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Dec. 18, 2020 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:05:29
20201218_ky-ag-daniel-cameron-on-covid-restrictions-the-bre
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
Today on the program, we've got Daniel Cameron, and this is going to be a treat.
You may know him better as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and he became a national star this past year through his Republican National Convention speech, and also because he is the AG who handled the Breonna Taylor case.
This is one of the cases that was made a very big national news story by Black Lives Matter activists and others who wanted to see three police officers indicted for murder after a young woman, Breonna Taylor, was tragically killed inside of her own apartment after the cops executed a warrant.
We'll get into the details of that case in a minute, but this The grand jury basically did not recommend charging the officers with murder.
Daniel Cameron, the attorney general, did not recommend that they return charges and indictment against the officers because there was a boyfriend inside the apartment who admitted he fired the first shot against the cops and actually got one of them in the femoral artery, that they were only returning fire, not starting it.
And he was promptly demonized.
Daniel Cameron happens to be black.
That made people attack him as some sort of a race traitor.
For not making sure there was an indictment.
And he stood strong in the face of those attacks and did not back down at all.
He always expressed empathy for Breonna Taylor and her family, but followed the law and did it in a situation that was really tough and very fraught, very fraught, of course, as you know, given what the country's going through.
So I admire him because he seems strong to me.
If you have the time, go back and YouTube his RNC convention speech because it was great.
And he's definitely a rising star in the Republican Party.
He's only 35 years old.
He's married.
His wife's a school teacher.
He's from Louisville.
That's how you got to say it.
Louisville, not Lewis.
You probably knew that.
And I think you're going to enjoy our conversation.
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Now, we're going to get to Daniel Cameron in one second, but I do want to tell you just quickly first that we're new at the podcasting business here, right?
I haven't done this before.
It's my first Christmas season as a podcaster.
And we were saying to each other, what are we going to do over the Christmas break?
And I was like, well, we're going to put out new shows.
And then we said, what do the competitors do?
And do you know that I found that a lot of these podcasters do nothing.
They just leave you hanging.
So they get you hooked on your favorite podcast and then they go away and you have nothing for two or three weeks.
Or they run best of or they, you know, they sort of phone it in.
President Cameron's Advocacy Comments 00:15:06
Not us, folks.
I got you.
We are running all new episodes with really interesting people throughout the entire holiday season.
So if you're into the show, you never have to worry that you're going to get something stale or that's not new or just a bunch of like repeats.
We're not doing any repeats.
You're just going to get all new content from us all the way through January.
And, you know, we'll just keep it rolling.
So I've got you.
And I appreciate your loyalty to me.
Our numbers have been skyrocketing.
We're going up, up, up the charts.
The downloads have been amazing.
The subscriptions, amazing.
Very grateful to all of you.
And we'll show it by keeping the fresh content coming.
And now, without further ado, Daniel Cameron.
Let's kick it off with some politics coverage because this is the week that the Electoral College made it official that Biden's going to be the 46th president of the United States.
Let me ask you as a lawyer.
Okay, I forget.
Obviously, you're a Trump supporter.
You spoke at the RNC and so on.
But legally, do you have any problem with that?
Well, look, I think, you know, I certainly am the biggest supporter of President Trump and have been grateful for the way that he poured into me and invested in the Commonwealth.
And certainly respect the process that was undertaken in terms of our court systems and really trying to expose.
Any sort of fraud that might have been undertaken during the election.
But the process has played itself out.
Again, I have just been grateful for the way that President Trump has worked for the American people over the last four years.
I was with him on Thursday, and he continues to be an advocate and proponent of the working men and women of this country.
And I think he has shaped the Republican Party for years to come, will continue to have a substantial.
Uh, influence and will continue to be a contributing, uh, factor in, uh, the, uh, the years to come.
And I can't say enough great things, uh, about, uh, his leadership.
But obviously, you know, I think as, uh, as it was and is his right, uh, to, uh, pursue, uh, the legal system to just make sure, uh, that the, uh, the ballots and the integrity of our election systems were upheld.
And, uh, I certainly, uh, Think that was his right to do that, but it looks like the electors will be making the decision for Joe Biden.
When you got up and spoke at the RNC, I mean, President Trump gave you that opportunity.
And I know that you were also reportedly, well, not reportedly, I think it was confirmed, on his shortlist for the Supreme Court, which is pretty amazing because you're a young guy.
So, you know, President Trump actually has, of course, some people say he's a racist, a white supremacist, all this stuff.
But when it comes to actually giving opportunities to people of color, You're an example of him being pretty open minded to that.
And I wonder what you think of all the claims that he's racist and he, you know, he's a white supremacist.
Oh, it's completely absurd.
It's an absurd notion.
Look, President Trump has been, Megan, as you've said, terrific to me, but he's been terrific to the black community in terms of you talk about opportunity zones with Tim Scott and the efforts undertaken there to get those off the ground.
You talk about some of the increases in funding for historically black colleges that came through this president.
You talk about the economy, just in general, how the economy before the pandemic was gangbusters in many ways and increased exponentially and increased opportunities.
For black Americans all across the country.
And you saw the decrease in the unemployment rate for African Americans.
