Trump Makes Greenland Case in Davos, and Explosive New Busfield Details, with RealClearPolitics, Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis | Ep. 1235
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
179.79796
Summary
The judge overseeing Timothy Busfield's alleged child sex abuse case releases him from jail pending trial, and new evidence emerges about the parents of the boys who are making the accusation against their ex-husband. President Donald Trump delivers a blistering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos mocking other world leaders, and the White House says it will not use force to take over Greenland.
Transcript
00:00:00.860
Packages by Expedia. You were made to occasionally take the hard route to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
00:00:08.220
We were made to easily bundle your trip. Expedia. Made to travel.
00:00:14.720
At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health.
00:00:22.580
That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body check-up
00:00:27.320
that provides a clear picture of your health today.
00:00:30.000
And may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer.
00:00:36.820
Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today.
00:00:47.540
Live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:01:00.580
Today on the program, a can't-miss legal panel.
00:01:02.760
I mean, we have a lot to go over with the legal panel in our second hour.
00:01:05.940
The judge overseeing Timothy Busfield's alleged child sex abuse case,
00:01:13.800
We'll do a deep dive on the new evidence that has emerged
00:01:16.900
about the parents of the children who are making the accusation.
00:01:25.620
The defense lawyers got up there yesterday and said these parents,
00:01:28.920
they're not just like fraudsters, they're actual con men.
00:01:32.800
And I have to tell you, they're right from what I've seen, in my opinion.
00:01:37.540
That doesn't mean the boys are necessarily lying.
00:01:40.120
You cannot attribute the parents' fraud to the two children.
00:01:44.680
But this is a devastating development for the prosecution.
00:01:49.400
These parents, the father is a convicted fraudster.
00:01:58.020
These are bad, bad, bad facts for the prosecution.
00:02:03.240
And there are other issues that have come up with the case.
00:02:05.260
And we'll take a fair look at it, as we always do.
00:02:10.160
And boy, do they have their hands full with what's happening in Minnesota as well today.
00:02:13.580
First, though, President Donald Trump once again shows up at the World Economic Forum in Davos
00:02:28.500
He spared no one, not even the leaders of Switzerland, which is where the conference is.
00:02:40.100
And you over there in the back, what are you laughing at?
00:02:43.580
The main headline of the speech was the president, for the first time, explicitly saying
00:02:48.240
that America will not use force to take Greenland.
00:02:57.660
But he says that in order to defend Greenland, which he says Greenland must have a defense,
00:03:10.640
You probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we
00:03:26.680
That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force.
00:03:34.220
All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.
00:03:39.440
And all we're asking for is to get Greenland, including right title and ownership, because
00:03:51.500
Number one, legally, it's not defensible that way, totally.
00:03:58.040
And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement?
00:04:08.660
I have so many great soundbites that I want to show you.
00:04:13.640
Tom Bevin, Carl Cannon and Andrew Walworth watched it there with Real Clear Politics and
00:04:18.000
also on the Megyn Kelly channel on Sirius XM Live every morning at 11 a.m. Eastern.
00:04:29.280
You settle in, even though deep down, you know, this is not how it's supposed to be.
00:04:32.880
Well, that is what daily aches and pains can feel like.
00:04:37.440
You start thinking, maybe this is just my life now, but it doesn't have to be.
00:04:41.840
With Relief Factor, you can break up with pain just like Anthony did.
00:04:45.500
He wrote, quote, I was dealing with debilitating pain and fatigue.
00:04:48.940
I've been taking Relief Factor for about two months, and now I'm back to running my business,
00:04:52.960
fishing, gardening, doing the things that really matter to me.
00:04:56.480
And listen, maybe it's your back pain, knee issues, or stiffness that's slowing you down.
00:05:01.660
Well, Relief Factor may help give you your mobility back.
00:05:05.480
Relief Factor is 100% drug-free, and it targets the inflammation that causes pain.
00:05:09.740
So you can move better, you can feel better, and actually enjoy your life again.
00:05:14.280
Try the three-week quick start for just $19.95.
00:05:16.420
Go to ReliefFactor.com or call 800-4, the number 4, Relief, 800-4-RELIEF.
00:05:23.440
Break up with pain and get back to what matters.
00:05:30.940
I thought the president was highly entertaining today.
00:05:34.900
And to me, this is like Trump in full flourish.
00:05:38.680
This is the guy who at the, I don't know, it was like one of those economic summits first term,
00:05:44.500
and he grabbed the guy from Montenegro and shoved him, shoved him to the back
00:05:48.880
because the United States president wanted to be in the front row.
00:05:55.520
Like, you over there, you wouldn't even exist if it weren't for us.
00:05:58.820
And you'd be speaking German if it weren't for us.
00:06:11.280
And I have to say, I think I'm in the minority right now, but not for long.
00:06:17.540
I'm not so big on the Venezuela thing, and I certainly don't want to invade Iran.
00:06:23.660
But your thoughts overall, Tom, to kick it off on where we are and that soundbite in particular.
00:06:31.600
And I did not see his press conference yesterday.
00:06:42.060
I mean, he always goes off script to a certain degree, right?
00:06:44.020
But he did, he explained the rationale for why it's important for not just the United
00:06:50.300
States, but also Canada, which he took a shot at Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada
00:06:57.520
And he also said, and I thought this was interesting that, you know, when he was talking about Europe,
00:07:05.720
His, you know, we want you to be strong so you can defend yourself.
00:07:11.240
And in order to do that, you have to change these policies that you've had in place for
00:07:14.600
40 years that have weakened you as countries, mass immigration and energy being the two specific
00:07:21.140
But on Greenland, he did, he did explain sort of the rationale for it.
00:07:24.560
Now, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, I think it's clear, though, that Trump
00:07:27.900
sees this as a matter of national security interest for the United States moving forward.
00:07:34.600
And I was going to say urgently, and maybe it's not urgent, but I think to Trump, it is.
00:07:39.340
I mean, he's only got a couple more years left in office.
00:07:41.580
And he sees this as part of, I think, his legacy in terms of defending the United States.
00:07:47.980
And he talked about the Golden Dome and all that.
00:07:49.620
So it definitely was, I think, classic Trump and fairly entertaining stuff from him.
00:07:57.280
Here's a little bit more of what he said on Greenland on explaining why he wants it.
00:08:01.160
Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland?
00:08:06.900
I was going to leave it out of the speech, but I thought, I think I would have been reviewed
00:08:14.800
I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark.
00:08:22.460
But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory.
00:08:27.140
And the fact is, no nation or a group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland
00:08:48.960
And this to get to this rare earth, you got to go through hundreds of feet of ice.
00:08:57.260
We need it for strategic national security and international security.
00:09:04.100
And that's the reason I'm seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition
00:09:15.660
So we want a piece of ice for world protection.
00:09:39.680
So, Carl, he's putting it online saying we want it.
00:09:46.640
It's for national and international strategic and security reasons.
00:09:51.100
And the real explanation around this has been, you know, if you look at Greenland on a map,
00:09:56.900
you will see that thanks to global warming, we've had the entire sort of ice sheath around it melt away.
00:10:04.580
And it's far more accessible by people like Russia and China than it ever was before.
00:10:10.780
And if you pursue Trump's reasoning on the Monroe Doctrine, not in our hemisphere, that was coined by our fifth president,
00:10:18.740
that we're responsible for what happens in our hemisphere, which Greenland is.
00:10:22.060
And this one's been exposed in a way it wasn't 30 years ago, and that we actually have to take responsibility for it.
00:10:28.860
Because it's, you know, it's right above our evil top hat, Canada, and also to the right a little.
00:10:42.140
I don't think it has anything to do with national security.
00:10:45.340
And I don't even think it's because of all the minerals.
00:10:48.260
I think Donald Trump wants a feather in his cap.
00:10:56.600
I think he wants Greenland because he, for the same reasons he renamed the Kennedy Center after himself.
00:11:06.460
And this, but this thing, Megan, you know, Tom and Andy, I don't think, feel strongly about this as I do.
00:11:13.840
I don't think they agree with me at all, actually.
00:11:15.520
But this idea that you go, you ridicule these people or shame them or threaten them because we liberated Europe from the Nazis.
00:11:28.860
We shouldn't forget that, liberating Europe from the Nazis as well.
00:11:32.600
But it sets on its head Americans' idea of itself in the world.
00:11:40.080
It was General Mark W. Clark, World War II general, who said, you know, pointed out, we didn't go to Europe for conquest.
00:11:46.620
We went there to free these people from Nazi tyranny and protect the world, protect ourselves.
00:11:52.740
And he said, and all we ever asked for was a place to bury our dead.
00:11:58.800
If you Google it, people Google will tell you Colin Powell said it.
00:12:02.040
But he was actually quoting Mark Clark, General Clark.
00:12:07.680
You guys would be speaking German if it wasn't for us.
00:12:17.860
It's like a New York insult comic turned real estate man turned politician.
00:12:30.060
I appreciate the counter point of view, because I got to tell you, like, we'll talk about the polls later.
00:12:35.240
And I know Trump's losing the independents and he's starting to lose them by a lot.
00:12:38.300
He's got overwhelming Republican support and he doesn't have any Democrat support.
00:12:42.380
He's starting to really slide with independents.
00:12:46.200
My mom is kind of a lifetime Democrat, but she did vote for Trump.
00:12:49.800
And she's she's in that independent group that's starting to slide.
00:12:55.000
So, like, I appreciate the POV because there are a lot of people who have it.
00:12:59.120
So it's important to be exposed to it and understand how how Trump is affecting some people.
00:13:03.820
I mean, I think, Andrew, like the there's a real question about whether Europe is what it used to be and and how closely tied we ought to be to Europe.
00:13:18.580
I mean, they're turning into an authoritarian group of countries themselves.
00:13:23.340
They are literally arresting people in Germany and the UK for thought crimes, for thinking the wrong thing and for tweeting the wrong thing.
00:13:35.760
I mean, it's getting genuinely scary over in Europe.
00:13:38.500
And so, like, people say, oh, we shouldn't be aligned with Russia.
00:13:43.820
It's like Europe is doing its level best to get closer and closer to what Russia is when it comes to free speech every day.
00:13:52.680
They're the ones making themselves less like what we first aligned with, with the influx of migrants and the changing on civil liberties and free speech.
00:14:02.700
And I think Donald Trump is looking at them saying amidst all this, you want us to pay for your defense, which is effectively what we do through NATO.
00:14:11.740
And if they're not over, we want something for it.
00:14:17.940
But actually, what I'm telling you I want is Greenland.
00:14:21.140
And what I really want is for you to just stay the hell out of it.
00:14:27.680
You all said you'd raise it to five percent, but you're not, in fact, doing that.
00:14:36.440
If Germany gets attacked, if France gets attacked, it's the United States that will swoop in to save them.
00:14:42.720
And now we have a president who's saying we'll do it, but we actually do want something in return.
00:14:48.420
And what we want right now is a country called Greenland, a territory.
00:14:52.580
And the reason we want it is, OK, he says not rare earth.
00:14:58.400
And we have an eye on our two main adversaries, Russia and China, in a way we didn't have to up there.
00:15:04.880
Well, I think I can buy part of that, but I do question whether the strategic importance of Greenland, in his mind, is really what's at stake here.
00:15:14.360
Because Greenland is important, but it's not that important.
00:15:17.800
And everything that we want to do in Greenland, we could do without acquiring the territory.
00:15:22.340
And the idea that somehow legally we would not defend it.
00:15:25.720
Well, we defend bases, U.S. bases all over the world that are in all different countries.
00:15:31.900
And we do have this thing called Article 5 with NATO, which says we're going to defend France and Germany and the other NATO countries.
00:15:38.860
So I'm not sure he's on firm ground legally when he says we need it in order to defend it.
