Stormy Daniels testifies before a grand jury, Piers Morgan interviews her. Megynkellek gives her thoughts on the latest in the Trump scandal, and why she thinks he should be jailed. Plus, Megyn talks about the Wisconsin Supreme Court victory and what it means for the future of the country.
00:00:00.260Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:11.700Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:15.640CNN's Don Lemon denying an explosive story in Variety detailing his alleged misogyny towards several female colleagues going back years.
00:00:26.800The stories are awful, and they have several women on the record with quotes about him.
00:00:33.720The network's response? Equally horrifying. We'll get into it.
00:00:38.380Plus, we'll tackle what the Wisconsin Supreme Court election means for 2024.
00:00:42.500I listened to The New York Times The Daily two days ago, and they said this is the single most important election in America this year, and the Democrats just won it handily.
00:00:51.280The guys had a great podcast on why and what it means and where the GOP went wrong, so we'll delve into their analysis.
00:00:59.720And by the guys, I mean Ruthless, who are coming on in two seconds.
00:01:02.960And Dylan Mulvaney scoring yet another high-profile endorsement.
00:01:08.120This time, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear it's Nike previously so reliable when it came to standing up against the woke mob, right?
00:09:49.500So she's not the only like the lionization of Stormy Daniels is not the only thing that's happening on the left right now.
00:09:55.700You've got people who are losing their minds over Trump remaining a free man after he allegedly, it depends on your view, violated the judge's admonition not to say anything that would lead to incitement or civil unrest.
00:10:15.300Don't make comments that will lead to violence, he said, or civil unrest.
00:10:19.200And then Trump went down to Mar-a-Lago and he made the comments about the judge's daughter being a Trump hater and having worked for Kamala Harris.
00:10:27.380Alvin Bragg, the DA's wife, sending out mean tweets about Trump and celebrating her husband was going to get him something to that effect and then shutting down her Twitter account.
00:10:38.640I have to say, I don't think Trump, it wasn't good.
00:10:40.600I'm not saying he should have crossed those lines after the judge said what he said, but I don't think he incited violence or civil unrest.
00:10:47.820And I think we know that because it didn't happen.
00:10:55.800Here's just a little sampling, because I know you guys love to hear from Keith, of how he's reacting.
00:11:01.820What more does the defendant have to do, Judge Merchan?
00:11:07.020He already threatened death and destruction.
00:11:09.800He already reposted an article with a photo of him wielding a baseball bat next to a photo of the head of the district attorney.
00:11:18.120And yesterday, as you were warning him, but also as you were bending over backwards to protect his First Amendment rights, as you were saying those things to him,
00:11:31.320his idiot sons, Junior and Fredo, were doxing your own daughter on every social media site they could find.
00:11:39.100And if you don't put them under a gag order, what exactly does the rule of law mean in this country?
00:11:46.420What exactly is the point of having laws in this country?
00:11:50.040What exactly, Your Honor, is the point of having judges and district attorneys and cops if their words mean nothing?
00:11:57.860And a psychotic, narcissistic piece of shit criminal like Donald Trump can leave your courtroom and go down on his private jet and go to his private club and pick up right where he left off.
00:12:09.100Not merely endangering you and your wife and your daughter and the DA and his wife and everybody connected with law enforcement in New York and Washington and America,
00:12:18.240but endangering, as you yourself phrased it, the rule of law by, as you yourself also phrased it, making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.
00:19:23.540They enjoy, this is become a hallmark of, of how the left wants to act is they want to humiliate their opponents.
00:19:31.100They're enjoying and reveling the fact that, you know, they're essentially just making a mockery of the constitution.
00:19:36.180And now they have the power to just punish their political opponents.
00:19:41.940It's, it's like, uh, PBS had some articles saying that, you know, there are actually many countries around the world who try to form our presidents.
00:19:49.460And they give the examples of like Venezuela.
00:19:52.880You know, maybe we should model ourselves after places that have had their governments collapse a few times.
00:20:00.880It's incredible, but it's very key because they want to show they have absolute control.
00:20:05.860Whether it's with the corporations, um, whether it's the institutions of the school, higher learning.
00:20:11.120And this is another example of, yes, they have the ability, uh, politically to make their opponents suffer and they're going to exercise it.
