The Megyn Kelly Show - 20240404_jack-smith-vs-trump-docs-case-judge-and-disturbing
Aired: 2024-04-04
Duration: 01:37:59


=== Judge's Heat Over Jury Instructions (08:54) ===

[00:00:50]  Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
[00:00:56]  Kelly, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
[00:01:05]  Oh, we've got a great show for you today.
[00:01:07]  I'm excited to bring you this show.
[00:01:08]  Later, we're going to bring you a deep dive into a subject that has been percolating up seemingly everywhere, but we've never taken a deep dive into it.
[00:01:17]  And that is the worldwide rise of young people taking their own lives, choosing to die rather than to live in pain, even in just mental pain.
[00:01:29]  This is now being allowed in some places where you can die by suicide with the blessing of the state.
[00:01:38]  If you're a little depressed, it's fine.
[00:01:40]  They'll get involved at the federal government level and say, Yeah, fine by us, we'll help you.
[00:01:46]  A journalist over at the free press, who we've had on before, is going to bring us her exclusive reporting, which has been so shocking and eye-opening.
[00:01:53]  It's all over X right now, and all these annoying accounts are stealing it and trying to repost it as though it's theirs.
[00:02:00]  It's not.
[00:02:01]  It belongs to the free press and Rupa Suba Maria.
[00:02:07]  Forgive me, it's a hard last name.
[00:02:08]  I'll get it before she comes on.
[00:02:10]  But she came on last summer about that Canadian teacher who was bullied by the woke crowd and ultimately wound up taking his life.
[00:02:21]  Anyway, it's a fascinating discussion.
[00:02:23]  Really looking forward to it.
[00:02:24]  But today, we're going to begin with some bombshell developments in the cases, and one in particular against Donald Trump.
[00:02:31]  Is Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's criminal case against the former president officially falling apart?
[00:02:39]  Smith exploding at the federal judge overseeing that case down in the Mar-a-Lago area, Judge Aileen Cannon, in his latest legal filing.
[00:02:48]  You can feel his frustration.
[00:02:50]  You actually don't usually see this kind of heat over proposed jury instructions, and certainly not from a former federal prosecutor.
[00:02:57]  But Jack Smith's team is accusing Judge Cannon of potentially distorting this trial with quote fundamentally flawed scenarios.
[00:03:05]  At the same time, some in the media are attacking Judge Cannon, calling her rulings erroneous, wacko, and aimed at helping Trump.
[00:03:13]  Wait a minute, I thought we weren't allowed to attack judges.
[00:03:15]  Now we're just told that you weren't allowed to do that.
[00:03:18]  Here to break down this trial and all the others, two of our favorites, Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 project, and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, which is where Mar-a-Lago is down in Florida.
[00:03:34]  Guys, welcome back to the show.
[00:03:36]  Great to be back.
[00:03:37]  Okay, so this is a little dense, but I feel strongly and I feel confident that the three of us are going to be able to explain this to the audience in a way that they can get.
[00:03:48]  So, Judge Aileen Cannon is trying to decide whether Trump improperly had all these documents and improperly stored the documents and then didn't give the documents back.
[00:03:58]  But the question is, did he have documents he shouldn't have had down at Mar-a-Lago?
[00:04:04]  And Trump has said all along, I'm covered by the Presidential Records Act.
[00:04:09]  And you know who else said that?
[00:04:11]  Mike Davis on our show like two summers ago, Mike.
[00:04:15]  You came out.
[00:04:16]  This is when we first met you.
[00:04:17]  And you made the strong case, like he can do everything he did.
[00:04:22]  He doesn't have to make special designations.
[00:04:24]  He was entitled to have all these documents and he didn't have to do anything special.
[00:04:27]  And that's an affirmative defense to all of these charges.
[00:04:30]  Well, Trump's lawyers have just proposed Mike's exact argument in their proposed jury instructions before the judge.
[00:04:39]  And rather than saying, as so many on the left did when they heard this argument from Mike and others, that's absurd.
[00:04:46]  That's not what we're going to put in a jury instruction.
[00:04:49]  She did it.
[00:04:51]  So she said to the lawyers, I want you to write me up jury instructions based on the two, the following two alternative premises.
[00:05:00]  One is the Mike Davis argument that Trump was allowed to have it all.
[00:05:04]  He didn't have to make any special designations.
[00:05:06]  And that's kind of an affirmative defense to all these charges against him.
[00:05:10]  And that would be one jury instruction, which would totally get Trump off entirely.
[00:05:14]  And Jack Smith himself concedes that in his papers, saying, basically, what the hell are you doing?
[00:05:20]  What are you saying?
[00:05:21]  If that's the jury instruction, the case is over.
[00:05:23]  So what are we doing here?
[00:05:24]  The other instruction is a little bit better for Jack Smith, but still not good for him.
[00:05:30]  It's still not what he wants.
[00:05:31]  He didn't get any proposed jury instruction requirements that he wanted.
[00:05:35]  The other one is, okay, jury, you can look at whether a record retained by a former president, whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that that record is either personal or presidential.
[00:05:51]  And the follow-up would be, if it's presidential, he shouldn't have had it.
[00:05:55]  If it's a personal record under the Presidential Records Act, he was allowed to have it.
[00:06:00]  Now, keep in mind, Jack Smith is saying the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply at all here.
[00:06:04]  I don't want to see the Presidential Records Act mentioned in jury instructions to the jury in this case at all.
[00:06:12]  It doesn't belong.
[00:06:14]  And the reason he says it doesn't belong is because he's charging Trump under the espionage statute.
[00:06:19]  And he says, you don't get to say I had highly classified CIA briefings and I was allowed to keep them forever as a personal document under the Presidential Records Act, that the Presidential Records Act is supposed to just say, hey, if you made personal notes while you were in the presidency that you want to take with you when you leave, okay, you can do it.
[00:06:43]  That's what Jack Smith is arguing.
[00:06:44]  Like, why are we even talking about presidential records?
[00:06:47]  That's not a defense to espionage and taking documents that are highly classified.
[00:06:51]  And both of her proposed jury instructions that she wants them to give her like specific language on assume, number one, that the Presidential Records Act does apply in this case.
[00:07:01]  Jack Smith's mad.
[00:07:02]  And in one instance, that therefore the jury has to decide just personal or professional, you know, 50-50.
[00:07:09]  And if they go with personal, Trump wins.
[00:07:12]  And the second one is, as I said at the top, that under the Presidential Records Act, it's ballgame.
[00:07:18]  President can do whatever the hell he wants.
[00:07:19]  He can take whatever the hell he wants.
[00:07:20]  No special designations, the Mike Davis argument.
[00:07:23]  Do I have my facts generally correct?
[00:07:25]  I'll start with you today, Dave.
[00:07:27]  Good to see you.
[00:07:28]  Great to be back with you, Megan and Mike.
[00:07:31]  You've got it right.
[00:07:32]  And that's why Jack Smith was so upset, because the law says that the Espionage Act is the Espionage Act and obstruction is obstruction.
[00:07:39]  And there's nothing in the law that says the PRA, which was a law that was enacted after the Nixon administration, is allowed to override that.
[00:07:48]  You quoted the PRA correctly.
[00:07:50]  And what Judge Canna came up with were two scenarios that were completely erroneous.
[00:07:54]  And that's why Jack Smith had a conniption about it.
[00:07:57]  In fact, I would love to see what he did behind the scenes if you saw what he did in his pleadings.
[00:08:01]  This is a mild-mannered guy normally.
[00:08:03]  And so he's saying to the judge, Judge, you're wrong about this.
[00:08:06]  And if you don't change your interpretation right now, then we're going to go to the 11th circuit and get you reversed.
[00:08:14]  And then there's the threat of getting her removed from the case.
[00:08:16]  So I do believe that this is a real, an understandable concern for Jack Smith, and he will push that nuclear button if necessary.
[00:08:26]  So normally you couldn't take such a case up on immediate appeal where she ruled, this is the standard of law, or this is what I'm going to do in a jury instruction.
[00:08:34]  But he argues in this, you can, when your proposed jury instruction as a judge, it completely eliminates the prosecution's chances at getting a conviction.
[00:08:44]  He says that.
[00:08:45]  Go ahead, Dave.
[00:08:45]  Right.
[00:08:46]  I'll let you finish.
[00:08:47]  Yeah, Megan, absolutely right.
[00:08:49]  And here's the issue.
[00:08:50]  What Judge Cannon did was not a final order.
[00:08:52]  So you can't really appeal it yet.
[00:08:54]  And so that's why Jack Smith is not appealing what she did.
[00:08:57]  What Judge Cannon said is, I want you parties to engage in the following.
[00:09:01]  So it's not really a direct specific order.
[00:09:04]  And that's why Jack Smith's saying, hey, be specific.
[00:09:06]  And if you want to dismiss this case, then do it because then we can appeal you.
[00:09:10]  But if you wait and you adopt this later on or you dismiss the case during trial, then we're screwed.
[00:09:17]  Then we cannot appeal it because double jeopardy attaches once a jury has been seated.
[00:09:21]  So either dismiss this case now or make it specific that these are the jury instructions you are going to use.
[00:09:28]  Don't use these weasel words of engage that prevents us from appealing because we are ready to appeal unless you change your ways.
[00:09:37]  Mike, kudos to you in driving the main defense, which now has persuaded this judge, at least in part.