00:15:43.980
But I do think that, and we played on our show Howard Lutnick's bite, which I thought was very revealing, where he talked to your point that Europe has followed this path of globalization and globalization has been a failure.
00:15:57.640
And that, to me, is the theme of the administration at Davos.
00:16:06.400
And I think that Lutnick, in particular, because he made the point, he said, why would you go in the direction of electrification and trying to be sort of carbon neutral by 2030 if you don't even make your own batteries?
00:16:21.080
It was sort of like, oh, yeah, that's a really good way to put it.
00:16:24.560
So I think that message to Europe, we'll see if it gets through.
00:16:29.540
The other thing that he said, to your point, Megan, is he said that he knows that the U.S. will come to defend Europe.
00:16:45.700
I mean, would France and Britain come to our defense?
00:16:51.200
So here he is a little bit more on that, Andrew, where he spoke to the changes in Europe and sought one.
00:17:00.180
Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore.
00:17:04.620
And I love Europe and I want to see Europe go good.
00:17:10.540
In recent decades, it became conventional wisdom in Washington and European capitals that the only way to grow a modern Western economy was through ever increasing government spending, unchecked mass migration and endless foreign imports.
00:17:27.080
The consensus was that so-called dirty jobs and heavy industries should be sent elsewhere, that affordable energy should be replaced by the Green New Scam.
00:17:37.120
And that countries could be propped up by importing new and entirely different populations from faraway lands, very foolishly followed, turning their backs on everything that makes nations rich and powerful and strong.
00:17:54.260
So, Tom, what do we think the point of that was?
00:17:57.460
I agree with every word he said, but what is the point of saying that at Davos?
00:18:05.240
And I thought that was probably the strongest part of the speech.
00:18:10.060
You know, we put this clip of Howard Lutnik saying, you know, listen, he's called globalization is a failure.
00:18:19.100
Now, that might be too strong of a word, but but certainly the argument that he's making that the United States is is pursuing a different path now that is going to put American workers first and is going to put American security first.
00:18:33.960
And I know, by the way, Europe, you should think long and hard about adopting these policies yourself because it will help make you stronger.
00:18:40.740
And you've been pursuing these policies for 40 years, which have made you weaker.
00:18:44.760
I mean, Trump went on this riff about windmills and how the more windmills they have in a country, the worse it is.
00:18:51.320
We have it. Hold on. Let me interject it quickly.
00:18:53.540
But hold your thought, because I do want to hear the back end.
00:19:05.100
One thing I've noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country is doing.
00:19:18.420
And yet I haven't been able to find any wind farms in China.
00:19:28.480
They sell them to the stupid people that buy them.
00:19:31.520
Other than that, I think they're fabulous, by the way.
00:19:39.200
I do want to fact check him on the wind farms in China and see how many there are.
00:19:48.860
Well, of course, under Joe Biden, they were subsidized.
00:19:56.540
They barely get, like, the light in the studio on.
00:20:04.100
Go look at Michael Schellenberger's documentary on it.
00:20:08.000
I mean, they're really actually not very good on a variety of levels.
00:20:14.020
They're as long as an air, like a 747 aircraft.
00:20:17.280
And there are multiple of them on each windmill.
00:20:27.260
So, like, you can, the same as, like, me blowing air in this studio.
00:20:36.440
I was going to say, how do you really feel about windmills?
00:20:39.840
Because I spend my summers at the Jersey Shore.
00:20:42.260
And we've been dealing with this for years now.
00:20:46.480
And they're really, truly a nightmare for the environment.
00:20:48.860
Like, you may think that they may help with global warming.
00:20:51.160
Let me tell you something they don't help with.
00:20:52.480
The environment, the existing Earth, is completely toxified and polluted by windmills.
00:21:02.880
We have so many wonderful natural resources that we can tap into.
00:21:06.000
That is more than, like, blowing like a little desk fan at the expense of our wildlife and our sea life and our vistas up and down the beautiful east and west coasts of America.
00:21:18.640
You know, a couple of decades ago, I remember when it dawned on me when Ted Kennedy was like, you know, all the liberals were like, we've got to have wind.
00:21:30.480
And Ted Kennedy was like, you're not putting this thing off of Martha's Vineyard, you know?
00:21:44.160
And the blades fell into the water and the people in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard were affected and couldn't swim.
00:21:51.720
And the kids were, like, not able to go in the water.
00:21:54.180
It's just like taking a toxic stew, dumping it into your ocean, and then putting your three-year-old in it.
00:22:01.900
I mean, I already lived that swimming in the Hudson River at my grandparents' boatyard in the 1970s.
00:22:10.060
But because of that, I wound up sitting at this desk trying to save the next gen.
00:22:27.940
But it speaks to this idea that, again, the message of the Trump administration going to Davos, in addition to speaking about Greenland, was, hey, we're pursuing policies that are different from what you guys have all been pursuing here at the WEF and all your Davos elites for the last 40 years.
00:22:46.140
And we've come here to say those policies have failed, and the proof is in the pudding.
00:22:51.820
If you look at growth rates across Europe and birth rates across Europe and mass migration and all of the welfare that they, all the money they spent, we talked about this on our show a little bit.
00:23:00.900
You can see the pendulum is now swinging back in the other direction in places like Denmark and Sweden and some of those countries who have, who are, these are not populous countries necessarily.
00:23:10.740
And they've imported all of these migrants from Northern Africa, have completely changed the nature, the landscape, and the culture.
00:23:19.240
And so I think this is a message that deep down in their hearts, they already know, a lot of Europeans already know that they've been on the wrong track.
00:23:27.080
And as I said, Trump is saying, and I think he said, I'm Scottish and German, and I was derived from Europe.
00:23:35.760
We want Europe to be strong and prosperous, and we will be great partners with you, but you need to be sort of get your own houses in order.
00:23:49.000
It resonates, I think, at home with Americans, but it also resonates with a lot of people abroad.
00:23:54.360
Here's a little bit more on the energy point, Sat, too, where he hits them for relying on others for energy in Europe.
00:24:01.000
Here in Europe, we've seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose on America.
00:24:10.080
Germany now generates 22 percent less electricity than it did in 2017.
00:24:22.840
But what they did before he got there, the United Kingdom produces just one third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999.
00:24:33.940
And they're sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world.
00:24:39.860
And this is, and we've heard this from him for a while, Carl, because he's very proud of bringing down gas prices here in America.
00:24:48.420
With the drill, baby, drill, you know, all options are on the table and has been touting, as he hit his one-year mark in the second term, how gas prices have fallen even below $2 in some places.
00:25:04.440
Speaking of my childhood, when I learned how to drive back in 1987, I remember it was like a big deal of the gas prices, if you could find one that was under $1.
00:25:19.460
Not quite, but like four decades ago is about $1 a gallon.
00:25:24.160
And Trump's talking about under his energy policies, in more and more places, it's under $2.
00:25:28.700
And in several places, it's just over $2 a gallon.
00:25:33.720
And he's standing up there, all these European leaders saying, you could have the same if only you didn't pursue this obscene climate change agenda, which is holding you back and as a result, holding us back in our partnership with you.
00:25:50.980
So the thing is, though, this, you know, we used to hear this.
00:25:57.900
When Trump was first elected, I moderated a panel, RealClear did an event.
00:26:02.040
I think American Petroleum Institute was the sponsor.
00:26:04.400
And because it was RealClear, I said, okay, you can have some petroleum guys there, oil, gas, coal.
00:26:09.360
Let's get some, I won't mention windmills, Megan, but I'll mention solar.
00:26:15.620
And, you know, straight out conservationists and nuclear.
00:26:20.160
And the nuclear guys were amazing because they looked like they'd had a reprieve.
00:26:23.880
The global warming, my beef with the global warming scare always was this.
00:26:29.300
If you really believed all these things you were saying, you would champion nuclear power.
00:26:36.020
Groups like NRDC that really should know better.
00:26:40.500
You know, they came from the left and there was no nukes.
00:26:42.480
I understood the coalition politics element of it.
00:26:45.320
But if you really believed in global warming was a threat, you would favor, you would have all of the above.
00:26:50.860
And they would say all of the above, but they didn't really mean it.
00:26:53.020
They meant all of the above except natural gas, coal, and, you know, fossil fuels.
00:27:01.380
Germany and these countries, they've stopped building nuclear power plants.
00:27:15.580
Our information is they do have windmills in China and I presume wind farms.
00:27:28.100
And if you cared about the economy and the environment, because you have to care about both,
00:27:33.340
you would favor these other sources, the disfavored sources, particularly nuclear power.
00:27:38.340
And what Trump is talking to these guys, you know, he has his own way of speaking.
00:27:41.840
What he's telling Europe is use some common sense for Germany to take these plants off
00:27:46.640
of offline and not build nuclear power plants and then have to buy gas from Russia while
00:27:53.660
You know, it's not it's it's a mess of governance.
00:27:57.060
And what he's really saying to them, I think, is, you know, roll up your sleeves, get to work,
00:28:04.160
Quit being hamstrung by, you know, your ideology or what's the fad of the moment.
00:28:11.700
And I think that that's a message they probably need to hear.
00:28:15.140
And most people in Europe probably want to hear.
00:28:17.780
He you know, Andrew, when I listened to the speech today, what he was it was it was very
00:28:23.460
Vance made when he was over there and speaking to our European counterparts like you got to
00:28:28.100
You got to stop with the open borders and the mass migration.
00:28:30.660
You got to stop with the free speech crackdowns like if we're going to have this longstanding
00:28:34.260
partnership where we're BFF, some special relationship, start acting like it, like start
00:28:39.080
behaving like something that is familiar to us.
00:28:42.080
And to me, this was Trump completely doubling down on that with a different a different
00:28:47.380
But his his overall message to me was stop with the freeloading like those those days are
00:28:53.880
You know, you had the president of the European Union stand up yesterday and say, oh, well,
00:29:00.600
And while we're really nostalgic for the way it used to be, we have to accept it.
00:29:04.800
And we're going to have to just like lean into our independence here in Europe.
00:29:08.080
And he had all these leftists like crying a tear like, oh, he's broken up our BFF relationship
00:29:13.500
And it's no Trump is looking at them saying, no, you're the leech friend who always makes
00:29:26.640
And by the way, I'm not even asking you to pay when we go to the movies.
00:29:30.400
I'm just asking you to not object when I go into the radio shack and steal that radio.
00:29:39.620
Let me give you a little flavor as he's he takes a shot at Canadian Prime Minister Mark
00:29:46.700
Carney, who kind of ripped on us yesterday, saying we stand with Greenland.
00:29:50.860
And here was Trump today in side eight going to be defending Canada.
00:29:56.100
Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way.
00:30:03.260
He wasn't so grateful that they should be grateful to us.
00:30:10.760
Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.
00:30:21.880
To me, like, you know, to understand Trump, you sort of have to go back to the art of the
00:30:26.300
And if you look at this sort of chain of events, you go from Venezuela, where he uses military
00:30:35.380
And then he turns around and he has the whole world sort of focused on the idea that he's
00:30:40.740
going to use military force in Greenland to go after strategic minerals, right?
00:30:49.020
But what he's really doing is sort of he's amassing leverage is what he's doing.
00:30:55.120
And I think that's the way you sort of have to look at what he does.
00:30:57.860
Always think of, like, what leverage is he deriving from this latest action, even if you
00:31:05.540
So today he goes there and he says, or he says, look, I'm taking, I'm not, it's not about
00:31:16.960
The market's up about 500 points, I think, right now.
00:31:22.580
And all of a sudden we seem to be in what now is the new normal, which is it seems okay
00:31:27.580
that what we're negotiating for is to take over a piece of territory that belongs to another
00:31:33.860
But everyone kind of sighs, you know, sighs with relief at that.