00:20:19.580Everyone knows it's widely known that this case is extremely thin.
00:20:24.760This, this district attorney has over 50% of the time turned felonies into misdemeanors.
00:20:30.000And this is an example of him turning a misdemeanor to a felony.
00:20:33.260And there's a very specific reason for that is because it's politically motivated.
00:20:35.860Turning it into a felony, the justification of which is that these alleged crimes were in service of another crime, which they do not name.
00:20:44.300An unnamed crime in the indictment, which is unusual.
00:21:11.580Well, I was just going to ask you, I mean, you, you're obviously the, the legal expert among us.
00:21:16.300And if you look into your crystal ball, I mean, how do you see this playing out over the next, you know, year?
00:21:21.760I think they have the grounds, very solid, strong grounds to get this dismissed on the papers, but I don't think the judge is going to have the courage to do it because he's an elected official that, that New York state Supreme, which is what we call our trial courts here is an elected judgeship.
00:21:37.320And he's, you know, in a democratic community, you know, I believe that Nicole Wallace and Keith Olbermann are also Manhattanites.
00:22:07.400Again, a jury pool like those two and say, oh, the jury had its say.
00:22:11.140But I think if Trump gets to this point where he gets to file an appeal, he may also have a trouble on the immediate appellate court, which is another elected court.
00:22:19.880But once he gets up to the New York State Court of Appeals, that's our highest court, he'll win.
00:22:24.540He'll win because there is no case on the papers.
00:22:26.660If you follow the law, we went in depth on it yesterday in a podcast.
00:22:29.980I have to tell you, I'm actually really proud of.
00:22:31.900I really hope people go back and listen to it because we really broke it down for people with an election law expert guy who used to head the FEC under Clinton.
00:22:40.980And what he essentially said was, unless you can prove that the so-called campaign expense that Alvin Bragg is basing this all on, you know, the payoff to Stormy, unless you can prove that that's an expense, not just that Donald Trump would never have made in the absence of the election, but that no one would ever make in the absence of an election.
00:22:58.400In other words, some people try to use a $2,000 payment for a fancy suit that they wear to a presidential or a senatorial debate as a campaign expense, and they have the campaign pay for it, right?
00:23:10.880Then they don't have to pay for it out of their pocket.
00:23:12.300They say, oh, I never would have bought a $2,000 suit for the debate.
00:23:19.780Unless no one would ever buy this suit under any circumstances, you can't make that argument.
00:23:25.620And, of course, somebody would buy that $2,000 suit.
00:23:28.300And that's so he was saying very, very small field of things that qualify as a campaign expenditure, like setting up field offices, hiring a campaign manager, you know, hiring a speechwriter to write your campaign speech.
00:24:47.580Granted, there haven't been allegations that have given rise to it most occasions.
00:24:52.020But, you know, like Ford pardoned Nixon, for example.
00:24:55.160And the reason you do that is because you don't want to live in a banana republic where political opposition is constantly using the long arm of the law to try to put down their opponents.
00:25:04.420But going forward, to me, it's impossible to see how an enterprising young attorney general conservative, for example, if they have any case to make against Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or anything else, they're going to bring it.
00:26:12.300Right. There's a myriad of reasons for that.
00:26:14.020The old man's got himself worked up and he'll be able to talk about that with more detail.
00:26:17.960But I just think any time that we're stuck in this tabloid version of lawmaking and news, we're in a bad spot as a party.
00:26:29.960Because if you look at the policies themselves, and Wisconsin is a good example of this, but even the exit polls in 2022, people want conservative policy.
00:26:39.240They deeply believe in the economic policies that the Republican Party put in place under Trump.
00:26:46.040And they believe that conservative governance going forward is exactly what they want.
00:26:50.200And they're still not voting Republican.
00:26:52.640Yeah. If you look at Wisconsin, for example, there were two tough on crime questions on the ballot.
00:26:57.740Wait, wait, Duncan, just set up Wisconsin for the audience because we haven't talked about Wisconsin at all yet in the Supreme Court race and why you're talking about ballot initiatives.
00:27:04.100Yeah, sure. So so Daniel Kelly was the Republican.
00:27:07.520This is Janet P. I don't know how to pronounce her last name.