So this president also passed the First Step Act, which was something that had been around in terms of an idea, in terms of a legislative proposal for a while, but he was the first president to be able to get it done.
That was criminal justice reform.
Yes, ma'am, in order to reverse some of the decisions that were made in the crime bill of 1994.
And so this president.
Look, you know, it's one thing to criticize someone for their rhetoric, but with President Trump, you have to watch and look at his actions.
And that's why at the RNC during the convention at the speech, I was so complimentary of him because he has, again, been a staunch advocate for the black community, but for all Americans.
And that's what you should want in a president someone who is going to fight daily for the working men and women in this country.
I talk about my mom who.
Has been an advocate of the president and a supporter of the president.
She, you know, look, she lives in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, E Town for short, right outside of Louisville.
You know, she sees every day the men and women of this country in Hardin County that are working every day and, you know, making decisions about where to put money when they're around the dinner table.
And so the president tapped into something and resonated with millions of Americans.
How do you feel about Biden?
You know, I know at the RNC, you said, you said no one's excited about Joe Biden.
And I, in fairness, I think that's true.
They elected him, but I think even the Democrats weren't all that excited about him.
But they got him over the finish line.
And, you know, he, of course, the media likes to ignore it.
But he has said some controversial things about race, like there's no diversity of thought in the black community.
That was one of the comments you raised during your speech.
And I know people just like to.
Brush past that because he's a Democrat and they wanted him to win.
The media did and the Democrats did.
But how insulting?
I mean, as a black Republican, what was your reaction to that?
Well, it's disheartening when you see a major candidate for one of the parties talk in those sorts of terms about there being no diversity of thought within the black community or you ain't black if you don't vote for Joe Biden.
Those comments missed the mark.
They were disparaging.
I mean, it is.
Incredibly ironic that, you know, the Democratic Party often talks about diversity, but really they only care about diversity if you have views that are consistent with their priorities.
And what I hope my speech reflected and what I've tried to convey is that, you know, black folks and black Republicans, specifically, should say enough is enough.
Look, there are black men and women all across this country that.
Have views that are separate and distinct and apart from the Democratic Party.
And we should be past a point.
Where we should be afraid to express our views.
And so every time I get an opportunity, one, to say I support President Trump, two, to say I am a Republican, and three, to say that this party is big enough to embrace and welcome those that, again, believe in those core values that I think most Americans hold dear, which is we're going to stand up for our constitutional rights and liberties.
And I think Joe Biden and elements of the Democratic Party are always trying to push the envelope.
To restrict freedoms, to change, transform.
I mean, you heard Chuck Schumer talk a few weeks ago that, you know, first we're going to take Georgia and then we're going to change America.
Those sorts of comments should be anathema to most Americans.
This country, you know, we've always had challenges and will continue to have challenges.
But the trajectory that our founding fathers put us on was the right trajectory.
And so I'm going to continue to be a strong advocate. for those foundational views that began this country and that I believe the majority of Americans value and appreciate.
You've taken far too much guff for the sin of being a black man who supports President Trump and who pushes back on some of these narratives.
And I've seen it happen to so many men and women like you.
It makes me want to put somebody like you on and give you a microphone more and more and more because the more they tell you you can't say something or be something.
The more you want to say it and be it and say it and be it openly, right?
It's like, who says I can't?
Who says I can't support President Trump as a black man?
Who says I can't be pushed back on the Me Too movement as a woman who actually came out as somebody who had been targeted by a sexual harasser?
You know, it's like these narratives get started.
And then if you push back at all, if you're supposed to be in the alleged victim group, you're some sort of a turncoat, right?
Like they call you an Uncle Tom or they'll call me, I don't know what they call me.
Nothing nice, but I don't care.
I don't care what they call me.
Well, and you're exactly right.
I mean, I think at some point you have to, and I talk with my wife about this and others, you just have to be in the business of doing the right thing.
And as the Attorney General, the value set that I'm responsible for upholding is our Kentucky Constitution and our United States Constitution.
And that is a responsibility that I take seriously.
And as it relates to being Republican, look, I.
I proudly support the virtues and the platform of the Republican Party.
And again, another thing that I'll just reiterate is President Trump.
Again, I've been reading over the last couple of weeks a new biography about President Ronald Reagan.
And during the 50s and maybe the early 60s, you know this, he was a spokesman for GE.
And one of the things that he Did during that time in GE, he'd go around to the factories and plants and talk to the folks that were on the line, that were working in these assembly lines and working in these plants.
And that really informed his thought process as he began his political career.
I think the same thing with President Trump.
I mean, you know, as a man in the construction and real estate business, having soaked up all that knowledge and information from folks that were working in the respective industries that he affiliated and associated with.
He learned a lot and was informed.
His thinking has been informed by that.
And he tapped again into something in terms of the working men and women of this country that I think will resonate.
And have lasting staying power within the Republican Party.
And I'm glad because we talk about being a big tent party, and President Trump made that a reality.
And I think it's important that we have folks that look like me represented in the party, that we have folks that look like my mom, that look like you, that look like Asian, Hispanic, everyone, Cuban Americans, everyone needs a seat at the table, and the Republican Party.
Is big enough to make that a reality.
All right, let me ask you a tough question.
You mentioned Ronald Reagan, and I loved Ronald Reagan.