00:31:40.420
I don't want to call it, you know, four-dimensional chess or any of that.
00:31:43.760
But he certainly has moved the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.
00:31:49.180
And to your broader point about Europe, I think, I think the message there is, and I
00:31:54.500
think Tom alluded to it, it's not just that we don't want you to be the freeloader anymore.
00:31:59.020
You would be better if you got your act together.
00:32:01.740
That's like saying to a friend, look, you know, you really should stop drinking.
00:32:05.180
You ought to wake up in the morning and do some exercise because that's what's good for
00:32:09.340
It's good for me that you're no longer, you know, that I no longer have to pay for the
00:32:12.600
popcorn, but it would be better for you if you actually got him on your two feet and,
00:32:17.360
you know, manned up and, you know, took care of your economy, closed your borders,
00:32:21.480
provide your own people with your own energy and control your destiny.
00:32:31.400
It's like looking at the, you know, the girlfriend who's gained a hundred pounds.
00:32:38.920
I'd love for you to get back down to like a size four to six.
00:32:46.960
You don't have to be my girlfriend who's in the dark bar anymore.
00:32:52.120
And Europe's like shoving, you know, processed food into its mouth.
00:33:01.240
I actually think it was kind of funny because, well, he's getting ripped for it.
00:33:15.360
Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me.
00:33:29.260
I went from running it to being a terrible human being.
00:33:31.640
But now what I'm asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection.
00:33:45.680
With all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat, and tears, I don't know that they'd be there for us.
00:33:57.360
I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland.
00:34:04.420
But that dip is peanuts compared to what it's gone up.
00:34:07.960
In response to which everybody in Iceland was like, what?
00:34:13.860
Well, you know, Megan, in geography school when I was a kid, the teacher once told me, how do you differentiate Iceland from Greenland?
00:34:29.500
That's the one, you know, if we're talking about like tourism, that would definitely be the one we prefer.
00:34:34.020
Do you think he scared the bejesus out of people in Iceland?
00:34:44.540
And it sent everybody on the left screaming, you know, 25th Amendment.
00:34:47.760
We've got to, you know, evoke the 25th Amendment.
00:34:52.000
Meanwhile, I have to say that's a very easy one to confuse.
00:34:55.980
I mean, he's talking about a block of ice, which is what Greenland is.
00:34:58.840
It's one huge hunk of ice, slightly less hunky right now because of all the melting, as I pointed out.
00:35:08.900
He got into it a little bit with Macron, who stood up there yesterday in these weird blue glasses.
00:35:15.680
And there was a lot of speculation online about whether Brigitte had taken another shot at him.
00:35:20.580
Remember, we saw her smack him getting off of their plane that time.
00:35:25.700
And let's not forget, I mean, these two are very bizarre.
00:35:29.500
Like, she was almost 40, and he was a 14-year-old in her class when she fell in love with him.
00:35:37.140
I mean, it's very effed up, his relationship with Brigitte Macron.
00:35:41.080
So here he is in these weird glasses at the Davos summit, and many people were speculating why, of course, there's got to be a reason he wouldn't just wear those for his speech.
00:35:53.000
So it was one of those things that's kind of on the nose, but, well, literally on the nose, but that we had no explanation for.
00:35:58.880
And Trump, God love him, because truly any great TV producer, and at heart that's what Trump is, will mention the elephant in the room, right?
00:36:07.120
I mean, just as a quick aside, when Anna Nicole Smith went to the U.S. Supreme Court and I did my package for Brit Hume's show, special report, I did not mention how stunning and transformed she looked.
00:36:19.740
And he pulled me aside, and he's like, you've got to mention that.
00:36:24.200
All the audience is looking at this new, like even more stunning Anna Nicole Smith.
00:36:29.200
You didn't call attention to it, like, and everyone's thinking it, like right behind their frontal lobe.
00:36:35.040
And it's your job as the reporter to say the thing.
00:36:41.880
So when I called up Emmanuel Macron, I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses.
00:36:57.560
And I said, Emmanuel, you're going to have to lift the price of that pill to $20, maybe $30.
00:37:26.740
And if you don't, I'm putting a 25% tariff on everything that you sell into the United States
00:37:32.380
and a 100% tariff on your wines and champagnes, no, no, Donald, I will do it.
00:37:41.040
It took me, on average, three minutes, a country, saying the same thing.
00:37:51.240
You're asking me to double the cost of prescription.
00:37:53.700
I said, that's right, because you've been screwing us for 30 years.
00:38:02.020
He's talking about prescription drugs and how he, one of the hardest things that he had
00:38:06.120
to negotiate was, RFKJ just said this is the toughest thing of his first year, was to change
00:38:11.300
the drug policy here to make us most favored nation with our drug companies and American
00:38:17.900
drugs that we're selling to France for $10 a bottle and we're selling to Americans for
00:38:29.060
And that's Trump giving us some of the backstory of how he handled it.
00:38:31.960
With the foreign leaders, like, I'm sorry, but your price is going to go up and our price
00:38:38.120
There's still going to be a huge imbalance in your favor, but we're going to do something
00:38:43.860
That is the shoot it into my veins stuff that could win Trump the midterms, notwithstanding
00:38:50.920
these terrible numbers that we mentioned earlier, right?
00:38:57.680
Hearing how he's fighting for us, France gets screwed, not Iowa.
00:39:04.120
Well, Megan, you're a lawyer, so I want to know what you think of this, because when
00:39:08.540
I watched that tariff part very carefully today, and he, I had two reactions, they're
00:39:15.080
One is, he said that the president of, head of Switzerland, I don't know if it's a president
00:39:22.260
Yeah, he said, you know, okay, she kept saying, but we're a small country, and he was so irritated
00:39:27.120
by her, he raised her tariff from 30% to 39% just because he was pissed off.
00:39:33.680
And I thought, okay, if I'm on the Supreme Court, he's just giving me permission to say
00:39:39.480
But then, as he went on, you realize he's using tariffs, it's not an economic, he's conducting
00:39:46.060
foreign policy there, and in a very direct way.
00:39:49.440
And, you know, the Supreme Court is reluctant to interfere with the president's right to
00:39:54.300
So, I was wondering which of those you thought would be more, would the Supreme Court notice,
00:40:04.700
They've, 100%, they've made the argument before the Supreme Court, which, for the listening
00:40:08.020
audience, they are deciding whether Trump single-handedly manipulating tariffs is constitutional
00:40:13.140
or whether this is something he needs congressional approval on.
00:40:15.640
They made the argument that he's using them as a foreign policy tool, which is uniquely
00:40:22.820
I'm sorry to tell you, I think Trump's tariff regime is going to get struck down.
00:40:26.640
I do not think he has any real hope of the Supreme Court upholding it.
00:40:31.860
But the argument did not go well for the government.
00:40:34.320
And I do not think Trump's tariff power is going to last much longer.
00:40:38.980
And the real question, in my mind, is what does that mean for all the tariffs he's already
00:40:47.740
You know, like the Supreme Court, nine justices aren't going to get involved in figuring that
00:40:55.340
That was one of his arguments to the court, too, is like, well, they have to stay in place
00:41:00.440
And if we have to undo all this stuff, it's going to be a disaster.
00:41:03.240
And so, well, maybe Congress will do its job and get back involved in a way that they
00:41:22.500
We do have the Switzerland soundbite, which, I mean, it might have been my favorite soundbite
00:41:27.660
It was like an aside he decided to tell us about his dealings with the no longer prime
00:41:56.580
And the, I guess, prime minister, I don't think president, I think prime minister called
00:42:19.180
You may be small, but you have a bigger deficit than big countries.
00:42:28.280
I said, but you're a big country in terms of, and he just rubbed me the wrong way.
00:42:53.180
I realized with that, I don't know, I was so, because she was so aggressive.
00:42:57.560
And I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat.
00:43:07.880
By the way, I guess it's the president, not the prime minister.
00:43:16.980
I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat.
00:43:23.580
I mean, if you could sum up the whole speech in one line, I think that's it.
00:43:29.340
The freeloading days are over, and we want something now.
00:43:34.440
And the price that he's asking for at the moment, I mean, we talked about other prices he exacted.
00:43:38.900
Like, yo, France, you're going to have to pay a bit more for these medications so that we pay a little less.
00:43:44.800
And you're so dumb to rely on all this, like, wind farm energy.
00:43:50.640
So then you wouldn't be so dependent on Russia, Germany.
00:43:53.600
But what he's really saying is, I want Greenland, and I kind of want it now.
00:43:57.940
And that leads me to the unexpected hero of the week, Mort Halperin.
00:44:11.440
And his son happens to be a very famous journalist by the name of Mark, who has his own podcast called Next Up with Mark Halperin.
00:44:21.100
And Mark had his dad, Mort, on his show last week.
00:44:27.720
And at first, I, like you, I'm like, why is he putting his dad on to talk about the foreign policy issues of the day?
00:44:33.300
Well, it turns out his dad is a pretty famous foreign policy expert who worked for the Johnson, the Nixon, and the Clinton administrations, actually in government roles, I think both at Pentagon and at state, if I'm not mistaken, and knows a thing or two about foreign policy.
00:44:49.500
And in particular, NATO in our history with NATO and the United States role in NATO.
00:44:57.320
Listen to Morton Halperin on the Greenland issue.
00:45:02.660
At the end of the day, our alternative is not to use military force.
00:45:08.600
And our position has always been, we will tell you what we need to remain in the alliance.
00:45:14.200
And you will tell us whether you're prepared to do that.
00:45:17.180
And if you're not, we won't be able to stay in the alliance.
00:45:28.680
And he went through on Mark's show some of the examples.
00:45:31.800
Like, at the beginning of NATO, the U.S. wanted the Germans to rearm.
00:45:35.860
And the rest of Europe did not want that at all, given what they'd just been through in World War II.
00:45:42.800
The U.S. said, we'll only do NATO, the formation of it, if we're allowed to put nuclear weapons in Europe.
00:45:48.640
The Europeans didn't want nuclear weapons in Europe.
00:45:51.080
We said, you will agree, or we're not doing it.
00:45:54.540
He had multiple examples of where we, as the big dog of NATO, said, we understand you don't want it.
00:46:02.220
It's happening because we're the most important member of NATO.
00:46:05.640
So that plus the Don Rowe Doctrine make me say, I get it.
00:46:11.260
And Trump is out there like, you're a bunch of freeloaders.
00:46:20.780
We've fleshed out some of the arguments for and against.
00:46:22.980
Do we think it's going to happen as a result of today or Trump in general?
00:46:28.700
Do I think that we are going to purchase Greenland?
00:46:37.200
I would probably peg it at like a 20% chance, which is not nothing, but I think the odds are still against.
00:46:45.840
I'll take the 80% chance by the time Trump leaves office.
00:46:52.880
Nobody wants them to have voting rights as Americans.
00:46:56.120
I think it's going to blow up on our face and Greenland is going to end up as an independent country with a government that resembles Mom Donnie's cabinet in New York City.
00:47:10.900
Well, I will say that Mort Halpern is a very prominent foreign policy expert, and it's great that he's still with us.
00:47:20.760
I'm glad to hear that, and I'm glad that he's still talking.
00:47:22.780
I would say it's a bigger chance today than it was yesterday.
00:47:29.860
I think that I'd give it about a 33 and a third percent chance.
00:47:36.720
I actually think that some sort of, you know, there's some sort of agreement somewhere between statehood and where we are now that we end up.
00:47:50.860
I say 80 percent chance by the end of – yeah.
00:47:57.660
But when you say we're getting it, how are we getting it?
00:48:03.860
We're not taking it over by military force, but Trump is going to scare them to the point where they give it to us because it's just easier because we're footing all their bills.