00:27:10.160Pro to say, what's pro to say, what's pro to say, what's pro to say, what's was the liberal judge on the in the in the race?
00:27:18.600And Janet won by 11 points in this special election.
00:27:24.040She was an avowed. I mean, she was not like, well, you know, I'm going to use the law for liberal good.
00:27:29.280She was basically like, no, I'm going to overturn abortion laws and throw your election laws out.
00:27:33.300Yeah. Yeah. And so the conservative judge, this Daniel Kelly, lost by 11 points.
00:27:39.600But in the backdrop of that, there were three ballot questions on the ballot as well.
00:27:43.880Statewide for every voter in Wisconsin, there were two that were tough on crime, one on cash bail, one on pretrial detention.
00:27:50.020They won by 66, 67 percent of the electorate.
00:27:52.780Two thirds of the electorate was like, yes, we like those conservative ideas.
00:27:56.980There was also a looking for work requirement to getting welfare for able bodied and you don't have kids
00:28:02.060and you want to receive welfare. You have to prove that you're looking for work.
00:28:09.260These are like rock red conservative policies.
00:28:12.960And the voters of Wisconsin were like, yes.
00:28:15.660And then they pulled the lever for a liberal judge.
00:28:19.040Now, why is that? There's a couple of reasons.
00:28:21.300I mean, I think we've done a really bad job messaging on the issue of abortion.
00:28:24.800I think when Donald Trump is going into a courthouse in Manhattan, he sucks up all the oxygen in the room, not to mention the fact that this Daniel Kelly guy was endorsed by him in 2020.
00:28:35.900He went along with the fake electorate scheme for Donald Trump, which suddenly now every independent voter is completely turned off by all of that.
00:28:42.940And so they're not even you can't even persuade those people.
00:28:45.280So you've locked in the fact that you're going to lose.
00:28:47.160He was endorsed by Donald Trump in 2020, lost by 11 points.
00:28:51.380Now, Donald Trump, who didn't who didn't get his endorsement in this 2023 race, is saying, oh, well, you know, if if only Dan Kelly, you know, had had gotten my endorsement, wanted my endorsement, he would have won.
00:29:16.440So it's basically those two same things that haunted the Republican Party on the ballot the last time, which is election denialism and abortion.
00:29:25.060Yeah, well, and we talked a little bit about this previously, but we also have a just a base turnout problem in midterms and special elections in that, you know, sometime about 2017, the base of the Republican Party changed from a largely suburban base for the 75, 76 percent turnout.
00:29:49.460But when you look at special elections and and midterms, the propensity of those voters is like 55, 56 percent.
00:29:57.520And what you saw was in the Wisconsin election, those suburban voters that we're talking about here all supported all of those conservative policies on the ballot question.
00:30:15.700I mean, that's really my long term fear is like, look, this case in in New York is obviously a joke and I don't think it's really going to end up being anything.
00:30:23.680It's going to be obviously a distraction for the Republican Party and Donald Trump's going to raise a lot of money on it.
00:30:29.720But then you're going to have stuff like the Georgia case or like the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
00:30:35.200And there's going to be a lot sort of swirling there constantly in the new cycle.
00:30:40.280And if the Republican Party is more interested in defending Trump from all of these allegations than winning on the conservative issues that 80 percent of Wisconsinites agree with us on, we're going to lose it again.
00:31:30.140So she is, of course, conservative and Republican through and through.
00:31:33.640So she's got stories back to her middle school years of how hard, hard she was charging on the right.
00:31:38.820She's like, for the love of God, stop with the overzealous abortion restrictions.
00:31:44.620Would you just let, you know, understand your audience in states like Wisconsin and stop making like the reason they think that liberal judge won again,
00:31:56.320Proto-Sewitz, is because after Roe fell, there was this old provision that kicked in from the 1800s that basically outlawed abortion and essentially outlawed it.
00:32:09.560And I know a lot of conservative leaning women who would have gone to the polls and voted for that liberal judge to say today I'm I'm voting liberal because that is an issue that is important to me.
00:32:33.060And but the Republican Party has, let's face it, done a piss poor job since Dobbs of coming up with a national strategy, which means state by state.
00:32:43.440You know, you can't go one uniform policy like just banned, banned, banned everywhere.