My mother did not love Ronald Reagan, but I loved Ronald Reagan.
It came out not long ago that he made some very racist comments in his time.
It came out on the Nixon tapes that Nixon was taping their conversations as he was known to do.
And the one I remember just off the top of my head was they were looking at some UN event, and Reagan referred to people from African countries as monkeys.
And it's uncomfortable to read and to know occurred.
And I just wonder, you know, on the outside, I'm a white woman.
It doesn't make me hate Reagan.
It makes me understand he was flawed and he was a man of a different time.
But I'm not the targeted group there.
I have been on the targeted group when I read things some of the old presidents say about women.
But how is that?
How do you square that, right?
You're reading the book about the guy, and you know this is a comment he's made, and I'm sure it wasn't the only one.
Well, look, none of us are perfect people and can make rash comments or abrasive comments.
And look, all of us fall short of the top standard, which is there was only one perfect individual, and that was in the form of Jesus Christ.
And so, all of us, in some way, Have fallen short of that standard.
And, you know, I, with President Reagan, I think, you know, from the point of perhaps when he made those comments with President Nixon to the point where he was the president, you know, there was obviously some time between there.
So I don't want to comment too specifically.
Obviously, I don't think that was an appropriate comment to make, but a lot of time passed between when he probably made those comments and when he was president.
But again, we've all, in our Respective lives probably said things that we wish we shouldn't have said or wish that we could take back.
But the fact of the matter is that we said them.
All we can do is repent and move forward.
There are instances in which, you know, I again, even in this job, you say things that you wish you wouldn't have said.
So I can obviously look at that comment and say, no, that's not appropriate.
That's not right.
But again, Ronald Reagan was a great president.
And, you know, his fight that he led against communism and the fight that he led against the Soviet Union's view of what this world should look like,
the Cold War ended because of the way that he touted American greatness and democracy and freedom.
Protecting Home Title During Crisis 00:12:06
Again, no one is perfect, but I certainly appreciate the mark that he left on the presidency.
and the way that he shaped the Republican Party, again, in the same way that President Trump has shaped the Republican Party.
But there's none of us that I think have lived a perfect life.
And I think whether it be Ronald Reagan or myself or any of us, we've all fallen short in some way.
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I think you try to judge the full measure of the man.
And it's like to look back at somebody like Winston Churchill, you know, who fought Hitler, and Ronald Reagan, who fought the communists, and say anything other than they were great men who did great things.
And like all men and women, were flawed.
Deeply flawed is to deny reality, as you point out.
It's true of too many of us.
All of us are flawed, some of us are not great.
But anyway, I just wanted to get your perspective because you said you're reading the Reagan book.
As we now go back into shutdown mode, city after city, state after state, as COVID is ramping up again, what I see is mayors and some governors getting drunk on their own power.
I understand that there's a pandemic and that they need to do something, but the willingness to just impose these sweeping shutdowns to the great detriment of business owners and children, children in particular, who are not super spreaders.
The schools have been overwhelmingly safe.
They can be kept safe and separated from elderly relatives by their parents.
You know, the whole shutdown of schools assumes zero personal responsibility when it comes to the kids and their parents.
Anyway, I wonder if you think we're going to see more and more legal challenges over the next six to 10 to 12 months before the vaccine is widespread and hopefully we've achieved herd immunity because it's not shutting, it's not slowing down, it's ramping up the shutdown mania.
I think you are certainly going to continue to see more and more interested parties, meaning restaurants and schools and religious institutions.
And folks out here that have just got tired of being told what they can and cannot do, I think you're going to continue to see more and more of those folks enter into the justice system and the legal context to push back against some of these really arbitrary orders.
I mean, before our governor shut down our restaurants for three weeks, they're fortunately able to open back up, but he shut them down for three weeks.
This was after a period where they were allowed to be open, but even before that, they were closed.
You know, a lot of these decisions, the decision making process that has occurred during this has really been arbitrary.
I mean, we had at the beginning of this pandemic, our governor had essentially tried to shut down all travel outside of Kentucky.
In person worship services, he tried to, you know, shut that down as well.
We, in both instances, you know, pushed back pretty strongly against those, either in court challenges or supporting court challenges.
And so it, and we were fortunate to have federal courts that agreed with our position and agreed with other interested parties that, you know, he was intruding upon constitutional rights.
But to your point about a lot of these governors, either because they've appreciated the limelight and attention that this has given them or have really made some arbitrary decision making.
Look, I've said from the beginning, I completely understand a governor, President Trump's, our local.
Officials' responsibilities to keep people safe.
But we have to balance that with the needs and interests of our citizens.
And we have to balance it with the constitutionally protected rights of our citizens.
Again, I talked at length earlier about the working men and women of this country.
Some of the decisions that are made here in our state's capitals, in our Commonwealth's capitals, really are devoid of the perspective of somebody that's sitting at home.
At the end of a busy day, trying to figure out how they're going to keep the lights on in their house, how they're going to pay their bills.
A lot of the decisions that are made here in Frankfurt just, again, don't take into consideration or account the unintended long term, not short term, long term consequences of some of these decisions that are made.
I know of countless restaurants that have had to shutter or close their doors.