=== Willful Retention Under PRA (15:08) ===

[00:09:45]  You've called this, really, I remember this because we were all kind of confused about the Presidential Records Act.
[00:09:50]  And you came out swinging and I didn't know you.
[00:09:52]  I was like, who is this guy?
[00:09:53]  He's brilliant.
[00:09:54]  Listen to this argument.
[00:09:55]  We had you on.
[00:09:55]  You spelled it all out.
[00:09:57]  People mocked you.
[00:09:58]  They're all who's that.
[00:09:59]  Here it is.
[00:10:00]  It is his defense.
[00:10:01]  And this judge has bought it, at least in part, because Presidential Records Act is both in number one and number two.
[00:10:08]  And number two is the Mike Davis defense entirely, which has got Jack Smith spinning mad today.
[00:10:16]  Well, I mean, people say that I'm crazy, but I tend to be right.
[00:10:21]  And I would say this, that I didn't make up this legal theory.
[00:10:24]  This was a 2012 decision by an Obama judge, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, when President Clinton had eight years, 79 tapes of audio recordings in his sock drawer.
[00:10:39]  And these audio recordings were recorded by the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
[00:10:44]  So they're definitely White House records.
[00:10:47]  And they were recordings of President Clinton's conversation, conversations with his national security officials, his foreign leaders, many other highly classified, born classified, the most classified secrets imaginable, the thought process of the president on national security matters.
[00:11:08]  And when Tom Fenton Judicial Watch sued for these records, that's where we got the Clinton Sartre case in 2012, that this judge said that there are presidential records that belong to the government, but the president can access them anytime he wants.
[00:11:24]  He can have his records anytime he wants, even if the government owns them, or they could be personal records.
[00:11:30]  And the mere fact that President Clinton took these highly classified recordings out of the White House with him and did not turn them over to the archives when he left office deemed them personal under the Presidential Records Act.
[00:11:43]  You may not like that ruling.
[00:11:44]  You may think that ruling is incorrect, but that is the ruling of that 2012 judge.
[00:11:50]  And Judge Cannon is following that precedent.
[00:11:55]  Just on the question of whether he can appeal her immediately, Dave, he writes the following in his brief.
[00:12:02]  It is vitally important that the court promptly decide whether the unstated legal premise underlying this recent order does, in the court's view, represent a correct formulation of the law.
[00:12:12]  If the court wrongly concludes that it does and that it intends to include the PRA, Presidential Records Act, in the jury instructions regarding what's authorized under Section 793, which is the Espionage Act, it must inform the parties of that decision well in advance of trial.
[00:12:27]  The government must have the opportunity to consider appellate review well before jeopardy attaches, which is when you swear in the jury.
[00:12:33]  Then he cites two cases for the following premises.
[00:12:38]  The adoption of a clearly erroneous jury instruction that entails a high probability of failure of a prosecution, a failure the government could not then seek to remedy by appeal or otherwise, constitutes the kind of extraordinary situation in which we are empowered to issue the writ of mandamus.
[00:12:55]  I was citing to an appellate court and then a similar finding in another appellate court case from a different jurisdiction.
[00:13:02]  So he's saying, if you're going to stand by this, and these are the two proposed jury instructions we're having to choose between, I'm going to mandamus you.
[00:13:12]  I'm taking it up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and I'm going to have your bosses slap your hand and get this taken care of right away.
[00:13:19]  But the problem, Dave, if he does that, if Eileen Cannon, Aileen, does this and then Jack Smith does the mandamus, it's more delay, which works for Trump.
[00:13:31]  Agreed.
[00:13:32]  But if you come at it from my perspective, which was this case was never going to go to trial before the election, then I think Jack Smith has no choice.
[00:13:40]  I think knowing that this case was always going to be pushed back, this case has been slow walk from the beginning, that he's got to go to the 11th circuit, but he can't do it yet.
[00:13:49]  This is the frustration for Jack Smith.
[00:13:50]  It's not just that he sees this as an erroneous interpretation of the law, but it's that he's not able to appeal it yet because Judge Cannon is saying, let's just engage.
[00:14:01]  This is not a final order.
[00:14:03]  These aren't the jury instructions.
[00:14:04]  And number one, you don't do jury instructions this far out.
[00:14:07]  There's not even a trial date set.
[00:14:08]  I've never seen jury instructions being proposed this far out.
[00:14:11]  And number two, if you're going to give jury instructions, do it.
[00:14:14]  Then Jack Smith can appeal it.
[00:14:16]  But if she continues down this road and says, let's discuss it and then issues her final jury instructions in the middle of trial, which is what normally happens, then Jack Smith is done because he cannot appeal it.
[00:14:28]  It's over.
[00:14:28]  Double jeopardy attaches.
[00:14:30]  And he sees this case slipping away if that happens.
[00:14:32]  That's why he got so hot under the collar.
[00:14:36]  He's not as bad off if they wind up with the first jury instruction, not the one, the second one that says, as she puts it, I'll paraphrase here, quoting here, actually from Annie McCarthy's paraphrase of her proposal in a second.
[00:14:54]  Under the Presidential Records Act, this is the devastating one, Jack Smith's case.
[00:14:58]  Under the PRA, while a presidential term is ongoing, only the president has authority to categorize records as personal or presidential, and neither a court nor a jury may review that decision.
[00:15:09]  Moreover, because the PRA defines no formal means by which a president must make that categorization, it must be inferred from a former president's retention of a record that he had categorized it as personal while president.
[00:15:23]  Andy goes on to say, Dave Ehrenberg agrees, Mike does, I do.
[00:15:26]  I haven't seen any dissent from anybody on this next point.
[00:15:29]  Quote, this would ask jurors, this is Andy, to assume that Trump had complete authority to take the records he wanted from the White House under the PRA.
[00:15:39]  And Andy goes on to say, one must assume that Prosecutor Smith and his staff were dumbfounded upon reading this order.
[00:15:46]  The second scenario is Trump's defense.
[00:15:49]  If Cannon ultimately decides that it is an accurate statement of the law, this case cannot survive.
[00:15:57]  These 32 counts against him in the Florida case cannot survive.
[00:16:00]  So this is true.
[00:16:01]  Like if she's telegraphing where she actually stands on this, this may be her ruling that this will be the jury instruction or that she finds is a matter of law.
[00:16:10]  I mean, like, that's one of the things I want to get to.
[00:16:11]  But in any event, it's possible the 11th Circuit will not accept Mandamus.
[00:16:15]  They might not, or they might take it and affirm her.
[00:16:19]  It's over.
[00:16:20]  The Florida case is done, correct, Mike?
[00:16:23]  Yes, and it should have never been brought.
[00:16:25]  Dave said that this case has been slow walk since the start.
[00:16:29]  He's right that the Biden Justice Department waited 30 months to bring this indictment, right?
[00:16:34]  And it is, they had the Presidential Records Act listed in their unprecedented search warrant of the Office of Former Presidents when they got that warrant from the biased magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt, who had just recused from Trump's civil case against Hillary Clinton six weeks prior because of his Facebook book post trashing Trump.
[00:16:55]  Somehow that judicial bias went away, but they had the Presidential Records Act listed in the search warrant, but they don't have it listed in the indictment because Jack Smith knows that the Presidential Records Act kills his case.
[00:17:12]  The other question I have, which I just made a reference to, is why is this even arguably, Dave, being kicked to a jury?
[00:17:20]  If the Presidential Records Act is a defense to the accusation that you committed espionage by having classified CIA documents, or if it isn't, that's for Judge Cannon to decide.
[00:17:35]  Why would she propose a jury instruction asking the jury to decide that?
[00:17:42]  Exactly, Megan.
[00:17:43]  There's nothing I can add to what you just said.
[00:17:45]  It makes no sense.
[00:17:46]  Even Donald Trump seems to oppose that.
[00:17:48]  He likes the second jury instruction, which is the equivalent of a get out of jail free card.
[00:17:52]  It's over if that second jury instruction is adopted.
[00:17:55]  If the first one's adopted, Jack Smith has a chance.
[00:17:58]  But why is the jury going to be determining whether the PRA makes certain documents exempt from espionage laws and obstruction and all this stuff?
[00:18:06]  That's not how it works.
[00:18:07]  That's not the law.
[00:18:08]  The jury is not supposed to be doing that.
[00:18:09]  It's a question of law, not a question of fact.
[00:18:12]  And questions of law are decided by the judge, not the jury.
[00:18:16]  Yeah, how the hell is the jury supposed to know whether the Presidential Records Act is a defense to the Espionage Act?
[00:18:24]  Like that's so complex.
[00:18:25]  Most lawyers can't even understand that, but certainly not the jury's not going to know.
[00:18:30]  If it seems to me, Mike, like the judge needs to find her spine and say, this is what I find.
[00:18:38]  If this is what she thinks, she should say what you said.
[00:18:41]  The Mike Davis defense, the Presidential Records Act is an affirmative defense to the Espionage Act charges.
[00:18:47]  And therefore, I find it applies.
[00:18:48]  And this case is going away before we ever get to a jury.
[00:18:51]  I don't get why she's trying to toss this to the jury.
[00:18:54]  Well, no, she's the jury instructions are the statements of the law from the judge, and that the jury has to follow the jury instructions.
[00:19:02]  They have to follow the law, but they still have to make factual determinations.
[00:19:06]  And there's still an obstruction.
[00:19:07]  There are still obstruction charges with this case.
[00:19:10]  There are still factual determinations that they may have to make that, you know, did the president, did President Trump not turn these over to the archives when he left the White House?
[00:19:23]  And if he did not turn them over to the archives, does that mean he deemed them personal?
[00:19:26]  I mean, I don't understand what with jury instructions, those are matters of law, not factual determinations.
[00:19:34]  But I mean, the instruction seems to eat up all the decisions the jury would have to make on anything not obstruction.
[00:19:43]  Obstruction is, that's the second piece of the case.
[00:19:45]  So that actually could potentially still stand because he had these documents and he had a subpoena to turn them over and he didn't turn them over.
[00:19:52]  But the crux of the case is that you had these documents that were classified and you didn't, you shouldn't have had them.
[00:19:58]  And what she's saying in this second jury instruction is under the PRA, while a term is ongoing presidential term, only the president has the authority to say whether they're personal or presidential and neither a court nor a jury may review that.
[00:20:12]  Okay.
[00:20:13]  And then because the PRA defines no formal means by which a president must make the categorization, it must be inferred from a former president's retention of a record that he had categorized it as personal while president.
[00:20:24]  Well, that's, that takes away all the decision.
[00:20:27]  What, what decisions does the jury have still to make if this is the jury instruction, Dave?
[00:20:35]  Yeah.
[00:20:36]  Megan, there were more than 300 documents with classified markings that were recovered from Trump.
[00:20:42]  How in the world could that be considered personal documents?
[00:20:45]  That's not how the PRA works.
[00:20:46]  The PRA doesn't overcome the whole classification process.
[00:20:50]  And it's definitely not for a jury to decide that.
[00:20:53]  And that's why I think we can all agree, whether you agree with the second instruction or not, and that's where Mike and I would just differ.
[00:20:59]  But I can't imagine anyone thinking that this is all a jury question as a matter of fact rather than a matter of law.
[00:21:06]  Go ahead, Mike.
[00:21:07]  No, it's because she's instructing the jury on the law.
[00:21:10]  And then you look at the willful retention of those documents and the obstruction, right?
[00:21:16]  So they're going to have to make factual determinations on willful retention and obstruction after she instructs them on what the president can and cannot do.
[00:21:26]  Just to clarify, you're getting to after he got the subpoena, after Trump got the subpoena for the documents.
[00:21:30]  Yes, that's the whole point of this is that they're Jack Smith is charging willful retention under the Espionage Act.
[00:21:37]  Right.
[00:21:38]  So your position is this second jury instruction is potentially, it is Aileen Cannon making a ruling that the PRA allows Trump to do whatever he wanted with respect to holding onto the documents.
[00:21:52]  And now jurors, you're only dealing with what happened post subpoena.
[00:21:57]  Because look, I mean, for the audience at home, I got a bunch of documents sitting right here on my desk.
[00:22:01]  I'm allowed to have these.
[00:22:02]  There's absolutely no question I'm entitled to them.
[00:22:04]  They're my documents.
[00:22:05]  They're personal.
[00:22:06]  They're professional, but they're mine.
[00:22:07]  But if the feds subpoenaed these documents for some reason, I would have to turn them over unless they were attorney client privilege.
[00:22:15]  I'd have to give the, I might not want to give them up.
[00:22:17]  They're mine notes.
[00:22:18]  But once you get a federal subpoena, you have to turn them over.
[00:22:20]  So those are the two pieces of the case.
[00:22:22]  And so what you're saying, Mike, is this is telegraphing.
[00:22:25]  Yes, I will remove all of the counts from the jury about whether he wrongfully had the documents to begin with and craft me an instruction that speaks only to, did he comply with the subpoena?
[00:22:38]  Yeah, well, there's willful retention under the Espionage Act and there's obstruction.
[00:22:43]  But yeah, you're going to have where you're going to have a bigger problem with this separate from the personal records versus presidential records, the personal records that belong to the president, the presidential records that belong to the government.
[00:22:58]  Under the Presidential Records Act, he is allowed to access.
[00:23:02]  He's allowed to have his presidential records anytime he wants.
[00:23:07]  That includes any document created or received by the president or his White House staff.
[00:23:12]  And so if the CIA drafts an intel assessment and gives it to the president, that is a presidential record, right?
[00:23:20]  And so he's allowed to have his presidential records, whether he deems them personal that belong to him or presidential records that belong to the government that he could access anytime he want.
[00:23:31]  Remember, before the Presidential Records Act, presidents were allowed to keep all of their presidential records were personal records that belonged to the president personally.
[00:23:42]  Nixon was trying to hawk his presidential records, and that's why they passed the Presidential Records Act, but there is no criminal component to the Presidential Records Act.
[00:23:52]  There's a separate federal records act that deals with all the other government records besides presidential records, but the Presidential Records Act is controlling here, and it's not espionage for a former president to have his presidential records.
[00:24:06]  It's allowed by the Presidential Records Act, and I've been saying this for nearly two years.
[00:24:12]  You have.
[00:24:12]  Here's, when I interviewed Trump in September, we got into this exact thing.
[00:24:17]  We, you know, he that it was, it was as if you two and I had sat down and had a strategy session about what to ask Trump before the interview, because you'll see I'm asking him these very questions and how he answered them was interesting.
[00:24:34]  And I will say, even in the moment and thereafter has been a reminder to me that Trump is smart.
[00:24:39]  He is a clever guy.
[00:24:40]  And he saw me coming, you know, from a mile away and he knew right when to get out of bounds or when to stay in the ring.
[00:24:48]  It's he's clever, you know, because his freedom is on the line and he must be, but he's clearly been paying attention.