00:48:11.820
They want the free dinners, and they want the free movie tickets, and they want the popcorn.
00:48:14.700
Are they giving it to us, or we're buying it, right?
00:48:20.460
And he'll come up with something that's 100 percent.
00:48:26.840
Unfortunately, I don't think it's that cheap anymore.
00:48:28.360
But he'll find some way to say to the American people that we're not exactly paying for it.
00:48:32.200
You know, he's going to use the Venezuelan oil money, something like that.
00:48:37.340
However it turns out, Trump will take credit for it, and it will be a great victory.
00:48:45.420
I mean, then nobody else would have been able to push this through.
00:48:49.320
So you've got 80 from me, 20 from Tom, 33 and a third from Andy, and zero, it blows up
00:48:57.280
If it does happen, Megan, I am looking forward to staying at Trump Tower and playing the golf
00:49:10.320
Let me ask you, finally, a political question, which is those polls.
00:49:21.400
But what they show is that his approval rating amongst independents is now at 29.
00:49:28.680
But they're not feeling so rosy about the Trump presidency.
00:49:31.520
And those who say they're extremely enthusiastic to vote in the midterms are all Democrats.
00:49:37.980
The lopsidedness of enthusiasm and readiness to vote in November is alarming, I think, for
00:49:44.920
anybody who likes Republican rule, shall we say.
00:49:51.800
It's not tomorrow, but it's, you know, 10 months away.
00:49:56.160
So I would say that Republicans have about six months, if that.
00:50:01.900
I mean, these days we're so tribal, like a lot of people have already decided who they're
00:50:09.140
Or I should say Republicans will vote for Republican in the midterms.
00:50:14.740
And as you mentioned, Democrats right now are way more enthusiastic than Republicans are.
00:50:18.600
And then the question is, is there movement among independents, right?
00:50:22.500
Can Trump and Republicans win back some of the independents before they actually go to
00:50:31.600
And I think they've got about six months to do it.
00:50:33.320
Trump has been promising, Mike Johnson has been promising, hey, you know, the one big
00:50:39.620
Trump just complained about his PR folks the other day, right?
00:50:42.780
Which is, you know, when your poll numbers are bad and Biden did this, I mean, Obama did
00:50:49.660
this, it's always like, it's a messaging problem.
00:50:52.840
It's just, you know, our message is, you know, voters are too dumb to understand or we're
00:51:02.460
But I have to say, part of me thinks it might actually be true in Trump's case, because
00:51:07.800
I think there's a reason he's out there now personally telling it.
00:51:13.940
To be continued, up next, our legal panel with Dave Ehrenberg and Mike Davis.
00:51:19.660
If you are looking to make smarter choices for your health this year, consider Riverbend
00:51:24.360
Their steaks are not only delicious, they also contain real high-quality protein that
00:51:30.940
Beef is a complete protein and contains all nine essential amino acids your body needs
00:51:36.240
It also keeps you fully, fuller for longer, reducing cravings and snacking.
00:51:44.040
The quality of the beef depends entirely on how it's raised and where it comes from.
00:51:51.660
For more than 35 years, Riverbend Ranch has been building an elite Black Angus herd, carefully
00:51:56.700
selecting cattle for exceptional flavor and tenderness.
00:52:00.040
All Riverbend Ranch cattle are born and raised right here in the USA.
00:52:06.700
And the beef is processed at the ranch in their award-winning USDA-inspected facility.
00:52:13.220
Just incredible, healthy, and flavorful beef shipped directly to your home.
00:52:17.480
Order today at riverbendranch.com and use the promo code MEGAN for 20 bucks off your first order.
00:52:27.380
It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes.
00:52:33.060
But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.
00:52:37.340
She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.
00:52:39.920
Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
00:52:54.020
At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health.
00:53:01.840
That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup
00:53:06.600
that provides a clear picture of your health today.
00:53:09.240
And may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer.
00:53:16.120
Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today.
00:53:27.960
All right, there's a lot to get to on the legal front today.
00:53:31.520
Including, can Don Lemon be prosecuted over the outrageous protest at the Minnesota church on Sunday?
00:53:41.940
What charges are going to be brought against them?
00:53:44.960
And what do we make now of the charges against Timothy Busfield
00:53:48.520
after having learned more about the shady past of the two little boys' parents?
00:53:57.400
All right, we're going to get into all of it today with our MK True Crime contributor, Dave Ehrenberg,
00:54:02.440
who you can find on Substack at Dave Ehrenberg.
00:54:05.280
And Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 Project.
00:54:11.700
There's a lot to dig into on just those few matters.
00:54:14.980
Okay, let's just start with the, I mean, I thought it was an act of terrorism what we watched in that church on Sunday.
00:54:24.440
It was more of like an act of terrorism targeting innocent people minding their own business who had done nothing and trying to scare them.
00:54:35.800
Even Don Lemon admits on the tape that he saw little children frightened and scared, didn't care.
00:54:44.440
Neither did the protesters who clearly wanted to scare the people there.
00:54:48.540
And what we heard Kristi Noem say last night on Fox, Mike, or no, it was on maybe Newsmax, was you're going to see arrests within hours.
00:54:57.500
Now, before I officially toss it to you, a lot of people saying they're taking too long.
00:55:10.200
But when you're in federal court, when you're the DOJ, you have to bring charges with a criminal complaint and a warrant.
00:55:27.500
Which gives them Tuesday to possibly get all this stuff ready, cross all the T's and dot the I's, because this is going to be challenged and scrutinized.
00:55:36.360
And there's going to be 10,000 ACLU-type groups looking to poke holes in whatever they file.
00:55:41.800
So it is important that they be very careful here.
00:55:44.940
But I think today is the day, Wednesday, that we'll probably see arrests.
00:55:50.260
You take it from there, Mike Davis, because I have a feeling you're more in the loop than I am.
00:55:54.400
Well, I think that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dillon, along with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director, Cash Patel, they have all made it crystal clear that people who terrorize church services, people who trespass into Sunday services, disrupt the service.
00:56:22.260
They're going to face federal criminal charges.
00:56:26.920
And there are two federal statutes that are directly on point here.
00:56:31.380
There's the federal FACE Act passed in 1994 by Bill Clinton to protect both abortion clinics from obstruction and as a compromise for Republicans to get the 60 votes to get this passed in the Senate.
00:56:48.160
They also passed the FACE Act to include houses of worship.
00:56:53.180
So that is a federal crime to obstruct churches, to obstruct synagogues and mosques.
00:57:00.100
And it's very clear that that's what Don Lemon and his co-conspirators, his modern-day Klansmen, did when they went into this Minnesota church and disrupted the service.
00:57:14.140
Don Lemon actually went up to the pulpit and disrupted the pastor during the middle of the service.
00:57:24.580
It's also a violation of the Ku Klux Klan statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 241, Conspiracy Against Rights, when you have a mob of people going into churches to disrupt the churches because of their Christian faith, because of their race.
00:57:45.440
And Don Lemon made it very clear in his so-called reporting, that's why he did it.
00:57:55.960
He's also going to face charges under the Klan statute.
00:58:01.200
I wish that Don Lemon would have been charged under the Klan statute on MLK Day.
00:58:08.920
But the grand juries are not in service on federal holidays.
00:58:12.720
Yes. So we looked into it, and it does appear to me, Dave, that the likely charges coming are going to be exactly what Mike just said.
00:58:29.460
And if you charge both, then you have the effect of basically raising the FACE Act from a misdemeanor to a felony.
00:58:37.820
If you use the Klan Act, you can charge a felony.
00:58:40.200
And there was just case law out of the 11th Circuit, which oversees where you are, down in Florida.
00:58:47.360
But it's persuasive, and it's not binding out of the 11th Circuit over Minnesota, but it's persuasive,
00:58:53.660
saying that the violation of rights under the Klan Act can be, like you can charge somebody with violation of rights under the Klan Act,
00:59:04.960
So if they have obstructed physically or intimidated anyone attending a religious service,
00:59:12.440
that can be the predicate violation for a violation of the Klan Act,
00:59:18.220
which raises what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony, potentially up to 10 years in jail.
00:59:24.700
I mean, no one is really expecting that to be the penalty, but it does make this a lot more serious than a misdemeanor,
00:59:34.480
And thank you, by the way, for your nice words.
00:59:36.380
I heard them on a previous show about me, that I'm one of the good liberals,
00:59:41.660
although I don't consider myself a liberal, sort of a centrist, but I appreciate the nice words.
00:59:50.640
I know that surprised you, but when it comes to the Ku Klux Klan Act,
00:59:56.060
but the Ku Klux Klan Act has to face the Supreme Court decision from 1983.
01:00:01.000
It's called Bray v. Alexandra Women's Health Clinic.
01:00:04.900
The issue is you have to show that they blocked the church because they had animus towards Christians.
01:00:13.860
And Justice Scalia was the one who wrote for the majority in that opinion.
01:00:16.980
He said that the opposition to abortion, this was an abortion clinic case,
01:00:21.360
opposition to abortion did not equate to animus against women.
01:00:26.780
The protesters targeted women only because they were the ones obtaining abortions.
01:00:30.020
The goal was to stop the activity, not to hurt the class.
01:00:32.800
So if you apply that here, that the reason why they were there was not because they hated Christians,
01:00:38.780
it was because they went after David Easterwood.
01:00:40.980
He is the pastor of that church who is also an ICE guy.
01:00:46.980
If Easterwood had been on a golf course, they would have protested there.
01:00:50.200
So I don't think you can show the animus against Christians there.
01:00:53.760
I think that the Ku Klux Klan Act does not apply.
01:00:59.260
But I don't think there's a federal crime here.
01:01:05.820
And we probably aren't going to see a state prosecutor that wants to pursue it.
01:01:09.540
So we have to stay in federal lane if we actually want to get these folks charged.
01:01:13.560
Mike Davis, this is an interesting argument, though, about is there animus by the protesters,
01:01:22.980
Their number one protester, Don Lemon, seems to have served Pam Bondi up a beautiful dessert
01:01:27.820
on a silver platter here with the following comments because he can't keep his stupid mouth
01:01:35.100
He decided to go talk all about his great feet on the Angry Leftist Ladies podcast and said
01:01:47.640
Jesus turned the tables over in the temple, right?
01:01:51.280
He flipped the tables because he was tired of them not doing what they're supposed to do
01:01:56.380
in his father's house and not living up to the tenets of Christianity.
01:02:01.800
And so, you know, it is surprising to me if it is true that this person somehow works for ICE.
01:02:09.560
And also, it is true that they're not understanding now of the protesters is that they're doing
01:02:15.660
the exact opposite of what Christianity is supposed to be about.
01:02:18.440
I think that there is, obviously, there's racism, and the whole point of it is that they're
01:02:22.320
detaining people on the streets because of accents and the color of their skin, and they're
01:02:27.360
also targeting people of color and black people as well as brown people.
01:02:32.420
So there is a certain degree of racism there, and there's a certain degree of entitlement.
01:02:35.960
I think people who are, you know, in religious groups like that, it's not the type of Christianity
01:02:40.520
that I practice, but I think that they're entitled, and that entitlement comes from a
01:02:47.660
And they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country, when
01:02:51.060
actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom.
01:02:54.000
It's religious freedom, but only if you're a Christian and only if you're a white male,
01:02:58.420
And so, yeah, absolutely 100%, but it's an intimidation tactic.
01:03:05.340
Don Lemon is probably the dumbest person on television right now.
01:03:10.880
He just admitted to his criminal intent under the Klan statute when he made it very clear
01:03:17.560
that they were going into that church because they are Christians, A, and B, because they're
01:03:24.000
So you have religious bigotry and racial bigotry, which makes this fall squarely into the Klan statute.
