problem is that drugs have their own logic.

01:25:04.260 Okay?

01:25:04.620 And that's true of cannabis.

01:25:06.200 It's true of alcohol.

01:25:07.600 It's true of other drugs.

01:25:08.720 And that logic is one word, Megan.

01:25:11.600 It's more.

01:25:12.180 And so as a society, when we think about drug use, we have to think about discouraging drug use across the board.

01:25:20.600 And when we legalize cannabis, we're doing exactly the opposite of that.

01:25:24.940 And I don't think it's a coincidence that the U.S. and Canada, which are, again, the two countries where this movement has gone the furthest, are the two countries that have the worst problem with opioids.

01:25:33.700 I think there's a bigger issue here that I would like to write another book about, and I'm searching to find the time to do that, which is just about sort of the U.S. attitude in general towards drug use and drug abuse.

01:25:45.560 And I think we are on a horrible path.

01:25:49.060 Can you talk about the amount of THC that's in your average joint now versus in 1975?

01:25:57.600 Sure.

01:25:57.980 This is a great point.

01:25:58.760 So 50 years ago, if you smoked a joint, it had a few milligrams of THC in it.

01:26:05.560 Now it might have 100 milligrams of THC in it.

01:26:08.140 The reason is that the industry has gotten really, really good at making what they call flour, herbal cannabis, a lot stronger.

01:26:17.680 So it used to be, let's say, 1% to 3% THC.

01:26:20.900 Now you couldn't sell that in a store.

01:26:22.720 You'd be laughed out of the store.

01:26:24.600 It's mostly 20% to 30% THC.

01:26:27.200 But it's not like joints have gotten smaller.

01:26:29.700 So it's just much, much easier to consume a ton of THC than it used to be.

01:26:34.760 The other issue is that a lot of people don't even use flour cannabis anymore.

01:26:39.940 They just vape. 0.99

01:26:41.160 So that's basically just ingesting a chemical, either inhaling it, eating it in a brownie, possibly literally putting a little tincture on your tongue.

01:26:50.640 That's just pure THC.

01:26:52.340 And the idea, one of the things that people who use cannabis say is, oh, it's a plant.

01:26:56.780 It's natural.

01:26:57.640 This stuff is no more natural than anything else that comes out of a lab.

01:27:00.780 It's extracted from the plant.

01:27:03.540 And it's, in some cases, actually, it's chemically altered in the extraction.

01:27:09.540 So the idea that this is a natural substance is not true either.

01:27:14.020 So I want to graduate to psychosis in a minute, but let's start first with it just turns you into an utter loser, which is not articulately put, but you've been making this case for a while.

01:27:25.800 I mean, I have, and look, I don't know if you have anybody in your life.

01:27:30.340 I have people in my life, okay, who went to college, who graduated, who lives seem to be on a path of getting a job, getting married, having kids.

01:27:42.080 Some of those people, essentially, their lives ended in their mid-20s, right?

01:27:47.160 So now, unfortunately, I'm in my 50s.

01:27:49.720 They're in their 50s.

01:27:50.940 These people don't work.

01:27:52.760 They, you know, they worked for a few years into their, you know, 30s.

01:27:56.480 Maybe they saved some money.

01:27:57.660 Maybe they worked on Wall Street.

01:27:59.400 Maybe they just live sort of, you know, low to the ground and don't have big expenses.

01:28:03.700 They're not married.

01:28:05.200 They certainly don't have kids.

01:28:07.100 And pot, you know, has been the focus of their lives for decades.

01:28:11.700 And even if they're not psychotic, they're difficult to deal with because basically they're sort of oddly oriented towards the world at this point.

01:28:20.960 And their lives don't seem to have gone anywhere.

01:28:24.000 And it's actually very depressing and distressing to see.

01:28:27.320 And so, I mean, again, I can think of not one.

01:28:29.960 I can think of several people who I know who went this path.

01:28:34.140 And I suspect you can too.

01:28:35.880 And I suspect everyone in your audience can.

01:28:38.460 And by the way, this is one reason to me that cannabis is more insidious and arguably more dangerous than alcohol.

01:28:44.180 If you drink enough to mess up your life, you know it, right?

01:28:48.560 You have physical withdrawal symptoms.

01:28:51.420 You smell bad because you've been drinking too much.

