The Megyn Kelly Show - 20240416_biased-trump-trial-jury-pool-supreme-court-takes-o
Aired: 2024-04-16
Duration: 01:38:37


=== Jurors Dismissed for Bias (14:39) ===

[00:00:00]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111, every weekday at least.
[00:00:12]  Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
[00:00:13]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
[00:00:15]  The first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is underway, and more than half of the prospective jurors in the New York City courtroom have already been dismissed because they've admitted they cannot possibly be fair.
[00:00:29]  So his concerns about doing this in New York appear to have been justified, though eventually they will find a jury.
[00:00:36]  That's for sure.
[00:00:37]  This is going to be a while.
[00:00:38]  We're going to cover all of the absurdity both inside the courtroom and outside of it.
[00:00:42]  And we've got an update on some of that in one second.
[00:00:45]  And in other Trump legal news, arguments are taking place this morning before the U.S. Supreme Court relating to January 6th defendants, not Trump, but January 6th defendants that could have major, major ramifications for the former president's future trials.
[00:01:02]  We've been watching it very closely.
[00:01:03]  I listened to the argument this morning all the way up until almost the very end, and it's not going well for the government.
[00:01:09]  It's not going well for them at all.
[00:01:11]  And we'll play you some of the soundbites, but if this case, this criminal charge, obstruction of an official proceeding goes away, it's huge for Trump in Jack Smith's January 6th, D.C. federal prosecution of him.
[00:01:26]  All that plus, the NPR whistleblower has now been suspended.
[00:01:30]  Yeah, this is we now get to look at the old tweets from NPR's new CEO that have been uncovered, and they are amazing.
[00:01:38]  That this woman is the CEO of NPR and that this poor guy, Yuri Berlinger, who tried to say, hey, we seem kind of biased, got fired, tells, well, suspended, tells you everything you need to know about NPR.
[00:01:51]  We're going to get into all of it with a perfect guest today.
[00:01:53]  And those guys are Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, Comfortably Smug, and John Ashbrook together.
[00:02:00]  They are the hosts of Ruthless, now on YouTube and at youtube.com slash Ruthless podcast.
[00:02:08]  Fiken presenterer et superenkelt regnskapsprogram for alt det regnskapsgreiene til bedriften din.
[00:02:16]  Det var jo enkelt.
[00:02:17]  Fiken, et superenkelt regnskapsprogram.
[00:02:23]  Alle er enige om at vi må være oppmerksomme når vi kjører.
[00:02:27]  At vi ikke skal drive med alt mulig annet samtidig.
[00:02:30]  Hva kan du gjøre for å bli mer oppmerksom?
[00:02:34]  Hilsen statens veivesen.
[00:02:36]  Takk for oppmerksomheten.
[00:02:38]  Guys, welcome back.
[00:02:40]  Hey, Megan, great to be back.
[00:02:42]  Great to be here.
[00:02:43]  Great to see you.
[00:02:45]  All right, so let's start in New York State Supreme, where they are now conducting voider of the jurors.
[00:02:51]  This morning, Trump entered and sat there reading the questionnaire, you know, page by page as they went through it with the prospective jurors.
[00:03:01]  The New York Times writing up every second, he closed his eyes for one minute.
[00:03:05]  Oh, unclear if he's asleep or if he just closed his eyes.
[00:03:07]  Like, all right, it's jury selection.
[00:03:10]  It's one of the most boring things for everyone who's not the lawyer or the one juror being questioned.
[00:03:17]  And all this as the DA in the case, Alvin Bragg, has now officially moved to hold Donald Trump in contempt for speaking about Michael Cohen as a violation of the gag order, trying to say that he should be fined $3,000 and asking the court to threaten him that if he does it again, that the court can put him up in jail for up to 30 days.
[00:03:45]  Can you imagine?
[00:03:46]  So, what do you think the likelihood of that is?
[00:03:48]  And what effect do you think Trump going to jail for some odd days for speaking out about witnesses who are bashing him at every turn on cable will do to this political race?
[00:03:58]  Oh, well, let's start with the jury selection component for a minute because I find this hilarious.
[00:04:03]  All of us have had at some point been called for jury duty.
[00:04:07]  And like, I think I speak for all of us when your first inclination is like, what can I do here to get out of this?
[00:04:14]  Right.
[00:04:15]  Cannot be fixed.
[00:04:17]  Right.
[00:04:18]  So, you know, they've given them the perfect out.
[00:04:21]  And it's like, well, can you, can you be fair to Donald Trump?
[00:04:24]  They're like, no, not at all.
[00:04:26]  You know, it's like you're always tempted in the beginning of one of these things to be like, well, I'm an incredible racist.
[00:04:31]  I couldn't possibly render, you know, be like, all right, so you're dismissed and off you go.
[00:04:35]  And so you don't have anything to do.
[00:04:36]  I wonder how much of it has something to do with that.
[00:04:38]  But I think the larger point that you conveyed, Megan, is true and that he's going to have an awfully difficult time finding a jury of his peers that aren't dead set against him.
[00:04:48]  I mean, you just look at the demographics and the voting behavior of the city.
[00:04:51]  He's being tried and it's very, very troubling.
[00:04:54]  Yeah.
[00:04:55]  I would also like to talk about how Megan knows the term wadir.
[00:04:59]  Yeah, that's like very smart.
[00:05:01]  You know, it's almost like she knows what she's talking about and all this legal stuff.
[00:05:05]  So people listening, you should definitely listen to her more than us.
[00:05:10]  But I mean, even just like from a practical standpoint, like the ideology of the electorate in Manhattan aside, which is obviously one thing.
[00:05:20]  But like, how could you really have an impartial view of Donald Trump, a guy with 99.9% name ID who has ubiquitous media coverage?
[00:05:32]  Like who's on the fence?
[00:05:34]  He's on the fence on.
[00:05:35]  You're telling me you haven't formed some opinion.
[00:05:37]  Like after all this?
[00:05:38]  You kidding me?
[00:05:39]  Like, I'll be honest.
[00:05:40]  I think that's a good idea.
[00:05:40]  You're too dumb to be on the jury.
[00:05:42]  Like that is disqualifying.
[00:05:44]  If you haven't formed a single opinion after all of the articles that have been written about Donald Trump in the last six years, like I'm, I'm worried about your ability to tie your own shoes.
[00:05:52]  I don't want that person, my freedom in their hands for sure.
[00:05:57]  Here's a little sample of who they've had to go through so far in figuring it out.
[00:06:01]  This is as of yesterday.
[00:06:03]  This is not read today.
[00:06:04]  Of the 96 possible jurors, quoting here from the New York Times, brought into the room for the first round, more than 50 raised their hands to say they couldn't be fair.
[00:06:11]  They were immediately excused.
[00:06:12]  Courtroom color on the potential jurors by New York Times.
[00:06:16]  The first prospective juror, so these are people who I think have still made the dance.
[00:06:20]  They haven't yet been eliminated.
[00:06:22]  First one is a young woman of color with a business degree who reads the New York Times and watches CNN.
[00:06:29]  Out, right?
[00:06:30]  If you're Trump's lawyer, bye.
[00:06:34]  She seemed unbothered by the need to be fair and impartial.
[00:06:38]  Oh, you don't say.
[00:06:40]  Unbothered.
[00:06:40]  The second prospective juror is a white creative director with glasses who lives in Midtown, also a Times reader.
[00:06:47]  The third prospective juror asked about her hobbies, said she likes to go to the club.
[00:06:52]  She said it in a playful voice, prompting a big laugh from the reporters in the overflow room.
[00:06:57]  Really?
[00:06:57]  They're really desperate for material in there, I guess.
[00:07:00]  And then the latest potential juror to be questioned reads the Times, the journal, and is also the first person to say that they are a New York Post reader and therefore will certainly be bounced by Trump's prosecutors because that shows some willingness with the journal and the post to try to keep a fair mind, which is the last thing Alvin Bragg wants.
[00:07:20]  But you go through like the resume of the people who are getting called in there.
[00:07:24]  And I mean, that is just perfect, right?
[00:07:26]  Woman of color, business degree who reads the Times and watches CNN.
[00:07:29]  Good luck to you, Trump's defense counsel.
[00:07:32]  This is the road you have to hoe.
[00:07:34]  I don't think she's going to have a totally open mind.
[00:07:37]  And the other thing that you surfaced, the Cohen piece, which, you know, whether to hold him in contempt or not, what is hard for me to actually process is this is so unique.
[00:07:47]  You've got a presidential nominee, right?
[00:07:50]  I mean, he's going to be the candidate the Republicans put up for president of the United States.
[00:07:55]  If he is getting consistent incoming from somebody who's involved with the trial in any way, is he not supposed to defend himself in any form or fashion?
[00:08:06]  It seems like just a straight up speech and debate that you would have difficulty putting a muzzle on a defendant.
[00:08:13]  Now, I granted, I get how you need to do that on your average criminal trial.
[00:08:19]  This is not your average criminal trial.
[00:08:21]  By any stretch of the imagination, he has a obligation at some point to the millions of voters who have already voted for him to try to defend himself in a court of public opinion, does he not?
[00:08:33]  I mean, I think that, honestly, that speaks to the larger issue here where, yes, there used to be a set of rules of what is proper and what's allowed and that, you know, the justice system exists to go after criminals and make sure that we have a just society.
[00:08:47]  But it's very clear the purpose of it now is to do everything it can to defend Joe Biden and his poor record.
[00:08:54]  Like they have to find a way to muzzle Trump because he can't be out there talking about how, wow, look how open the border is.
[00:09:01]  Look how terrible things have gotten under Joe Biden.
[00:09:04]  This is, and it's a series of these trials.
[00:09:06]  Like this is their only approach they know because they can't run on a record.
[00:09:10]  The record is terrible.
[00:09:12]  So the only thing they can use is these systems that they have in place where they ran on I will prosecute Donald Trump as their platform when they're running for election.
[00:09:22]  It's just completely politicized.
[00:09:23]  It is.
[00:09:24]  And the other thing, the other thing that came up yesterday is the judge making all kinds of different rulings as it pertains to different things that can be entered into the court record.
[00:09:34]  And it seems extremely clear to me that the prosecution is trying to basically muddy up his character, right?
[00:09:42]  I mean, they want to bring in people he's had affairs with to testify against him.
[00:09:48]  There's components of it that they want into the record.
[00:09:52]  And the judge is trying to sort through these things about what something's prejudicial or something's not or whether it's relevant or whether it's not.
[00:09:59]  But it's very clear in the first day what the game plan is here, right?
[00:10:04]  And they want to throw as much mud on this guy as they possibly can in the context of a court of law, where in the context of the court of public opinion, nothing stuck to him.
[00:10:15]  And I think that you could say that it was clear well before the first day what their intentions were, because if you look at the track record of the major dark money left-wing funders, Smugg was talking about how there is this network of prosecutors around the country who are going after conservatives.
[00:10:33]  They're funded by George Soros and allies of his who are spending money literally to elect these people to put Republicans and conservatives on their heels and make them feel like they can't be a productive member of our society.
[00:10:47]  If you look at how much money George Soros gave Color of Change PAC, for example, he wrote a million dollar check to a pack that supported Alvin Bragg.
[00:10:57]  And so Alvin Bragg's game plan here started well before this trial opened.
[00:11:03]  And I think that's a big part of the defense's case is that it's hyper political.
[00:11:08]  And you know as well as anybody, Megan, that you can't be guilty of having a point of view.
[00:11:15]  Well, you know what's ironic, you guys, is they're trying to screen these potential jurors out for bias and following certain news sources and so on that might evidence that bias.
[00:11:26]  Look at the DA.
[00:11:28]  Look at Rand's promising to get Trump.
[00:11:31]  Look at the judge who's had negative Trump commentary in the past as his own daughter has espoused criticizing him on social media.
[00:11:39]  Like it's amazing that you can get bounced as a juror for that crap, but you can still try the case as the judge and you can still prosecute the case as Alvin Bragg.
[00:11:47]  Here's a little bit more color from what's happening inside the courtroom.
[00:11:50]  This is many news outlets, including NBC and the Times, have like a running blog because there's no cameras and there's no audio.
[00:11:57]  It's very frustrating.
[00:11:59]  But here's just a couple.
[00:12:00]  Okay.
[00:12:01]  11 potential jurors remain for questioning after reading the survey responses.
[00:12:05]  So they're trying to go through those 11 to find actual jurors instead of just potential jurors.
[00:12:09]  One juror dismissed after saying he follows an anti-Trump group on social media.
[00:12:14]  I'm sure that's the hashtag resistance, I would imagine.
[00:12:17]  First potential juror says he followed Trump on X and read some of his books.
[00:12:20]  Oh, that's going to be a problem.
[00:12:22]  Art of the Deal and How to Get Rich.
[00:12:25]  The response drew a smile and a nod from Trump.
[00:12:29]  It drew a smile and a nod from Trump.
[00:12:32]  That's so good.
[00:12:33]  I love that.
[00:12:36]  Please, black cameras in this.
[00:12:39]  He's like, he's one step away from giving the thumbs up that he does.
[00:12:43]  One juror says her Facebook page contains Occupy Democrats content.
[00:12:48]  She's a goner.
[00:12:49]  There's no way a hyper left-wing group.
[00:12:52]  TikTok is a common source of news.
[00:12:56]  Nine of the 23 potential jurors who have answered the questionnaire so far have identified TikTok as a source of news.
[00:13:02]  That's sad.
[00:13:03]  Let's see.
[00:13:04]  Juror dismissed after struggling with ability to be fair.
[00:13:08]  She said, I believe no one's above the law.
[00:13:10]  So I guess that's a strong opinion.
[00:13:12]  Asked by the judge whether she could be impartial.
[00:13:14]  She said, I'm not 100% sure that I could be fair.
[00:13:18]  She was excused.
[00:13:19]  Good.
[00:13:20]  Everyone knows Donald Trump.
[00:13:22]  The prosecutor, this is not Bragg, but his co-counsel, Joshua Steinglass, addresses the elephant in the room.
[00:13:29]  No one's suggesting you can't be fair because you've heard from Donald Trump.
[00:13:33]  We need jurors who can set aside strong feelings and focus on evidence.
[00:13:36]  It's not a referendum on the Trump presidency.
[00:13:39]  We don't care.
[00:13:40]  This case is about whether this man broke the law.
[00:13:43]  And then, let's see, one more.
[00:13:46]  The prosecutor, this is interesting because it's a preview potentially of the opening statements that we'll get.
[00:13:51]  The prosecutor fronts for the jury, potential juror, that some of the witnesses, several of the witnesses you're going to hear from in this case, quote, have some baggage.
[00:14:03]  You think?
[00:14:04]  He says, let's see.
[00:14:07]  Several of these witnesses have what you might consider to be some baggage.
[00:14:11]  Yeah, like the Khan, Michael Cohen, the porn.
[00:14:16]  By the way, I have been keeping my eye on MSNBC.
[00:14:20]  And I was watching Maddow last night.
[00:14:22]  I like to see what she says because she's probably the most lunatic of the lunatic fringe over there.
[00:14:26]  And she has elevated Stormy Daniels from porn actress to porn director and actress.
[00:14:36]  That's important.
[00:14:37]  Maybe she gets a production credit too.