01:03:31.700
Don Lemon, he is, if I'm not, if I were a betting man, I would put everything on the line that
01:03:42.320
Don Lemon will be indicted under the FACE Act and the Klan statute under felony charges.
01:03:48.560
Now, remember under the FACE Act as well, it is a class A misdemeanor up to one year in
01:03:54.580
jail for first-time offenders, but if there is repeat offenders or if there is violence as part
01:04:02.400
of the FACE Act violation, it becomes a felony.
01:04:08.320
If you are threatening people inside the church like they did, you saw the terrified child.
01:04:20.780
Everyone who's involved with the conspiracy is responsible for the conspiracy.
01:04:30.300
You know, he's the non-lawyer, non-attorney Don Lemon is going out there telling people what
01:04:40.640
Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dillon are almost certainly going to indict him.
01:04:44.900
He did something very dumb, Dave, and it was the same thing that Timothy Busfield did.
01:04:50.640
He spoke out about his alleged crime in a way that no lawyer would have wanted him to.
01:04:57.100
Timothy Busfield spoke directly to police and made a bunch of admissions that came back in
01:05:02.940
And Don Lemon, speaking with the angry lady, made a bunch of admissions there about targeting
01:05:09.360
these churchgoers for a specific reason, that they're doing the exact opposite of Christianity,
01:05:16.580
that he believes they target people of color, they're racists, they're white supremacists,
01:05:22.700
they have a sense of entitlement, that they don't practice Christianity the way I practice
01:05:31.500
He like, it's not enough to say he tripled down.
01:05:33.840
He like quintupled down on this messaging, which is not great for his defense lawyer.
01:05:39.160
Well, I watched the interviews that he had on his channel, and he was showing people on
01:05:47.160
He may have said they have a different interpretation of the religion as I do.
01:05:50.400
But Justice Scalia himself said that protesting an activity like ICE enforcement is not the same
01:06:05.400
So I don't think they can get there on this, in fact, to prove this case beyond a reasonable
01:06:09.520
The one thing I agree with, Mike, is that I do think that they'll all be indicted because
01:06:13.500
we saw this with the Trump administration going after James Comey and Letitia James.
01:06:18.260
But I think it'll meet the same fate where it'll get dismissed before it ever gets to a
01:06:24.720
Just for Don, just to be clear, are you talking about just for Don or you're saying all the
01:06:29.440
There's no criminal charges against all the protesters.
01:06:31.220
I think against Don, it's weaker than the others because he is a journalist.
01:06:34.480
I think the others, I think they'll all be charged.
01:06:37.340
But I don't think you can get the federal crimes here.
01:06:39.600
I think they could be convicted of trespass and disorderly conduct.
01:06:47.400
I don't see them being convicted of either the KKK Act or the FACE Act, which is what
01:06:53.380
we mentioned earlier, which is supposed to protect houses of worship because also they
01:07:03.940
But the standard is in the Eighth Circuit, which is a conservative circuit, that you've got
01:07:09.400
It's like chaining yourself to an abortion clinic.
01:07:19.420
I'm going to give it to you, Mike, but let me just read the statute in part, the FACE Act,
01:07:26.020
Whoever, by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures,
01:07:31.940
intimidates, or interferes with, or attempts, attempts by, again, this is by force or threat
01:07:43.420
You can use force against the people, you can threaten to use force against them, or
01:07:47.440
by physical obstruction, if you do, by any of those means, if you attempt to intimidate,
01:07:53.540
injure, or interfere with any person who is trying to exercise their First Amendment right
01:08:06.040
Did they, by force, by threat of force, or by physical obstruction, intimidate or interfere
01:08:15.420
with someone exercising their First Amendment right of religious freedom?
01:08:25.260
When Don Lemon, the agitator, went up to the pulpit and stopped the church service and
01:08:31.940
argued with the pastor during the middle of the church service, I don't think you can
01:08:39.380
Like, he was literally in the pastor's face under the Face Act.
01:08:43.000
So I think the Face Act is squarely on point here, and so is the Klan statute.
01:08:51.840
And he was told, specifically by the pastor, they don't want to talk to you.
01:08:57.380
Like, he made perfectly clear, the church pastor made perfectly clear to Don Lemon, who emerges
01:09:06.880
And the pastor screamed from the pulpit through his microphone, this is wrong.
01:09:19.040
No, they didn't, like, hold people down, Dave, but they were blocking the aisles.
01:09:24.400
They came in a mass of them and blocked the aisles, overtook the front where the pulpit
01:09:30.060
is, to the point where people felt intimidated and were in tears.
01:09:42.200
Well, it's an important factual point here as to whether they did block the ingress and
01:09:49.400
That's important because the term physical obstruction, that's the key here.
01:09:55.180
If you look at subsection E4, it says the term physical obstruction means rendering impassable
01:10:01.660
ingress to or egress from a facility or rendering passage to or from such a facility unreasonably
01:10:09.560
So you've got to show that they've made the service more than just uncomfortable.
01:10:13.980
You've got to show that they've made movement impossible or hazardous.
01:10:21.600
The Biden Justice Department imprisoned for years 75-year-old Christian men and women who
01:10:33.080
If you can throw elderly Christians in prison for praying in an abortion clinic, you can
01:10:40.620
put Don Lemon and his fellow Klansmen in prison for what they did at that church last Sunday.
01:10:46.240
Remember, this is the same Minnesota where you had a trans terrorist go shoot people inside
01:11:00.840
So yeah, there was a trans terrorist who just lit up that church and killed two children
01:11:08.520
So I think people were certainly in reasonable fear for their safety when Don Lemon and his
01:11:14.500
fellow Klansmen barged into that church, stormed into that church, and disrupted it the way
01:11:26.140
Eighth Circuit is tough on the government on this one because it's the Dinwiddle case.
01:11:36.100
So within the Eighth Circuit, this Dinwiddle case from 1996, they said that there's a distinction
01:11:42.020
between physical blockades and aggressive speech.
01:11:47.320
So if they were physically blocking them from leaving, the parishioners, then yes, that would
01:11:56.280
Also, as far as Mike, I don't know of any peaceful protesters outside of abortion clinics
01:12:01.420
who are not blocking people that were locked up and put in prison.
01:12:06.420
And by the way, though, it's not just physical obstruction.
01:12:11.260
And there'll be an argument about what that means and what was perceived by those audience,
01:12:19.060
Because take it away from Don Lemon for a second.
01:12:21.820
That guy, William Kelly, was extremely aggressive in the faces of the churchgoers, screaming at
01:12:41.540
But the point is, you can absolutely see this guy and some of the more aggressive so-called
01:12:48.000
protesters in there reasonably putting people in fear of their safety.
01:12:52.280
And I think there'll be an argument that they did feel there was a threat of force being
01:12:55.500
used against them by this extremely aggressive, unhinged man.
01:12:59.040
But by the way, if I could say, I think that this was a huge miscalculation by these protesters.
01:13:04.360
First off, I disagree with their tactics, but also look at what we're talking about
01:13:09.080
Instead of the debate over the shooting itself of Renee Good, this has given Republicans a
01:13:15.380
And so I think that's a total miscalculation by this group.
01:13:18.460
And I think that they should rethink their tactics.
01:13:21.140
But also, when you talk about that standard of threat of force, it's got to be something
01:13:28.660
Like they have to chant sort of, we will burn this church or we will hurt you.
01:13:38.760
They rushed to the front of the church, the most holy part, the altar, you know, where
01:13:44.440
And they turned on the congregants and started chanting at the top of their lungs, some screaming
01:13:54.880
They got attacked on an individual basis for what they're doing there.
01:13:58.960
Why aren't you out there at the facility where the feds are?
01:14:02.680
Like aggressive confrontations person by person.
01:14:08.720
Here's just an example of that guy, William Kelly.
01:14:11.040
As you can see, all these pretend Christians, all these comfortable white people who are living
01:14:16.960
lavish, comfortable lives while children are dragged into concentration camps.
01:14:21.800
You're living real life, nice lives with your lattes, doing absolutely nothing for your
01:14:30.940
Why are you not standing with your Somali and Latino communities?
01:14:34.760
Why do I not see you out at Whipple every day protesting this attack on humanity?
01:14:44.680
Living real comfortable while children are dragged into concentration camps.
01:14:49.080
You're all living real comfortable, aren't you?
01:15:00.560
And also, Dave, calling them fake Christians and sinners.
01:15:06.440
Oh, that's why I think they miscalculated it here.
01:15:13.500
Those tactics are going to turn people off all across the country.
01:15:16.980
But it does make it look like it's about religion.
01:15:20.420
And you can easily see an argument on that the people felt threat, that there was a threat
01:15:27.700
He's screaming at young teenagers as they try to get away from him.
01:15:31.520
It's really not that hard to prove threat of force.
01:15:34.580
But in the Dinwiddle case I mentioned, the Eighth Circuit said that aggressive speech,
01:15:40.220
and that's aggressive speech, is protected unless it crosses the line into a true threat.
01:15:48.580
And so I don't think they're going to be able to get a conviction here.
01:15:57.240
Like, what Don Lemon did is the most outrageous thing you can do.
01:16:00.560
You're going into a Christian church on a Sunday and scaring the hell out of everyone,
01:16:06.700
And you're doing it because of their Christian faith.
01:16:10.740
And they say that very explicitly because Don Lemon is so stupid that he would actually
01:16:21.220
Not only is it bad political judgment, like Dave says, this is felonious conduct.
01:16:26.480
Remember, the Biden Justice Department put 75-year-old Christian women in prison for praying inside
01:16:35.240
Outside of abortion clinics, they put a young black mother in prison for 41 months for praying
01:16:45.620
This behavior last Sunday was much more egregious than that.
01:16:51.200
Imagine if this were a mosque or a black Christian church instead of a white Christian church.
01:17:09.340
You have a bunch of skinheads going into a temple or going into a mosque and getting in
01:17:16.460
You're fake, following their children as they rushed to leave to get away from these nutcases,
01:17:21.600
following them right up to the side of the van as they tried to slam the door closed,
01:17:25.660
saying, you're sinners, you're fake, and attacking their religion and screaming at them
01:17:31.060
inside the church, outside the church, while their ringleader is saying, trauma is part of
01:17:40.300
Not his, not Don Lemon's, but the children, with kids crying inside the mosque or the temple.
01:17:47.900
Just because it's Christians, we have to bend over backwards to find a way out for them.
01:17:55.560
And Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dillon, they've had it.
01:17:58.440
There will be, there will be criminal charges coming, I'm sure, either today, tomorrow,
01:18:03.100
Be patient, MAGA, because it does take a while to cross the T's in federal court.
01:18:14.340
I mean, do I really know what a Minneapolis federal court judge is going to do?
01:18:17.800
You could be right, Dave, that this judge is going to be sympathetic or read the law the
01:18:21.180
way you say it should be read and throw these charges out.
01:18:28.320
Because MAGA has sat back too long and watched its favorite members get dragged across the
01:18:39.160
I mean, if you were the state prosecutor, and you were a state prosecutor up until very,
01:18:44.180
very recently down in Florida, would you charge them with anything under state law?
01:18:47.700
You know, there is a Minnesota law that makes this illegal to go in the house of worship
01:18:55.980
Not sure if it's a misdemeanor or felony under state law, but I think it's just a misdemeanor,
01:18:59.740
which is why they want the federal government to come in and impose these more serious laws.
01:19:04.040
But like I said, I think you can get them on the trespass and disorderly conduct.
01:19:08.260
And I wish those protesters, those people who claim to be pro-Palestinian protesters who
01:19:13.180
went into synagogues and protested while people were praying, I wish they would have been
01:19:22.360
But as far as whether it's a federal crime, I don't see it.
01:19:30.280
I mean, I don't agree with it, but I totally accept your position as the one that will be argued.