01:28:54.700 You put on weight.

01:28:56.380 You know, large levels of alcohol are not good for you.

01:28:58.880 If you smoke pot all the time, you know, you wake and bake.

01:29:02.520 You spend your days getting high because it's not as physically damaging.

01:29:06.520 You can sort of convince yourself, oh, this is just my lifestyle and my choice.

01:29:09.620 I like living this way.

01:29:11.140 And you're not actually, like, forced to confront what it is you're doing to yourself.

01:29:16.720 Mm-hmm.

01:29:17.980 I don't have anybody like that in my life.

01:29:20.220 I'm glad you hear that.

01:29:20.980 But I do recall distinctly when I was in my—

01:29:21.880 Maybe your friends are better than mine.

01:29:23.680 They're healthy.

01:29:24.260 You know, I'm very anti-drug.

01:29:26.360 I do drink alcohol, and I realize this is a drug.

01:29:28.960 But my mother just did a very good job of really stigmatizing anything beyond alcohol for me, which was a gift.

01:29:35.620 But I do recall in my late 20s going on a ski trip with a good friend of mine and a couple girls I knew from college, and one of their boyfriends—this is out in, like, Vail—was such a pothead.

01:29:47.400 I couldn't believe how addicted he was to it.

01:29:51.480 I mean, he couldn't go a half an hour without having another hit, and it was so disruptive to his life.

01:29:58.420 And as a result to our whole trip out there, like, you'd get into the gondola, he'd have to light something up.

01:30:03.600 You'd get to the bottom of the ski run, he'd have to have another—it was like, I had no idea until that moment how addictive it could be.

01:30:10.700 Right.

01:30:11.120 And yet, you know, he was presumably presenting it to himself and to his girlfriend and to all of you.

01:30:15.820 I just like getting high.

01:30:18.100 Yeah, and when you're in your 20s, it's kind of like there's not a big stigma with that.

01:30:21.820 You know, everybody's kind of like, yeah, whatever.

01:30:23.380 You haven't read Alex's book, and you think it's harmless, and it's not, which leads me to the second point, and that's the psychosis.

01:30:30.700 A couple of years ago, I had on this wonderful man named Roland Griffiths, and Roland created the clinic at Johns Hopkins University testing, like, psychedelics, you know, mushrooms.

01:30:44.100 And MDNA—I always screw up the letters—but, you know, the actual, like, shrooms that people are taking now for these trips. 0.79

01:30:51.800 And they're doing it there in a controlled setting, in a way to treat depression, to help cancer patients who are just, like, terminal, to feel better about what's next, you know, on the other side.

01:31:02.820 And it's really—they were having wonderful results.

01:31:04.700 And then it was very sad because Roland himself got colon cancer and died.

01:31:08.680 And I had him on when he knew that was going to happen.

01:31:10.740 It was a very emotional interview.

01:31:12.380 Anyway, my point in telling you this is he said they screen so carefully for anybody who wants to join the program for any history at any level of schizophrenia in your family.

01:31:21.460 Because if it's—if you have it back three generations, just like one grandma, you have a much higher likelihood of having a psychotic break during the doctor-controlled segment from which you never return.

01:31:37.580 I—like, that's the part that never—I never forgot.

01:31:40.040 You break—you never come back.

01:31:42.740 And you seem to be saying you've seen evidence of this with regular old pot, too.

01:31:48.180 So, yes.

01:31:49.820 So, here's the thing.

01:31:52.760 The psychedelics, obviously, they're designed to produce a psychosis-like experience.

01:31:57.780 Cannabis isn't exactly designed to do that.

01:32:00.960 But in many people, and particularly with this higher strength, you know, higher in THC, more potent cannabis that we were just talking about, it can do this.

01:32:11.700 And here's who's vulnerable.

01:32:13.440 If you have any, you know, sort of preexisting psychiatric illness, if you have any psychiatric illness, certainly if you have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in your family, if you use in your early teens, in your mid-teens, and if you use heavily.

01:32:29.820 If you're in those categories and if they overlap, you are at surprisingly high risk, certainly to have intermittent psychotic episodes as a result of using cannabis.

01:32:42.940 And, again, psychosis is a break from reality.

01:32:45.400 So, it could be you're hearing voices shouting at you.