=== Trump's Clever Legal Maneuvers (15:55) ===

[00:24:53]  Watch what happened.
[00:24:55]  The obstruction case says, so even if you had the right to the documents, once you get the subpoena, you got to fork them over.
[00:25:02]  The subpoena said, give us anything with a classmate marking.
[00:25:04]  Go ahead.
[00:25:05]  This is just like the Muller stuff.
[00:25:07]  They create a fake crime and then they say you obstruct it.
[00:25:11]  I have complied with everything.
[00:25:14]  They took documents that they weren't even allowed to do, but they took documents.
[00:25:19]  They took everything.
[00:25:20]  I have found documents.
[00:25:21]  I have given it to you.
[00:25:23]  All I know is I'm allowed to have those documents.
[00:25:26]  But once you get a subpoena, you have to turn them over.
[00:25:28]  I know this.
[00:25:29]  I don't even know that because I have the right to have those documents.
[00:25:34]  So I don't really know that.
[00:25:35]  I don't think there's any dispute that I'm covered under the Presidential Records Act.
[00:25:38]  Well, you're covered, but it's not clear that it allowed you to take all those documents.
[00:25:42]  You can't say it says what it says.
[00:25:44]  You're allowed.
[00:25:45]  Do you believe that every CIA document that came to you as president was automatically yours to keep no matter what?
[00:25:50]  I'm not going to answer that question.
[00:25:52]  So that's the dispute.
[00:25:52]  No, no.
[00:25:53]  I did absolutely nothing wrong.
[00:25:56]  And that's other, I wouldn't even be talking to you if I thought I did.
[00:26:02]  So it's pretty telling, right?
[00:26:04]  Where he's like, I'm not going to answer that one because that question got right down to the heart of what we're arguing.
[00:26:09]  Does CIA highly classified briefings to the president in a document become the president's property to do with what he wants just because he has it, right?
[00:26:20]  That's kind of what I'm asking there.
[00:26:22]  And he knows enough to know that's too controversial for me to just say yes to, even though it appears to be what he did.
[00:26:29]  He, you know, he's arguing the Mike Davis argument, which is yes, yes, that is what I believe, but he didn't want to quite go that far.
[00:26:36]  Go ahead, Dave.
[00:26:37]  Megan, it is telling, though, that Trump never raised this as a defense until much later.
[00:26:41]  This is indeed the Mike Davis defense.
[00:26:44]  Not until Mike Davis brought this up was this adopted as a defense because Jack Smith cites in his pleadings, he said that we have spoken to all these witnesses at the White House.
[00:26:52]  No one ever heard Donald Trump consider these documents presidential records or personal records.
[00:26:57]  He's never spoken about it.
[00:26:58]  It was never even brought up until later.
[00:27:00]  And that's apparently the time when Mike Davis, smart lawyer as he is, brought it up and then they adopted it.
[00:27:06]  So to be presidential records, you have to believe that they are personal records.
[00:27:10]  But in any event, in any event, it doesn't matter because classified documents are classified documents.
[00:27:15]  And even if you believe you own them, you don't any more than you own Air Force One.
[00:27:20]  Well, this is what Judge Cannon needs to decide.
[00:27:23]  Meantime, and we'll watch it.
[00:27:25]  Obviously, this has huge implications for how this case is going to go forward, when it's going to go forward, if it's going to go forward.
[00:27:31]  Meantime, there has been shock and horror in the press over this, what Judge Cannon is doing.
[00:27:39]  As you point out, she hasn't actually made the ruling of what the jury instruction will be yet, but she's clearly entertaining two possibilities only, and neither is particularly great for Jack Smith.
[00:27:50]  So here's just a sampling of what we've heard in response.
[00:27:53]  Satu.
[00:27:55]  I'm concerned about her handling this case.
[00:27:57]  I'm not sure that she has the legal acumen.
[00:28:00]  I don't have confidence in her abilities to be fair or to be seen as fair.
[00:28:06]  I don't think her conduct is baffling.
[00:28:10]  I think it's intentional.
[00:28:11]  She is consistently making erroneous legal decisions.
[00:28:15]  They are consistently always on the side of Donald Trump.
[00:28:19]  If she makes these wacko rulings like she made last time, she's got at least a pinky finger on the scales of justice for Donald Trump.
[00:28:30]  So to correct myself, that was a stop montage of criticism of Judge Cannon even prior to now.
[00:28:36]  But they're all, I could have put one together in response to this ruling too.
[00:28:39]  They're upset and they're on Jack Smith's side.
[00:28:41]  They share his outrage.
[00:28:42]  This is unfair and so on and so forth.
[00:28:44]  But out of the same, out of the other side of their mouths, Mike, they're very, very upset at Donald Trump being critical of the judges.
[00:28:53]  They could say whatever they want.
[00:28:55]  Michael Cohen can say whatever he wants about Donald Trump.
[00:28:58]  So can Stormy Daniels and the pundits can say whatever they want about this judge.
[00:29:02]  The one thing that cannot happen is that the defendant in these four cases be critical of the judges because somehow they're transforming that into quote threats, that the judges are being threatened and that he therefore has to be gagged.
[00:29:19]  We have seen him gagged in the New York criminal case, though not when it comes to criticizing the judge himself and not when it comes to criticizing DA Alvin Bragg.
[00:29:30]  But what we've heard is this sanctimonious parade of witnesses on the left saying how wrong it is to quote attack a judge.
[00:29:38]  While it just played you right there, some of the criticisms Judge Cannon has received.
[00:29:43]  And by the way, she too has had death threats from anti-Trump lunatics who promised to kill her, one of whom has already been sent to jail.
[00:29:53]  It does happen, but these same people who were so outraged that Trump had some criticism of Judge Murchan in New York had no problem with Eric Holder or any of these other people and their criticisms of Judge Cannon.
[00:30:06]  What do you make of it?
[00:30:07]  Well, I would say this.
[00:30:08]  If there's anyone on the planet who must have the constitutional right to speak out about the judge, about his staff, about the prosecutor, about the witnesses, about the potential conflict of interest of the judge with his adult children, with the process, it is a criminal defendant going through a criminal process.
[00:30:31]  He has the absolute First Amendment right to speak out about those issues.
[00:30:36]  He has the Sixth Amendment right to a fair, public, and speedy trial.
[00:30:40]  He has the right to confront witnesses and to label as a violent threat when a criminal defendant brings forward evidence of potential bias by the judge is the most dangerous thing I can imagine in our judicial system that criminal defendants are punished.
[00:30:59]  They're unconstitutionally, illegally gagged and illegal prior restraint on free speech.
[00:31:05]  It hobbles their ability to have a fair trial, to have due process.
[00:31:10]  And take Trump out of the picture.
[00:31:12]  If they were doing this to any other criminal defendant, these same people would be outraged.
[00:31:18]  But because this is Donald Trump, they have a different set of rules.
[00:31:21]  They have Trump Derangement Center.
[00:31:23]  Remember these same people who are going crazy because President Trump correctly raised evidence that Judge Murshon, who donated to President Biden in 2020 a small amount and donated to another anti-Trump group in 2020, a small amount.
[00:31:38]  His adult daughter, according to the New York Post, is making a lot of money fundraising for Democrats, including fundraising for this trial over which her father is presiding, the one that starts in about one week, a week from Monday.
[00:31:54]  And so, of course, President Trump is going to raise this issue of bias.
[00:31:58]  And when he does that, he should not be, it should not be labeled a violent threat.
[00:32:03]  And for a federal judge to go on CNN, Reggie Walton from D.C. to do this, that is outrageous.
[00:32:09]  That violates the judicial canons.
[00:32:12]  Let me show the audience what you're talking about.
[00:32:14]  This is where I was going.
[00:32:16]  This is the federal judge who tried the Scooter Libby trial back in the day.
[00:32:21]  Dick Cheney's right-hand man's chief of staff for alleged leaking.
[00:32:26]  And he oversaw this case, Reggie Walden, U.S. District Court judge in the District of D.C.
[00:32:33]  And he did an extraordinary and I believe inappropriate thing.
[00:32:38]  He went on CNN and he gave an interview to Caitlin Collins and he started ripping on Trump.
[00:32:45]  He was reacting to Trump's criticism of Judge Murshon in the New York criminal case about the Stormy Daniels hush money payment.
[00:32:54]  I'm sure he's got a lot of thoughts on it.
[00:32:56]  The judge should have kept quiet.
[00:32:58]  He should have shared them with his wife, not with Caitlin Collins, because now he's in a lot of trouble because Mike Davis saw the segment and we'll get to what happened, but listen to what he said.
[00:33:08]  Very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge.
[00:33:15]  And it's particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they're directed at one's family.
[00:33:22]  But do you think that's something that Donald Trump considers when he posts something like this?
[00:33:29]  I can't get into someone's mind to say whether they appreciate the impact that they're doing, but I would think that he's any reasonable thinking person would appreciate that when they say things, it can sometimes resonate with others.
[00:33:44]  I think it's very important that people in positions of authority be very circumspect in reference to the things that they say.
[00:33:54]  I keep looking for Trump's threat against Judge Murshon and his daughter.
[00:34:00]  And I don't see it.
[00:34:01]  I see criticism, strong criticism.
[00:34:04]  He calls the daughter and the Murchon family Trump haters, pointed out her job, Lorraine, the daughter, in an April 2023 post, as you just did, says she's a rabid Trump hater who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.
[00:34:22]  She works for crooked Joe Biden, Harris, Adam Shifty Schiff, and other radical leftists who campaign on getting Trump and fundraise off of the Biden indictments, including this witch hunt, which her father presides over, a total conflict.
[00:34:35]  Again, just the other day, Judge Juan Murshon, who's suffering from an acute case of Trump derangement syndrome, whose daughter represents Crooked Joe, Kamala, Shifty Shift, has just posted a picture of me behind bars.
[00:34:45]  We talked about the correction on that.
[00:34:48]  Her obvious goal and makes it completely impossible for me to get a fair trial, has now issued another illegal un-American unconstitutional order as he continues to try to take away my rights.
[00:34:58]  There's no threat.
[00:35:00]  I don't, there's nothing.
[00:35:01]  There is no threat.
[00:35:02]  And by the way, you can be arrested for threatening a judge.
[00:35:05]  He wasn't, and there's a reason he wasn't.
[00:35:08]  So before we get to what Mike did in response to Judge Walton, Dave, do you agree that there's no threat that Trump, while he's been incendiary about Judge Murshon and been critical of the daughter, he has not threatened them?
[00:35:21]  Yeah, I think it's incendiary.
[00:35:24]  And as far as him personally threatening them, no, I don't think it rose that far, but I do have some concerns that when Trump goes on social media and he says stuff like that, we've seen it before, that his rabbit supporters will go ahead and make death threats and attack.
[00:35:41]  And that's the problem.
[00:35:43]  You know, you really do harm the trial when the judge now has to look over his shoulder every time and there's the witnesses feel threatened because of Trump's supporters.
[00:35:53]  Trump knows what he's doing with his words.
[00:35:55]  I mean, we've seen it before.
[00:35:56]  Cesar Sayak, the nut down here in South Florida, who sent bombs to members of Congress who opposed Trump.
[00:36:02]  So we saw the guy who showed up outside Obama's house because Trump doxed Obama in Georgetown.
[00:36:07]  You know, we've seen it.
[00:36:08]  So that's the concern.
[00:36:09]  And that's why one thing to know is that defendants don't have the same First Amendment rights as the rest of us.
[00:36:14]  It's one thing for a legal commentator on TV like Andrew Weissman to say it.
[00:36:18]  But when a defendant says it, it can run afoul of the rules and the law because defendants, when they go to first appearance, are told you can't contact witnesses, you can't contact the victim, you can't even drink alcohol or do drugs in some cases that we have.
[00:36:33]  So they don't have the same rights as we all do.
[00:36:35]  So my concern is not necessarily that his words are direct threat to the judge.
[00:36:39]  It's that it's going to be interpreted by his supporters to go ahead and go after the judge's family and the witness's family, and it amounts to intimidation.
[00:36:47]  Mike, your thoughts?
[00:36:51]  That is an interesting take by Dave.
[00:36:53]  And I like Dave, so I won't criticize him.
[00:36:56]  I would say this, that if anyone must have the ability to speak out against the judge and his potential bias, it is a criminal defendant.
[00:37:07]  And we don't have heckler's vetoes where because someone may misconstrue that the defendant's outraged by this evidence of bias that some deranged lunatic may threaten the judge.
[00:37:18]  That's not how it works.
[00:37:20]  I don't remember this judge Reggie Walton raising any concern, especially not moonlighting on CNN when the Biden White House press secretary and the Biden Justice Department encouraged illegal obstruction of justice campaigns for months outside of the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices and their families,
[00:37:42]  even after they went to safe houses, even after the 1 a.m. assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh, his wife, Ashley, their two teenage daughters.
[00:37:51]  I don't remember Judge Reggie Walton going on CNN after Judge Eileen Cannon got death threats, including people convicted, as you said, Megan.
[00:38:00]  This is selective outrage by Judge Reggie Walton, and it shows that he could be political here.
[00:38:06]  And maybe that's why the judicial canons tell judges to keep on their judicial robes and not crawl into the political arena, especially not moonlight on CNN during a criminal trial.
[00:38:18]  Right on.
[00:38:19]  Very powerful argument.
[00:38:20]  And that's why you did what?
[00:38:22]  Tell us what you did.
[00:38:23]  Well, the Article 3 project, the right wing, as we're called, the group that I run, filed a judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Reggie Walton for violating Canon 3A6, which says this, quote, a judge should not make comments on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.
[00:38:46]  And Judge Walton clearly did that.
[00:38:48]  And it's not an accident.
[00:38:49]  This was a pre-plant interview.
[00:38:52]  And he had to have known that this would taint four different jury pools.
[00:38:56]  Trump is facing a criminal trial in New York in about one week.
[00:39:00]  He's facing a criminal trial in DC.
[00:39:03]  He's facing a criminal trial in Georgia and in Atlanta.
[00:39:08]  He's facing a criminal trial down by Dave in the Southern District of Florida.
[00:39:12]  These judges need to learn to keep their mouths shut.
[00:39:16]  And it violates the judicial canons when they don't.
[00:39:18]  And this is part of a pattern by these DC federal judges.
[00:39:24]  Beryl Howell did this, gave a speech.
[00:39:27]  Congresswoman Elise Stephonick filed a judicial misconduct complaint against her.
[00:39:31]  What these federal judges need to understand is they need to keep on their judicial robes.
[00:39:37]  They need to stay out of the political arena.
[00:39:39]  They definitely need to stay off CNN.
[00:39:41]  And if they don't clean up their own house, I guarantee you that Congress will do it for them.
[00:39:46]  Yeah.
[00:39:47]  Talk to your wife.
[00:39:48]  Talk to your, write it in your diary.
[00:39:50]  You don't have to go talk to Caitlin Collins.
[00:39:52]  That's the thing about this judge, Dave, and sentencing some of the J6 defendants who have come before him.
[00:39:57]  He has said he's unsure how people live with themselves when they call January 6th defendants political prisoners.
[00:40:04]  He's criticized people who are following, quote, the calls of a demagogue.
[00:40:09]  He said, I think our democracy is in trouble because unfortunately we have charlatans like our former president, who doesn't, in my view, really care about democracy, but only about power.
[00:40:21]  He's tearing the country apart, or as a result of that, it's tearing the country apart.
[00:40:26]  This judge is obviously a Trump hater.
[00:40:28]  He's not, to be clear again for the audience, trying any current Trump cases.
[00:40:32]  He's the one who decided to, as Mike points out, moonlight on CNN as a CNN commentator to come out to say how terrible it is for Trump to allegedly threaten judges, meaning Judge Murshan, which he hasn't done.
[00:40:46]  He's wrong on every front here, Dave.