=== Waiving Rights to Call Lawyers Disgraced (10:35) ===

[00:14:39]  That's all.
[00:14:39]  Is that better?
[00:14:40]  What she really wanted to do is direct.
[00:14:43]  Is it better to be a director than an actor?
[00:14:45]  It feels like even worse, doesn't it?
[00:14:47]  I think you joined the director's guild at that point, right?
[00:14:53]  A lot of directing that happens, do you think?
[00:14:56]  Do we want to know the answer?
[00:14:59]  Do we want to know?
[00:15:02]  You guys tell me.
[00:15:03]  You look like the kind of guys who get the $19 movie rentals.
[00:15:06]  Oh, my God.
[00:15:08]  You're a shot across the wow.
[00:15:10]  How dare you?
[00:15:11]  Unbelievable.
[00:15:14]  She's starting off hot on us, guys.
[00:15:17]  We got to respond.
[00:15:18]  Listen, Megan, this could get ugly.
[00:15:20]  Baggage.
[00:15:21]  Speaking of baggage.
[00:15:22]  Oh, speaking of baggage.
[00:15:24]  Okay.
[00:15:25]  Let's talk for one second about Jeffrey Toobin.
[00:15:28]  So the high court is taking arguments on this other case.
[00:15:32]  So that's the New York case.
[00:15:34]  It's ongoing.
[00:15:34]  They're in a recess right now because they just started like two minutes ago.
[00:15:37]  So they already need a recess.
[00:15:39]  This is like when you get contractors to work on your lawn.
[00:15:42]  So over at the Supreme Court, though, they're dealing with a second Trump prosecution.
[00:15:48]  This isn't really about Trump, but as you guys and I have discussed, this other case involving J6 defendants could directly affect the J6 case against Trump brought by Jack Smith with Tanya Chucken as the judge.
[00:16:03]  Anyway, the question is whether the main charge against Trump, although again, this one relates only to J6 defendants other than Trump, is viable charge.
[00:16:11]  It's called obstruction of an official proceeding.
[00:16:13]  And more than 300 J6 defendants have been charged with this, and many have pleaded guilty or been found guilty.
[00:16:19]  And all of those could go away if the Supreme Court says, this is not a charge you can bring against J6 defendants, protesters.
[00:16:26]  It's not available to you.
[00:16:28]  And I'm going to get to the heart of that argument in one second, but let me just start with Jeffrey Toobin, okay?
[00:16:32]  Because he felt the need to weigh in.
[00:16:34]  And there was a time in which he was considered and treated as an expert on the U.S. Supreme Court.
[00:16:39]  That time has passed.
[00:16:41]  He tweeted out, in oral argument today, Justice Thomas is minimizing the severity of the 1.6 insurrection at the Capitol.
[00:16:49]  Perhaps that's because his wife was part of the conspiracy.
[00:16:52]  What a disgrace that he's sitting on this case.
[00:16:55]  In response to which I tweeted, hi, Toobin, FYI, you waived your right to use the term disgraced about other lawyers when you took your dick out of your pants and jumped off in front of your colleagues.
[00:17:14]  I've heard that the problem with subtlety is that sometimes people don't get it.
[00:17:18]  You've thrown that out and put a fine point, Jeffrey Toobin.
[00:17:22]  I don't think I also don't think he should be talking about oral anything at any time.
[00:17:29]  There's a wide range of issues that he should be entirely separated from, including being on our television set, because Lord knows what could happen with that.
[00:17:39]  How can people like think about it though, guys?
[00:17:42]  You know Chutzpah.
[00:17:43]  You guys know Chutzpah.
[00:17:45]  This guy is sitting there as a lawyer calling a sitting Supreme Court justice a disgrace after what he did.
[00:17:55]  Just take a seat.
[00:17:56]  Write your long New Yorker articles or whatever it is you're going to do.
[00:17:59]  I don't know.
[00:17:59]  I guess he was fired from there because those are the colleagues to whom he showed his penis.
[00:18:03]  And I don't care.
[00:18:04]  I don't want to look at it.
[00:18:06]  I don't want to see it on Twitter.
[00:18:07]  I don't want to hear from him.
[00:18:10]  There's a shamelessness to it, really, Megan.
[00:18:12]  And what I can't possibly understand is I feel like there's a lot of legal commentary in the United States.
[00:18:19]  You're telling me CNN can't find somebody else.
[00:18:21]  Like this guy.
[00:18:22]  This is the only guy in America who can have commentary on the Supreme Court or our legal process.
[00:18:29]  Like just find literally anyone else.
[00:18:31]  I got news for you, Michael Duncan, okay?
[00:18:33]  It's not just CNN.
[00:18:35]  Guess whose podcast he was on yesterday?
[00:18:37]  Oh, please.
[00:18:38]  Who?
[00:18:39]  Don Lemon.
[00:18:41]  Wow, come on.
[00:18:44]  Come on.
[00:18:45]  They're getting their hand back together.
[00:18:48]  They've like broken the simulation at this point.
[00:18:51]  I mean, it's just one hilarious joke after another that Don Lemon and Toobin getting together for a high-level discussion.
[00:18:59]  I mean, they had Keith Oberman in this.
[00:19:01]  They're talking about how aggrieved they are, how mean CNN is, how terrible they were to them.
[00:19:06]  It's so unjust, both firings.
[00:19:08]  This is Don Lemon who like had a burner phone to send intimidating messages to a co-worker because he was like jealous of her, right?
[00:19:15]  Right.
[00:19:16]  Correct.
[00:19:16]  And then he has the chronic masturbator on his podcast.
[00:19:20]  Is it chronic?
[00:19:21]  And they're going to, they're going to lecture all of us about the legal system and what, who's disgraced.
[00:19:27]  This is just incredible.
[00:19:29]  People have no sense of shame.
[00:19:30]  Is Duncan being fair is chronic?
[00:19:32]  And is that appropriate?
[00:19:33]  Do we know that about Toobin?
[00:19:35]  I don't think you do it.
[00:19:36]  During the meeting?
[00:19:37]  I don't think you do it for the first time on Zoom.
[00:19:39]  That's what I'm saying.
[00:19:41]  Okay, look, this is conjecture.
[00:19:43]  This is conjecture.
[00:19:43]  And I know the man is a lawyer.
[00:19:44]  And so I just want to make that extremely clear.
[00:19:47]  I don't have any knowledge of whether he's a chronic masturbator.
[00:19:50]  I would merely suggest the idea that you cannot contain yourself.
[00:19:53]  It's an opinion.
[00:19:54]  My opinion is if you cannot contain yourself on a Zoom with colleagues, you might have a problem.
[00:20:01]  Perhaps there's a habitual nature to act.
[00:20:05]  That's my opinion.
[00:20:07]  My favorite theory of that whole thing came from Victor Davis Hansen of all people, right?
[00:20:11]  But he's like so distinguished and so smart and at the Stanford.
[00:20:14]  Anyway, his theory was that people don't do that by accident.
[00:20:20]  And that actually this may very well have been intentional.
[00:20:25]  Like maybe he was enjoying getting off in front of his colleagues, like, whoopsie, I forgot to hit the end button.
[00:20:33]  I like it.
[00:20:34]  That brings it to a whole new level.
[00:20:37]  It's just horrifying.
[00:20:38]  And then you're just like, oh, I forgot to hit the button.
[00:20:41]  Either way, who the hell will be jerking off that close to a live Zoom meeting?
[00:20:45]  You would deserve the consequences of your terrible decision making.
[00:20:48]  Anyway, now he's decided to rip on a distinguished, respected, beloved Supreme Court justice who gets bashed by him as a disgrace because what?
[00:20:57]  He's an Uncle Tom because he's married to Ginny Thomas, who's got a political career.
[00:21:01]  Okay, Jeffrey Toobin, it's done.
[00:21:03]  What he's really lecturing him on is ethics.
[00:21:06]  I mean, truly, he's lecturing Clarence Thomas on ethics.
[00:21:10]  Does he have his dick in or out of his pants while he's doing it?
[00:21:13]  That's what we need to know first.
[00:21:15]  Is it in or out?
[00:21:16]  Do you think better when it's out and you're exhibiting?
[00:21:20]  Maybe.
[00:21:20]  I'm sorry.
[00:21:21]  I know it's already forgive me, audience, but just the audacity of this guy.
[00:21:27]  I don't even know how we're supposed to respond.
[00:21:30]  You know, this is the point in the program when Megan goes down these rabbit holes where you just got to say, what else can be said?
[00:21:38]  What else can we say?
[00:21:45]  All right.
[00:21:45]  Well, on that note, let's talk about what's happening inside the U.S. Supreme Court, where there are nine distinguished jurists.
[00:21:52]  Although I have to tell you, I don't get to listen to the high court that often anymore because I have this job, but I used to all the time.
[00:21:59]  I covered the high court for three years for Fox, and it was wonderful.
[00:22:02]  I got to sit in there for all the big oral arguments, and it's just so fun.
[00:22:07]  I really enjoy it.
[00:22:08]  Like, they're so erudite.
[00:22:09]  They're so well read.
[00:22:11]  They're so learned.
[00:22:12]  They make such historical and textual references.
[00:22:15]  You're like, oh, wow, struggling to keep up with these big, big brains.
[00:22:18]  That was not how I felt when I listened to Sonia Sotomayor.
[00:22:21]  I'm not going to lie.
[00:22:22]  She was like trying to cross-examine the lawyer for the defendant on this one piece of text.
[00:22:29]  And he was trying to tell her, you know, no, she was like, but, but your second provision only relates to acts, not attempts.
[00:22:35]  And he's like, no, it's attempts too.
[00:22:37]  And she's like, no, it only relates to acts, not attempts.
[00:22:39]  He's like, no, also attempts.
[00:22:41]  She's like, the language is right here.
[00:22:43]  It says, if he acts or attempts.
[00:22:48]  She just had it.
[00:22:50]  No, she didn't read the whole thing.
[00:22:53]  The lawyer was right.
[00:22:54]  The statute spoke to both the actual act and attempts.
[00:22:58]  And her whole line of inquiry just read out attempts.
[00:23:02]  And she was like, but it doesn't say attempts.
[00:23:03]  It does.
[00:23:04]  And he was like, yes, it does.
[00:23:05]  It does.
[00:23:05]  And then finally, she was like, no.
[00:23:06]  And she tried to impeach him by reading the actual text of the statute, which was exactly as the lawyer was telling her it was.
[00:23:12]  It's just like, that's just too dumb.
[00:23:15]  That's too dumb to be up there.
[00:23:17]  You get the impression that some of the more liberal presidents that we've had over the years are perhaps not sending their best to the Supreme Court.
[00:23:23]  Yeah.
[00:23:23]  Well, they're sending the people who will make the decisions in their way without even reading.
[00:23:29]  Yeah.
[00:23:30]  I mean, you've followed all this about how some people on the left are trying to get Sodomayara to step down so that Joe Biden can appoint.
[00:23:38]  I don't know who he would appoint.
[00:23:39]  Who would he appoint?
[00:23:40]  They want, so again, it's these left-wing, dark-wing, left-wing dark money groups like Demand Justice and stuff who are trying to push her to retire because they're terrified of an RBG situation again.
[00:23:50]  They're like, Trump's going to come back.
[00:23:52]  And if any liberal justice decides to retire, it's going to be like really over at that point seven too.
[00:23:58]  But they also don't like that Sonia Sotomayor is not left-wing enough.
[00:24:04]  They really want just like a complete political activist up there.
[00:24:09]  They want someone who's like laying down on the highway for Palestine to then go to the Supreme Court.
[00:24:14]  Like that's their ideal Supreme Court justice.
[00:24:18]  I just love the idea that like the future of Democratic politics is like this nesting doll of liberal boomers clinging to power for too long, like RBG, then Joe Biden, and now Sodomayor.
[00:24:31]  And like, what does it like, what does it say about their confidence in their nominee, Joe Biden, that they're concerned that Donald Trump's going to come back and soda Mayor is not going to be there anymore.
[00:24:41]  Well, having listened to her again today, they're right.
[00:24:45]  They should be pushing for her to go.
[00:24:46]  They're not wrong.
[00:24:47]  I have to say, I'm a decided liberals.
[00:24:49]  If I were a leftist, I'd want her gone too.
[00:24:51]  They should push harder.
[00:24:52]  I completely see it in a new light.
[00:24:54]  Who they replaced them with is always worse.
[00:24:56]  Like Katanji's going to look like Scalia compared to who they try to place her with.
[00:25:00]  I mean, that's what you always think about the Democrats.
[00:25:01]  And then they go further and further left.
[00:25:03]  We had topless trans people at the White House.
[00:25:05]  Would you think that would happen four years ago?
[00:25:07]  That's a good point.
[00:25:08]  They move fast.
[00:25:09]  That's why.
[00:25:10]  They move fast.
[00:25:11]  They do.
[00:25:11]  Jeffrey Toobin will be joining the court.