01:19:35.840
If I were one of those parents, Mike Davis, with the children crying next to me in those
01:19:42.320
pews, I would sue Don Lemon for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
01:19:50.180
We played the bit yesterday of him outside the church as they're fleeing, saying trauma
01:20:09.060
This is the beginning of what's going to happen here.
01:20:11.120
When you violate people's due process, when you pull people off the street and you start
01:20:15.460
dragging them and hurting them and not abiding by the Constitution, when you start doing
01:20:24.140
And if you remember what the civil rights movement was about, the civil rights movement was about
01:20:33.260
And for some reason, in our modern era, people think that in order to have protests, you've
01:20:37.760
got to be cordoned off to a certain area and what time you can protest.
01:20:45.940
There's nothing in the Constitution that tells you what time you can protest.
01:20:52.980
That's the whole point of it, is to disrupt, to make uncomfortable.
01:20:57.740
And that's what I believe when I say everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something.
01:21:01.920
You have to make people uncomfortable in these times.
01:21:04.580
If you see how uncomfortable people, uncomfortably, and how harsh people are being treated on the
01:21:10.740
streets, you have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable.
01:21:21.140
Okay, all of that's going to be used against him in the criminal case.
01:21:24.900
But I think you have a strong case if you're a parent of one of those crying children,
01:21:28.300
or if you yourself are traumatized on the heels of a sencion, where these kids,
01:21:34.180
They have no idea who Michael Brown was, or Ferguson, Missouri, or how that's a lie.
01:21:37.940
All they see is a bunch of strangers hijack their Sunday service and start screaming about
01:21:46.380
Then they see their friends trying to flee and getting chased by fucking nutcases like
01:21:53.640
And so I doubt William Kelly has two nickels to rub together in between his ears or otherwise.
01:21:59.040
And I would 100% sue him civilly for intentional infliction.
01:22:06.360
I watched that with Don Lemon, and he makes my blood boil.
01:22:13.520
Not only should he be put in federal prison for many, many years, he should be bankrupted,
01:22:19.300
like you said, Megan, for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
01:22:22.940
There's also a federal civil cause of action under our federal civil rights statutes when
01:22:29.840
you go after people, when you target people like Don Lemon and his fellow Klansmen did there
01:22:35.200
because of their Christian faith and because of their white race.
01:22:40.700
There needs to be no mercy for Don Lemon because he has shown zero remorse.
01:22:46.580
Like you said, he's tripling and quadrupling down on his felonious misconduct.
01:22:57.580
I look forward to watching that process play out.
01:23:06.160
Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university based in beautiful Phoenix,
01:23:11.600
Arizona, is one of the largest universities in the country.
01:23:14.780
Praised for its culture of community and impact, GCU integrates the free market system, a welcoming
01:23:20.600
Christian worldview, and free and open discourse into more than 360 academic programs, including
01:23:29.000
Join a nationwide community of learners, redefining what online education looks like through academically
01:23:34.480
rigorous, industry-driven programs that can spark bold ideas and prepare you for a future
01:23:39.720
In addition to federal grants and aid, GCU's online students received nearly $161 million
01:23:55.560
Visit gcu.edu slash myoffer to see the scholarships for which you may qualify.
01:24:01.500
Dave Ehrenberg and Mike Davis are back with me now.
01:24:08.240
So we've got to talk about what happened in the Timothy Busfield bail hearing yesterday,
01:24:12.860
where he was granted bail and was not held in state custody pending his trial on charges
01:24:19.640
of alleged child abuse, alleged child molestation.
01:24:22.500
Two little boys, ages seven at the time, 11 today, alleged, twin brothers, alleged that
01:24:29.540
he molested them, that he fondled one outside of his clothing and that with the other one,
01:24:36.140
it was less of a fondling, more of like inappropriate touching, but one explicitly having his private
01:24:42.020
genitalia touched, he claims, by Timothy Busfield, who was the kid's director on this show, The
01:24:53.640
And then when the arrest warrant was issued for him on last Friday out of New Mexico, he
01:25:01.380
He didn't turn himself in Albuquerque, New Mexico until Tuesday.
01:25:05.380
And now we know that he was driving cross country and he was working with a lawyer to take what
01:25:10.480
they say is a legit polygraph that he says he passed, sit with a sexual assault evaluator
01:25:16.240
to assess just how threatening he may or may not be to children, and issue a statement on camera
01:25:21.660
to TMZ, which we have already addressed as having signs of deception, per Phil Houston,
01:25:26.380
the human lie detector and CIA agent of 25 years who invented their deception detection methods.
01:25:33.780
Now, we said at the time we had not heard his defense, and now we're getting a look at it,
01:25:38.780
because his lawyers came in both guns blazing to try to get him bail.
01:25:43.020
And the most shocking allegation, pretty much everything they alleged in his defense,
01:25:48.000
we kind of knew, but we did not know that the parents of the two boys are a couple of,
01:25:55.900
as the defense lawyers, I'm sorry, adequately said, con men.
01:26:00.320
The mother and the father both appear to be serial fraudsters, which, let's face it,
01:26:07.520
changes the outlook of this case, changes the likely outcome,
01:26:10.660
and changes how we need to view the allegations themselves.
01:26:14.640
I'm going to give you guys just a little bit from the defendant's opposition to the state's
01:26:22.420
They say the dad has been, he's a former attorney who was convicted of federal conspiracy and wire
01:26:29.960
fraud and was later disbarred following the prosecution for a multi-million dollar scheme
01:26:35.260
in which he used his law license to deceive vulnerable victims for profit.
01:26:40.060
He pleaded guilty, so there's no question he did it, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud arising from
01:26:44.680
a mortgage modification enterprise that defrauded more than 1,500 homeowners of approximately $6 million.
01:26:50.780
It happened, I believe, during COVID, where he was taking advantage of vulnerable people.
01:26:55.460
This is as an officer of the court, where he has a duty to, you know, be, an extra duty to be ethical and honest.
01:27:01.680
The children's mother, they write, has an equally disturbing history.
01:27:05.840
She has had multiple civil judgments entered against her, and not just civil judgments like you had a car accident
01:27:10.900
and, you know, whatever, or like you punched somebody.
01:27:18.100
So it's all, like, potential, it's all very relevant for fraudulent and dishonest behavior.
01:27:24.860
She was sued in 2011 by somebody to whom she sold her Bentley for $91,000.
01:27:33.000
The guy took possession of the Bentley, but she never transferred him the actual title.
01:27:37.620
And then she had the vehicle unlawfully repossessed and then traded the Bentley in and got a Porsche
01:27:44.940
instead, which she registered in her mother's name.
01:27:47.900
Then a complaint came against her, and apparently they are alleging that there was a judgment against her.
01:27:54.380
And then in addition, there were judgments against her for over $400,000 for unpaid gambling debts
01:28:01.320
in which she allegedly wrote bad checks to MGM Grand in one other casino trying to pay for it.
01:28:09.900
So, I mean, this is like, if all this is true, it's alleged by Busfield in his response.
01:28:16.640
The prosecutor did not take it on at all, saying it's not true.
01:28:21.020
So it's not a case of mistaken identity from the look of it.
01:28:26.080
Now, I don't know, Dave, I'm going to start with you on this because, again,
01:28:28.820
you're just coming off of yours as a state prosecutor.
01:28:32.080
So you would be, you know, the guy saddled with this revelation of your two minor plaintiffs in a child sex abuse case.
01:28:41.180
It's not like the children have been found guilty of fraud.
01:28:45.260
I don't know that it even gets admitted, to be honest, right?
01:28:49.020
Because it's like the whole defense is going to be the children were coached by the parents.
01:28:53.160
The initial statements that they gave to an investigator were that they weren't molested.
01:28:57.800
Then a year later, it changed to, yes, I was molested.
01:29:01.220
And they're going to say that that's because of these con man parents.
01:29:04.960
But is it admissible when the parents are fraudsters and the children are alleging sex abuse?
01:29:10.500
I think, Megan, for the defense, they're going to lean into the motive here for the kids to lie at the behest of their parents.
01:29:20.180
Because there's also a report during the internal investigation that the mother was found to have said something to the effect of if the twins did not get their contract renewed for the show, that she would get Timothy Busfield.
01:29:35.140
And so, yeah, she was going to get her revenge on him.
01:29:38.240
So in that sense, her past and a history of fraud and shakedown schemes and things like that could be relevant here.
01:29:46.100
So the judge is more lenient to allow the defense to pursue motive than they would to allow the prosecution to expose prior bad facts about the defense.
01:29:57.120
So that's why I think that it could come in, because that's how you have a fair trial.
01:30:02.500
You have to flush out whether there was a motive to lie, especially because these kids are minors.
01:30:06.720
And they originally said to investigators that there was no inappropriate touching and then later changed their story.
01:30:12.800
They played that on his defense lawyer, played audio of the boys initially denying that Busfield had inappropriately touched them.
01:30:31.460
You know, where people can't touch, where people can't.
01:30:42.800
In the, in like, you know, your private areas, right?
01:30:56.660
Let's go on, Your Honor, to defense exhibit AA.
01:31:01.340
This is five minutes later, separate, the boys were separated.
01:31:06.660
The same, the same police officer, this time speaking to SL.
01:31:18.060
You don't know when he could touch your private areas?
01:31:36.500
But the problem, the problem there is, of course, that little kids who are molested often do an express denial when they're first asked about it.
01:31:47.460
So, I mean, that's not as probing as, like, a lay witness might think.
01:31:52.160
Like, it is very frequent that an abuse victim initially denies it.
01:31:56.340
But the parent's background, as somebody who, I think, Timothy Busfield is a creep, an absolute creep.
01:32:01.740
And we've learned he's even more creepy than we knew because we learned about two other females who have come forward complaining about him at yesterday's hearing.
01:32:09.880
But that doesn't necessarily mean he's a child molester.
01:32:12.240
So we really do need to look at the credibility.
01:32:14.720
I mean, yes, of the boys, but they're little ones, you know.
01:32:22.440
Look, I've had friends who are sexually abused as kids, and it destroys them for the rest of their lives.
01:32:29.660
There's nothing worse you can do than sexually abuse a kid.
01:32:33.260
And I personally think you should bring back medieval punishment for the people who sexually abuse kids.
01:32:39.040
I know the Supreme Court says we can't have the death penalty anymore for child rape.
01:32:43.320
I think the Supreme Court should reverse that now that Justice Kennedy is no longer on the Supreme Court.
01:32:47.740
I think these people should be brutally and publicly executed to people who abuse kids.
01:32:56.300
And we also have sexual abuse allegations that have been weaponized for political or financial reasons many times in our past.
01:33:05.940
I saw this when I ran Justice Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hearing as the chief counsel for nominations when six bullshit allegations were brought against Justice Kavanaugh.
01:33:17.220
So I am very leery about these allegations, particularly when you have these shady-ass parents who look like they have a financial motive.
01:33:27.140
It looks like it was a shakedown here that they, when they, what Dave just said, when they said if they continue this contract, these allegations go away.
01:33:37.100
If you're a parent and your kids are sexually abused, you don't give a damn about some contract.
01:33:41.500
You want to make sure that someone who's sexually abusing the kids are arrested and held accountable.
01:33:48.220
Well, they're saying they didn't know at the time that the kids were employed by the show that the parents did not know.
01:33:53.020
The kids went to, they got examined by a doctor.
01:34:06.780
But then the parents put the children into therapy and the therapist, a year later, now the other side says it was right after Warner Brothers denied their claim and did an independent investigation and said, guess what?
01:34:19.440
But a year later, the boys said to the therapist that they were touched.
01:34:22.720
The therapist, who would typically have an ethical obligation to mention if she thought the boys had been coached by the parents, did not say that.