=== Recidivist Judge on National TV (07:29) ===

[00:40:49]  And you tell me whether something should happen to him.
[00:40:52]  Yeah, I understand why Mike Davis issued the complaint.
[00:40:55]  I was surprised when the federal judge went on national TV and said, I think a lot of us understandably were surprised.
[00:41:02]  But a kudos to Mike Davis.
[00:41:04]  He not only is a legal analyst with you, Megan.
[00:41:06]  He's also a newsmaker.
[00:41:07]  Here he is on, I see it all over the place.
[00:41:10]  He's Trump ally.
[00:41:11]  He's called a Kavanaugh ally, a right-wing jurist.
[00:41:16]  I don't know what to call him, but yeah, you've been very busy, Mike.
[00:41:20]  And as far as his complaint, you know, I looked up the canon he cited and it's canon 3A6 of the code of conduct for judges.
[00:41:29]  And here's the part that matters.
[00:41:31]  It says this, a judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.
[00:41:38]  And I don't think he spoke on the substance of the trial, but he did speak, I think, on the substance of the gag order in that sense.
[00:41:46]  So in that narrow sense, could he get in trouble for speaking out about a matter before the court that's the gag order?
[00:41:53]  Perhaps.
[00:41:53]  And that's where he may have some issues, but I don't think his words got to the substance of the case.
[00:41:58]  And so it's not as cut and dry, but I will admit that it did seem, let's just say, unusual to see a federal judge on Caitlin Collins' show.
[00:42:08]  I know.
[00:42:08]  It was, he just couldn't control himself.
[00:42:11]  He couldn't help himself.
[00:42:12]  And by the way, not for nothing, but like I know some federal judges and they've definitely got thoughts that they will share with you privately, but they would never come on my show to tell you exactly what they think about the Trump trials or whatever.
[00:42:26]  It's like they understand like there's a very high bar of behavior required of DAs like Dave and Fanny and of judges, like higher even than regular lawyers.
[00:42:39]  And most of them live up to that.
[00:42:42]  Stand by, quick break, back with you guys.
[00:42:43]  There's more to go before you guys go.
[00:42:46]  Stay with us.
[00:42:48]  He could be looking at jail.
[00:42:49]  If you have someone who's contrite, if you have someone who shares that he's respectful of the rule of law, that this was an aberration, that is something that the court can take into account.
[00:43:00]  But if you think that the defendant actually is running basically as an outlaw and is basically thumbing his nose at the judicial process and it shows no sign of remorse and essentially is a recidivist, those are factors that a judge can consider.
[00:43:17]  That's former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman.
[00:43:20]  Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.
[00:43:22]  Mike Davis, Dave Ehrenberg remain with me suggesting that Trump could be looking at jail time in the Judge Murshon case, in that Stormy Daniels hush money case.
[00:43:34]  Jail time?
[00:43:35]  Because he's a recidivist, Mike?
[00:43:37]  What?
[00:43:39]  Andrew Weissman is such a partisan blowhard.
[00:43:41]  It's just comical to watch him on.
[00:43:44]  He just like, he's put down his glass of wine and does MSNBC hits on a regular basis every night.
[00:43:50]  It's just hilarious.
[00:43:52]  Remember what they're alleging in New York.
[00:43:54]  You have this Soros bunded Manhattan DA bringing these unprecedented indictment against President Trump under the theory that these time-barred, at-best misdemeanor bookkeeping charges for President Trump paying off a nuisance claim somehow got transit formed into like 34 felony campaign finance violations.
[00:44:19]  The prior Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney, the Federal Election Commission, and Alvin Breck himself declined to prosecute this bogus legal theory.
[00:44:30]  It wasn't until Matthew Colangelo got sent from the Biden Justice Department, a senior political operative, to bring the first indictment ever against a former president and a likely future president.
[00:44:42]  And if Democrats think they're going to put President Trump in prison over this, I welcome it because that will guarantee that President Trump wins by like five points on November 5th, 2024, because this is the dumbest case.
[00:44:56]  You're somebody who actually does put people in jail.
[00:44:59]  Is that, I mean, legitimately, is there any possibility Trump goes to jail if convicted in the Stormy Daniels hush money case?
[00:45:06]  Megan, it's possible.
[00:45:07]  I don't think it's likely, but I do think it's possible.
[00:45:10]  I would disagree with Andrew Weissman.
[00:45:12]  We'll do like a 90-10.
[00:45:13]  What is it?
[00:45:14]  I think 25% chance he gets a jail sentence, a prison sentence.
[00:45:19]  That high?
[00:45:21]  Yeah, because I do think the one thing Andrew Weissman, I think, said that I agreed with is that he could, based on his behavior, the judge can take all that into account, his lack of remorse and the fact that he's been doing it for years.
[00:45:34]  I wouldn't call him a recidivist, though, because when we use recidivism here at the local level, it's more like a career criminal with a long rap sheet.
[00:45:42]  Yeah.
[00:45:42]  And even though he's been charged with in three other cases, he has never been convicted of anything in the past.
[00:45:47]  I would say this.
[00:45:48]  I've met Andrew Weissman back at MSNBC.
[00:45:50]  Mike, that's a network that you don't get in your home.
[00:45:53]  But I met Andrew Max.
[00:45:57]  He's actually a nice guy.
[00:45:59]  And he's on all the time.
[00:46:01]  So yeah, I disagree with him on calling him a recidivist, but I do think there's a 25% chance he gets prison time.
[00:46:07]  And I don't know.
[00:46:09]  Let me move on.
[00:46:09]  I have a couple other things I want to hit.
[00:46:11]  Okay, this is against the servant.
[00:46:13]  Yeah.
[00:46:14]  This is very important to get to.
[00:46:16]  As you guys know, Trump was gagged in that case by Judge Murshon.
[00:46:20]  Again, as I said, not about criticizing the judge or the DA, but pretty much everybody else, including the judge's daughter and the court staff and the ADA, all that.
[00:46:28]  And you know who thinks that's really unfair?
[00:46:30]  I know you were wondering what this guy's take would be.
[00:46:33]  Michael Avenati, who's currently in prison himself for defrauding all of his clients, a bunch of clients, including Stormy Daniels, sentenced to 14 years in 2022 after being convicted of cheating numerous former clients out of millions of dollars in other financial crimes, not due to be released until 2035.
[00:46:55]  And he tweeted out, we can't be hypocrites when it comes to the First Amendment.
[00:47:00]  It's outrageous that Cohen and Daniels can do countless TV interviews, post on social, and make money on bogus documentaries all by talking shit about Trump.
[00:47:08]  But he's gagged and threatened with jail if he responds.
[00:47:13]  What on earth is happening, Dave?
[00:47:16]  He was Trump's chief antagonist, not to mention Kavanaugh's and all these.
[00:47:20]  Now I guess he sees the light now that he's in prison.
[00:47:23]  How is he even allowed to tweet from prison?
[00:47:25]  What kind of prison are he running?
[00:47:27]  Right?
[00:47:28]  Correct.
[00:47:29]  Yeah, that's number one.
[00:47:30]  And number two, boy, he really wants a pardon, huh?
[00:47:33]  He is, as we say in the wrestling business, he turned heel to get a pardon, but he's very transactional.
[00:47:40]  This guy would, he just, he's all transactions we've known from his previous convictions.
[00:47:45]  And so I think he's just angling for a pardon because he knows he's not going to get one from Biden.
[00:47:50]  It's amazing.
[00:47:51]  Last but not least, Mike, there are some on the left, like Mehdi Hassan, but not just him, calling for Justice Soda Mayor to step down and retire right now so that if her type 1 diabetes acts up over the possibility of a Trump administration or even a Biden administration with the Republican Senate, the Dems get the seat.
[00:48:13]  This is getting more and more buzz.
[00:48:14]  What do you make of it?
[00:48:17]  This is just, this is great.