And will not be opening back up again because of some of the decisions that are made here in Frankfurt.
And that's not a story that is unique to the Commonwealth.
That's a story, Megan, that can be told all across this country.
And it is a sad, unfortunate story because not only are you affecting the business owners themselves, but you're also there are a lot of downstream effects as well.
You've got vendors who aren't able to transport to that local mom and pop business because that business is closed.
They've got employees and they've got to lay those employees off, and they're waiting on dollars from the federal government that may or may not get back to the states.
And the allocations can be slow.
So, again, it is a very difficult and strenuous time for a lot of folks across this country.
When you look at on the other side, the death rate, I mean, you look at the sheer numbers, and they're bad.
No one's going to argue that we're satisfied with the fatalities that have happened in this country thanks to COVID.
The risk of dying if you get COVID is actually incredibly small if you are under age 65, and really low if you're under age 60.
You know, there's a very strong case to be made.
We had the great Barrington doctors on who submitted a proposal for some, you know, for limited risk taking to be allowed in order to let the country get going again economically.
I feel for the restaurant owners here in New York, they spent thousands and thousands of dollars getting heating lamps so that they could make meaningful outdoor seating.
But now it's getting too cold.
We're expecting a huge snowstorm on Wednesday.
You can't sit outside with a heating lamp.
You know, cutting back to 25% and cutting back on wait staff and, you know, getting rid of extra tables.
And now it's all shut down.
Can't, can't do any of it.
Yeah.
Anyway, you know, your point, well, your point about New York is I was speaking to somebody this past weekend about, you know, a lot of these restaurants, they don't make sort of their orders for food and, and, and what have you.
They don't make it the week of, they make it a couple of weeks in advance.
And so they've already made those allocations and, and, and made those, you know, payments for, uh, Different from different vendors, and then to be told that they have to shut down.
I mean, that you know, that's again, that is short term thinking that is not utilizing a larger sort of analysis and not bringing in for input restaurant owners and other small business owners because you just have the limited view of government and you know, you know, the an attorney general or a governor, you know, they we get paychecks, the government.
Folks will get their paychecks, but men and women who are again on the front lines working at these restaurants or working in these small businesses, you know, rely on foot traffic.
And it is again really painful to see some of these decisions that are being made.
And even those of us who are willing to assume some risk, you know, I don't go and intermingle that much with the society here in New York in a time like this during COVID.
I'm certainly capable of walking down the sidewalk with my husband, walking into a restaurant, staying six feet away from the other patrons, sitting at a socially distanced table, having a meal, and walking back home.
The government's basically saying, we don't care that you're going to do that and you're going to be responsible in doing it.
You can't do it.
You can't let the restaurant owner have your money because there's some chance you're going to press an elevator button in some building that somebody's going to touch and somehow get COVID, even though there's zero proof that that's ever happened.
It's just the government control and the big brother approach to this problem is it's just getting out of control.
And we're seeing it again as the weather gets bad and the numbers shoot back up.
Back to Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron in just one second.
We're going to get into the Breonna Taylor case next and the ridiculous and awful racial backlash against him as a result of what happened with the grand jury proceedings there.
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And now we want to bring to you quickly a feature we call Asked and Answered here on the program, where we answer some of our listener questions.
And we bring in our executive producer, Steve Krakauer, for this.
Steve, what's the latest question?
Yeah, Megan, we're getting lots of great questions at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.
Also, lots of just general questions.
You know, emails that are really nice.
But we also like these nice, concise questions that we sometimes get from Instagram, from Twitter, Facebook, at Megan Kelly Show on all those platforms.
This one came to us from Kyle Haynes on Instagram and wants to know who is your biggest influence?
Thank you, Kyle.
It's my mother for sure, Linda, who is larger than life and hilarious.
If you want to know about my mother, you should read my book, Settle for More, because I made a conscious effort to include some stories in there that would reveal who she is.
everyone fell in love with her.
Everybody stops me on the street to say, oh my God, I love you.
I want to meet your mother though.
That's, that's who I really want to meet because she's just so funny.
Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
Like I was talking to her over the quarantine, you know, in last whatever March, April, and she said, how are you doing?
I said, oh good.
I said, you know, we're in Montana pretty soon that the bears are going to start waking up and start walking around.
She said, oh, I'd be much more worried about the bears than I would covert 12.
What mom?
What?
What?
I said, Covert 12?
She said, wait, I don't know what the hell it's called.
It's got 50 different names.
I said, mom, no, it literally has only two and Covert 12 is not one of them.
And just I was talking to her last week and she was like, oh, that Dr. Fawcett, he never stopped.
I'm like, no, wrong again.
Anyway, she's funny and she never takes herself too seriously.
And that's a gift she passed on to me to not take myself too seriously and never get drunk on my own wine.
And if I screw up, I'm pretty quick to get over it because, you know, I realize.
This is fun and all, but this isn't brain surgery.
We don't have somebody's lives in our hands the way a doctor does in the OR.
And so you got to keep things in perspective.
I have been thinking about her, though, this week because December 15th, it's the anniversary of my dad's death.
And he died when I was 15.
And he was 45 of a massive heart attack 10 days before Christmas, 1985.
And my mom was only 44 years old.
And she had two kids in college.