=== Pressuring Abortion Victims (02:04) ===

[00:25:15]  Can I tell you something?
[00:25:16]  It's worse than we knew, guys, because my crack team, we don't actually listen to Don Lemon's podcast.
[00:25:21]  No one does.
[00:25:22]  But in the wake of our discussion here, they went and decided to pull a clip of these two discussing Stormy Daniels.
[00:25:30]  Oh, yeah.
[00:25:32]  Stormy Daniels have credibility issues because didn't she write a letter because she said she didn't want to violate her NDA saying that I had no relationship with Donald Trump.
[00:25:42]  In 2018, she wrote a letter saying she never had sex with him.
[00:25:47]  That she has since repudiated.
[00:25:50]  There's lots of evidence that she has told people earlier that they did, in fact, have sex.
[00:25:56]  Look, it's important to remember that Stormy Daniels was the key witness against Michael Avenatti in a fraud case that was tried earlier in Manhattan, federal court.
[00:26:08]  And the jury believed every word she said.
[00:26:12]  That's the reason why they shot Jeffrey Toobin only from the waist up.
[00:26:17]  Like Elvis.
[00:26:19]  Well, you get it, John.
[00:26:20]  You get him talking about porn stars.
[00:26:21]  You never know what's going to happen, right?
[00:26:23]  I mean, that's a dangerous territory for Lemon to put his viewers.
[00:26:27]  Guys, don't you remember Jeffrey Toobin in addition to, you know, jerk off gate, what I don't know what you even call it.
[00:26:34]  He, he was in the news for having gotten some young woman who was the daughter of Jeffrey Goldberg, right, of the Atlanta?
[00:26:41]  Greenfield.
[00:26:42]  Right.
[00:26:43]  Sorry, Greenfield of the Atlantic, that he got his daughter pregnant.
[00:26:48]  They had an affair, and then he pressured her into having an abortion.
[00:26:50]  This guy, he's out there coming.
[00:26:52]  And you know what?
[00:26:53]  Maybe I'm wrong.
[00:26:54]  Maybe he's the perfect person to talk about Stormy Daniels.
[00:26:58]  We had a running joke for a long time about Toobin because he would always get himself into trouble and he would say controversial things.
[00:27:05]  And this is long before Jerkgate or whatever it is that you're calling.
[00:27:08]  But every time he's on a couple levels.
[00:27:13]  But like every time his name was surfaced, we were like, the real victim of all of this is Jeff Greenfield.