=== Young Woman's Euthanasia Story (09:08) ===

[00:48:18]  These are like blasts from the past for me.
[00:48:20]  Michael Avenati popping onto the scene.
[00:48:22]  I'm glad they have Twitter in the prison library.
[00:48:25]  When I'm Trump's viceroy of DC, I'll make sure that he gets special Twitter access because of what he's done here.
[00:48:33]  And with Mehdi Hamas Hassan, he came after me a couple months ago and he's back.
[00:48:40]  I'm surprised.
[00:48:41]  Does he even, where is, did he say this on Twitter?
[00:48:45]  I thought he got canceled from MSNBC.
[00:48:47]  This is just why.
[00:48:48]  Yeah, he did.
[00:48:49]  He writes a column.
[00:48:50]  He said it in a column, but he's not the only one.
[00:48:52]  This is a din that's growing louder amongst Dems who are terrified given the polls Trump's going to win.
[00:48:58]  And frankly, that Sotomayor, it's them, it's not me people, might die and that Trump will have another Supreme Court appointment and that they can't withstand a 7-2 high court.
[00:49:09]  Well, I would say this.
[00:49:10]  I mean, if they're worried that we're not going to have a Hispanic woman for the Supreme Court, I mean, isn't Judge Cannon?
[00:49:16]  She's a Hispanic woman.
[00:49:17]  I think she'd make an excellent replacement for Justice Sotomayor in the Supreme Court.
[00:49:22]  I'll give you the last 20 seconds, Dave.
[00:49:25]  You can see why Democrats are calling for Sodomayora to step down.
[00:49:28]  They still have PTSD over the whole Ruth Bader Ginsburg thing.
[00:49:32]  And that's what's going on right now.
[00:49:34]  I don't think she's going anywhere.
[00:49:35]  Not at age 70.
[00:49:37]  Don't bet on it.
[00:49:38]  Okay, you guys are the best.
[00:49:39]  Thank you so much for being here.
[00:49:40]  Mike, Dave, to be continued and don't go away.
[00:49:43]  We've got much more right after the break.
[00:49:49]  Young, healthy, beautiful, and scheduled to die.
[00:49:53]  The free press recently highlighted the story of a 28-year-old woman in the Netherlands who had chosen euthanasia instead of treatment.
[00:50:03]  She chose to die.
[00:50:04]  And she's not the first, nor will she be the last.
[00:50:07]  There's a growing number of people worldwide choosing to end their lives rather than live.
[00:50:13]  And in places like the Netherlands, they're doing it for some shocking reasons up in Canada too.
[00:50:20]  It's a very disturbing trend, one we've wanted to dig into.
[00:50:23]  And that's where our pal Rupa Subramania comes in, journalist at the Free Press.
[00:50:28]  She's here to dive into this topic with us today.
[00:50:30]  She just did a lengthy piece for the free press on this.
[00:50:33]  Rupa, welcome back to the show.
[00:50:35]  Oh, great to be back, Megan.
[00:50:38]  So you went over to the Netherlands, a place we traveled to last year and absolutely loved.
[00:50:44]  It was beautiful and the people were lovely, but they are suffering from this problem.
[00:50:49]  I view it as a problem.
[00:50:50]  This is my own bias.
[00:50:51]  They are suffering from the same problem as our friends in what Michael Knowles calls our evil top hat Canada are suffering from, which is just, I mean, like suicide numbers that we haven't seen before by people who are engaging the medical community and the blessing of the medical community, their help and their blessing to make it happen.
[00:51:14]  And it's getting blessed for cases that are really not that extreme in my view.
[00:51:21]  So you went over there and you met with a young woman, this 28-year-old named Zaraya.
[00:51:26]  Tell us what you found.
[00:51:28]  Yeah, thanks, Megan.
[00:51:30]  So I just want to make it very clear that I did not go to the Netherlands to speak to Zariah.
[00:51:34]  We communicated over the phone for nearly a month.
[00:51:38]  And so all of the reporting was done here where I'm based in Canada.
[00:51:45]  So let me tell you about Zariah Turbeek.
[00:51:48]  She is 28 years old and she lives in the Netherlands.
[00:51:52]  She lives with her boyfriend, her longtime partner of 10 years.
[00:51:56]  He's 40 years old.
[00:51:58]  They met when she was 18, working at a place where she was stocking shelves and he worked at a nearby restaurant.
[00:52:05]  He now works in IT as a programmer.
[00:52:09]  And, you know, I found her story to be extremely interesting because it's not that she wants to be euthanized under the Netherlands assisted dying regime.
[00:52:22]  It's because of how young she is.
[00:52:25]  When we think of euthanasia or assisted dying in the U.S., where it's legal in 10 states or here in Canada, where I'm based, we generally think of people who are old and terminally ill.
[00:52:36]  They have no hope of survival beyond a few weeks or months.
[00:52:41]  And that's clearly not the case with Zariah.
[00:52:45]  No, it's not the case at all.
[00:52:47]  And historically, the people who have done this in the places where it's been legalized have been near death, have received a terminal diagnosis, like Oregon, for example, was the first state to do this, I think anywhere, but certainly within the United States back in 1994, I think it was.
[00:53:05]  And they said you have to be within six months of dying per a physician's diagnosis.
[00:53:11]  So if you have a terminal diagnosis and you're facing six months of hell, that's one thing.
[00:53:16]  But this is, she does not suffer from a fatal disease, right, at all.
[00:53:22]  And she has not been given a terminal diagnosis.
[00:53:26]  No, so I'll tell you what she suffers from.
[00:53:28]  She suffers from depression and anxiety.
[00:53:31]  She has autism.
[00:53:33]  She says that she has agoraphobia, which is an anxiety triggered by a fear of being in a public space.
[00:53:41]  The fact of the matter is she just doesn't want to go on living, even though she's not terminally ill.
[00:53:48]  By her own say-so, by the way, she could live a really long life if she chose to, but she just doesn't want to.
[00:53:56]  And I should also point that she's been feeling this way for many years.
[00:54:00]  She's been featured in the Dutch media quite extensively over the years.
[00:54:05]  Death has essentially been part of her identity for a very, very long time.
[00:54:10]  Keep in mind that she's only 28 years old.
[00:54:13]  She prominently wears a do not resuscitate tag on her neck, which she's had on for years.
[00:54:20]  In 2020, as she tells me, that's when she finished her last treatment of electroconvulsive therapy, more commonly referred to as shock therapy.
[00:54:32]  And at that point, she recalls her doctor telling her, look, we've tried everything possible here and there's nothing really more we can do in terms of treatment options for you.
[00:54:43]  This is essentially going to be your life where you're on this course of medications and shock therapy and so on.
[00:54:54]  And that's when she said that she decided that she was going to apply for euthanasia because for her, it was going to be very clear that if there were no, there was no better alternative for her going forward.
[00:55:07]  And if this is the life that she was looking forward to, she just didn't want to continue living this way anymore.
[00:55:13]  So according to Dutch law, for example, if mental illness is the reason to die, three doctors have to sign off.
[00:55:22]  So far, two already have.
[00:55:25]  Zaria told me the third is basically a formality at this point.
[00:55:29]  Her date for her death has been set for a day in early May, and she fully expects she's very confident that she's going to die that day.
[00:55:38]  She's had a custom-made coffin made, which is white on the outside and black on the inside.
[00:55:44]  She spent most of March saying goodbye to her friends by sending them a support box, which was black with a rainbow ribbon tied around it.
[00:55:55]  And it contained things that her friends could remember her by.
[00:55:59]  The coffin is where she will lie briefly before she's cremated.
[00:56:04]  And she's picked the urn for her ashes, which she says will be her new home.
[00:56:10]  You write in the free press that she told you that story about the urn and then included an urn emoji in the text.
[00:56:19]  That was such a great detail to include because it's just kind of shocking.
[00:56:25]  An emoji is something you picture, it seems lighthearted and fun.
[00:56:29]  And who would be tweeting or sending an emoji of an urn, which is the receptacle for one's body, one's ashes after death?
[00:56:37]  And she's not even 30 yet.
[00:56:39]  Does she have a lighthearted attitude about it?
[00:56:44]  She does.
[00:56:45]  So let me tell you a bit about her, you know, as a person.
[00:56:49]  I got to know her a little bit in the course of many conversations I've had with her.
[00:56:54]  She's incredibly intelligent.
[00:56:56]  She has a sense of humor, which is dark at times, given what she's dealing with and given what she's confronting.
[00:57:06]  But she's a very smart young woman.
[00:57:09]  She comes across as being incredibly mature.
[00:57:15]  And I don't, you know, a lot of reactions to her have been that have made the assumption that she's an extremely lonely person, but I never got that impression.
[00:57:25]  She's in love with her boyfriend.