00:33:40.940I think you hit the nail on the head with you have to know your state and you got to be able to message this issue and speak honestly about our position on the issue of life.
00:33:50.860Well, the other the other complicating factor in this, and we saw this in twenty twenty two post Dobbs and you saw it again in the Supreme Court race in Technicolor, is that it is a very mobilizing thing for liberals.
00:34:02.560And the entire abortion issue is probably the most the biggest driver of financing to campaigns on the Democratic side that there is in politics.
00:34:12.840Right. I mean, we're talking about millions and millions and millions of dollars in small dollar increments that flow in to anything that looks like a referendum on the issue of abortion.
00:34:23.940And a lot of our candidates get really flat footed with that.
00:34:28.180The complication factor with with this in Wisconsin is, you know, this guy's not a great candidate for starters.
00:34:35.020But when you get outspent seven to one because of the dynamic I just explained, it's a pretty tough road.
00:34:52.380It's huge that she won and that the Democrats are now going to be in charge of this court.
00:34:57.120You correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is it means the redistricting that the Republicans did that led to them winning elections like Trump winning in 16 is going out the window.
00:35:07.300It's going to now go in the other way to help Democrats win elections.
00:35:11.280I mean, I heard speculation on the left that the Republicans will be lucky as a result of this if they win another election at all in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.
00:35:36.740I think any sort of voter integrity at this point, this lady has basically said during her campaign that she's going to try to take out.
00:35:44.520So, yeah, I mean, if you if you believe that that an election that's conducted fairly is one that benefits Republicans, which I happen to believe, then, yeah, this is going to be a real bad thing for Republicans because it's certainly opening a Pandora's box.
00:35:58.400A left wing group has already announced that the day after this new judge is seated, they're going to present a case to have the lines redrawn for redistricting.
00:36:08.100And those lines would effectively remove two Republican members of the House from the state of Wisconsin.
00:36:14.420That's they're already making a move on this.
00:36:16.480It's very much in focus for what they want to accomplish.
00:36:19.100And she said smug during the campaign.
00:36:24.440And that was another thing is extraordinary to hear this judge who's supposed to be nonpartisan, supposed to be a nonpartisan election coming out and saying something like that explicitly.
00:36:45.280Liberal groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to boost Daniel Kelly in the Republican primary so that he would win because they already knew the guy lost by line.
00:37:38.840Every time they did it, they got exactly who they wanted and they beat the hell out of them.
00:37:42.460And just remember, just remember every time you hear on the media from these Democrats about how, you know, the sanctity of democracy and how, you know, there's these radical extreme MAGA elements that are going to destroy democracy and and usher in fascism, that they raise millions and millions and millions of dollars to make sure those candidates that they say those things about win primaries.
00:38:07.120I mean, that's what they spend their money.
00:38:08.300They just make a mockery of the entire system and then they have the balls to be like, we're on Democratic.
00:38:13.860Of course, it's just it's dishonest, but it's it's effective, you know, and it is really like as guys who advise Republicans running for office, should should the Republican Party be doing the same thing?
00:38:27.380You guys probably all remember Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos from 2008 when he told everybody to vote for Hillary so that they would have a fight in the Democratic primary for president.
00:38:36.440I mean, so it's it's something that we have known that we should be doing.
00:38:40.940Well, we just need to be a lot more active in primaries in general, Republican primaries or Democratic primaries like these campaigns don't start in the middle of July of an election year, as we pretended that they did in 2022.
00:38:53.780Just gross mismanagement of a whole bunch of different election electioneering systems within the Republican Party.
00:38:59.860But I just think we have to be much more aggressive all the way through.
00:39:03.020We just have to be because if you leave anything to doubt at this point, Democrats are going to exploit it.
00:39:16.260The ground's going to settle eventually and the Republicans will be listened to in a more fair way.
00:39:20.900But right now, with abortion on the ballot in the way it is, it's going to be a lot of GOP losses unless they get a better, better message.
00:39:28.480You can't have a total ban of abortion in a state like Wisconsin.
00:39:36.280We didn't even get to Chicago or the absolute meltdown going on right now in San Francisco when it comes to crime.
00:39:42.500We're going to pick it up there with the guys from Ruthless right after this.
00:39:46.260There's a court officer, I believe, who enters before him, doesn't hold the door open for him.