01:32:48.060 It could be you're hallucinating and visualizing, you know, stuff that's not there.

01:32:53.240 That's more rare for cannabis than it is for the psychedelics, but it can happen.

01:32:56.940 It could just be, and this is actually the most dangerous, both for the person and the people around him, that you're having these very, very negative thoughts of, oh, you know, my mother is not actually my mother anymore.

01:33:11.320 A robot has replaced her.

01:33:13.840 Or my friend is actually a covert police officer.

01:33:23.540 Anything like that is extremely dangerous.

01:33:26.940 So, those thoughts are what THC use can produce in people.

01:33:36.480 And if you ever have that happen to you, even once, you should never use again.

01:33:41.480 But the problem is the industry, and this was part of their strategy to get cannabis legalized, promotes cannabis as medicine.

01:33:49.880 So, who are they selling it to a lot of times?

01:33:51.460 They're selling to people with sleep disorders or people with anxiety or people with depression, the exact people who should not be using this stuff.

01:33:59.560 My position on cannabis is if we want to legalize it, I'm not in favor of legalizing it, but let's legalize it like alcohol.

01:34:06.340 Where it is something that we're going to use recreationally to get high, to have a good time.

01:34:15.140 You know, I mean, it's not a very good social lubricant, but let's use it that way.

01:34:19.700 Instead, the industry sells it as a medicine, and that encourages exactly the wrong people to use it.

01:34:26.460 And some of those people will get psychotic.

01:34:29.040 And if they continue to use, they have what epidemiologists call very high rate ratios.

01:34:36.700 But what that means is your risk of becoming permanently psychotically ill, of developing schizophrenia, is really high.

01:34:44.820 Okay, so that leads me to Nick Reiner, which is the man we discussed right before you came on with our legal panel.

01:34:52.540 Here he is in 2018 on the Dopey podcast, Smoking Weed.

01:34:58.220 Listen here.

01:35:00.160 I said, I'm not doing dope.

01:35:02.180 So what are you doing?

01:35:02.840 You just asked me.

01:35:03.540 What are you doing?

01:35:05.640 Oh, well, I'm smoking a little weed, taking a little Adderall.

01:35:13.320 Okay.

01:35:13.640 So that's what everybody's doing.

01:35:15.640 So answer the question.

01:35:17.080 You smoke weed to chill, basically, right?

01:35:21.620 Yeah, but I get out of it when anybody else gets out of doing any drug.

01:35:26.720 It's, yeah.

01:35:28.380 It's like, why does anybody do any drug?

01:35:30.640 But I'm just smoking weed to prevent myself from doing any other sort of hard thing right now.

01:35:37.780 Right, it's taking the spot.

01:35:39.760 It's a preventative measure.

01:35:42.360 Very interesting.

01:35:43.220 That he's using it like an opioid addict might use Suboxone, like this is my gateway drug out of my opioid addiction.

01:35:51.180 I mean, I'm so glad, you know, that clip should be played in every high school, in every junior high school in the country, right?

01:36:01.240 Because you hear it all there.

01:36:02.800 First of all, he's essentially saying, oh, you know, weed, cannabis, CT.

01:36:07.320 It's not a drug for me.

01:36:08.480 It's something I'm using to avoid other drugs.

01:36:10.260 He also throws an Adderall in there, which, you know, Adderall is not methamphetamine.

01:36:15.540 It's amphetamine.

01:36:16.920 It's a very powerful stimulant.

01:36:18.940 So we have this guy who is a drug addict who would say he's an addict, who would acknowledge that he can't use opioids and that methamphetamine has been a big problem for him in the past, too, is telling this group casually, oh, I use amphetamines.

01:36:35.420 I use cannabis, and somehow that's okay.

01:36:39.060 I've exempted those in my own mind, and they're actually good for me.

01:36:43.080 This is denial on an individual level, and it's the same denial that we have on a societal level.

01:36:49.960 And we really have to, you know, whether it's you, whether it's me, but parents have to and schools have to.

01:36:58.940 And, you know, the president, obviously, again, this issue is not top of mind for him.

01:37:02.240 We have to, as a society, say this is not a good way to do business.

01:37:07.080 This is not good for our kids.

01:37:08.980 It's not good for society.

01:37:11.120 It's not good for anyone.