=== Competing Legal Interpretations (16:24) ===

[00:27:19]  Yeah.
[00:27:20]  Right.
[00:27:20]  This is the poor guy whose name is invoked every time you're talking about Toobin.
[00:27:25]  And all he's got is like a daughter who is involved with him.
[00:27:28]  And this poor guy, right?
[00:27:30]  I mean, it's like he had to work alongside of this dude at CNN for years.
[00:27:34]  Yeah.
[00:27:35]  Meanwhile, like Jeffrey Toobin's on TV talking about how disgraceful Clarence Thomas is, how bad like Kavanaugh is.
[00:27:43]  And it's like, bro, you tried to pressure my daughter into getting an abortion.
[00:27:48]  It's unbelievable.
[00:27:49]  And they didn't want to pay child support.
[00:27:51]  Like they had to get a whole paternity test done on him before he would support the baby.
[00:27:55]  It's like, this is not a nice guy.
[00:27:57]  Like, let's just be honest.
[00:27:58]  You can't recover from things like that.
[00:28:00]  You shouldn't be able to.
[00:28:01]  You wind up on the Don Lemon podcast if you do those things.
[00:28:04]  Okay, back to SCODIS.
[00:28:06]  So this, let me just give you a little background on this case because this is important, really.
[00:28:10]  This, the way I see it, the way what I heard today, the J6 prosecution against Trump is getting gutted within the next two months.
[00:28:19]  I counted six, three.
[00:28:20]  I counted six.
[00:28:21]  Chief Justice Roberts seemed firmly against the government on trying to turn what was a charge meant to punish entities like Arthur Anderson, which shredded documents after it had received a subpoena or when it knew it was about to, from doing that into something that would swoop up hundreds of J6 defendants who randomly found themselves on the Capitol that day.
[00:28:45]  So here's what happened.
[00:28:46]  Small town cop, Joseph Fisher, spent about four minutes inside the Capitol building, joined the crowd breaching the Capitol from the east side.
[00:28:55]  He yelled again and again, charge, the government says, before pushing forward toward a cop, toward a police line while yelling, mother effers.
[00:29:03]  He and other rioters fell to the ground after other rioters lifted him up.
[00:29:07]  Video disclosed as evidence shows that he tried to appeal to officers protecting the Capitol, telling them that he was an officer too.
[00:29:15]  It's our effing house, brother.
[00:29:17]  The video appears to show Fisher saying that day.
[00:29:21]  It's also on his social media as of the next day, January 7th, Fisher writing that he had been pepperballed and pepper sprayed, but entry into the Capitol was needed to send a message that we the people hold the real power.
[00:29:34]  Okay, not surprisingly, this guy got charged.
[00:29:37]  He was charged with seven criminal counts, including a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding.
[00:29:43]  He also got charged with assaulting a cop and entering a restricted building, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:29:47]  But this whole case is about obstructing an official proceeding.
[00:29:51]  And it is also the main charge against Donald Trump in that DC federal prosecution.
[00:29:59]  What happened was the district court judge, that's a trial court judge, Carl Nichols, ruled that this charge could not stand, that this was not, it didn't fit the behavior that they were alleging against Fisher.
[00:30:12]  This is not what this charge was meant to cover.
[00:30:15]  It's section 1512 C1, prohibits tampering with evidence with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in official proceeding.
[00:30:25]  And then there's 1512C2, which says, well, I'll get to it, but basically it has wider language saying somebody who with corrupt intent otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding or attempts to, Justice Sotomayor.
[00:30:41]  So they're kind of looking back to Arthur Anderson saying this, this law was meant to get after financial fraud or like interference with an official proceeding by somebody who's in financial trouble, who shreds documents or tries to intimidate a witness into not testifying.
[00:30:55]  And the otherwise provision is meant to only say, okay, sub one says you can't alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal a record, a document or other object or attempt to.
[00:31:09]  And then sub two says, or otherwise obstruct.
[00:31:13]  And what the defense is arguing here is that second clause doesn't expand this statute to cover any kind of obstruction of an official proceeding.
[00:31:24]  It's all still under the lane of records, documents, other objects that get destroyed, mutilated, or something like that.
[00:31:31]  That's what they're trying to argue.
[00:31:32]  It has to still be in the lane of it's like a financial fraud or cover-up or interference when you get a subpoena in this lane.
[00:31:40]  And the government's trying to say no, sub-2, which says, or otherwise obstruct, covers everything, everything.
[00:31:48]  It's a catch-all that's meant to just get all kinds of behavior, including what we saw in J6.
[00:31:53]  That's what it comes down to.
[00:31:54]  Well, what happened today was the lawyer for the defendant, Mr. Fisher, got up there, made a very brief argument.
[00:32:02]  along the lines of what I just said.
[00:32:03]  It's very limited, should be limited.
[00:32:05]  You can't expand it.
[00:32:06]  And he got a couple of questions from, like I said, Sotamayor and some of the more liberal jurists.
[00:32:11]  There's only three now, which were fine.
[00:32:14]  I mean, to me, honestly, like half of them were just confusing.
[00:32:16]  I'm like, I don't even understand what they're asking, these ladies, but okay.
[00:32:20]  And he did okay.
[00:32:22]  I don't, I give that guy like a B.
[00:32:24]  Then the solicitor general gets up.
[00:32:26]  She represents the governor, the government, and she started getting peppered with questions by the conservative jurists almost right away.
[00:32:35]  And not surprisingly, Thomas, he was right off the bat.
[00:32:38]  He laid into her on when the hell has this otherwise provision ever been applied to protesters?
[00:32:45]  Has that ever happened before?
[00:32:46]  Or is this just a Donald Trump J-6 thing?
[00:32:48]  Here's a little bit of that in slot 11.
[00:32:51]  There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings.
[00:32:56]  Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past?
[00:33:03]  And has this been the government's position throughout the lifespan of the statute?
[00:33:10]  It has certainly been the government's position since the enactment of 1512 C2 that it covers the myriad forms of obstructing an official proceeding and that it's not limited to some kind of evidence impairment gloss.
[00:33:22]  So have you enforced it in that manner?
[00:33:24]  We have enforced it in a variety of prosecutions that don't focus on evidence tampering.
[00:33:29]  Now, I can't give you an example of enforcing it in a situation where people have violently stormed a building in order to prevent an official proceeding, a specified one, from occurring.
[00:33:38]  What role does C1 play in your analysis?
[00:33:41]  So we understand 1512C to split up the world of obstructive conduct of an official proceeding into the C1 offense and into C2.
[00:33:49]  C1 covers everything it enumerates.
[00:33:51]  It's the acts of altering, concealing, destroying records, documents, or other objects.
[00:33:56]  And then C2 would only pick up conduct that obstructs an official proceeding in a different way.
[00:34:03]  Okay.
[00:34:03]  So you get the gist, right?
[00:34:06]  Thomas is not buying it.
[00:34:07]  He's like, I mean, look, you guys, look what happened at Kavanaugh.
[00:34:11]  Look what happened when Kavanaugh was, I don't even mean the death threats, the attempted murder.
[00:34:17]  I mean when he was sitting for his confirmation hearing.
[00:34:20]  Look what the Democrats did to him on Capitol Hill.
[00:34:24]  Is that not obstruction of an, that's what he's going for?
[00:34:28]  Right.
[00:34:29]  It's exactly right.
[00:34:30]  If I was Clarence Thomas, I would have put it a little bit more succinctly.
[00:34:34]  I would have said, so counselor, if somebody stood up right now and started protesting here at the United States Supreme Court, would they be charged with this offense?
[00:34:42]  Yeah.
[00:34:43]  Is this an official proceeding?
[00:34:45]  You're accepted onto the U.S. Supreme Court because Justice Alino.
[00:34:49]  Justice Alito went exactly there.
[00:34:52]  You're now in the running toward becoming the American president of the Supreme Court justice.
[00:34:56]  Take a listen to me.
[00:34:58]  I will.
[00:34:59]  I'll nominate you.
[00:35:00]  Stand by.
[00:35:01]  So we've had a number of protests in the courtroom.
[00:35:05]  Let's say that today, while you're arguing or Mr. Green is arguing, five people get up one after the other and they shout either keep the January 6th insurrectionists in jail or free the January 6th Patriots.
[00:35:23]  And as a result of this, our police officers have to remove them forcibly from the courtroom.
[00:35:29]  And let's say we have to, it delays the proceeding for five minutes.
[00:35:33]  So would that be a violation of 1512 C2?
[00:35:37]  I think it would be difficult for the government to prove that.
[00:35:40]  Why?
[00:35:40]  At the outset, we don't think that 1512 C2 picks up minimal, de minimis, minor interferences.
[00:35:46]  We think that the term obstruct on its face connotes a meaningful interference with the proceeding.
[00:35:51]  Well, it doesn't say, I'm sorry.
[00:35:55]  C2 does not refer just to obstruct.
[00:35:58]  It says obstructs, influences, or impedes.
[00:36:02]  Impedes is something less than obstructs.
[00:36:06]  I think that this is a verb phrase where iteration was obviously afoot.
[00:36:09]  And the plain meaning.
[00:36:12]  You're preaching the plain meaning interpretation of this provision.
[00:36:17]  The plain meaning of impede in Webster's is to interfere with or get in the way of the progress.
[00:36:26]  Why wouldn't that fall within?
[00:36:27]  Now, you say, well, we're not going to prosecute that.
[00:36:30]  Why isn't that a violation of 512, a 1512 C2?
[00:36:34]  We read the Act of Sraus more narrowly.
[00:36:38]  You guys get it?
[00:36:40]  That's why the Supreme Court is so important.
[00:36:42]  I mean, that right there is a perfect distillation of why the Supreme Court is so important.
[00:36:46]  When, like Ashbrook said, you've got these prosecutors who are getting bought and put in place by Soros and other left-wing billionaires across the country because they know voters don't want to legalize crime.
[00:36:58]  So they say, why not just have the prosecutor not do it?
[00:37:01]  And that's the same thing that they're attempting to do with the Supreme Court is they wanted to legislate from the bench.
[00:37:06]  For so long, they had a complete lockdown on having their way, whether it was legal or not.
[00:37:10]  The reason Roe existed for so many years.
[00:37:12]  And now they're faced with a court that follows the letter of the law.
[00:37:17]  And that's what drives them nuts because that's the only thing standing between them and complete control at this point.
[00:37:22]  Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect illustration between the difference of liberal progressive legal theory and conservative, strict constructionists.
[00:37:30]  Yes.
[00:37:30]  Right.
[00:37:30]  Because what they're talking about, and believe me, I'm very much a Holiday Inn Express lawyer.
[00:37:35]  Like my best resume is that I had two parents that were attorneys.
[00:37:38]  That's like all I can do.
[00:37:40]  But all that being said, they're talking about the original intent of the statute, right?
[00:37:46]  Yeah, the plain meaning.
[00:37:47]  Because if you're just somebody off the street and you say obstruction of an official proceeding, clearly there was an official proceeding and clearly it was obstructed.
[00:37:57]  Okay, that's fine, well, and good.
[00:37:58]  But when you get into a court of law, people who follow these sort of things, they're like, okay, well, here's what that statute has been used for.
[00:38:04]  This is what it was intended to do.
[00:38:08]  Here's what you are suggesting.
[00:38:09]  And here is the far-reaching cataclysmic type prosecution event that it would cause if we were to find in your favor.
[00:38:18]  Meaning anyone.
[00:38:20]  And what he was saying was, you just nailed it exactly, first of all.
[00:38:24]  And second of all, what he was saying was the absurdity.
[00:38:28]  Like this is somebody standing up here and yelling something could fall within this and they could get prosecuted.
[00:38:34]  And her defense, realizing she'd been caught by, you know, her very broad definition of this otherwise provision has her caught in a very unreasonable interpretation of the statute.
[00:38:46]  She said, oh, well, that would be de minimis.
[00:38:48]  That would just, this would be a small thing.
[00:38:49]  And I think there's really a like de minimis acts clearly wouldn't be covered by this.
[00:38:54]  And he was like, hold on a second.
[00:38:57]  Now you're asking us to read new terms into this provision.
[00:39:01]  There's nothing about the level of intrusion or instruction, right?
[00:39:05]  Like he's like, this is where your crazy ass interpretation would take us.
[00:39:10]  And there isn't something in here that would say, oh, but de minimis acts don't count.
[00:39:14]  Right.
[00:39:15]  She's allowed to interpret things broadly where it helps her and it's more narrow where it doesn't help her.
[00:39:21]  I mean, this is like, what about an official proceeding?
[00:39:23]  What's the definition of an official proceeding?
[00:39:26]  How about like an ambulance trying to cross the Golden Gate Bridge while a bunch of Hamas protesters were blocking it yesterday?
[00:39:32]  How about 5,000 people trying to get to their airplanes at Chicago O'Hare airport yesterday after paying $1,000 a ticket or whatever you have to pay to fly on an airline in this country?
[00:39:44]  Like, how about the obstruction of those people?
[00:39:48]  Like, at what point, what's an official act?
[00:39:50]  What's an official event?
[00:39:51]  Is it an official official?
[00:39:52]  What about burning down a police station?
[00:39:54]  Well, that seems pretty official.
[00:39:57]  That's George Floyd.
[00:39:58]  Where were the federal charges then?
[00:40:00]  Yep.
[00:40:00]  Yeah.
[00:40:01]  Yeah.
[00:40:01]  I also would have loved if Kavanaugh would have been like, can we just go over the definition of de minimis one more time?
[00:40:08]  Because that definitely word demute to me.
[00:40:11]  Yeah.
[00:40:12]  This poor guy, more than anyone up there, has gotten protested at his house.
[00:40:23]  An attempted assassin showed up.
[00:40:25]  Nobody should try to stop him from ruling in favor of throwing out Roe.
[00:40:31]  All these conservative justices have been harassed and tried to be intimidated out of their draft opinion.
[00:40:39]  To this day, they're still, those protesters are still outside their homes to this day, two years later.
[00:40:44]  Yeah.
[00:40:44]  Yeah.
[00:40:45]  But okay, that's no problem.
[00:40:46]  That's fine because I guess it's not an official proceeding.
[00:40:48]  But if you do it at their house, oh, wait, there's a law against that too.
[00:40:52]  So here was the crux of the day.
[00:40:54]  Okay.
[00:40:54]  So it was very clear to me that you had at least five justices.
[00:40:59]  Gorsuch didn't speak up until late, but he's pretty conservative on that.
[00:41:03]  I don't think he's a risk.
[00:41:04]  But the question is always Chief Justice John Roberts, right?
[00:41:06]  Like maybe Amy Coney Barrett.
[00:41:08]  Barrett seemed firmly in the camp of the defense to me.
[00:41:12]  It was a little less clear than the others, but to me, she seemed in their camp.
[00:41:17]  And then Chief Justice John Roberts pipes in.
[00:41:19]  And it was, to me, a glorious moment.
[00:41:22]  I love it.
[00:41:22]  Now, listen, it's a little in the weeds, but you're going to understand it.
[00:41:25]  The whole discussion is, do we take the specific, specific first clause and interpret the otherwise clause that comes after it to be limited to acts like we had in clause one?
[00:41:40]  Or do we go with the government with the otherwise is a huge catch-all that gets all behavior, including for sure, showing up at the Capitol on J6.
[00:41:51]  And Chief Justice Roberts drops this bomb on the Solicitor General there arguing for the government and for the more broad interpretation.
[00:41:59]  Take a listen to SAP 5.
[00:42:01]  General, I'm sure you've had a chance to read our opinion released Friday in the Boyce Innet case.
[00:42:07]  It was unanimous.
[00:42:08]  It was very short.
[00:42:10]  But it explained how to apply the doctrine of Eustem generis.
[00:42:14]  And what it said is that specific terms, a more general catch-all, if you will, term at the end.
[00:42:20]  And it said that the general phrase is controlled and defined by reference to the terms that precede it.
[00:42:28]  The otherwise phrase is more general.
[00:42:31]  And the terms that precede it are alters, destroys, mutilates, or seals a record and document.
[00:42:38]  And the terms record, document, or other object carry forward into two as well.
[00:42:43]  And it seems to me that they, as I said, sort of control and defined the more general term.
[00:42:50]  So I think the problem with that approach with respect to 1512 is that it doesn't look like the typical kind of statutory phrase that consists of a parallel list of nouns or a parallel list of verbs where the court has applied a Eustem generis or the no-skitter canon.
[00:43:07]  You know, these are separate prohibitions that have their own complex non-parallel internal structure.
[00:43:12]  There are multiple competing interpretations at issue in this case.
[00:43:16]  When you apply that doctrine, again, as we did on Friday, It responds to some of the concerns that have been raised about how broad C2 is.
[00:43:27]  You can't just tack it on and say, look at it as if it's standing alone because it's not.
[00:43:33]  That's him saying, I'm going to rule against you.
[00:43:36]  That's him saying, no, you cannot make it this general.
[00:43:40]  We just issued a ruling on Friday that F's you.

=== Divided Supreme Court Outcomes (04:10) ===

[00:43:43]  And she's dancing and she's bringing up the Latin.
[00:43:45]  And, you know, it's over.
[00:43:47]  I mean, my prediction is the Supreme Court's going to go 6-3 to say, this is, you cannot bring this charge in the J6 context.
[00:43:55]  And that means the federal prosecution against Trump in Washington, D.C. is also gutted if that happens.
[00:44:03]  It also occurs to me that in the process of listening to this argument, and I'm glad you've got the audio because it's fascinating, that it is like a doctorate level on the importance of separation of powers and the importance of the way that the framers put together our system.
[00:44:19]  Genius.
[00:44:20]  Right.
[00:44:20]  Because when you have strict constructionists and people who follow law to apply justice in this country, you do it based on a legislative intent of laws that are passed.
[00:44:31]  And you may well have a huge problem with what happened on January 6th.
[00:44:36]  You may argue that that was criminal in a variety of different ways.
[00:44:40]  What you cannot do is extrapolate a term that sounds like it's being prosecuted against these people in an obstruction of an official proceeding and apply it in a way that was not intended by the legislature.
[00:44:54]  Right.
[00:44:54]  And so, I mean, again, there's a lot of people who look at the importance of court fights and they think, well, it's a conservative versus a liberal.
[00:45:02]  It's an outcome-based thing.
[00:45:03]  It's not.
[00:45:04]  It's an outcome-based thing on the liberal side.
[00:45:06]  On the conservative side, all we've ever wanted is someone who interprets law and applies the Constitution and acts fairly within those confines.
[00:45:16]  This is a doctorate-level exhibition of the importance of all of that.
[00:45:22]  And so true.
[00:45:23]  A little previously, I think one of the most important parts is when you had Justice Thomas ask straight up, is there any precedent of this being used?
[00:45:32]  And she has to dance around until she finally gets to, well, there hasn't been any specific pressure.
[00:45:36]  Like the worst thing you can say at the Supreme Court is try to argue a position and say, there's no precedent for this.
[00:45:41]  I'm asking you to legislate from the bench, which is incredible.
[00:45:44]  And for him to just cut through the argument to that point, say, has there been any precedent of this being applied in the way that you're trying to do here?
[00:45:50]  Straightforward.
[00:45:51]  And her answer was basically like, well, J6 was unprecedented.
[00:45:55]  So it's like, all right, that's not going to save you.
[00:45:58]  It is, it is great.
[00:45:59]  You know, the Democrats for four years of Trump would say, you know, the system held.
[00:46:04]  The system held against this extraordinary test of this rogue, you know, executive.
[00:46:12]  And what actually happened today, if they ruled the way I think they're going to, is the system held.
[00:46:18]  To your point, Holmes, that we, we, there was a process.
[00:46:22]  We somehow managed to get six conservative Supreme Court justices sitting.
[00:46:26]  It was a miracle.
[00:46:27]  Your old boss, Mitch McConnell, was huge.
[00:46:30]  And that is a debt that everybody who is independent or right of center owes to him.
[00:46:36]  And when it comes to something to do with it, so did George W. Bush.
[00:46:38]  But anyway, my point is when it finally got in front of them, they appear to be doing the right thing.
[00:46:45]  They're sticking to the letter of the law.
[00:46:46]  And I think it's going to come out the way Congress would have intended.
[00:46:49]  And if Congress doesn't intend it, by the way, they'll go back and clarify it.
[00:46:52]  That's also the system.
[00:46:52]  Yeah, pass a law.
[00:46:53]  Go ahead, Donald.
[00:46:54]  That's the system working.
[00:46:55]  And when it comes to politics, sometimes it works for you.
[00:46:58]  Sometimes it works against you.
[00:46:59]  That's the entire point of having a system of laws the way that it's set up.
[00:47:04]  I mean, like, there's a chance that they could go 9-0 against Trump on the immunity question in just a short period of time.
[00:47:11]  Yeah.
[00:47:11]  Yeah.
[00:47:12]  And so, like, you know, Republicans are going to be complaining about the court at that point.
[00:47:16]  I'm sure some Republicans will.
[00:47:17]  It's like, you know, sometimes it's for you, sometimes it's against you.
[00:47:20]  That's the entire point.
[00:47:21]  Yeah.
[00:47:23]  Okay, hold on a second.
[00:47:24]  I'm just getting updates from my team.
[00:47:26]  Okay, Washington Post, their lead on SCODIS, Supreme Court.
[00:47:31]  The Supreme Court seemed deeply divided Tuesday.
[00:47:33]  Well, six to three over a challenge to a federal law that prosecutors used to charge more than 350 people who were part of the pro-Donald Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on J6.
[00:47:43]  Several conservatives expressed concern about giving prosecutors broad power that they suggested would allow the government to target peaceful protesters or hecklers who disrupt a court proceeding.