=== Dystopian Dutch Death System (11:10) ===

[00:57:26]  They've been together for 10 years.
[00:57:28]  They live together.
[00:57:29]  She has a large circle of friends.
[00:57:33]  And what's extraordinary about this is, you know, everybody respects her wish to die and think this is this is, you know, if she's come to this decision that they must respect it.
[00:57:47]  So the audience knows, the Netherlands and Canada are the two countries that allow you to do this and to get the medical establishment to help you for a mere mental disorder.
[00:58:00]  And I say mere understanding how powerful mental illness can be, but again, contrasting it against end-of-life diagnoses that people have typically required before we would allow any medical intervention.
[00:58:13]  And just to contrast, like in Oregon, I actually hold some stats here.
[00:58:18]  Okay, so in Oregon, they said it has to be self-administered, assisted dying.
[00:58:25]  Now, there's a difference from place to place about whether the physician will give you the medication and then you give yourself the medication when you decide it's time, or whether the doctor will be there with you, because sometimes things do go wrong.
[00:58:40]  People choke on the medication or something happens, and many would like the help of a doctor to make sure it goes smoothly.
[00:58:49]  So in Oregon, it does have to be self-administered.
[00:58:52]  You have to be over 18.
[00:58:54]  You have to have decision-making capacity and you have to be terminally ill with a disease that's likely to cause your death within the next six months.
[00:59:02]  And it seems like the opposite of that is the Netherlands and Canada were in the Netherlands.
[00:59:12]  Okay, first of all, mental illness will qualify you.
[00:59:17]  You could get physician medical assistance, my understanding is, and dying has to be a well-considered and independent decision.
[00:59:26]  And a doctor has to attest to it as well, that the person is suffering unbearably.
[00:59:31]  So that would include a medical condition or a psychiatric diagnosis.
[00:59:36]  And then there's Canada, FYI, Canada.
[00:59:41]  Assisted dying allows both practitioner administration and patient self-administration.
[00:59:47]  So you can do anything you want in Canada.
[00:59:49]  Very broad, broadest on earth.
[00:59:52]  This is citing here from some experts who went on a BBC podcast I listened to called The Briefing Room, dated 12, 14, 2023.
[01:00:01]  So you can have either in Canada assisted dying or practitioner administration, very broad, arguably the broadest on earth.
[01:00:08]  No time requirement, no six months to death, nothing like that.
[01:00:13]  It just has to be a quote grievous and irremediable condition, which is very broadly defined.
[01:00:20]  So it can be physical, it can be mental.
[01:00:24]  In any event, that's what's out there.
[01:00:26]  And there are other states in the United States.
[01:00:27]  There's some 11 states in the United States that allow something closer to what we have in Oregon.
[01:00:31]  But you're speaking to somebody from one of the most extreme jurisdictions, the Netherlands and Canada, are the most extreme in allowing this and allowing physicians to participate.
[01:00:45]  In the Netherlands, is she expecting that a doctor will help her on the day of or that she will self-administer?
[01:00:54]  No, a doctor will come to her house and she expects that it's going to be she's going to be attached to an IV.
[01:01:06]  That's how she's going to die.
[01:01:09]  First, there's something that will induce a coma.
[01:01:13]  She goes into deep coma.
[01:01:15]  And while she's in that deep coma, there's another substance that's going to be administered to her, which will stop her heart.
[01:01:23]  And that's when she will die.
[01:01:26]  What is the medicine that they use to stop the heart?
[01:01:30]  Do you know?
[01:01:32]  Not at the top of my head, Megan, but it's fairly common in the Netherlands.
[01:01:38]  I can't remember the name, but yeah, it's something that is routinely used by in physician-assisted dying in the Netherlands.
[01:01:51]  My understanding was that some of these heart-stopping medications you can get are the same as we use in some prisons when we conduct state-run executions.
[01:02:03]  And there have been problems with these medications.
[01:02:06]  So, you know, this is something these patients need to factor in, that sometimes things can go wrong.
[01:02:13]  And I understand wrong is a relative term when you're trying to take your own life, you know, to end your own life.
[01:02:19]  But, you know, the whole point in getting the medical community involved because you can take your own life without them is to make it go smoothly.
[01:02:27]  It's not risk-free in that way.
[01:02:30]  Absolutely.
[01:02:31]  In fact, I mean, you know, I couldn't go into this for the story, but, you know, in my research on assisted dying over the last couple of years, one thing that does come out in the discussions is there's no such thing as a peaceful death when it comes to medical assistance and dying.
[01:02:48]  As you point out, we have, you know, we see what happens in states that have capital punishment where prisoners are given this lethal substance.
[01:03:00]  And oftentimes, you know, you'll see or sometimes you'll see a prisoner in a lot of pain before they actually die.
[01:03:10]  And so, you know, there's this misconception out there, according to some doctors who, you know, who say that, you know, this is, there's no such thing as a peaceful death.
[01:03:20]  You know, many, it's actually pretty painful.
[01:03:23]  In the case of Zariah, what is interesting about this is that for her shock therapy, when she thinks that she's going to go into a coma, so when she undergoes shock therapy, a coma like coma is induced before she goes into a shock therapy.
[01:03:42]  And she thinks that that's going to be the kind of coma that she'll experience when she dies and she won't feel a thing.
[01:03:52]  Now, you know, we don't quite know what's going to happen to her physically until that actually happens.
[01:03:59]  But in her mind, she thinks it's going to be a very peaceful death.
[01:04:05]  I just can't get over the fact that her reasons are psychological and she's depressed and she hasn't been enjoying her life.
[01:04:13]  But there are so many people who feel that way and then, you know, fight through it and a year or two later are married with kids and are so grateful that they did not pursue this dramatic, quote, solution to their problem.
[01:04:33]  I mean, I do see a distinction.
[01:04:34]  I'm not defending it as a Catholic.
[01:04:36]  I would not, I would not end my own life in this way because I don't believe it's up to me.
[01:04:40]  I believe it's up to God.
[01:04:42]  But not everybody's Catholic and people have different beliefs.
[01:04:44]  And I understand that.
[01:04:46]  But I just think to allow it to happen, you know, to facilitate the ending of a young, physically healthy person's life by the state does have sort of the blessing of the citizenry.
[01:04:59]  And it's, this is very, this is far afield from you have six months to live and you just don't want to suffer.
[01:05:06]  I just, do you talk to her at all about that, about the possibility of emotional and mental recovery?
[01:05:15]  Yes, we did.
[01:05:17]  You know, she said that I've tried everything.
[01:05:21]  My doctors have tried everything.
[01:05:24]  And there is no possible solution to what I'm feeling, the anxieties that I'm dealing with, the depression that I'm dealing with, the fact that I have autism.
[01:05:36]  For her, all options have been exhausted.
[01:05:39]  She thinks this is basically the end and she cannot continue living this way anymore.
[01:05:45]  And I should also point out, Megan, and this is a very interesting thing that came out in my research for this story, is that the Dutch have a greater acceptance of death than any of us here.
[01:06:00]  And we can get into that a little later in our conversation.
[01:06:04]  But she has, she, along with many, many Dutch, have a great amount of pride, if I can use that word, in their euthanasia regime, which is quite extraordinary.
[01:06:16]  So one of the things that Zoria kept telling me is that, look, it's not that easy to get euthanized in the Netherlands.
[01:06:23]  I myself have had to wait for three years.
[01:06:26]  I've had to convince two doctors and I'm now waiting for the third doctor, which I think is going to happen.
[01:06:32]  And I'm fully confident that I will die on that day in early May.
[01:06:36]  But she has an extraordinary amount of faith in a system that has approved her death based on the fact that she is not terminally ill, but she suffers from a range of problems related to her mental illness.
[01:06:53]  So it's an extraordinary thing to actually hear someone tell me about the great things about the Netherlands euthanasia regime, when in fact it's very dystopian and it's disturbing.
[01:07:08]  Yes.
[01:07:10]  And she's, you mentioned this.
[01:07:12]  It jumped out at me when reading your piece.
[01:07:15]  You say she recalled her psychiatrist telling her that they had tried everything that, quote, there's nothing more we can do for you.
[01:07:22]  It's never going to get any better.
[01:07:25]  That's shocking.
[01:07:26]  If she really did have a psychiatrist say that to her, and I realize this is her claiming that she was told that.
[01:07:33]  That I don't think is something a psychiatrist in the United States would ever say.
[01:07:37]  I don't believe that would be ever be said here.
[01:07:39]  And I do have to wonder whether this pro-euthanasia culture is leading to, yeah, I guess it's over, you know, just a more defeatist attitude amongst the community that is responsible for helping people like this young woman.
[01:07:57]  Absolutely.
[01:07:58]  One bioethicist I spoke to in the Netherlands for the story pointed to this exactly.
[01:08:06]  And he said, we've gotten to a point where, you know, psychiatrists are, you know, just really kind of just giving up on their patients.
[01:08:18]  And that's exactly, I think, what happened here.
[01:08:20]  Of course, I cannot, you know, we have to take Zariah's word for this, but that's what she claims that, you know, reading between the lines, or maybe you don't even have to read between the lines, but that's basically what her doctor told her, that that's it.
[01:08:33]  You know, this, we can't do anything more for you at this point.

=== Suicide Contagion and Trends (05:21) ===

[01:08:37]  And that, you know, helped make her decision to die.
[01:08:44]  Another bioethicist I spoke to in the Netherlands for the story, Theo Bohr, he's really well known.
[01:08:50]  He was an early proponent of the Dutch euthanasia regime, and he served on their euthanasia review board.
[01:09:00]  And over the years, I think he served from 2005 to 2014, and he resigned in 2014 because he saw in the Netherlands where death was becoming as a last resort, it went from being something that you do as a last resort to actually becoming the default option.
[01:09:21]  And the statistics in the Netherlands actually bear this out.
[01:09:26]  In 2022, about 170,000 people died.
[01:09:32]  And out of those, 5% of all deaths in the Netherlands had to do with euthanasia.
[01:09:38]  That's an extraordinary number, actually, for a very small country.
[01:09:43]  And we're seeing the number of young people dying, opting to die.
[01:09:48]  They'd rather die than live with their suffering and their pain.
[01:09:53]  That trend is also going up for people between the ages of 18 and 40 in the Netherlands.
[01:09:58]  That number has been rising.
[01:10:00]  In 2011, I think there were 13 cases and then there were 42 in 2013.
[01:10:08]  And by 2021, there were 115.
[01:10:12]  And by the way, this trend is not just limited to the Netherlands.
[01:10:16]  From 2018 to 2021, countries where euthanasia or assisted suicide are legal, we've seen sizable increases in the number of people opting to die.
[01:10:32]  Let's look at the U.S. There was a 53% jump in the States and the District of Columbia where it's legal.
[01:10:41]  In Canada, there was a 125% jump.
[01:10:45]  And also I should point out that with the rise of legal suicide, so euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, it also coincides with a rise in the number of suicides in general.
[01:10:59]  So that points to sort of a suicide contagion that is basically in effect.
[01:11:06]  So in the middle of the day.
[01:11:07]  I want to talk to you about that.
[01:11:08]  What about that social contagion aspect?
[01:11:10]  We've seen that in the trans situation back when I was younger.
[01:11:15]  We used to worry about it popping up when it came to eating disorders.
[01:11:19]  You talked about it, and the more you surrounded yourself with girls who were suffering from it, the more likely you were to sort of toy with it and possibly engage in it.
[01:11:26]  And now there is a question about whether that's what's happening here, that there's some sort of social contagion on, I guess we call it euthanasia.
[01:11:34]  Because I don't even, euthanasia, I thought, I think about it when I think about euthanizing an animal who's suffering.
[01:11:42]  And it's not the animal's choice.
[01:11:44]  It's the obviously the human's choice to euthanize the suffering creature.
[01:11:50]  And then do we use that word euthanasia to describe what she's doing where the patient is choosing to die by suicide?
[01:11:59]  Yes, it's because it's legal suicide, but essentially it is suicide, right?
[01:12:04]  As one person, a bioethicist told me, you know, we should stop using all of this flowery language to obfuscate from what it actually is, which is suicide.
[01:12:19]  It's, you know, you're just outsourcing that to the state, which makes physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia legal, but it really is suicide.
[01:12:30]  And, you know, to this point about suicide contagion, so there are studies that are out there that show that there's been a rise in suicides in general that coincides with physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.
[01:12:45]  So in Oregon, for example, and Oregon, by the way, was the first U.S. state to legalize assisted suicide, and that was back in 1997.
[01:12:54]  And I think it was probably one of the first places in the world to legalize assisted suicide.
[01:13:00]  The suicide rate in Oregon went from 15.9% or something per 100,000 people pre-legalization to 16.9% post-legalization, while the suicide rate in all of the other states dipped from 11.8 to 11.3.
[01:13:18]  In Washington, which was the second state to legalize assisted dying in 2008, the pre-numbers for suicide was 13.3 and the post-number was 15.3, which was a 15% increase.
[01:13:36]  So clearly there's a trend in people opting for legal suicide.
[01:13:41]  And then in an and that's we've created this environment where we've normalized dying to such an extent that it is also creating people from seeing suicide an environment has been created where people see suicide as an option.