01:34:32.040
The prosecutors would, too, have an obligation to say if they thought the boys were groomed by the parents or were not groomed, manipulated by the parents into saying that they'd been touched when they hadn't been.
01:34:42.700
And obviously, the prosecution believes these boys.
01:34:49.480
And, Dave, the reality is in a sexual abuse case like this involving children, they're very hard to make anyway.
01:34:58.780
Now the story has changed because the boys initially in the Warner Brothers investigation appear to have said that this happened when it was just Busfield in the room with them.
01:35:10.100
I didn't hear the prosecution respond to this exactly.
01:35:12.600
Yesterday they pointed out, oh, no, now it's the room was filled.
01:35:16.800
No, there were lots of people there, but he just managed to sort of sneak it in.
01:35:19.720
But it's like the prosecutor claimed, oh, we never said that nobody was in the room.
01:35:24.920
And they read a transcript of the Warner Brothers investigation where they claimed initially that nobody else had been in the room.
01:35:29.600
All these contradictions undermine their credibility.
01:35:36.240
But here you've had the show's director of photography, a guy named Alan Caudillo, who testified that the children were never left alone with adults on the set.
01:35:45.480
And he also said that it was the parents who frequently encouraged the children to hug the adults.
01:35:53.640
And that the adults felt uncomfortable with it.
01:35:58.320
I didn't want some guy sending a seven year old over to hug me when clearly the kid didn't want to do it.
01:36:03.040
Right. But again, that kind of suggests what was his father up to?
01:36:07.040
Was he trying to get like some sort of lay of the foundation for a claim that like people on this set were inappropriate?
01:36:15.420
Right. Well, that's why these cases are so hard.
01:36:18.560
You're dealing with repressed memories and you're dealing with contradictory statements.
01:36:23.460
So they're naturally tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
01:36:26.880
And then you add the specter of the defendants past where it could go either way.
01:36:33.460
Right. Because he's been accused of misconduct with teenagers in the past.
01:36:38.700
And yet perhaps you could argue the parents knew about that and knew this was the weak spot for him.
01:36:45.200
And when they said, apparently, according to a witness, that they were going to get him if their kids did not get renewed and then they didn't get renewed.
01:36:52.460
And perhaps that's the way they got him because they knew about his past allegations against him.
01:36:58.760
That's why the judge allowed the defendant to go home instead of staying in jail pretrial.
01:37:03.960
And that's why it's going to be hard to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt.
01:37:08.300
I have to say, I would have let him go home, too.
01:37:10.320
I just feel like now having heard the defense, I'm not persuaded it didn't happen.
01:37:15.180
I'm really not because I don't impugn the children because of their parents' fraud.
01:37:20.860
But there's enough defense evidence that this case suggesting this case could go away or certainly result in a not guilty that I don't think it's fair to hold him in jail pending trial.
01:37:30.940
He's not allowed to have any contact with children.
01:37:32.820
But, you know, there's there is more to the story, Mike, because Timothy Busfield got on the phone with the police on November 3rd.
01:37:43.260
Melissa Gilbert was on the phone and admitted that he would playfully tickle the boys on set.
01:37:51.220
And also, after admitting that and admitting that they had taken the children out to dinner and given them Christmas gifts, then said, I don't remember these boys.
01:38:02.100
Now, he directed them for two and a half years.
01:38:04.940
So that's why I referenced earlier he did what you're not supposed to do, right, which is talk to the cops.
01:38:10.460
Even if you're innocent, don't talk to the cops.
01:38:12.380
I think most defense lawyers say, keep your mouth shut.
01:38:15.280
But he did do those things, according to the police.
01:38:19.540
And then he looked guilty as hell in his TMZ video.
01:38:23.360
I mean, he just reeked of dishonesty to me and to Phil Houston's AI tool, which is accurate 97 percent of the time in detecting lies.
01:38:35.620
But on the back end, we'll talk about the serial abuse of teenage girls, which is not, of course, the same as a seven year old boy.
01:38:46.140
So I don't want to be too harsh on these children just because the parents appear to be absolute losers.
01:38:57.100
This is a tough case because you have shady ass parents.
01:39:01.900
You have a story that's changed, but you have a guy who appears to be a creep.
01:39:06.780
So this again, there's a presumption of innocence in this country.
01:39:12.020
This man, like every other criminal defendant, deserves the presumption of innocence.
01:39:23.300
And the prosecutor tried to address, you know, the business about the parents' backgrounds just by saying the parents have troubles, but we can't impute those to the boys.
01:39:35.040
I mean, that was really her defense, which is probably the only defense you can go with.
01:39:39.640
I mean, you tell me, Dave, in the next 30 seconds, would the prosecutor have known about the parents' history at the time they brought these charges?
01:39:49.040
That's why the defense hires their own investigators.
01:39:51.540
And they probably found that out after the fact.
01:39:54.140
So I don't blame prosecutors for moving full speed ahead on this.
01:39:58.800
But then when you find this out, you're like, oh, boy, that's not something naturally you would find out on your own until you did more digging.
01:40:06.080
If you were in this position and you found that out after you filed, what would you do?
01:40:11.440
I would make sure I would look up, get all the discovery I could.
01:40:15.320
And if I believe that because of this and other things that I could not get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, I wouldn't file the case or I would dismiss it.
01:40:25.400
There's another piece to talk about right after this break.
01:40:27.860
If your credit card balance is freaking you out after all the holiday spending, real, I have something that can save you money right now.
01:40:36.440
You could cut your cell phone bill in half by switching to Pure Talk's Saver Plan.
01:40:41.500
Just $20 a month for unlimited talk, text, and three gigs of high-speed data on Pure Talk's super fast nationwide 5G network.
01:40:49.060
And as a veteran-led company that cares about giving back to those who serve,
01:40:52.600
if you are active or former military or a first responder, you will save an additional 20% every single month.
01:40:59.760
The easiest way to free up cash flow is to reduce your monthly recurring bills.
01:41:03.920
Start with cutting overpriced wireless and consider switching to Pure Talk.
01:41:08.500
Go to puretalk.com slash Kelly and make the switch today in as little as 10 minutes.
01:41:13.260
Again, talk, text, and data for just $20 a month.
01:41:17.700
That's puretalk.com slash Kelly and you will save an additional 50% off your first month.
01:41:26.480
At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health,
01:41:35.340
That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup
01:41:40.080
that provides a clear picture of your health today
01:41:42.400
and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer.
01:41:49.600
Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today.
01:41:58.200
Join the YMCA and get 50% off your first month.
01:42:18.180
Join today to get 50% off your first month with code YMCA50.
01:42:35.940
It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth,
01:42:42.080
Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like
01:42:44.340
Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly,
01:42:53.540
Only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.
01:43:02.580
Back with me now, Dave Ehrenberg, host of MK True Crime,
01:43:05.800
and Mike Davis, founder of the Article 3 Project.
01:43:08.560
I do want to offer what the prosecutor was saying, because I want to be fair to these
01:43:16.740
She pointed out that it was November 2024 when the doctor first raised concerns of abuse.
01:43:24.560
What we know from the police complaint is that the parents had heard that Timothy Busfield had
01:43:30.480
a history of being inappropriate with underaged women, and that prompted them to start asking
01:43:38.840
questions, which eventually brought them into the medical center with their boys.
01:43:43.600
The doctor interviewed the boys, and the doctor, based on his interview with the boys,
01:43:48.160
said they need to be evaluated for potential child sexual abuse.
01:43:54.380
You heard the excerpts of the boys saying, no, he didn't touch me.
01:43:57.240
And then I gave the chronology of what happened after there.
01:44:02.540
The therapist said the one boy allegedly was having nightmares.
01:44:05.600
It came out that court hearing yesterday that allegedly, according to the defense,
01:44:10.040
the boy had told the therapist he was just waking up several times in the middle of the
01:44:17.700
And the father was the one who said he's having nightmares.
01:44:20.660
So the defense is suggesting the dad's trying to like layer up the kid's injuries.
01:44:30.140
But in any event, the contact with the therapist went on.
01:44:32.740
And ultimately, the therapist said that the boys changed their story and that the one said
01:44:37.320
he had been physically touched, you know, inappropriately, his genitals had been touched
01:44:43.720
And the other brother did not go that far, which, you know, I did think the prosecutor
01:44:48.380
raised several times yesterday that that's actually inures to their benefit.
01:44:51.120
If this is just some money grab, two is better than one.
01:44:53.880
You get paid higher if both boys have been molested.
01:44:58.900
The one boy whose name begins with a V said it didn't go that far.
01:45:03.080
The one boy whose name begins with an S said, indeed, it did.
01:45:06.620
And that Timothy Busfield molested him by touching, forgive me, his penis and his bottom.
01:45:14.520
They went on to say it's normal for children to deny it.
01:45:18.060
And the questions asked, she said, by that first police officer did not comply with best
01:45:24.520
She said the kids continue to show signs of abuse and continue to disclose they should
01:45:31.620
She said it's very difficult to coach children at that age.
01:45:34.600
And even though they gave, even though it's, it's, it's tough to, to coach children, she
01:45:41.380
said they, they managed to actually come out and tell their stories and they gave details.
01:45:46.500
And then she points to, oh, then she says the therapists know about coaching.
01:45:56.100
These are people who know these boys who have spent many hours with them in the case of the
01:46:03.900
And then she got into, um, defendant's admission.
01:46:09.320
Timothy Busfield admitted, and I pulled back up the complete, the police complaint.
01:46:13.820
Um, according to the police, he admitted the following.
01:46:17.500
He writes, I did ask Timothy if he ever had any physical contact with these boys and if he
01:46:23.740
Timothy said it was highly likely that he would have.
01:46:27.140
Timothy said it was a playful environment like he wanted.
01:46:30.940
This is why I'm not ready to completely rule him out despite these weird parents.
01:46:35.060
I know, I know if I ever said to you, Dave Ehrenberg, did you ever pick up somebody else's
01:46:48.400
Every man knows not to do that, whether he's directing them in a film or not.
01:46:55.980
Yes, he's 68 years old, so he's a little different generation than, but I don't know
01:47:00.440
anyone who just does that normally, um, and anyone who did, maybe that was like three generations
01:47:09.840
Also, it is true that when he was accused of improper conduct, they were not children,
01:47:15.180
they were teenagers, but he did pay out $150,000 to a 17-year-old girl, uh, it was relating
01:47:23.180
to costs and, uh, fees after an unsuccessful countersuit, but there is some past conduct
01:47:30.580
here that could become relevant in a trial where they could bring it up as what's called
01:47:36.640
Every state has it where it doesn't have to be a conviction.
01:47:38.620
It just can be if it's like his MO, a pattern of conduct.
01:47:43.000
And so that's where it could come back to hurt him.
01:47:46.020
So it is a messy case, Megan, but our conversation here by no means means that he is not guilty
01:47:54.000
And the fact that it's messy makes it harder for prosecutors.
01:47:57.760
I mean, well, my, my obligation as a reporter is to bring the audience updated information
01:48:02.540
And this is certainly worth them considering in deciding what they think of this case.
01:48:06.540
Here's the other thing from the police affidavit.
01:48:08.240
He says, Timothy then stated, I don't remember those boys.
01:48:17.120
I don't remember overtly tickling the boys ever, but it wouldn't be uncommon for me.
01:48:21.640
So now he's gone from, he's directed them in his show for two and a half years and
01:48:38.440
And then I do want to get into the other alleged incidents of abuse and tell me what you think,
01:48:44.860
Mike Davis, because what we learned is that Mike mentions there was a 17 year old girl
01:48:50.400
who accused him, who accused him of molesting her physically and sexually in some way.