=== Capitol Riot Convictions Overturned (06:57) ===

[00:47:54]  Other justices seem to back the government.
[00:47:56]  Wow.
[00:47:57]  They're kind of missing the headline here, which is, sure, it was deeply divided.
[00:48:02]  It's going to come down 6-3.
[00:48:04]  Who on the conservative side sounded at all like they were entertaining the liberals' argument?
[00:48:10]  Not one.
[00:48:11]  Not one, according to what I listened to everything but the last 10 minutes.
[00:48:13]  There's no way they won him over in that.
[00:48:15]  We'll see.
[00:48:16]  Sometimes the Supreme Court can be hard to predict.
[00:48:19]  They sometimes surprise you.
[00:48:21]  I don't think I'm going to get surprised in this particular case, guys.
[00:48:24]  So what does it mean, right?
[00:48:26]  So like if the J6 case goes away, do we have to take a break right now?
[00:48:30]  Hold on a second.
[00:48:30]  My team's training.
[00:48:31]  Oh, we have.
[00:48:32]  Okay, we'll talk about that on the backside.
[00:48:34]  And we've got to get to these insane protests that you guys mentioned across the country now as these lunatics are trying to shut down airports and bridges and so on.
[00:48:41]  Much, much more with Ruthless Ahead.
[00:48:43]  Don't go away.
[00:49:03]  Anti-Israel protesters blocking roads, bridges, and highways in big cities across the United States in the wake of Iran attacking Israel.
[00:49:14]  Okay.
[00:49:15]  Demonstrations were part of a global economic blockade to free Palestine.
[00:49:19]  Protesters seen here on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco chained themselves to 55-gallon drums filled with cement.
[00:49:26]  Very tempting to throw the cement barrels over the bridge.
[00:49:30]  Very tempting.
[00:49:31]  The ABC local channel in San Francisco caught on tape one driver near the front getting out of his car and demanding that the protesters get the hell out of the road.
[00:49:40]  Yes, he speaks for us all.
[00:49:41]  They're so annoying.
[00:49:42]  Police arrested 38 people, but it took about four hours to move them out thanks to their cement blocks and get the traffic moving again.
[00:49:54]  Can you imagine how infuriating this is if you're stuck in the middle of it?
[00:49:58]  Protesters also blocked the entrance to Seattle's international airport for three hours.
[00:50:04]  Travelers were forced to get out of their cars and walk to the terminals with their luggage.
[00:50:09]  Not everybody has the roly luggage.
[00:50:11]  Some people actually have to carry it.
[00:50:13]  Police can be seen standing near the protesters.
[00:50:16]  You're going to be shocked in Seattle.
[00:50:18]  They weren't doing much of anything.
[00:50:20]  Not much of anything to get them out of the street.
[00:50:22]  In the end, however, 46 people were arrested there.
[00:50:27]  Further south into Miami, about 150 protesters attempted to block traffic to Port Miami.
[00:50:34]  Key word here is attempted.
[00:50:35]  We're now in Florida, keep in mind.
[00:50:37]  Police officers in riot gear on horseback and on motorcycles quickly moved in to break apart the protest.
[00:50:43]  And after repeatedly trying to block traffic, several were arrested by the cops.
[00:50:48]  The group behind the protest later accused police of aggressively arresting them.
[00:50:52]  Too bad.
[00:50:54]  Protesters also taunted coffee drinkers at a Starbucks in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
[00:51:01]  Democratic Pennsylvania Senator and ardent Israel supporter John Fetterman tweeted about the protesters saying, quote, I don't know who needs to hear this, but blocking a bridge or berating folks in Starbucks isn't righteous.
[00:51:12]  It just makes you an asshole.
[00:51:14]  Hear here, Senator Fetterman.
[00:51:16]  But some of the most disturbing images came out of New York, downtown Wall Street in particular, in lower Manhattan.
[00:51:23]  One protester was seen waving the yellow and green banner of the terror group Hezbollah.
[00:51:30]  Great.
[00:51:31]  This is video from friend of the show, Julio Rosas, who is always on the scene of these protests to document them for his substack called Mostly Peaceful.
[00:51:42]  You get the reference, right?
[00:51:44]  He's doing the work that the New York Times won't do and other publications like it, showing you it's now come to Hezbollah flags right here in America, right in New York, steps away, by the way, from where the Twin Towers were brought down.
[00:51:57]  Other protesters proclaimed death to America and praise the man behind those 9-11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.
[00:52:06]  Watch.
[00:52:07]  What do you think about the USA?
[00:52:10]  What do I think about the USA?
[00:52:12]  It should burn.
[00:52:13]  Death to America.
[00:52:14]  So what do you think about the American flag?
[00:52:17]  What do you think about the American flag?
[00:52:19]  It should be burned.
[00:52:25]  You have freedoms here, no?
[00:52:29]  What do you think about Osama bin Laden in 9-11?
[00:52:31]  He did what he did because he had to do it.
[00:52:33]  So it was justified.
[00:52:35]  I said what I said.
[00:52:39]  Then get out.
[00:52:40]  You don't like it.
[00:52:42]  Get out.
[00:52:42]  We don't want you either.
[00:52:44]  Death to America.
[00:52:46]  Okay, tough guy.
[00:52:47]  Sure.
[00:52:47]  With your face all covered so we can't see who you are and get you fired, which I'd be happy to because F you if you don't want to be here.
[00:52:53]  Move along.
[00:52:54]  Go to the Evil Top Hack Canada.
[00:52:56]  See how you like it up there.
[00:52:57]  Back with me now, the guys from Ruthless.
[00:52:59]  This is so infuriating.
[00:53:01]  It's amazing that this didn't result in violence.
[00:53:04]  Am I wrong?
[00:53:05]  No.
[00:53:06]  It occurs to me, what's going on down in Gitmo?
[00:53:10]  We have some vacancies down there.
[00:53:11]  Yeah.
[00:53:12]  I feel like we could fill up a couple of cells with some folks, right?
[00:53:15]  I mean, that's what we had it there for in the first place.
[00:53:18]  The whole death to America, praising Osama bin Laden.
[00:53:21]  It's an enhanced interrogation might be necessary again.
[00:53:24]  I got dollars to donuts.
[00:53:25]  Half those people are on public assistance.
[00:53:28]  Probably.
[00:53:28]  See, I have a different perspective on this, Megan.
[00:53:31]  I tend to think a lot of them, especially in a place like New York like that, some of those young folks who cover their faces, they probably have like a trust fund.
[00:53:41]  We saw that with Occupy Wall Street.
[00:53:43]  Right, right.
[00:53:44]  It's like, well, I think what's most dangerous about this and scary about it is it's gone a long way from like criticizing the foreign policy of the United States of America to like actively waving the flags of terrorist organizations in our own country.
[00:54:01]  I mean, if that doesn't get you on a step from the trade center.
[00:54:04]  It does.
[00:54:05]  Yeah.
[00:54:05]  Steps from the World Trade Center footprint.
[00:54:07]  It's so obnoxious.
[00:54:10]  To your point about Occupy Wall Street, there's a big difference between protesting corporate greed and saying death to America, burn the flag.
[00:54:17]  I mean, if anything tells you we have an immigration problem in this country, I don't, I mean, that does.
[00:54:23]  It's like this is this is a gigantic problem.
[00:54:27]  And I don't understand if people are going to be arrested at an airport for blocking cars from parking and going to their planes, if they're going to be arrested eventually.
[00:54:37]  Why can't they be arrested right away?
[00:54:39]  You know, why is it that they're allowed to just sit there and cause problems for everybody going about their lives and nothing happens?
[00:54:48]  I mean, literally, they're arrested and then what?