=== Normalizing Death in Society (15:27) ===

[01:13:58]  You know, I think I'm done with living and I just don't want to do this anymore.
[01:14:03]  On the subject of Zaraya, we have a little very short clip of her talking about this issue that you guys posted.
[01:14:11]  Let's watch it.
[01:14:13]  Hello.
[01:14:14]  My name is Zoraya and I'm 28 years old.
[01:14:18]  I live in the Netherlands and recently my euthanasia request for my mental suffering got approved.
[01:14:26]  She's so young.
[01:14:29]  Is there any chance of stopping it?
[01:14:32]  Is there, you know, you say she's got a lovely boyfriend who cares about her and is there any way it's not going to go forward?
[01:14:41]  Well, it really does come down to this third psychiatrist.
[01:14:47]  She didn't have an especially good meeting with the last doctor.
[01:14:52]  And that meeting happened a couple of weeks ago and she was fairly upset because this doctor just didn't quite understand.
[01:15:02]  According to her, she claims didn't understand her situation and perhaps was trying to steer her away from making this, from going through with this.
[01:15:17]  This is a very tough question, Megan.
[01:15:20]  You know, she's 28 years old.
[01:15:22]  She's an adult and she's come to this decision after, I think, you know, having spoken to her, I think she's come to this decision after thinking long and hard about it.
[01:15:33]  She's an adult, but at the same time, there's something very disturbing about all of this.
[01:15:39]  She's young, she's beautiful, she's small.
[01:15:40]  What does her family say?
[01:15:41]  What does the boyfriend say?
[01:15:43]  Well, the boyfriend, unfortunately, I couldn't speak to him because Zoraya didn't want me to speak to him.
[01:15:51]  She wants to protect him from all the attention that would come to her because of her death.
[01:16:02]  But he, you know, but she said that her boyfriend initially had some concerns, but he, like so many Dutch people out there, respects her wish to die because she's come to this decision as an adult.
[01:16:20]  You know, as someone I, many people I spoke to in the Netherlands said, at 18, you, you know, you're on your own.
[01:16:28]  You know, you don't live at home anymore.
[01:16:31]  You can drink, you can drive, you can do all of these things.
[01:16:34]  And why shouldn't you make the decision to die if that is what to do?
[01:16:40]  Well, I mean, your religious beliefs would be one reason.
[01:16:44]  I know I mentioned my own Catholicism, Christianity would never get behind this.
[01:16:48]  But is she a religious person?
[01:16:50]  I don't remember whether the Netherlands, like you go to France, everybody's Catholic.
[01:16:54]  In Italy, everybody's Catholic.
[01:16:56]  More and more Muslims in France, I should point out.
[01:16:59]  But I don't know.
[01:17:00]  I don't remember the religiosity of the Netherlands.
[01:17:04]  Well, that's a great question because it goes to the heart of this, in my opinion.
[01:17:10]  Now, unlike in the US, which still has a lot of people who are religious, many European countries like the Netherlands have become post-religious societies.
[01:17:21]  And, you know, the social media reaction to my story has been very telling and has been completely polarized.
[01:17:31]  You have Americans who are horrified at what's happening in the Netherlands and afraid that this might come to them while the Dutch are scratching their heads, wondering what the fuss is about.
[01:17:45]  North Americans generally tend to be horrified at the Dutch acceptance of the right to die for someone who's not terminally ill or their acceptance that there should be a more humane way to commit suicide, even when euthanasia is legal, for example.
[01:18:02]  That's another aspect that I go into my into for my story.
[01:18:07]  The Dutch I spoke to find North Americans in general very conservative and very religious when it comes to life and death.
[01:18:15]  As I mentioned, it's a post-religious society.
[01:18:18]  And the comments from there are 180 degrees from what I'm getting from people in the US and Canada.
[01:18:24]  And I feel that we're living in two different worlds at the same point in time in cultures that essentially descend from fundamentally the same Western roots, if you think about it, coming from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Protestant Reformation.
[01:18:38]  So the Dutch may be nominally Christian, but you see, most don't go to church or believe in God.
[01:18:44]  Zariah doesn't believe in God.
[01:18:46]  I asked her about her religious beliefs.
[01:18:49]  She said, I don't believe in a God.
[01:18:51]  I think when we die, we just die.
[01:18:54]  There's nothing left.
[01:18:55]  We're just, it's like a machine.
[01:18:57]  You know, you turn it on and you turn it off.
[01:19:00]  And that's the end of the story.
[01:19:02]  I should mention that.
[01:19:03]  I mean, I think about it here in the United States and the value that we place on one human life.
[01:19:10]  I mean, there's so many examples over the course of my own news career.
[01:19:14]  The one that comes to mind, I was a young reporter at Fox covering the high court, and it was the Terry Shiva case that went up.
[01:19:21]  People may remember she was a young woman who suffered a cardiac arrest and then went into what was then called a vegetative state.
[01:19:28]  And her parents wanted to keep the feeding tube connected.
[01:19:34]  Her husband didn't want it, saying she would not have wanted it.
[01:19:38]  And the battle went all the way up to the, you know, the highest court.
[01:19:41]  And then the Florida state legislature passed a law.
[01:19:44]  Basically, they said the courts said that he could disconnect the feeding tube if memory serves.
[01:19:48]  And then the Florida state legislature passed a law saying, no, ultimately, they took the feeding tube out and she died.
[01:19:55]  There are the cases of minors who get caught.
[01:19:57]  I covered one of those two in West Virginia who get caught.
[01:20:00]  And we do everything within our power to try to get out every last life.
[01:20:05]  And we pray.
[01:20:06]  Look at the submersible that went down last summer where everyone was on pins and needles wondering if these four guys had lived or died.
[01:20:14]  You know, people were praying the talk of the world.
[01:20:17]  You know, there is just such an extreme, I think, appropriate value placed on human life.
[01:20:24]  And now here you have a state government.
[01:20:27]  And I do see it as different from the Oregon thing, which is controversial enough, but a state government in the Netherlands and in Canada involving the people in essence, involving the people in assisting a death not on God's terms and diminishing the value of life to the point where it's, these are not terminal patients.
[01:20:46]  This woman could be saved.
[01:20:48]  Her life could turn around as it has for so many people who have not only considered suicide, but attempted it.
[01:20:54]  And yet, you know, if this physician actually said, there's nothing more we can do for you, it just speaks to what I think is a rot in the system over there when it comes to the value of life.
[01:21:06]  Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, that's a great point.
[01:21:11]  And as an example, to bolster that point, Megan, is, you know, in the Netherlands, the previous left-wing Dutch government wanted to further liberalize their existing euthanasia law by allowing those over the age of 75 to opt for euthanasia, even when they're not terminally ill.
[01:21:32]  They just have to feel, yeah, they just have to feel that their lives are complete.
[01:21:38]  It's not worth living beyond this age.
[01:21:42]  You know, I have a history of heart disease or whatever it is in my family.
[01:21:45]  I saw my mother go through dementia.
[01:21:49]  That fate awaits me and I do not want to go through with that.
[01:21:53]  So I'm going to opt for this assisted suicide under this bill.
[01:22:00]  The only pushback, if you can even call it that, came from conservative Christian parties.
[01:22:06]  Most people in the Netherlands, there was a poll back in November of last year, actually support this bill.
[01:22:13]  It's currently languishing in parliament because they have a caretaker government at present.
[01:22:17]  But the minister, here's the thing, this is what's astonishing about this.
[01:22:21]  The minister who spearheaded this original bill called the Completed Lives Bill a few years ago is currently is currently their health minister in this caretaker government.
[01:22:35]  A couple of days ago, after my story came out, she was quoted in the Dutch media saying that I'm not joking here.
[01:22:44]  I wish I were making this up, saying that psychiatrists are too reluctant to approve euthanasia.
[01:22:51]  And she finds that problematic.
[01:22:52]  She says that psychiatrists need to overcome their shyness.
[01:22:57]  Wow.
[01:22:59]  That's stunning.
[01:23:00]  There's an ageism in that piece of it, you know, that we need to be taking better care of our elders.
[01:23:09]  You know, there are certain societies like Indian culture, some Asian cultures in which they take care of their senior citizens.
[01:23:16]  You know, they move back in with their kids and the whole family reveres them and takes care of them.
[01:23:21]  And it's not even a thing.
[01:23:22]  Like, of course, that's what's going to happen.
[01:23:24]  We're not quite there as, you know, native born Americans.
[01:23:28]  I don't, we're not, we're not great about our elderly, in my, in my opinion.
[01:23:32]  But this, we draw the line at this, we value somebody over the age of 75.
[01:23:37]  You know, I'm thinking about that Dr. Emmanuel, Ari Emmanuel's brother, Zeke, who used to come on my show at Fox.
[01:23:43]  And he used to talk about this kind of thing.
[01:23:45]  Like, eh, yeah, 75, you're about done.
[01:23:48]  Like, why should you get state-funded health care past that?
[01:23:51]  Like, the Grim Reaper's coming for you.
[01:23:53]  And why should people be funding anything to keep you alive and well?
[01:23:56]  It's crazy.
[01:23:56]  You either value life or you don't.
[01:23:58]  Here in this country, we still seem to, though, you know, we have obviously abortion and we have, like we talked, about 11 states that will engage in this, but these are extreme cases.
[01:24:11]  Canada and the Netherlands are extreme.
[01:24:14]  And so is that just what's behind it?
[01:24:16]  The Netherlands, you talk about the culture, how they're like, oh, you kind of, you had your run, it's over.
[01:24:20]  That's that.
[01:24:20]  Is that how the Canadians are too?
[01:24:23]  Well, to some extent, I mean, it is actually quite extraordinary that in Canada, and I've written about medical assistance and dying in Canada.
[01:24:33]  I wrote a story for the free press back in 2022.
[01:24:37]  Again, I wish I were making this up, but it's actually easier to get assisted dying and euthanasia in Canada than it is to find a family doctor where you can be on a wait list for years.
[01:24:48]  You know, it's essentially what is happening in Canada and in the Netherlands to some extent.
[01:24:53]  I would argue that it's actually easier to get euthanasia and assisted dying in Canada than it is in the Netherlands.
[01:25:00]  The Netherlands still, you know, you have to go through a rigorous process before you're approved.
[01:25:07]  In Canada, you know, just when I was working on the story, I spoke to a 21-year-old young man who was approved to die.
[01:25:20]  He was days from being euthanized by his doctor.
[01:25:25]  And his medical condition was that he had type 1 diabetes and he had gone blind in one eye because of his diabetes.
[01:25:35]  And he just didn't want to live anymore.
[01:25:36]  He was only 21.
[01:25:38]  And if not for his mother discovering that his doctor had approved his death and he was going to die, she had a week to stop him from dying.
[01:25:49]  And she called the doctor, recorded a conversation with him, exposed him on social media.
[01:25:56]  And then the doctor eventually had to withdraw from the case.
[01:26:02]  And I've spoken to this person since then.
[01:26:08]  And we spoke roughly around the time that he was going to die.
[01:26:12]  And just reading between the lines, it seemed like he was happy to be there, happy to be still alive.
[01:26:21]  And he was picking up vegetables in his grandmother's garden.
[01:26:28]  And it was around Thanksgiving weekend.
[01:26:30]  And it was extraordinary that he, you know, he sounded happy and, you know, and he was glad to be around with his grandparents.
[01:26:40]  Oh my gosh.
[01:26:41]  There's another case that was all over X recently.
[01:26:46]  Lauren Hove Hove, H-O-E-V-E.
[01:26:51]  She was in the Netherlands, a YouTube creator.
[01:26:56]  She was then 27 and she took to her newly created blog, Brain Fog, to announce that she wanted to die.
[01:27:03]  I saw her tweet earlier this year, was it?
[01:27:07]  Yeah, it was this year or 23.
[01:27:08]  I'm trying to remember.
[01:27:09]  And it was shocking.
[01:27:10]  It read, this will be my last tweet.
[01:27:13]  Thanks for the love, everyone.
[01:27:14]  I'm going to rest a bit more and be with my loved ones.
[01:27:17]  Enjoy a last morbid meme from me.
[01:27:21]  The photo next to her post was labeled me getting euthanized.
[01:27:25]  And it featured a child wearing sunglasses and lying on a gurney while giving a thumbs up.
[01:27:31]  Soon thereafter, a doctor helped her, started an IV, put her in the coma, exactly what you're saying, that Zariah wants to happen to her.
[01:27:40]  She was at home.
[01:27:40]  She had her family there.
[01:27:41]  And at 1.56 p.m. that day, she at age 28 was pronounced dead.
[01:27:46]  Lauren and Zariah both had something in common, and that's autism.
[01:27:54]  And that makes this especially disturbing.
[01:27:58]  It is.
[01:27:59]  And there's a third example of a recent case of a 28-year-old woman in Alberta here in Canada.
[01:28:09]  She won a court, a court just ruled in her favor that she could go ahead and get euthanized because her father wanted to stop her from doing that.
[01:28:22]  Guess what?
[01:28:24]  She has autism.
[01:28:25]  So, you know, and in the Netherlands too, an increasing number of people with autism are opting for euthanasia and are getting approved and they have died recently.
[01:28:36]  And it's, you know, I think I've met people, adults who have autism and they have gone on to live very fulfilling lives.
[01:28:47]  You know, they've had children.
[01:28:49]  They're successful.
[01:28:52]  I just never thought that autism would feel like a death sentence for people suffering from it.
[01:29:00]  You know, again, I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier, that increasingly the medical community in places where euthanasia is legal and assisted dying is legal, I think they're increasingly giving up on their patients.
[01:29:15]  Society is giving up on these individuals.
[01:29:18]  Society, you know, we've gotten to a point where we're just not taking the time to speak to people who are suffering.