And then there was me.
I was a sophomore in high school at the time.
And there had been no warning, no previous heart troubles, nothing.
So to say we were surprised and shocked and not prepared is an understatement.
But my mom, somehow she kept it together.
And I think in the way a parent has the ability to make her kid a neurotic, you know, like, don't touch that.
That's dangerous.
That's awful.
Oh my God.
It's terrible.
This, that, you know.
They also have the ability to be a calming port in a storm.
And my mom was that.
My mom was upset.
My mom was.
At times a wreck, but she always managed to find a way to laugh, to get dinner on the table, to be there to listen, counsel, support.
And the message I got from her, and it was just the two of us living in the house by ourselves for the remainder of my sophomore year, my junior and senior, was that it's okay.
You know, tragedy comes, sadness comes, overwhelmingly awful things can happen to you suddenly and unfairly.
You're okay.
You've always got people in your life you can hold on to that matter, the people who help define you.
And it's certainly not anybody you're reading on the internet, you know, but the people who know you.
And those are the places you retreat when difficult times come and they matter.
And, you know, I still got her.
Thank God she'll be 80 in July.
She's still making me laugh.
And I just think, like, if you have that one guiding force in your life to remind you that you're fine, this life is difficult, but it's fine, it can be a real gift.
And if you don't have that real force, find it.
That's where the internet is helpful, right?
To find more calming voices.
Or we had Sam Harris on talking about meditation.
My sister in law, Diane, who I love, Doug's sister, she's always saying, Meg, You never do meditation, you never do this stuff because you've never been somebody who needs that.
Like this stuff has always come naturally to you, this perspective and this ability to calm your mind and so on, which is true, I will say.
And that's all from my mom.
My mom just never telegraphed emergency, panic, nerves, you know, breakdowns.
My mom just took punch after punch and kept rolling.
You know, she just kept rolling.
So it's just something to think about for everybody this holiday season, which I know gets a lot of people down.
Some people are totally joyful.
Some people are really down.
Sometimes you feel lonely.
You feel like disconnected and like you're not going to make it through.
And just kind of remember that.
If you don't have that support system, you can find it.
You can find it online.
You can find it in line at the grocery store.
If you just smile at the cashier and she smiles back and you remember that there is human connection in this world, sometimes small, sometimes large, but it all matters.
You can get it for yourself or someone might deliver it to your doorstep.
Anyway.
It's her.
And I hope at one point on this show, you will get the pleasure of listening to Linda, Hurricane Linda, as we like to call her.
I hope you take this holiday season as a good excuse to reconnect with somebody who loves you and who you love and who makes you feel the way my mom makes me feel.
Back to Daniel.
Let's talk about the case that made you a household name, if you don't mind.
And that is the Breonna Taylor case.
So this case we all watched play out this year.
She was the only woman.
Who Oprah ever put on the cover of O Magazine, other than Oprah, who always put herself on.
And Brianna was killed in her apartment on March 13th by police, three police officers who had come into the apartment executing a warrant in a drug case.
And they believed that she had been helping, she may have been helping her ex boyfriend in some way in his drug business.
So, You get the case because the local prosecutor recused himself.
And so they call you up, the attorney general, and say, here you go.
It's a case completely fraught.
It's in the middle of, you know, Black Lives Matter existed prior to this and would ramp up during this.
And I'm wondering if you, as a guy with a very bright political future in front of you, whether you were at all worried about taking this and whether they said to you, here, will you try this?
Were you thinking, oh, great?
Well, look, let me say you've got the timeline down.
Pretty well.
When this happened on the morning of March 13th, it was and still continues to be a tragedy.
I mean, there's no other way to say it.
And it is deeply saddening that Breonna Taylor lost her life.
There's just, again, no other way to say it.
The local prosecutor was conflicted out of the case.
And so what happens is that at that point, It then goes to the Attorney General to make a decision about who should be the special prosecutor.
And so this office has its own special prosecutions unit, or you can farm the case out to another office.
The reason, and I made the decision very quickly, and the reason we did so is because I understood that this office had the bandwidth and the resources and the level of experience to handle this case.
This is what I want to ask you.
This is going back to what you said earlier.
You just have to be in the business of doing the right thing.
I get it.
It was the right thing, given all the reasons you have.
But I'm thinking as a rising political star, Was there any part of you that was thinking, oh, there's just no winning on this one?
There's just no great outcome I can achieve in this role on a case like this.
You know, honestly, Megan, it didn't.
And I'll point you back.
This didn't get much coverage, but when I was sworn in, I was actually sworn in a little bit earlier because my predecessor became the governor.
And so his term started a little early.
So the week after he was sworn in, he actually appointed me to start on December 17th.
So he was sworn in December 10th.
I started December 17th, and I had a little small swearing in, if you will.
And the comments that I made after the swearing in were there will never be, I cannot promise any easy answers in this office, and there will be challenges.
And I hoped people would respect that, that there will be challenges and that there won't always be easy answers from this office.
And that is clear as day from this case.
I mean, look, they, When we took it, again, I knew it would be challenging.
But as I mentioned at the beginning here, is that my responsibility is to the law.
And I have to do that without fear or favor.