=== Chanting Death to America (14:49) ===

[00:54:51]  Then they just release to go do it again?
[00:54:54]  Though that's the thing is, is like we had, again, earlier discussed, is when you've got these dark money funded prosecutors, you don't need to elect officials who will pass laws to stop this kind of nonsense when the prosecutor you can buy just won't bring up any charges.
[00:55:08]  We saw this happen in New York with all the riots that happened there and so much destruction of small businesses.
[00:55:14]  And every single one of those people received a pardon.
[00:55:17]  So when you have this culture of lawlessness, it just, you know, it spirals and spirals and spirals.
[00:55:22]  But to me, what's even more disturbing than some random protester saying this is we now have members of Congress, you know, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tsayad.
[00:55:30]  These are people who after this rocket attack from Iran were completely silent.
[00:55:36]  They were completely silent.
[00:55:37]  And they have specifically run on.
[00:55:40]  their hatred of Israel, their hatred of this country, believing that America is like a fallen country that can't be redeemed.
[00:55:47]  That's their core belief.
[00:55:49]  And they were elected within 20 years or right around 20 years of the attack on September 11th.
[00:55:54]  And they're right there wishing this happen.
[00:55:56]  And they've dragged the rest of the Democratic Party to their view in all of this.
[00:56:00]  And they say it, you know, most quote unquote responsible Democrats say it in a different way, but they've all been pushing Israel to, you know, have a ceasefire with the terrorists who murdered all of those people on October 7th.
[00:56:12]  Mind you, Hamas, who cannot account for any of those hostages now as part of that ceasefire deal.
[00:56:18]  You got Chuck Schumer calling for a ceasefire three days before Iran starts lobbing missiles into Israel.
[00:56:24]  And now suddenly the funniest part is how all these folks have to sort of like retcon their opinion on Israel and say, we stand with Israel against Iran.
[00:56:33]  And it's like, dude, three days ago, you were telling them to give up trying to get Americans back and their own citizens back from Gaza.
[00:56:39]  It's a larger and more pervasive problem than we're sort of covering here with the protesters.
[00:56:45]  The reality is that those protesters have a constituency within the Democratic Party of today's America.
[00:56:51]  It is unbelievable to say.
[00:56:53]  It is akin to saying like the Ku Klux Klan has got a constituency in one of the parties.
[00:57:01]  It is not a demographic you should ever try to appeal for.
[00:57:04]  They call for the genocide and the extinction of Jewish people.
[00:57:08]  They take them at their word.
[00:57:10]  That is what they are trying to do.
[00:57:12]  They have such a constituency that, as you said, they are electing members of Congress that represent those points of view.
[00:57:20]  And what makes it, I think, more alarming to me, Megan, than anything else is that the Biden administration, which started out immediately after October 7th, saying all the right things about the interests that America has in Israel and the region.
[00:57:34]  And then they've sort of figured out that they have a political problem along the way.
[00:57:38]  And you look at poll after poll where they are underperforming against progressive and young voters.
[00:57:43]  And they know that at some level, in some states, Michigan and others, it's because of this issue.
[00:57:48]  And so they've begun to try to triangulate American foreign policy to fit a political problem that Joe Biden finds himself in in an election year, which is fucking scary.
[00:58:01]  That is an unbelievable departure from any sort of foreign policy construct.
[00:58:06]  I don't care if you're a libertarian or if you're a defense hawk.
[00:58:10]  The idea that domestic politics are entirely changing our relationship to one of maybe two of the best allies that we have in the entire world should scare the hell out of everybody.
[00:58:24]  So can I want to make two points and then I'll give you the floor.
[00:58:26]  One, yes, it's incredibly inconvenient for people who are flying and you never know where they're flying.
[00:58:31]  You know, it's like, this is like an assumption that every trip is for pleasure.
[00:58:34]  That's not true.
[00:58:35]  You know, the American industry is what it is because people work hard here.
[00:58:38]  We're not France and they have important meetings to get to.
[00:58:41]  They have important things to do.
[00:58:42]  They have funerals to make.
[00:58:44]  You know, they have like the selfishness of this.
[00:58:47]  But then you think about like the ambulances that get shut down, the emergency trips to the hospital, the people having the babies, the people who had a heart attack, all of them.
[00:58:55]  None of that matters because these people want to make a point about Palestinian suffering.
[00:59:00]  What about the Americans who you're making suffer right now?
[00:59:02]  They don't care.
[00:59:03]  That's why they're chanting death to America.
[00:59:06]  I'm going to have no adverse reaction to the lunatic waving the Hezbollah flag right next to them.
[00:59:11]  They want attention for themselves.
[00:59:13]  They haven't have no fucking idea who Hezbollah is or what this Palestinian-Israel conflict is all about.
[00:59:20]  They've just decided, you know, the black, brown, white equation warrants them going out there and siding against America.
[00:59:27]  But I do want to talk about the messaging, the anti-American messaging.
[00:59:31]  Before I do that, though, Ashbrook, were you trying to get in on what those guys were just saying?
[00:59:35]  No, no, I was just actually what you just said is sort of what I was going to say is that what the left really wants in this country is power.
[00:59:44]  What the protesters will not talk about is how Hamas treats regular Palestinians inside of Gaza.
[00:59:50]  They're blocking the relief supplies.
[00:59:53]  They're blocking the food.
[00:59:54]  Hamas is trying to keep the regular person in Palace, regular person living in Gaza down.
[01:00:01]  And now you have these Hamas protesters here in America who are trying to stop regular people in America from living their lives.
[01:00:09]  And what we've seen from the left over a long period of time is this move to where we're not allowed to have, like they don't like normal Americans having the typical American political arguments where somebody says, oh, I don't like tax cuts or somebody says, oh, I don't like these Medicaid waivers.
[01:00:28]  Like they think that those types of arguments are bad because then we're not talking about what they want to talk about, which is completely destroying America and completely destroying Israel and their radical ideas that are echoed by these major institutions on the left and more and more echoed by major media institutions on the left.
[01:00:50]  And it's just one of the worst things that's happened in our society.
[01:00:53]  Go ahead, Megan.
[01:00:54]  Sorry.
[01:00:54]  So, no, I think it was going to be good.
[01:00:57]  And I was right.
[01:00:59]  Here's what's so annoying about, you know, the left can't stand this country.
[01:01:05]  Not all of the leftists, right?
[01:01:07]  Not liberals, but leftists and these protesters out there in the streets.
[01:01:11]  They hate America.
[01:01:13]  They're only now giving specific voice to it.
[01:01:16]  Death to America, right?
[01:01:17]  Like, okay, I'm not shocked.
[01:01:19]  I knew you felt that way, but it's great to have you actually say it explicitly, right?
[01:01:24]  Right here on American soil over and over, whether it's down in Wall Street or it was in Dearborn, Michigan last week.
[01:01:30]  And after that happened in Dearborn, Hillary Vaughan of Fox News got in the grill of Rashida Tlaib and tried to get her, because it's her jurisdiction, to condemn those words.
[01:01:42]  It shouldn't be hard.
[01:01:44]  It's a no-brainer, madam.
[01:01:46]  Yes, I condemn.
[01:01:49]  Absolutely.
[01:01:49]  I am an American congresswoman.
[01:01:52]  Of course, I don't agree with that.
[01:01:54]  But instead, here's what happened.
[01:01:57]  Congressman in Taliban.
[01:02:01]  At a rally in your district, people were chanting death to America.
[01:02:04]  Do you condemn?
[01:02:05]  I do not talk to Fox News.
[01:02:07]  Do you condemn chants of death to America?
[01:02:10]  I don't talk to people that use racist tropes.
[01:02:14]  Why can't you just say whether or not you condemn people chanting death to America?
[01:02:18]  Why are you afraid to talk to Fox?
[01:02:19]  Fox News is not, listen, using racist tropes towards my community is what Fox News is about.
[01:02:27]  And I don't talk to Fox News.
[01:02:28]  Is death to America racist?
[01:02:32]  Is chanting death to America racist?
[01:02:34]  I'm talking about your guys' racist tropes.
[01:02:36]  You know, you guys are, you guys know exactly what you do.
[01:02:39]  And I know you're Islamophobic, but you guys got to go deal with it.
[01:02:42]  You're on your own self.
[01:02:42]  You're not going to use me.
[01:02:45]  Okay.
[01:02:46]  Oh, profiles and courage.
[01:02:47]  Just insanity.
[01:02:49]  And it's like, how many words does she take to say, I don't talk to Fox News over and over?
[01:02:53]  She could have just said, yeah, I condemn.
[01:02:56]  I condemn.
[01:02:57]  Because she can't.
[01:02:58]  But she doesn't.
[01:02:59]  But she doesn't.
[01:03:01]  And that's the problem.
[01:03:03]  There is a constituency deeply embedded in today's Democratic Party where that's the view.
[01:03:10]  That's the view.
[01:03:11]  And we can all pretend like it doesn't happen because the New York Times isn't going to cover it and the Washington Post isn't going to cover it and the AP and CNN and MSNBC are not going to talk about that.
[01:03:21]  But it's the ugly reality that you're dealing with a constituency within the Democratic Party who wants the elimination, not only of just America, but a whole population of people in the Middle East.
[01:03:34]  I mean, it is truly, I don't think we really have grappled with the gravity of what this represents.
[01:03:42]  Because at no point in our history since the days of slavery and since the days of just horrible racist prosecutions and the days of Jim Crow, have we dealt with a constituency within a major political party in this country that is telling you exactly what it is that they say?
[01:04:05]  And what they say is, we want these people dead.
[01:04:09]  That's what they're saying.
[01:04:10]  Let's just listen to it and be very, very clear about our understanding.
[01:04:15]  They're going to pretend like it doesn't, but watch what happens with Joe Biden.
[01:04:18]  Watch how he's triangulating.
[01:04:19]  They're trying to accommodate a constituency where that's the view.
[01:04:24]  And that's amazing that she won't talk to Fox News.
[01:04:27]  Nobody else will ask her that question.
[01:04:29]  So she doesn't have to answer it at all.
[01:04:31]  They're literally the only ones with access to her, and she won't answer the question.
[01:04:36]  Okay, all of this leads me to this meltdown that Joe Scarborough had on MSNBC this morning.
[01:04:44]  Okay, and we've gone through it.
[01:04:46]  Like the Hezbollah, the Dearborn, Michigan chants, which we played last week, Rashida Tlaib won't condemn.
[01:04:53]  We all know why.
[01:04:55]  And now here's Scarborough with what the real problem is in America, who the real haters are of our country.
[01:05:06]  Watch this.
[01:05:08]  We are so much more powerful, so much stronger than we have ever been.
[01:05:15]  And you're voting for a guy that tells you every day that America sucks?
[01:05:19]  What's wrong with you?
[01:05:21]  Who raised you?
[01:05:22]  You don't read.
[01:05:24]  Because if you read, Mike, the facts are clear.
[01:05:26]  And I'm getting tired of saying this to people who claim to be patriotic but hate America because they're always running America down.
[01:05:35]  They're always trashing America.
[01:05:36]  They're always saying America's horrible.
[01:05:38]  Its democracy doesn't work.
[01:05:40]  We need a dictatorship if Donald Trump doesn't win.
[01:05:43]  So what do they do?
[01:05:44]  They find a trans athlete in Utah.
[01:05:49]  Say, the world's coming to an end.
[01:05:52]  Help us, Jesus.
[01:05:54]  The country ain't the contra hours race, Penn.
[01:05:57]  No, it's better.
[01:05:58]  It's stronger.
[01:06:01]  Oh.
[01:06:03]  He's not talking about Rashida Talib.
[01:06:05]  Nope.
[01:06:06]  Right?
[01:06:06]  MAGA, they hate America.
[01:06:10]  No one on his team.
[01:06:12]  I missed his condemnation of all that rhetoric that we just went through.
[01:06:17]  They can't and they won't.
[01:06:19]  And they're going to pretend like it doesn't exist.
[01:06:20]  I mean, one of the things that the Democratic corporate media has done over the years, and I think they're most effective at, is narrative choosing, right?
[01:06:30]  It's not so much.
[01:06:31]  It's their real power.
[01:06:32]  Yeah, their real power is to try to pretend like the news only exists in the silos that they provide it.
[01:06:39]  And then they ignore the more pervasive pieces of a Democratic constituency in a party that they support and don't want to make that a public discussion because, boy, that would threaten the narrative.
[01:06:50]  And that's what you see Joe doing there.
[01:06:53]  I mean, look, he's about a week late on our Hack Madness tournament.
[01:06:57]  Megan, we have a tournament where we have 64 of the best and brightest liberal hacks in the country.
[01:07:03]  And we do a tournament at Ruthless.
[01:07:05]  And he, you know, Scarborough made a pretty good run this year.
[01:07:08]  He made a good run, but he should have done it.
[01:07:09]  Did Oberman win?
[01:07:10]  Didn't Oberman win here?
[01:07:12]  Olman took the crown this year.
[01:07:13]  Well done.
[01:07:14]  I think that was meritorious.
[01:07:16]  I think what's really interesting to see in this is all of this is based around the fundamental change in the progressives, the left, the Democrat Party, where they've essentially made it that you have to agree with all of it or you're the enemy, right?
[01:07:33]  So you see these seemingly disparate groups, like, you know, you'll like when you see these parades of queers for Palestine, which makes no sense at all, as they would be killed in Palestine, but they enforce this doctrine on them of, listen, there's intersectionality.
[01:07:49]  You have to agree with all of it or none of it.
[01:07:52]  You have to say, yes, you agree with the trans movement.
[01:07:55]  You also agree that in this belief that Israel is committing a genocide.
[01:08:01]  You have to agree with the complete Black Lives Matter that you're allowed to have riots and burn down buildings.
[01:08:06]  So part and parcel, if you don't agree with all of that, then you're the enemy.
[01:08:10]  And they enforce this by saying, if you're not with us, you're against democracy.
[01:08:14]  You're attacking democracy.
[01:08:16]  So they have to simplify it as it's us versus them.
[01:08:19]  And if you're not with us, you're attacking democracy and you're the enemy.
[01:08:22]  And you're seeing it goes beyond just the rhetoric.
[01:08:25]  Now they just use the Justice Department to go after their political enemies.
[01:08:29]  It's just like it's amazing to me the level of hatred and honestly the level of stupidity.
[01:08:34]  Like Starbucks, Starbucks, you can't hide not till we free Palestine.
[01:08:39]  How is Starbucks going to hide?
[01:08:41]  How is that?
[01:08:43]  It's such a great selling cup of coffee.
[01:08:47]  How's that a thing?
[01:08:50]  Even better.
[01:08:51]  You guys know Jesse Single.
[01:08:53]  He was, he tweeted out.
[01:08:56]  This made me laugh out loud.
[01:08:59]  We shall fight in the Starbucks.
[01:09:01]  We shall fight in the theater companies.
[01:09:03]  We shall fight in the small literary magazines and in the fast food restaurants.
[01:09:10]  Oh, it's so good.
[01:09:13]  It's easy to laugh until you see the Death to America chant and then you're like, I'm not really laughing anymore.
[01:09:18]  Right.
[01:09:18]  Yeah, we should have sort of like a new legislative push to create a series of laws where it provides the like the intent of the protesters to live on what they're protesting.
[01:09:29]  Like all these Gaza folks, we should just load up with C-130 and send them to Gaza and see how they love that.
[01:09:34]  Or have you like shut it down over climate change or something, you just load up a C-130 and send them to Antarctica?