=== Mental Illness as Death Sentence (08:33) ===

[01:29:26]  You know, it's everything is just fast-paced.
[01:29:29]  Everything has to have a quick solution.
[01:29:31]  Everybody wants to be in control and in charge of everything that they do.
[01:29:36]  You know, one of the things that-not just that, but also the absurd push at every turn to be happy.
[01:29:43]  Be happy.
[01:29:44]  You have to be happy.
[01:29:45]  Happy, happy, happy.
[01:29:46]  Abigail Schreier writes about this in her new book, Bad Therapy, about how that this is the wrong directive.
[01:29:52]  You know, if you ask somebody, the average person, you know, how many times in a week's period they feel genuine happiness, it's probably maybe 15% of their week.
[01:30:01]  That's not a norm.
[01:30:02]  We're not normally walking around skipping with a big smile like, I'm super happy.
[01:30:07]  You know, we're, we're working hard or we're focused or we're sometimes we're stressed.
[01:30:12]  Sometimes we're just sedentary.
[01:30:14]  We're bored.
[01:30:15]  We're entertained.
[01:30:16]  But like the word happy might not apply.
[01:30:18]  And even if it doesn't, even if you're more of like a sad person, sadness is an okay emotion.
[01:30:23]  It's just we've deemed happiness to be this, it's an unattainable false idol to have it dominate your life for most people.
[01:30:33]  And then we're slowly but surely demonizing people who have these disorders like autism.
[01:30:39]  I know that Lauren also had ADHD.
[01:30:43]  That they're, it's like, what's next with kids who have Down syndrome?
[01:30:47]  Are we just going to, you know, like shove them right into the line?
[01:30:49]  Because you know what?
[01:30:49]  They're less than.
[01:30:50]  This is just opening up such a, such a dark door.
[01:30:55]  I'm going to steal the last word on it for right this second because I got to squeeze in an ad break, but we'll pick it up on the backside.
[01:31:00]  Stay with us, Rupa.
[01:31:02]  This is an unbelievable talk.
[01:31:04]  I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.
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[01:32:00]  Offer details apply.
[01:32:04]  Up to now, Kvorkian says he's helped people to die by having the patient flip the switch to start the lethal drugs flowing.
[01:32:12]  And Tom could have done that.
[01:32:14]  But Kvorkian suggested that instead he give Tom a lethal injection.
[01:32:19]  He says that's more reliable and more humane.
[01:32:22]  And he wants to push the public debate from doctor-assisted suicide to euthanasia.
[01:32:28]  Did Tom know that you were making, in effect, an example of him?
[01:32:33]  Yes.
[01:32:34]  He did.
[01:32:34]  Yes.
[01:32:35]  And I sensed some reluctance in him.
[01:32:38]  I did because he thought he was getting assisted suicide.
[01:32:41]  Right.
[01:32:41]  And actually, this is better than assisted suicide.
[01:32:43]  I explained that to him.
[01:32:44]  It's better.
[01:32:44]  Control.
[01:32:45]  You killed him.
[01:32:47]  I did, but it could be manslaughter, not murder.
[01:32:49]  It's not necessarily murder.
[01:32:51]  But it doesn't bother me what you call it.
[01:32:53]  I know what it is.
[01:32:54]  This could never be a crime in any society which deems itself enlightened.
[01:33:01]  What a story.
[01:33:02]  That was 1998.
[01:33:04]  Dr. Jack Kvorkian appearing on 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace about his attempt to help and successful attempt to help a man die, saying he did it himself.
[01:33:16]  He didn't just create the facility or the drugs or the apparatus for this man to do it himself, but he injected this man, Thomas Yuke, who had Lou Gehrig's disease.
[01:33:27]  And for that, ultimately, Rupa, they put Jack Kevorkian in jail for second-degree murder, where he remained for many years.
[01:33:37]  He ultimately died himself, I think, in 2011 of an illness.
[01:33:44]  And that, my God, like how times have changed.
[01:33:48]  That seems mild compared to what's happening in the Netherlands and Canada.
[01:33:53]  Absolutely.
[01:33:54]  Times have changed, but the discussions really haven't.
[01:33:58]  The debate essentially remains the same, to be honest with you, especially in light of stories like Zariah's, because Kvorkian's actions sparked this debate, intense public debate over the ethics behind euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
[01:34:17]  People who support a right to die viewed him as a compassionate person and that he was a compassionate advocate for patients' rights to end their suffering, while opponents argued that this violated medical ethics, the Hippocratic Oath, do no harm.
[01:34:38]  And of course, and possibly put vulnerable individuals at risk.
[01:34:45]  So that part of the debate, in my opinion, is still there because that's essentially what we're discussing in the context of mental illness, at least, or for those who are not terminally ill, like Zoraya Turbique, where euthanasia is increasingly, or assisted suicide or even suicide is becoming increasingly romanticized and increasingly has become normalized.
[01:35:08]  Because those of us, and especially for me, I have a moral ambiguity when it comes to this.
[01:35:17]  And it does make you once again revisit this debate from the 90s when Dr. Death, Jack Kovorkian, was performing physician-assisted suicide.
[01:35:33]  We just hit the 25th anniversary on March 26th of his conviction of second-degree murder in that particular case.
[01:35:42]  There are multiple states now, beyond the 11 in Washington, D.C., here in America, that are considering allowing this.
[01:35:50]  Not the Canadian version, not the Netherlands version, but more the Oregon version, right?
[01:35:56]  I mean, and as I look at, there was an Axios article on this earlier this year.
[01:36:01]  They're not all blue states.
[01:36:03]  It's legal right now in California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington.
[01:36:10]  But states that are considering it include Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and Massachusetts.
[01:36:16]  So these all allow people with six months or less to live to request prescriptions from a doctor that they can take home if and when they decide to end their lives.
[01:36:28]  The patients must be deemed mentally competent.
[01:36:31]  You know, I guess there's another piece to this, which is some people get it and it makes them feel better, but not everybody uses it when they get it, do they, Rupa?
[01:36:39]  Some people just get it as like an insurance policy.
[01:36:43]  Yeah.
[01:36:44]  So these bills in the U.S. are, I would say, typically they're actually fairly conservative.
[01:36:51]  You know, they're looking at allowing people to opt for euthanasia who have six months or less to live.
[01:36:59]  And they can get these prescriptions from a doctor that they can take at home and if they decide to end their lives.
[01:37:07]  And doctors can prescribe these drugs if they deem the patient to be mentally competent.
[01:37:13]  But of course, I think a lot of people, so there's a movement in the Netherlands that wants to make suicide kids legally available.
[01:37:25]  They want to make it easier and easier.
[01:37:27]  And there's no real question about that.
[01:37:28]  I got to run, Rupa.
[01:37:29]  Thank you.
[01:37:30]  Read her piece at the FP.com stands for Free Press.
[01:37:33]  I want to tell you quickly, Free Press has a live debate about whether we should close the border.
[01:37:37]  It's next Thursday in Dallas.
[01:37:38]  Ann Coulter versus Chenk Uyghur and Nick Gillespie on the other side.
[01:37:44]  Sora Omani is also with Ann.
[01:37:46]  Very welcome moderate.
[01:37:47]  Go to thefp.com to find out more and get tickets.
[01:37:55]  Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
[01:37:57]  No BS, no agenda, and no