And regardless of what the long term prospects for me are, what the consequences are for me, my responsibility is to do what I'm charged to do in this job that I was given the chance to do and was bestowed upon me by the citizens here in Kentucky.
And so, When our investigators and our prosecutors looked at the case, it became very clear.
And I'll make the point that this was a fact intensive investigation because we didn't, like what occurred with Mr. Floyd in Minnesota or others, we did not have the fortune of body camera footage from the actual incident itself.
So there might have been footage from after.
The incident or before, but none of the actual shooting or the exchange of fire, uh, or the tragic loss of Miss Taylor.
Let me just let me just interrupt you for one second so I can get the listeners up to speak because I don't want to go too far down this path without them knowing what the facts are if they didn't pay attention to this.
Um, so the three police officers went over there to execute what we were told initially was a no knock warrant, but they had been told after they received the warrant, you should serve it, um, as if it's not.
A no knock warrant.
Go over there, knock, and announce yourself.
And so the police say that's exactly what we did.
We got to Brianna Taylor's apartment looking for evidence in the ex boyfriend's alleged drug trafficking syndicate.
We knocked repeatedly.
We shouted, Police, warrant, open up.
They say it was at least six times.
Then they busted down the door, went inside.
And as soon as they got inside, Brianna and her current boyfriend of the time, Kenneth Walker, were standing there at the end of a hallway.
Walker was allegedly in the firing stance, legs apart, gun at the police officers.
And according to you, Walker admitted that he fired on them, that he fired first.
He shot Sergeant Mattingly.
There was Sergeant Mattingly and two detectives in there as well.
He shot Sergeant Mattingly in the femoral artery.
And then the officers returned fire.
Ken Walker, the boyfriend, was not, I don't think he was even shot.
He wasn't killed.
Breonna Taylor, unfortunately, was shot and killed that night.
And this whole case was about whether the police had committed the crime of murder or some other lesser crime in executing this warrant in the way they did.
There was a dispute about whether they did in fact identify themselves as police, whether they yelled it.
11 people in the apartment area said they didn't hear that.
One witness said he did hear them identify themselves.
The police themselves said, of course, that they did it.
Kenneth Walker said he didn't hear it.
And so you had, there were credibility issues to decide.
There was, I think, very little doubt that Kenneth Walker shot first and that the cops, you know, had been injured.
And one of them had been potentially fatally, it could have been in the femoral artery injured.
And shot back.
So, this is all fraught.
I think the viewers can understand.
These are three white cops.
Right.
And Brandon Teller was black.
And so, it plays in, even though there's no explicit evidence of racism here, it just plays into this ongoing alleged narrative that the police are reckless when it comes to black lives, and too many of them have been taken unjustifiably.
And what her family wanted was murder charges against those officers, which did not happen.
Just as an aside, one of the officers was charged with wanton endangerment for.
Randomly firing into a neighboring apartment where there wasn't a young family.
No one was hurt.
And the other two, the ones who had been responsible for the firing inside of Brianna's apartment, did not get charged with anything.
So after that whole thing happened and you came out and gave a really strong press conference, I watched the whole thing and thought you were very brave, very brave.
You didn't make excuses for the grand jury's decision or anything.
The grand jury came out and They seemed angry.
They seemed angry with you.
They said, he said that we agreed with our call not to charge those other officers.
That's not true.
We weren't given the option to charge those other officers.
We were only presented with that one possible wanton endangerment charge for the third officer.
We never heard about self defense or justification.
We didn't have homicide offenses explained to us.
And, um, They kind of, a couple of them turned the table back on you.
So, what was your response when you saw it?
Extremely unusual for the grand jurors to get a motion to unseal the proceedings and to sort of come after you in the wake of that.
Well, look, I was, I still am very confident and proud of the work that our career prosecutors and investigators did and the presentation that they gave to the grand jury.
They presented all of the facts.
In terms of the recommendation that we gave, the recommendation was for wanton endangerment as it relates to this third officer.
You know, at the time of the press conference, obviously there were certain things that could be said and couldn't be said.
And after the unusual and really unprecedented decision to disclose all of the information related to the grand jury proceeding, Came out, we felt a little more comfortable in talking about what that recommendation was.
Police Warrants And Officer Allegations 00:15:44
But I've never hid from the fact that that was our recommendation.
Again, you've eloquently put forth the facts of that.
Evening or the early morning of March 13th, as it relates to what happened, again, Mr. Walker, upon the officers entering into or attempting to enter into Ms. Taylor's apartment, Kenneth Walker fired the first shot.
And as you note, it hit Sergeant Mattingly.
And Sergeant Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove returned fire.
And the tragedy here is that Ms. Taylor was hit and died because.
Of being shot.
And I've never disputed that, but they were justified in returning fire because they were fired upon.
Now, there's a third officer that was at the scene, and we have moved forward in prosecuting that officer because of wanton endangerment.
And I can't speak any more specifically on that.
But everything that we did as it relates to the decision and recommendation.
Was based on the law and nothing else.
And again, that is, I hope, what people want in their attorney general.
Frankly, I have no concerns about what the grand jurors said and have never been concerned about what they might say.
When all of this became apparent in terms of the decision to allow these grand jurors to speak, it was initially our responsibility to stand up for.
The grand jury process and the confidential nature of the process.