=== NPR Journalism Identity Crisis (12:05) ===

[01:09:40]  You know what I mean?
[01:09:40]  Like that seems like a that seems like a pretty good punishment.
[01:09:44]  Like you actually have to live now what you're trying to protest the rest of us sober rather than disrupting our daily lives.
[01:09:51]  And on your way there, you'll be suffering three-hour delays in the street thanks to the racist guys and their bags of cement.
[01:09:58]  Exactly.
[01:09:59]  All right.
[01:09:59]  So while we're on the subject of errant media, which is where I put Scarborough's remarks this morning, let's talk for a minute about NPR because there's an update in that guy, Yuri Berlinger, who wrote the Berliner, forgive me, who wrote the piece exposing their just hardcore left bias.
[01:10:18]  We knew, but like we didn't have all the details around it.
[01:10:21]  And now we've got a lot more color on just how bad they are over there.
[01:10:24]  He wrote for the free press and a remarkable piece.
[01:10:27]  He's been suspended five days without pay.
[01:10:31]  It's a formal rebuke.
[01:10:33]  And the reason is, according to David Folkenflick, who works for NPR and reported on this, that he failed to secure NPR's approval for outside work for another news outlet.
[01:10:45]  He has been issued a quote final warning saying that he will be fired if he violates NPR's policy again.
[01:10:53]  He has said that he will not appeal the punishment.
[01:10:57]  And NPR has said the other thing he did was publicly release proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential.
[01:11:06]  That I believe is a reference to the fact that notwithstanding they're making NPR into a living, breathing DEI machine, they have just rock bottom numbers on Hispanic and black viewers and listeners.
[01:11:21]  Nobody, they're shocked to find out that diverse communities are not obsessed with race and identity the way the white liberal elites who work at NPR are.
[01:11:31]  And this comes as we find out.
[01:11:34]  This is one of my favorite stories today, that the new CEO, she came on in January of NPR, is like hardcore resistance, to say the least mask wearing.
[01:11:47]  I mean, this is like, she must have been my neighbor on the Upper West Side.
[01:11:50]  Catherine Mayer is her name.
[01:11:52]  Actually, she's from Connecticut, Wilton, Connecticut, the Tony Town of Wilton, Connecticut.
[01:11:56]  Of course.
[01:11:57]  And Chris Rufo has been doing a great job pulling some of her tweets, which I would love to share with you guys because I think you'd like to get to know Catherine and opine on the state of American media.
[01:12:08]  Okay, I'm going to give you a couple.
[01:12:10]  September 27th, 2018.
[01:12:12]  She wasn't at NPR at the time.
[01:12:13]  She used to run Wikipedia.
[01:12:15]  This is during Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate.
[01:12:19]  I'm angry, hot angry, slow angry, relentless angry.
[01:12:24]  Jeffrey Toobin's reacting.
[01:12:26]  The anger is going to fuel.
[01:12:28]  It's going to fuel and burn for a long time and it will deliver back exponentially.
[01:12:34]  Okay, that's Christine Blasey Ford reaction.
[01:12:37]  April or August 16th, 2019.
[01:12:40]  This is after Trump said he might open California's giant Sequoia National Monument to development.
[01:12:46]  There are so many injustices piling up.
[01:12:49]  It becomes hard to not just sit and cry.
[01:12:53]  Just cry.
[01:12:55]  She goes on to say, January of 2020, I grew up feeling superior.
[01:12:59]  Ha, how white of me.
[01:13:01]  Because I was from New England and my part of the country didn't have slaves or so I'd been taught.
[01:13:05]  And then follows up shortly thereafter in February with, I'm a super big public transit nerd.
[01:13:11]  I hate private cars in cities.
[01:13:14]  I love bikes.
[01:13:15]  And yes, I love buses.
[01:13:17]  Transit justice and climate love in one humble hunk of rolling metal.
[01:13:23]  My God.
[01:13:24]  Okay.
[01:13:24]  I'm not done.
[01:13:26]  It sounds made up.
[01:13:28]  I know.
[01:13:28]  It sounds made up.
[01:13:30]  Like an AI version of what you'd think would be running NPR.
[01:13:33]  Here's August 2020.
[01:13:36]  Had a dream where Kamala and I, she dreams about her and about her trips.
[01:13:41]  Had a dream where Kamala and I were on a road trip in an unspecified location sampling and comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands.
[01:13:50]  What?
[01:13:52]  No.
[01:13:52]  Okay.
[01:13:53]  Yeah, there's more.
[01:13:55]  She's mad about the Tom Cotton piece in the New York Times.
[01:13:59]  It shames the New York Times to publish an op-ed that should and would never have passed journalistic editorial review.
[01:14:05]  November 7th, 2020, after Biden won.
[01:14:08]  I can't stop crying with relief.
[01:14:11]  This person is now running NPR.
[01:14:13]  And I do think I'm not out on a limb when I say Yuri Berliner's days over there are numbered.
[01:14:20]  What do you guys think?
[01:14:22]  Yeah, so I went and I looked through her tweets and they are far crazier than any of those.
[01:14:29]  I'll put one up right here.
[01:14:31]  She says, I know that hysteric white woman voice.
[01:14:35]  I was taught to do it.
[01:14:36]  I've done it.
[01:14:37]  It's a disturbing recognition.
[01:14:38]  While I don't recall ever using it to deliberately expose another person to immediate physical harm on my own cognizance, it's not impossible.
[01:14:45]  That is whiteness.
[01:14:47]  Like, how broken?
[01:14:48]  That was after Central Park Karen.
[01:14:50]  That was her reaction to Central Park Karen.
[01:14:52]  Yeah, how broken and deranged are these individuals?
[01:14:55]  And the thing is, is, you know, she's coming from Wikipedia.
[01:14:59]  This used to be an arbiter of truth and is now going to be given taxpayer dollars to have their message spread.
[01:15:06]  Like it is unbelievable as NPR does.
[01:15:09]  These people are careful.
[01:15:10]  At least she's copped to understanding what a hysteric white woman voice sounds like.
[01:15:16]  They just have to add the tip-top Richard Nay and, you know, all of that included.
[01:15:22]  And then you get, you pop out a CEO of NPR at the end of it.
[01:15:26]  Amazing.
[01:15:27]  There's this one from July 2020.
[01:15:29]  Lots of jokes about leaving the U.S. and I get it.
[01:15:32]  But as someone with cis white mobility privilege, I'm thinking I'm staying and investing in ridding ourselves of this specter of tyranny.
[01:15:41]  I mean, Ashbrook, you're right.
[01:15:43]  It sounds like AI, right?
[01:15:48]  And there she is in her Joe Biden for president hat, marching door to door to get people to vote for Joe Biden.
[01:15:54]  It's the most biased.
[01:15:56]  Like, get out of here.
[01:15:58]  And by the way, can I just, can I just say something else about this punishment for Uri Berliner, where he supposedly released demographic, proprietary demographic data?
[01:16:10]  I mean, we already know who the demographic is that listens to NPR.
[01:16:14]  That was no news to anybody, but aren't we entitled to some of this information?
[01:16:18]  We're paying for it.
[01:16:19]  You know, it was Ronald Reagan who said he's paying for that microphone.
[01:16:22]  We're paying for theirs.
[01:16:24]  Don't we get to know that?
[01:16:26]  And Uri, he wasn't allowed to talk to Barry Weiss without getting permission from David Fulkenfleck and from this like, from this woman who's a volunteer campaigner for Joe Biden.
[01:16:38]  He has to call them before he talks to Barry Weiss.
[01:16:40]  I'm sorry.
[01:16:41]  I thought Barry Weiss paid for NPR too.
[01:16:44]  She's just another taxpayer who's asking questions, wondering why it's been so terrible over the years.
[01:16:50]  And all Uri Berliner is doing is saying, well, you know what?
[01:16:53]  I counted in the newsroom and 87 people were Democrats.
[01:16:56]  Zero were Republicans.
[01:16:58]  I am a Democrat.
[01:16:59]  I grew up in a liberal household.
[01:17:01]  And all I'm saying is maybe we should have a little more balance in our network.
[01:17:04]  And she's like, no, sorry, you're almost fired for that.
[01:17:07]  Well, even get out of here.
[01:17:09]  It's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my life.
[01:17:12]  But it's even worse than that, I think, Ashbrook, is the irony.
[01:17:17]  So, you know, she put out this statement basically responding to Uri Berliner's commentary on the state of journalism at NPR.
[01:17:26]  Mind you, again, we've read all of this woman's tweets where she talks about being a hysterical white woman and reducing everyone to their identity and their race and their gender.
[01:17:35]  Actually, from her statement responding to him pointing out the fact there was no Republicans on the entire staff, she says, questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity based on little more than the recognition of their identity is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.
[01:17:55]  Oh, it's the identity thing.
[01:17:58]  Wow.
[01:17:58]  Who started talking about identity?
[01:18:01]  That dog came back to bite.
[01:18:03]  That's the funniest thing is like NPR can have like, you know, support groups for BIPOC, gender-neutral basket weavers and all of that sort of stuff.
[01:18:13]  It's NPR noir.
[01:18:15]  NPR.
[01:18:16]  But heaven forbid they have a Republican on staff.
[01:18:19]  That would be offensive.
[01:18:20]  And that'd be reducing people to their identity.
[01:18:22]  Like, are you fucking kidding me?
[01:18:24]  There's no NPR at all.
[01:18:27]  The way she led that question, her statement asking a question, you're not allowed to ask questions at NPR.
[01:18:33]  No.
[01:18:33]  You're not allowed to ask any questions.
[01:18:35]  You know what?
[01:18:35]  We've said something here on the program here for a few days, and I think we should repeat it with you, Megan, Kelly.
[01:18:40]  Ich Ben Uri Berliner.
[01:18:44]  To quote President Kennedy.
[01:18:47]  I'm not sure, guys.
[01:18:48]  You know, this is how he began his piece, which was actually equally amazing to the body of it.
[01:18:54]  He writes, you know, the stereotype of the NPR listener, an electric vehicle driving, wordle playing, tote bag carrying, coastal elite.
[01:19:02]  It doesn't precisely describe me, but it's not far off.
[01:19:06]  I'm Sarah Lawrence educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother.
[01:19:10]  I drive a Subaru and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.
[01:19:16]  I'm not sure if I'm very Berliner, but I get it.
[01:19:21]  I'm friends with all journals.
[01:19:22]  He's a journalist.
[01:19:23]  Well, no, I like honesty.
[01:19:25]  Yeah, this guy was honest up front, and he's honest about the problems at his network.
[01:19:28]  He wants balance.
[01:19:30]  That's what everybody wants.
[01:19:31]  That's the thing, Megan.
[01:19:33]  If we could, at the very least, get an acknowledgement from people in journalism that they carry these biases from being, you know, liberals who went to Sarah Lawrence.
[01:19:41]  And I can understand that.
[01:19:42]  And I would respect that a lot more than this pretend idea that these people at NPR reflect the fabric of America.
[01:19:51]  I mean, how many of them like own a Ford F-150 and have gone hunting before?
[01:19:56]  I bet zero.
[01:19:57]  Zero.
[01:19:57]  Zero.
[01:19:58]  And that's fine, but at least acknowledge it and try to reflect the opinions of all Americans and not don't cloister yourself in that environment and declare yourself America.
[01:20:06]  It's ridiculous.
[01:20:07]  Right.
[01:20:07]  And go ahead.
[01:20:08]  Well, one thing I wanted to note is the repetition of her being like, I'm confronting my whiteness, or it's important to understand that this is how whiteness operates.
[01:20:17]  It's they have to make these statements of like self-flagellation because it's like these communist struggle sessions.
[01:20:24]  You know, to be allowed into the modern Democratic Party, you have to say, oh, you know, I am confronting these biases and my whiteness and I need to do the work.
[01:20:34]  Like you have to put out those buzzwords or you're not allowed into the club.
[01:20:38]  Because if she's being honest, she's like, well, I was raised in Connecticut.
[01:20:42]  You know, like I'm a blue blood.
[01:20:45]  I've had everything handed to me.
[01:20:47]  So what the hell would she know about like the issues that people face in America?
[01:20:51]  She's never faced any issues.
[01:20:53]  It's unbelievable.
[01:20:54]  So to be honest, at least she feels bad about it, Smug.
[01:20:56]  Yeah.
[01:20:57]  At least she feels bad about it.
[01:20:58]  That's what makes her better than you.
[01:21:00]  That's right.
[01:21:01]  His greatest offense was that he wouldn't conform.
[01:21:04]  I mean, honestly.
[01:21:05]  The reason she can't focus on any of this is she's too busy organizing the Magai POC meeting of the marginalized genders and intersex people of color mentorship program of NPR.
[01:21:14]  That's why you no longer have balance on the radio and she's busy organizing Magui POC meetings.
[01:21:21]  I'll let that marinate and we'll come back and talk about the shocking cancellation of King Charles.
[01:21:29]  No one even knows what I'm talking about because it was a narrow watched show that CNN attempted that was a complete disaster.
[01:21:37]  And you'll be shocked, shocked to learn that Gail King and Charles Barkley, who was out there threatening black voters who go for Trump, was not a hit.