00:39:53.380And the former president actually has to push the door open for himself, which is probably the first time he's had to do that in quite some time.
00:40:00.660That alone, knowing Donald Trump will stick with him in a way, just a symbolic way of noticing that the difference, the lack of pomp and circumstance, the lack of sort of, you know, service being provided for him.
00:40:13.640What I mean, what an idiot that's going to stick.
00:40:16.260I believe that was Alyssa Farah from The Sound of It with her insightful political analysis is going to stick with him.
00:40:22.860They didn't open the door in the courtroom.
00:40:24.900My God, it passes for political analysis, but it's truly Trump derangement syndrome that's being masqueraded around his political analysis.
00:40:39.240I'm sad for the city I spent five years of my adult life in.
00:40:42.600I thought when they booted Lightfoot and my friend John Cass, who's written so beautifully about what's happening to his beautiful city time and time again.
00:40:50.900They had a relatively moderate candidate right there for the taking, which, you know, the hope was that this guy could have taken Chicago back to the mayor daily years.
00:41:09.820And instead of going with this moderate candidate, Paul Vallis, they elected what the editors over at National Review are calling a dream candidate for national progressives.
00:41:20.140Brandon Johnson, there's this is their description.
00:41:23.000African-American lobbyists for the powerful and radical Chicago Teachers Union, in addition to his nominal duties as Cook County Commissioner, which fund the Cook County CTU, Chicago Teachers Union, funded 90 percent of his campaign.
00:41:35.100Um, he promised to immediately raise 800 million in city taxes, not just on high earners, but on tourists and commuters who live outside of the city.
00:41:43.500In an election fought primarily on the issue of crime, the murder rate in Chicago has skyrocketed since 16.
00:41:48.900Johnson was a candidate whose most moderate position was retreating from his original position of defund the police to a no additional funding for police stance that he regards as a compromise.
00:42:01.100Instead, he wants to hire social workers to replace the missing police manpower in Chicago's most crime and gang ridden communities.
00:42:13.000I've actually gone right into the heart of some of those communities, um, a number of times.
00:42:18.340And most recently, while I was at NBC, to do an in-depth piece on this wonderful nun who's trying to help these communities with social programs and help some of the moms who are grieving their sons who are in prison or their husbands who got shot and so on.
00:42:30.400Um, no social worker is going to do it.
00:42:33.280OK, little boys who are eight are being shot in their living rooms.
00:42:38.100Moms have their children have their children on all on their stomachs trying to dodge crossfire.
00:42:43.220That happens in the late afternoon just to get to this nuns community center, um, to go meet with her for counseling session.
00:43:05.860I think we're sort of at the precipice of losing most great American cities, to be honest with you.
00:43:14.260Megan, I'm truly depressed about it because, you know, you just rattled off the statistics.
00:43:18.360I don't think if you can live, if you live in Chicago, you're unaware of the fact that it is entirely a different city that you feel unsafe in.
00:43:25.840Right. I mean, that's just to state the obvious.
00:43:28.360It's like San Francisco, the same thing, right?
00:43:30.460When you can't have a Walgreens downtown because it gets looted twice a day, uh, you know, maybe we should change your policies.
00:43:36.140But the progressive infrastructure in all of these cities is so strong that it just overwhelms any amount of common sense that anyone could effectuate on any of it.
00:43:47.260And so election after election, this same thing happens, right?
00:43:51.400Occasionally you get something where they, so they get thrown out. Uh, occasionally people will walk back a touch from the whole defund the police deal.
00:43:59.580But what they mean is that they don't want to enforce the law. That's what they mean.
00:44:03.540I mean, that is the core of their ethos as it, as it applies to all policing within a city.
00:44:09.760Like they believe that not enforcing the law is somehow a civil rights issue.
00:44:14.200They become entirely captured by the ideal ideological project of the left, irrationally against their own self-interest.
00:44:23.380Um, I mean, it makes as much sense as Bud Light, you know, an American working class beer trigger making transgender Dylan Mulvaney, a spokesperson like they know it's not in their best interest.
00:44:36.940But they do it anyway because they're committed to an ideological project. It's, I think it's obviously tragic, but don't you think, I mean, I really do believe that we are on the precipice of losing these cities.