01:37:12.620 And we're not going to allow ourselves to make these excuses about drug use.

01:37:17.160 It's not harmless.

01:37:19.560 This is not harmless at all.

01:37:21.200 It's the opposite of harmless.

01:37:22.780 And if you want to use it, don't pretend that it's for your ADHD or for your anxiety.

01:37:27.680 Just say, I like getting high.

01:37:29.120 You know, it's fun to be high, and I'm going to take a risk with it.

01:37:32.100 I mean, again, that would be, that's a bad idea, but it's better than where we are right now.

01:37:38.040 Yeah.

01:37:38.680 The other case, and we could be here all day talking about the cases of violence where we later found out that the young man, in virtually all cases, was a huge fan of cannabis.

01:37:50.680 But the one that comes to mind is the shooter in the Minneapolis school shooting that happened just this past year where he shot the children in the church connected to the school.

01:38:03.040 And then his videos, this is a man pretending to be a woman.

01:38:07.140 He declared himself to be trans.

01:38:09.600 But it also came out how addicted he was to marijuana.

01:38:13.500 And he posted these videos of himself as a demon.

01:38:16.620 And you can see the smoke.

01:38:17.900 We have it here.

01:38:19.200 This is him filming his own manifesto.

01:38:22.280 And you can see for the listening audience, him blowing smoke.

01:38:25.460 And he's talking about how he's smoking pot while he's, you know, doing some of these videos that there were lots of them.

01:38:33.840 And then we saw the demonic stuff.

01:38:35.620 And you were jumping up and down on this one.

01:38:37.840 The Dallas ice shooter, that didn't get as much attention because it was a few days after the Minneapolis case.

01:38:44.420 That guy was a heavy pot user.

01:38:49.600 A lot of people don't know that Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, was a heavy, heavy cannabis user.

01:38:56.040 I think he was also using Adderall.

01:38:58.000 The cannabis-Adderall combination is a nasty combination because both those drugs can produce psychosis individually.

01:39:05.140 And they're pretty additive because, you know, pot, the one good thing about it from a violence point of view is it tends to knock people down a little bit.

01:39:12.900 It makes you, you know, sleepy and lazy.

01:39:14.880 But, of course, amphetamines have the opposite effect.

01:39:19.140 You know, we'll see with Reiner.

01:39:20.780 But it seems clear from what has come out with him that, you know, his lawyer, who's now left the case because I think he, you know, I think the family does not want to pay millions of dollars for a defense lawyer when they're pretty angry, obviously, at Nick Reiner and what he allegedly did.

01:39:38.280 But the lawyer appeared to be setting up a drug, I'm sorry, a mental illness defense.

01:39:44.840 Definitely.

01:39:45.260 And so one of the things that I think actually got us talking about this, you and me, was this idea that that defense, then the prosecution has to openly say, hey, this is not organic mental illness.

01:39:57.340 This is not organic schizophrenia.

01:39:58.740 This was caused by the drugs Nick Reiner was taking.

01:40:02.380 And if the trial does go that way, I think a lot of Americans for the first time are going to be presented with a cannabis psychosis violence connection for the first time.

01:40:12.480 They're really going to see it.

01:40:13.680 But, yes, there are many, many of these cases.

01:40:17.280 And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of them are very hard to read about because, again, often the violence is against, you know, it's against somebody's parents.

01:40:26.960 Or worse, the worst of all is when it's against children.

01:40:29.460 And so I think our tendency as a society is just to turn away and say, well, this person was just crazy or this person was just evil and not to realize that we have opened up, you know, sort of the gates on this by encouraging cannabis use by vulnerable people.

01:40:46.300 And, you know, what else, because we scratch our heads and we say, why, why, why do we see so many school shootings now, so many mass shootings now?

01:40:53.760 And, you know, without even knowing who did the shooting in in ninety five percent of the cases, you can tell it's going to be a young man between the ages of 18 and 25 who probably didn't have too terrible childhood, but had some sort of a psychotic break.

01:41:08.500 I mean, you can kind of take it to the bank.

01:41:10.540 And no one's talking about this, Alex.

01:41:12.760 Nobody's saying like maybe they're a little older.

01:41:15.000 Or, you know, I can tell you this, when whenever there's a woman and it is very rare that it's a woman, I don't mean a trans woman, I mean, you know, an actual woman.