And we had other prosecutors across the Commonwealth who wrote a letter encouraging the judge to abide by what had been historically the process, which is to make sure all these things are closed.
That has been the way the grand jury proceedings have occurred for as long as any of us can remember.
And so the prosecutors and myself.
Or standing up for the institution.
But it didn't matter to me what those grand jurors said because we were, and I again continue to be confident in the process that we undertook.
In fact, all of the information is out there about the case now.
Yeah, no, you can see it for yourself.
But let me ask you because I have a couple questions I want to get through with you.
We don't have too much time today with you.
If it had been served as a no knock warrant, like they received a no knock warrant, they received the approval for that.
So if they had served it as a no knock warrant, which is given, people don't understand sometimes.
out of concern for the officers.
The officers can prove to a court with an affidavit that they are worried that if they give the person inside of what may be a dangerous apartment a heads up that the cops are about to storm in, they're going to get shot, right?
And that, I guess, there was concern about who else might be in Brianna's apartment.
They got it.
If the cops had not identified themselves, you know, if you had concluded, I don't believe you when you say I yelled police coming in, police, and if they hadn't knocked, As, you know, Breonna Taylor's family and Kenneth Walker's family and he were claiming, no, they didn't identify, no, they didn't knock.
Would it have been a possible manslaughter or murder situation?
Well, I hate to speculate.
And as obviously as a prosecutor, you don't want to be in the position of speculating on a case.
But what I'll say, look, the FBI is still conducting its own investigation into the warrant process.
And so the.
But the warrant itself was the function of information that was provided to a judge, and the judge ultimately decided to.
Issue a no knock warrant.
And so whether that would have changed the analysis after a judge had given the okay for a no knock warrant, I again don't want to speculate.
No, I'll speculate.
You have a good point.
If the judge says it's okay, how are you going to hold the police officers liable for then doing it?
I mean, that's a tough road to hope.
I mean, the pushback in general has been no more no knock warrants, even though this one does not appear to have been executed as.
And no knock warrant, which people sort of skip over.
They just decide to disbelieve the officers.
But, like, are they done, by the way?
Are they done now in Kentucky as a result of this case, no knock warrants?
So I think there's an effort underway in Louisville, Jefferson County, where Ms. Taylor lost her life in this incident, to really reform the no knock warrant process.
And then there are, in our legislature, our General Assembly, there are some pre filed bills.
They don't actually begin their session until January to look at.
Perhaps curtailing no knock warrants.
There'll be a large conversation about this.
I know our office is going to assemble a committee or task force, if you will, to look into just warrants generally, because I think it's important for an attorney general to be a part of this conversation.
But, you know, look, you talk to law enforcement and your point about, you know, protecting those involved in executing a warrant and, and, You know, really, it can be for the benefit of those that are the subjects of a warrant as well.
And so it'll be a very robust conversation, I imagine, beginning in January.
And I know there are a lot of constituencies on both sides that are well meaning and want to talk about these things in good faith.
And I'll be curious to see how this all plays out.
when the session concludes.
But the problem here too is not only did Breonna Taylor suffer, her family and she lost her life suffer terribly, but Sergeant Mattingly got shot in the leg for executing a warrant on a case that wasn't his.
He was just doing his job as a cop, walked into this house, got shot, and now has been vilified, vilified by the press, by Breonna's family, by Black Lives Matter supporters.
And it's to the point where not only is he getting death threats, His son has been threatened with kidnapping and torture.
And that's the other piece of this is, you know, what's going to happen to the morale of police officers who go in, they're executing a warrant, they get shot and they shoot in return.
And in response, they get vilified by the press, their children's lives get threatened.
You know, I just, I'm worried about them too.
As you should be, and as all Americans should be.
I mean, look, you talked about Joe Biden earlier.
I mean, it's going to be interesting.
To say the least, as to how he will stand up to the elements of his party that are talking about defunding the police when morale has already been low.
And some of the rhetoric that he has put forth and Kamala Harris as well have put forth that has really enabled some of this just violent activity that we saw over the summer and into the fall.
So I am concerned.
Look, all I can do as the Attorney General is tell our law enforcement community that.
We obviously appreciate and value those that put on the uniform every day to keep our community safe.
And we've got to do everything we can to respect their commitment to serving our communities and keeping people safe.
By the way, were those allegations about Breonna Taylor's ex boyfriend, because the reason they got the warrant was they thought that she was helping him, like passing FedEx envelopes and so on, and letting him use her house as a mailing station.
Were those true?
Do you believe those were true that she was doing that or no?
Is that not true?
Well, we had a very limited scope in terms of our analysis as it relates to what happened at the scene of her death.
And so, really, that was our focus, and we never really got beyond that.
I know the FBI, as they take the lead on the warrant and civil rights issues here, are really looking into those specific questions.
But, you know, I'll be.
others to answer those specific questions.
Well, that's a good point.
That's a good point because, you know, I've heard that said about her many times and I've heard some folks defending the cops say she was part of a crime syndicate or she was at least helping a guy who was part of a crime syndicate.
But that's an important point to know.
We don't know whether that's true.
That's what the police were alleging to get the warrant and that's going to play out.
Quickly, let me ask you about the pushback you got.