00:44:46.940Sure. And I think a lot of it is that, you know, when you speak about the progressive machine that exists in these cities, New York and Chicago, it's when they propose that, uh, they want 800 million more raised.
00:44:58.820They know that's not going to stop crime.
00:45:01.100They know that the social workers that they hire is the same thing that they do in all institutions where they'll bring in as many left-wing ideological people to, you know, make sure that the idea DEI essentially is, you know, from top to bottom in every single organization that controls any budget.
00:45:17.960So it's basically just a payoff. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a patronage system that exists within these left-wing cities.
00:45:24.100And that's why they do it is because the money's that great is, you know, my friends have no qualifications, but they're ideologues like me. So why don't we just have the taxpayer give us all their money?
00:45:35.060That teacher's union. That's who's going to get the money. Um, and then look at San Francisco. Look what happened today. The, the creator of cash app. I don't know. You guys hear, you guys hear about this horrific, disturbing murder, uh, happened early Tuesday morning.
00:45:49.360He's a top Silicon Valley entrepreneur stabbed to death in San Francisco was just 43 years old. They think it may have been a random attack, really uncertain at this point too early to tell, but that city was once one of the crown jewels of America. And now it is a criminal hell hole. I would never go to San Francisco. I don't want to step foot in that town. And most normal people don't either.
00:46:12.960It's completely heartbreaking. And my understanding is he had just moved his family to Florida because of the state of San Francisco. And he just went back for a quick business visit and this tragedy occurred.
00:46:26.060Oh man. But it's just, I hate to be so blackpilled about it, but I don't know what you can do. Right. I mean, can you have any more evidence of a problem and still not do anything about it than this? I don't know.
00:46:35.520Um, I think you can, right. Cause we've seen criminal, like they, the crime was one of the main issues, if not the main issue in Chicago and still they elected this guy. It was tight. It was, uh, I think 52, 48. And my heart goes out to the 48 right now. They must feel so disheartened that their city's not only going to remain on this Lori Lightfoot path, but double down, triple down. It's going to go even farther left.
00:46:57.360And it's just depressing. San Fran, Chicago, New York, uh, not to get started on the deeper blue, like Baltimore and so on. Standby. Ruthless. Uh, we'll do some fun next. You mentioned Dylan Mulvaney. Uh, we're going there and we'll get to Don Lemon. Uh, apparently according to Variety with a long history of misogyny. Didn't I say this? I said this. Uh, we'll get to that in one second.
00:47:20.540So back in February, I was out in Vegas, um, for a business slash pleasure, uh, adventure out there and met some of my girlfriends and did sort of a public appearance and so on. And the story about Don Lemon and Nikki Haley broke, you know, women are past their prime when they're, uh, you know, third thirties, maybe 40, maybe 40. And this was in response to Nikki Haley. Um, so women,
00:47:50.540women everywhere on the left and the right. And a lot of men too said like, you're an idiot. Um, it was, it wound up going into the speech of the best actress winner at the Oscars who said, don't let anyone tell you that you're past your prime. This is a 60 year old woman. Um, she, he got criticized by Karine Jean-Pierre at the white house, uh, podium. He got criticized from, uh, Anna Quinlan famed left wing, amazing writer. She's written so many great books. Um, and of course people like me and women on the right as well. Nikki Haley spoke out.
00:48:20.300I go down the list. Um, I, this was not his first foray into misogyny. There, there had been a list, a considerable list prior to that moment from him saying that one of Bill Cosby's rape victims should have just bitten down to prevent herself from being orally raped. Cause that's, that's really, that reflects the power and physical dynamics between a rape victim and her rapist. Um, what he said to S E cup on the air, when she forgot her words, Oh, is that your mommy brain? That's your mommy brain, right?
00:48:49.300S E cup was noticeably visibly irritated and said, no, Don, I just forgot my words. We could go down the list. So at the time I said this on the air on the air, watch this. This is a pattern of him diminishing. I'm telling you, look into it. If any reporter worth their salt would actually do some digging, call CNN, do it, call their HR right now. Find out whether he's got a history of harassing his female colleagues. We did, by the way, call CNN and asked about whether there was, there's been any history of problems with Don Lemon.