01:41:23.640 It's even more likely because women, as a rule, don't commit that kind of violence. 1.00

01:41:28.020 So there's almost always psychosis involved.

01:41:31.180 No one's talking about the fact that what else has happened during this time that we've seen these school shootings and these mass shootings rise, that the increase of THC in in marijuana and the increased use of cannabis in gummies and in cigarettes.

01:41:45.000 Whatever, all of it in vaping.

01:41:46.960 And on top of it, the Adderall is interesting because we've seen ADHD or at least, you know, diagnoses of it skyrocket, which almost always comes with a possible prescription for Adderall.

01:41:58.380 And I'll bet you most parents have no idea that if they put their kid on Adderall, they need to be really careful about making sure he does not or she does not also get into pot.

01:42:08.880 I mean, I think I think unfortunately most parents or a lot of parents, too many parents who turn to Adderall or Vyvanse or any of the ADHD, the stimulant drugs, don't realize that what they're giving their kids is amphetamine.

01:42:21.620 And, you know, it's either amphetamine or something so chemically close that it might as well be amphetamine.

01:42:27.320 And I just I mean, other countries don't do this, Megan.

01:42:30.440 In France, the prescription rate of amphetamine is about one thirtieth of what it is in the U.S.

01:42:38.080 And again, it's not because these aren't rich countries, not because they don't have access to health care.

01:42:42.160 They just don't have a societal compulsion to give people amphetamine, to give kids amphetamine. 0.84

01:42:49.480 And I'll tell you something else about this.

01:42:50.980 There's a great book called Dope Sick.

01:42:53.380 And, you know, we've not really talked about opioids, which is the other terrible crisis in this country.

01:42:58.520 But Dope Sick is about the opioid epidemic in, you know, in southwestern Virginia and West Virginia.

01:43:05.020 You know, it's about 10 years old, but still a very good book.

01:43:08.320 And one of the things as you read Dope Sick is the woman who wrote it says, well, this child started with, you know, an ADHD diagnosis.

01:43:16.740 This child started with Adderall.

01:43:18.520 This child started with Vyvanse.

01:43:19.920 And here's the thing.

01:43:21.200 If you tell a 10-year-old, hey, you know what, like, yeah, you're not behaving great.

01:43:26.080 The solution to your behavioral problems is this drug.

01:43:29.860 And by the way, it may pep you up.

01:43:31.260 It may give you a little more energy, but it'll also give you more focus.

01:43:33.480 What you're telling that child is the answer to your problems comes in a pill.

01:43:39.260 And so what do you think that child's going to do five years later when they're at some party and some friend of theirs is like, hey, I've got some, you know, I've got some Xanax or I've got some Vicodin.

01:43:49.220 Yeah, and they're feeling maybe socially awkward.

01:43:51.100 Why don't you try? You'll feel good.

01:43:52.060 We've told kids this is the answer to their problems.

01:43:55.540 And then they take drugs.

01:43:56.960 I got it.

01:43:57.280 I mean, it's our fault.

01:43:58.360 I got to run.

01:43:59.440 My apologies, Alex.

01:44:00.220 I got to run.

01:44:00.740 But I loved this discussion.

01:44:02.140 And please come back.

01:44:03.540 And when you do.

01:44:05.220 You and I can be the old, uncool people talking about this.

01:44:08.380 I'm glad to.

01:44:09.900 Happy to.

01:44:10.700 Anytime.

01:44:11.360 All the best to you.

01:44:11.980 Thanks for everything you do.

01:44:13.360 We're back tomorrow with Link Lauren and Jesse Kelly.

01:44:15.820 We'll see you then.

01:44:16.320 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:44:20.840 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:44:30.140 Olivia loves a challenge.

01:44:32.460 It's why she lifts heavy weights. 1.00

01:44:34.980 And likes complicated recipes.

01:44:37.080 But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

01:44:42.100 She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

01:44:45.040 Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

01:44:50.540 You were made to take the easy route.

01:44:53.240 We were made to easily package your trip.

01:44:55.920 Expedia.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - January 08, 2026

The Truth About the ICE Shooting in MN, and Dangers of Marijuana, with Dave Aronberg, Phil Holloway, Ashleigh Merchant, and Alex Berenson ｜ Ep. 1226

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