01:48:58.640
And she sued him and he countersued, he sued her law firm because they were trying to get
01:49:07.720
And he lost, he said that they had defamed him and he lost that defamation claim.
01:49:12.580
He did have to pay the money and he settled with a 17 year old.
01:49:21.720
Then there was a 28 year old who alleges that they went out to a movie together and that
01:49:26.880
in the movie theater, he took what was a kiss and turned it into a physical sexual assault,
01:49:33.780
shoving his hands down her pants, grabbing her genitals.
01:49:39.540
She wanted nothing to do with him to the point where she went to the police.
01:49:44.180
The police said, we can't really make anything out of this.
01:49:46.720
Cause it's like, he said, she said, and you were on a date with him, something to that
01:49:51.660
I mean, I don't like the average guy doesn't have somebody turning like a movie kiss into
01:49:56.080
something that results in a phone call to the cops, but there's that one.
01:49:59.760
Then there is, um, this other report that, that they read.
01:50:07.280
One is like a, eh, from an assistant who worked for both Melissa and Timothy recently that
01:50:15.100
But then there was a new one by name, by an actress named Claudia Christian, who is out
01:50:21.900
And if you look at her face, she's, she looks kind of familiar.
01:50:24.140
I think she's a fairly successful like character actress, um, who back in 1991, I think it was,
01:50:31.440
cause that's when they started a movie together.
01:50:32.720
She and Timothy Busfield were working together, alleges that when she was 16, he, he came
01:50:40.660
Here's the prosecutor describing those other two incidents, SOT 48.
01:50:47.180
State's exhibit five is from the defendant and his wife's personal assistant.
01:50:54.700
They worked, um, I believe through the, um, May of 2017 until 2019.
01:51:02.640
And she, um, mostly describes how the defendant was inappropriate, intimidating, um, that there
01:51:13.160
was a lot of, you know, this position of authority that we've kind of seen play out in this case
01:51:18.380
case and all of the other victims that have come forward, um, and had made comments to
01:51:26.040
her about, um, the way she acted and that he might have a crush on her if, if she continues
01:51:35.280
Um, so there was concerns of inappropriate conduct with her as well.
01:51:41.940
State six, Claudia Christian, who is an actress.
01:51:50.920
She has reported that when they were filming the strays, the defendant and her, she was already
01:51:58.560
casted as an actress and during, during the show, they were running lines, which was common
01:52:10.680
She stated that once she got there, he was alone.
01:52:16.300
And after, almost immediately after she entered his trailer, he forcibly grabbed her and threw
01:52:22.880
her against the wall, um, and started kissing her and he had an erection.
01:52:29.620
So that's Claudia, um, Christian who went on the record, apparently with the prosecutor
01:52:36.920
She would have been 26 when that happened to her.
01:52:43.060
We've got a 17 year old who, uh, he accused of defaming him when she accused him.
01:52:48.440
And instead he had to settle that case and pay her lawyers $150,000.
01:52:52.800
And then there's a 16 year old girl who's come forward as well.
01:52:56.880
She was 16 when this happened to her, who claims he molested her when she was auditioning
01:53:11.760
Um, in a seven page filing, New Mexico, New Mexico prosecutor said the law enforcement,
01:53:16.600
they received a report Tuesday from the, from her father who said Busfield kissed his 16 year
01:53:21.600
old daughter and touched her intimate parts several years ago.
01:53:25.280
And that when the father went to him, Busfield quote begged the family to hold off and reporting
01:53:33.920
If Busfield got therapy, uh, the father was himself a therapist and so agreed to that.
01:53:39.580
So that's a 16 year old girl whose dad is on the record.
01:53:42.120
It's a 17 year old girl who got a settlement and her lawyers did too.
01:53:45.500
It's a 28 year old girl who said she was on a date.
01:53:49.500
And then there is Claudia Christian, who I guess would have been 26 when she says she
01:53:56.120
He molested her through her against the wall and started grabbing her.
01:54:00.560
That's four, um, payouts in a couple of them, one case and agreed therapy that he got.
01:54:10.800
So all of this look has me, I got the same questions you guys have about these parents,
01:54:16.100
but Timothy Busfield is a creep and Melissa Gilbert is gross too, because this whole thing
01:54:22.280
started it for me because she was out there trying to suggest that I downplayed the abuse
01:54:26.680
of women because I was making the distinction about whether Jeffrey Epstein technically legally
01:54:33.600
If his thing was 15 year olds versus if it were, you know, five year olds and legally that
01:54:39.180
definition only applies to an attraction to prepubescent girls.
01:54:42.660
Meanwhile, she knows full well, her husband was out there allegedly molesting a 16 year
01:54:49.680
old, a 17 year old, a 26 year old, a 28 year old.
01:54:54.020
And she's out there trying to cloak herself in this sort of sort of moral, um, you know,
01:54:59.380
glory, uh, when she knows full well that he's done all those things, or at least settled
01:55:04.840
And on top of that, when she's doing it knew he'd been accused by these seven year old
01:55:08.920
boys, they're now 11, but the abuse allegedly happened between seven and nine.
01:55:12.520
All of it is speaks to her and her husband's disgusting hypocrisy, but it also could be
01:55:17.820
pattern evidence, Mike Davis, that potentially could get admitted some of those claims.
01:55:22.780
I mean, generally under our criminal procedures, you could not bring in propensity evidence,
01:55:28.220
meaning, uh, you can't, if someone robs a bank, you can't bring in prior bank robberies
01:55:34.520
to show that they are likely to, or they have a disposition to rob banks.
01:55:40.600
But as Dave talked about, you have MO evidence or modus operandi evidence.
01:55:45.060
If you show that you rob banks wearing a clown outfit, uh, you can bring that in generally
01:55:53.860
That shows that's how you go about doing these bank robberies.
01:55:58.040
That's, uh, and so it's, uh, it shows evidence that you committed this bank robbery.
01:56:02.420
So the distinction between propensity and MO evidence generally with sex crimes.
01:56:10.140
I'm not licensed in New Mexico, but I, I, I think the same rule applies in New Mexico with
01:56:15.060
sex crimes, you can bring in propensity evidence.
01:56:17.660
Uh, so, uh, this would all get admitted or it probably would get admitted.
01:56:22.940
It's if, uh, if this, if this case goes to trial and it would be very damning for him
01:56:32.500
It's whether you can bring in that MO evidence, the prior bad acts.
01:56:39.020
When you look at the words from judge Murphy, when he ordered Busfield's release, if you look
01:56:43.760
at his order, he said this, there is no evidence of a pattern of criminal conduct.
01:56:50.280
There are no similar allegations involving children in his past.
01:56:55.420
So that tells me at least for now that the judge is skeptical of the prosecution's pattern
01:57:02.720
But also he did say, I mean, I listened to the whole hearing and he, what he said was
01:57:09.240
Like he he's talking about no one's no criminal convictions with respect to these other women.
01:57:13.060
Well, if he was only talking about convictions, then, then that is good for the prosecution
01:57:18.480
because you don't have to have a conviction to bring in past bad acts.
01:57:22.460
But it did seem like he was differentiating as you did in that whole Epstein controversy
01:57:27.840
between a young child, a seven year old and a, in this case, a 17 or 16 year old.
01:57:35.640
Oh, Doug and I were laughing because the irony of, of Melissa Gilbert's attack on me is she
01:57:42.500
She should have been like, yeah, there's a big difference between the teenagers and the,
01:57:46.080
and the young ones, because of course that's what her lawyers are going to argue on Timothy
01:57:50.360
Busfield's behalf and trying to keep all this evidence of him molesting teenagers and women
01:57:55.160
in their twenties out, out of the jury's purview.
01:57:58.220
Uh, but unlike Timothy Busfield, I actually do think there's a serious problem in molesting
01:58:04.760
I just didn't think it legally qualifies as pedophilia, which is true.
01:58:11.020
Last but not least, Riley Gaines gets attacked.
01:58:14.440
The reason I'm raising this, Dave, is because you told me last time you were on that you
01:58:17.080
actually went to school with the disgusting Scott Wiener, who's running for Nancy Pelosi's
01:58:24.000
seat is a state legislature and legislator in California.
01:58:27.220
But now he's running for Nancy Pelosi's seat and even California.
01:58:33.120
You, I'm sorry, but you cannot vote for this man.
01:58:35.200
He gets online to attack Riley Gaines as a quote, weird grifter.
01:58:42.020
She tied a trans swimmer for sixth place and the ad that she's doing for milk.
01:58:46.980
These creepy people keep one upping themselves.
01:58:50.000
So he's calling Riley Gaines weird and creepy in response to which I tweeted out a photo of Scott
01:58:57.040
Wiener on the public transit in California wearing stiletto, hot pink heels.
01:59:06.340
This is what you want in your U.S. congressman.
01:59:15.740
We're going to add it parading around there in his high stiletto heels.
01:59:18.380
And then all these other audience members started to pile on with other disgusting pictures
01:59:23.220
of Scott Wiener, which you can't unsee of his disgusting naked body with weird little
01:59:33.440
I'm not sure what we're dealing with here, Dave, but we don't need any more weird, creepy
01:59:46.600
So this is your friend from school, law school or college?
01:59:54.060
I didn't know him well, I must say, but he was a campus activist.
01:59:58.860
He was the head of the LGBTQ group on campus, and he made it known he was out and proud.
02:00:04.380
And I knew him a little bit then in law school.
02:00:15.600
And the same was true when he was in the state Senate.
02:00:20.100
And he actually, because he was born into a religious Jewish family, that he believed
02:00:27.300
And now what's crazy is that after he got razzed at a hearing, at a campaign event, because
02:00:33.660
he said that it was not a genocide, Israel's defensive war against Hamas, then he decided
02:00:39.280
So he literally compromised everything he's been saying and believed in for his entire
02:00:45.880
So that, to me, makes him no better than any other self-obsessed politician who just
02:00:51.720
looks at the next election rather than the next generation.
02:00:58.680
And he should get all the criticism that's leveled his way.
02:01:01.920
Yes, I'm sorry, but he absolutely strikes me as a creepy pervert who we absolutely should
02:01:08.780
not let into the U.S. House of Representatives.
02:01:14.640
I would say this as a highly partisan, lunatic Republican.
02:01:19.940
I love the fact that Democrats are going to put this new boogeyman or actually boogeywoman,
02:01:26.480
if he's wearing stilettos, in the House of Representatives.
02:01:30.580
He's definitely not a woman, but he could be a wannabe.
02:01:32.640
But boogeywoman Scott Stilettos, I love that the Democrats may put this guy in the House.
02:01:39.100
He will be the number one political target for Republicans.
02:01:43.720
We will run against this Scott Wiener every election.
02:01:46.760
So as a partisan Republican, yes, if we're going to get some goofy Democrat in San Francisco,
02:01:55.180
Just think of all the renewed New York Post headlines we'll get that we
02:01:59.340
had to say goodbye to once Anthony Wiener was out of the news.
02:02:03.400
You know, there were so many, so many great ones by the Post.
02:02:08.660
So that will be our one comfort if he winds up winning.
02:02:16.780
And we are back tomorrow with Allie, Beth, Stuckey, and more.
02:02:27.000
You deserve a platform to direct invest with confidence.
02:02:36.500
Scotia iTrade has everything you need to direct invest in one place.
02:02:40.240
With a mobile app offering quick access to real-time market research,
02:02:45.780
you'll never snooze and lose on a market movement again.
02:02:48.380
And for a limited time, new clients can get up to $10,000 cash.
02:02:52.620
For full terms and conditions, visit www.scotiaitrade.com slash winter26.
02:03:12.920
Feelings of joy and freedom you can't wait to experience again and again?
02:03:17.740
Or is it the vehicles that help you make all those special moments possible?
02:03:23.900
Toyota is here to bring you closer to the things that matter to you.