It was ridiculous.
And you got attacked not just as a prosecutor, which that's fair game.
That's, you know, you know, you're going to get that.
But of course they had to go after your skin color.
I mean, it was like, here's just a sampling of what we heard.
Tamika Mallory, who's an activist, she's a BLM supporter, she said, You're wicked and an upholder of white supremacy.
She said, He's no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery and helped white men capture our people, abuse them, and traffic them.
That is who you are, Daniel Cameron, a coward and a sellout.
Alicia Keyes called the whole thing rotten to the core.
George Clooney said he was ashamed.
Viola Davis called this a bullshit decision.
Black Lives Matter, she said, And then you had the infamous woman on MSNBC, Cheryl Dorsey, retired LAPD sergeant, say, Daniel Cameron is skin folk, but not kin folk, and should be ashamed of himself.
What did you think when you heard it get personal on the color of your skin?
Well, look, Megan, it's all trash and it's disgusting.
And those comments are utterly ridiculous.
You know, I wake up every morning as a black man and am a black man.
I. You know, I think what you have seen, and again, I alluded to this earlier, is the level, the unbelievable level of intolerance that comes out of those who affiliate with the far left of the Democratic Party and is often enabled by comments made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The fact that I am a Black Republican has weighed and figured heavily.
In these comments that have been made.
If you get on my social media, Megan, I'm sure you've done this, you've seen comments that have been directed at me, comments that have been directed at my wife, at my mother.
It has been incredibly disheartening to see some of those comments.
Look, I've seen comments made by people that a year ago, a year ago, these people were attending University of Louisville football games with me.
And so it is.
It is par for the course that anyone who stands up for the law, who stands up for facts.
Truth, if it is in any way, or if you have a different political philosophy, if they are in any way just an inkling of inconsistent with the convention or what is told the way that black folks have to think, then you are a pariah.
You will be attacked and you will be dismissed as an Uncle Tom or All the other disparaging comments.
But you can have this conversation with me.
You can have this conversation with Clarence Thomas.
You can have this conversation with Tim Scott.
Again, if you choose to have a view that is inconsistent with what black liberals and those in the Democratic Party tell you you should have, then you are targeted as public enemy number one.
Again, I think and I hope that.
My continuing to speak out in opposition to this trash and this filth emboldens other black conservatives.
I'm not even talking about black Republicans, just black conservatives, to say that, hey, it's okay.
We can stand up and not be afraid of what those in black liberal elite circles might say about us.
It's okay for us to stand up for truth and for law and for liberty.
And that's what I'm going to continue to do.
Regardless of whether I have a position of political stature or not, it is my responsibility to make sure that I stand up for the views that I believe in, that I stand up for the views that are consistent with the Republican Party, and let the chips fall where they may.
At the end of the day, I think this says much more about those that have made these disparaging comments than it says about me.
Have consistently tried to not speak ill of people.
That's just my faith tells me to do that.
And I won't speak ill of people.
But it has been disgusting to see these comments.
And I hope it is exposing the far left for what they really are, which is intolerant, to be quite frank.
This is wrong.
I got to ask you before I let you go, last question.
Where do you take all of this as a future politician, right?
I mean, the governorship of Kentucky, which you point out as a commonwealth.
By the way, fun fact four commonwealths in the country Kentucky, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania.
It's always so fun.
It's like, what?
It's so weird.
Google it.
But anyway, Kentucky is one of them.
So the governorship, or do we go straight for the big office and throw our hat into the 2024 presidential ring?
I'm just trying to get out of year one in this office.
And I've, look, I've, I've been so honored and fortunate to be the 51st Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and to be the first African American independently elected to a statewide office here in the Commonwealth.
And the great opportunity that's been bestowed upon me by the men and women of all 120 counties here in Kentucky is one that I take seriously and hold responsibly.
Honoring The Governorship Role 00:01:55
And it's an honor to be in this role, as you noted over the course of this conversation.
There are incredibly important issues that come across this desk.
And so I look forward to continuing to work here to stand up for religious liberty and to stand up for the rule of law and truth.
And we'll see what the Lord has in store down the road.
You are strong.
I've been watching you.
You are one strong guy, and you don't fold when they come for you, which they have.
And you said it.
This is who you are.
You just have to be in the business of doing the right thing.
I admire you.
Can't wait to see where this goes.
Daniel, such a pleasure to meet you.
Likewise, Megan.
Thank you so much.
Today's episode was brought to you in part by Norton 360 with LifeLock.
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I want to tell you next Monday, this upcoming Monday on the program, we've got Jason Whitlock, who I'm really excited to talk to, former ESPN journalist.
Now he's with Outkick with our friend Clay Travis.
And those guys are shaking things up in the sports world.
But Jason is going to talk to us in part about faith and the role it's played in his life and the role you might consider letting it play in yours.
We talk about, you know, sort of my approach to it.
And I have to tell you, he inspired me.
He inspired me to try a little harder.
and sort of rethink about the role faith plays in my life and how I should be prioritizing it, not just in the Christmas season, but all year round.
So the sage of outkick sports, Jason Willock, will come and join us, and I think you're going to love him.
So have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you Monday.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
The Megan Kelly Show is a devil-may-care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.
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