00:49:19.300And women at CNN. And they ignored us. It blew us off. You're not going to be able to avoid it forever. Like if he's got some history, we're going to find out about it. And then you're going to look stupid. By the way, Chris licked. I know you're new. You should look into it right now before you give him another pass.
00:49:37.900Okay. Can I tell you? And now Variety dropping this article by Tatiana Siegel. Don Lemon's misogyny at CNN exposed malicious texts, mocking female coworkers and diva like behavior. And I just want to tell you, this is what we actually went to CNN and asked at the time, because this ain't my first rodeo. I have been through these things with men who have a series of patterns against women many, many times. And I've called it out on the left and the right repeatedly. Check the record.
00:50:05.980Right. So I asked the following questions, my team of CNN at the time. This is what they blew off. Has Don Lemon ever been the subject of a human resources complaint by a female anchor or correspondent? Has he been accused of harassment or other improper behavior by any CNN employee? How are such complaints, if any, resolved? Has he faced any disciplinary action or demotions in the wake of any such complaints from the beginning of his employment with CNN to present day? And they blew them all off. Okay. I guess those weren't relevant.
00:50:32.300But Variety forced them to respond on some of this stuff because I didn't even touch on the harassment he's been doing, or I don't know what word you'd use. I'd say harassment, but just mistreatment of his female co-anchors, which has been making news for months now.
00:50:46.060We forced at least one of them crying into the bathroom. One ran off the set upset. He keeps interrupting. He keeps getting upset that he's getting interrupted.
00:50:53.840He refused to go to break one time so that he could correct one of his female co-anchors interviews and try to lecture her on how it ought to be done. I mean, it's just it's been ongoing. So it's very clear. So now Variety takes this deep dive. And there are many instances. All right. Soledad O'Brien is on the record. Nancy Grace, someone close to Nancy, gives an incendiary quote. I'll get to all of this.
00:51:15.960But here's the first story. Kira Phillips, who was at CNN for years and now is at ABC Digital, in 2008 was Don Lemon's co-anchor. They had a show that they shared. And this is from the piece.
00:51:31.080Tensions between the pair kept mounting. By the way, that's exactly what's happening right now between Lemon and his two co-hosts, female co-hosts, Poppy Harlow and Caitlin Collins, which is the first show he's co-anchored with a woman since Kira Phillips. Now we know why.
00:51:45.940Tensions between the pair kept mounting. A producer and a newsroom supervisor had to pull Don Lemon off the air during a commercial break because of the anchor's provocative antics.
00:51:54.860Kira Phillips was on assignment in Iraq. And while she was there, it was a high-profile gig that Lemon coveted. He vented his disappointment at being passed over by tearing up pictures and notes on top of and inside of Phillips's desk in the news pod they shared.
00:52:14.340I mean, that's, if that's true, that's crazy ass, like single white female behavior, right? Like that's, that's like, what? According to two sources who worked there at the time, I should say here, Don Lemon denies this and I'll read his denial in full.
00:52:29.220One night while dining with members of the news team, Kira Phillips received the first of two threatening text messages from an unknown number.
00:52:37.980So now it's elevated from ripping up photos and documents and leaving them on top of her desk, her photos and documents, to text messages that are threatening from an unknown number on her flip phone, warning, quote, now you've crossed the line and you're going to pay for it, end quote.
00:52:54.720So Phillips was visibly rattled and quickly enlisted CNN's higher ups to identify the sender.
00:53:00.580She's like, who's my crazy ass stalker? Remarkably, reports Variety, the texts were traced back to Lemon, according to these same sources.
00:53:10.820A human resources investigation was launched. And while the findings were never disclosed to the growing pool of staffers who are aware of the situation, Lemon was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips and was moved to the weekends.
00:53:23.680It was a demotion by any objective measure and understood to be some kind of disciplinary action.
00:53:29.400It appears to be the last time he was paired with a female anchor until his most recent assignment on the morning show with Poppy and Caitlin.
00:53:35.980Phillips declined comment. And now here's the capper.
00:53:38.640A spokesperson for CNN said to Variety, quote, Don says, Don says, as if CNN must rely on Don's word to know whether this happened.
00:53:50.260Don says the alleged incident never occurred and that he was never notified of any investigation.
00:53:56.980CNN cannot corroborate the alleged events from 15 years ago.