=== Black Harvard Prosecutor Prosecutes Trump (15:42) ===

[01:21:46]  Stand by.
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[01:22:50]  Speaking of DEI, Joy Reed is super happy about DEI and its effects on the 2024 presidential election.
[01:23:00]  She's calling it out.
[01:23:02]  Listen to her.
[01:23:03]  For me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact that despite the fact that even if convicted, he's not going to go to prison, the first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad, the very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Stephen Miller, et cetera, want to never be at Harvard law school.
[01:23:29]  But he was.
[01:23:30]  And a black woman is doing that same exact thing in Georgia.
[01:23:33]  And a black woman forced you to pay $175 million fine.
[01:23:38]  Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he's trying to dismantle.
[01:23:46]  And for me, there's something poetic and actually wonderful about that.
[01:23:50]  It says something good about our country that we're still capable of having that happen.
[01:23:54]  Go DEI.
[01:23:55]  My DEIs are bringing it home.
[01:23:57]  Oh, my Lord.
[01:23:59]  Yeah, like when I think about representation in our democracy, what I really think about is taking a misdemeanor charge in the state of New York, one that wasn't going to be prosecuted by the DOJ or Cy Vance and trumping it up into 40 felony charges and deciding there's an underlying crime with an FEC violation, again, that was not previously charged.
[01:24:19]  That is representation.
[01:24:21]  That's what it is.
[01:24:21]  That's what it is.
[01:24:23]  You know, and that's the ridiculous nature of all of this, Megan, right?
[01:24:27]  It's like the facts be damned, right?
[01:24:29]  Like the subsection C before the United States Supreme Court, the subsection C that is supposed to apply to financial crimes done by like Enron and Arthur Anderson can be applied to everybody on January 6th and Donald Trump can have a misdemeanor trumped up to 40 felonies.
[01:24:44]  That doesn't matter to them.
[01:24:46]  What matters is the representation.
[01:24:48]  Well, Michael, there was a woman, a solicitor that was arguing it before the court.
[01:24:51]  What are these details that they're talking about?
[01:24:53]  That's not just take the W, Duncan.
[01:24:58]  It's just lawful.
[01:24:59]  My DEIs.
[01:25:00]  Can I say that?
[01:25:02]  Can I say, oh, my DEIs, there's my DEI, Alvin Bragg.
[01:25:06]  There he is.
[01:25:07]  Is that how that works?
[01:25:08]  If she can adopt a white woman hair, can I adopt her black woman DEIs, my DEIs?
[01:25:13]  Is that, can that?
[01:25:14]  It's just a thing.
[01:25:16]  I think if you take a step back, it's just, it's deranged and disturbing of essentially you are doing everything you can to divide Americans.
[01:25:25]  That's the whole equity thing of being like, you know what?
[01:25:28]  I'm really happy that there's a lot of black people out here who can prosecute a white person.
[01:25:34]  This sounds like it's a very healthy thing to celebrate.
[01:25:37]  And then the rest of the people on the on the TV panel clap like SEALs.
[01:25:41]  Like, yeah, good idea.
[01:25:42]  Let's try to divide Americans by their race.
[01:25:44]  Hoats, pit them against each other.
[01:25:46]  This seems healthy.
[01:25:47]  But also can talk about their DEIs and the power that they're bringing in the same breath of condemning Clarence Thomas or Supreme Court, right?
[01:25:56]  It's like, no, no, no, it's not actually DEIs that you're concerned about.
[01:26:00]  It's progressive liberals that you're in any sort of form or shape.
[01:26:04]  And that's...
[01:26:05]  And how gross is she to bring Stephen Miller into it?
[01:26:08]  Stephen Miller, she's talking about America First Legal.
[01:26:12]  Yeah, I'm sure they did oppose the affirmative action program that was unlawful as held by the Supreme Court.
[01:26:17]  It's not Stephen Miller's fault.
[01:26:19]  It's the fault of the people who put it in place contrary to the Constitution.
[01:26:24]  You're not allowed to have that kind of a program.
[01:26:27]  And the Supreme Court's been telegraphing that it would go away for 20 years and now finally it has.
[01:26:31]  So, but no, for Joy Reed, it means he doesn't want black people at Harvard.
[01:26:34]  All the black people in the world can get into Harvard just as long as they can get into Harvard, Joy Reid.
[01:26:38]  That's it.
[01:26:39]  Have them get somewhat decent grades.
[01:26:41]  Right now, it's much easier to get into Harvard as a young black or man or woman than it is to be any other race, guaranteed.
[01:26:48]  So just stop, okay?
[01:26:50]  stop.
[01:26:50]  There's no problem getting black people to Harvard as long as they have somewhat decent grades.
[01:26:54]  She's a liar.
[01:26:55]  It's not not going to happen anymore because of Stephen Miller.
[01:26:57]  She just loves to gin up racial enmity wherever she can.
[01:27:02]  Yeah, I'd love to know her opinion on like a male Asian American getting into Harvard.
[01:27:08]  Yeah, I would happen to think her opinion might be a little bit different.
[01:27:11]  Certainly that's not DEI.
[01:27:12]  Nope.
[01:27:12]  No.
[01:27:14]  That one doesn't fit.
[01:27:15]  That doesn't qualify.
[01:27:16]  So the, I was going to show you this too.
[01:27:21]  Just talking about like the way the media is approaching the Trump cases.
[01:27:26]  That's her.
[01:27:26]  Like she's so proud that everybody's black involved.
[01:27:28]  All the prosecutors are black.
[01:27:29]  Yay.
[01:27:29]  Yay me.
[01:27:30]  That's what she's saying.
[01:27:31]  I mean, can you imagine?
[01:27:32]  It's like, seriously, think about if I were like, well, I'm just so proud that like all the whites are going after the blacks now.
[01:27:39]  It makes me feel so good.
[01:27:41]  That's very wonderful.
[01:27:42]  That's basically what she's saying.
[01:27:44]  It's like she gets away with it because blacks are 14% of the American population, but like virtually none of them feel the way she does.
[01:27:51]  Only lunatic white women on the upper west side share her views or in Seattle or San Francisco.
[01:27:56]  Just to speak for the black community, you know, I have actually many black friends and people in my life.
[01:28:01]  They'd be appalled if they saw that clip.
[01:28:03]  She's disgusting.
[01:28:04]  She gets away with it over and over because she's on MSNBC.
[01:28:07]  And I'm just sick of her nonsense.
[01:28:10]  And the same way defund the police polls.
[01:28:12]  Like if you ask black voters their thoughts on defund the police, they say without a doubt, absolutely not, except for the talking heads on TV and the white liberals in the Northeast and on the coast.
[01:28:24]  They're the ones who push this idea thinking, oh, you know, I want to be helpful to my DEIs.
[01:28:31]  So I think defunding the police is the way to do it.
[01:28:33]  100%.
[01:28:34]  Yeah.
[01:28:35]  Okay.
[01:28:36]  So here is George Stephanopoulos over the weekend trying to cross-examine Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, the governor who was behind Nikki Haley and now has said he's going to go with Team Trump.
[01:28:47]  I mean, he's a Republican.
[01:28:48]  And trying, I mean, we just put a montage together of the questions.
[01:28:52]  You tell me whether you think George Stephanopoulos understands the right half of America and came to this with a fair and impartial approach.
[01:28:59]  Watch.
[01:29:00]  Will your support for Donald Trump continue even if he's convicted?
[01:29:04]  Well, I'm asking you about right and wrong.
[01:29:05]  You think it's you're you're comfortable with the idea of supporting someone who's convicted on January 11th, 2021.
[01:29:12]  You said that President Trump's rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection.
[01:29:16]  So please explain, given the fact that you believe he contributed to an insurrection, how you can say we should have him back in the Oval Office.
[01:29:24]  Just to sum up, you would support him for president, even if he's convicted in classified documents.
[01:29:28]  You support him for president, even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection.
[01:29:32]  You support him for president, even though you believe he's lying about the last election.
[01:29:35]  You'd support him for president, even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case.
[01:29:38]  I just want to say the answer to that is yes, correct?
[01:29:42]  Yeah, me and 51% of America.
[01:29:49]  What a wonderful clip, Megan.
[01:29:50]  And basically, just a demonstration of ABC's deep and abiding commitment to DEI and everything it stands for by hiring a Democrat press secretary to once again anchor the news at their broadcasting network.
[01:30:04]  It's amazing.
[01:30:06]  Like he doesn't get it.
[01:30:07]  He doesn't get it.
[01:30:08]  Like the right half of the country doesn't see these things as rising to the level of criminality.
[01:30:14]  They haven't been treated as crimes when we've had these so-called insurrections by the Democrats challenging elections or turning over police stations, as we talked about earlier, setting them on fire, courthouses as well, all just completely ignored.
[01:30:27]  They're having trouble finding their outrage vein on these Trump behaviors because it's so one-sided.
[01:30:34]  Even the documents case, your guy did that too.
[01:30:37]  Your guy did that and he took the documents when he wasn't even President George.
[01:30:41]  I will say I don't think Sununo was all that effective in responding to it, but it was just a complete skewering by an unfair journalist.
[01:30:47]  And by the way, why don't Republicans keep going on these shows?
[01:30:50]  Because you're just there to be able to do that.
[01:30:53]  That's a better question.
[01:30:55]  I don't know the answer to that question.
[01:30:57]  I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody that I was advising.
[01:31:01]  Seems like Stephanopoulos has stepped on a lot of rakes lately.
[01:31:05]  By the way, he had that Nancy Mace thing, right?
[01:31:07]  And then now this thing.
[01:31:09]  But to the larger point here that he can't conceptualize.
[01:31:14]  It's sort of amazing to me.
[01:31:16]  I can only imagine what your information flow and your silo of information and socialization looks like when you can't understand, even if you are a Trump critic and you have had a huge problem with January 6th and you didn't like any of the post-2020 stuff and you don't like him personally and you think he's offensive,
[01:31:37]  but you're a conservative and you're a Republican and you're looking out at a absolutely feeble president of the United States that's running this country down to the ground domestically and abroad.
[01:31:48]  And you have a binary choice between the two.
[01:31:51]  I don't understand why it's from a conception standpoint.
[01:31:55]  Like, why don't you understand?
[01:31:57]  Yeah, Biden is that bad.
[01:31:59]  Well, he can't get it.
[01:32:00]  He's like, I talked to my friends at Soho House and I was at Dean and Deluca having a coffee and everyone said that like Biden's doing a great job.
[01:32:07]  Like in the Hamptons too.
[01:32:09]  Yeah.
[01:32:10]  Yeah, I also really love that the Protect Our Democracy coalition of Democrats and the media and the party like suddenly want you as a Republican to be like, no, you know, the voters who voted for Donald Trump in this Republican primary made him the nominee.
[01:32:26]  They're wrong.
[01:32:27]  You know what I mean?
[01:32:28]  Like it's actually profoundly undemocratic what they're hoping that they can convince some Republican talking heads to do.
[01:32:34]  Also, the same crew that expressed absolutely no outrage about the fact that this White House tried to cancel all of their primaries and just re-nominate the president of the United States.
[01:32:42]  Very pro-Democratic position, right?
[01:32:44]  Very profitable.
[01:32:45]  And remove Trump from the ballot in several states.
[01:32:47]  Very pro-Democratic.
[01:32:49]  But that's what you get when the internal conversations at your network look like the internal conversations at the DNC.
[01:32:57]  If you had half of that network who was Republicans, half of that network were Democrats, they would have internal fights to just to recenter the perspective of the way they're approaching the news.
[01:33:09]  They don't have that now.
[01:33:10]  There's nobody pushing back on him in the pre-meetings to say, hey, here's what half the country thinks, man.
[01:33:17]  You should really approach it this way if you want to actually get real news that the middle of the country is interested in.
[01:33:22]  They don't have any of that.
[01:33:24]  And it's the same problem that they have at NPR, they have at ABC, they have at NBC, they have at CBS.
[01:33:29]  There are no Republicans working at these networks.
[01:33:32]  And until they get at least half, I don't think Republicans need to go on.
[01:33:36]  I mean, I guarantee they patted him on the back after that.
[01:33:39]  They were probably doing high fives after that.
[01:33:41]  Oh, yeah.
[01:33:42]  You rocked it.
[01:33:44]  Just like the press secretary in Ilhan Omar's office pats her on the back when she goes on MSNBC.
[01:33:49]  It's the same concept.
[01:33:51]  It's a Democrat operation.
[01:33:52]  It's not a news organization anymore.
[01:33:55]  Yeah, it's just a perversion of all of these shows and the way that we cover news today on a lot of these networks.
[01:34:01]  Because, you know, I mean, look, you remember back in the day, Tim Russert himself, a former Democratic operative in many ways.
[01:34:06]  But when he got into that sort of prosecutorial back and forth, what it was always about in his era was trying to get answers for things he felt like people were obfuscating from.
[01:34:17]  It wasn't a partisan prosecution based on a point of view that only half of this country actually holds.
[01:34:22]  It was about trying to get answers on things like the Iraq war or things that were affecting this country.
[01:34:27]  And he was trying to just pin people down.
[01:34:30]  They have taken that model of a confrontational question and answer style to public officials and just layered on top of it absolute blatant baldface partisanship as what they're trying to get out of there.
[01:34:46]  The new model of journalism.
[01:34:48]  We've come a long way from Tim Russert.
[01:34:51]  I give you Gail King and Charles Barkley in their now defunct after six months show on CNN.
[01:34:59]  Look at a mashup here.
[01:35:01]  Like, there's so much noise coming out of DC.
[01:35:04]  How are you able to work your way through that every day?
[01:35:07]  Because you can also say he's a truth teller because when Bob Costa sat down in the seat, can I please get a close-up shot of my face?
[01:35:14]  He sat down and goes, God, that thing's getting bigger.
[01:35:17]  Look, it's getting bigger.
[01:35:19]  Hopefully, it won't get so big.
[01:35:20]  Do you ever just like, hey, you know what?
[01:35:22]  Can we just talk about issues and not talk about all the noise and the extracurricular stuff?
[01:35:27]  Yes.
[01:35:27]  If you have a disagreement with a co-worker and they start giving you the silent treatment, how do you handle that?
[01:35:33]  Personally, I, you know, I respond in kind.
[01:35:37]  If you give me the silent treatment, I'm going to pretend you don't exist.
[01:35:40]  I hear that you get a lot of questions from people talking about smelly co-workers.
[01:35:45]  You have to say something.
[01:35:46]  It's just like, excuse me, but are you dealing with something?
[01:35:48]  Do you have a hormonal issue?
[01:35:50]  Is the water not working at your home?
[01:35:52]  What are you telling me, Charles?
[01:35:54]  This will not be the last.
[01:35:55]  Just saying.
[01:35:56]  This will not be the last time that we're working together.
[01:35:58]  Call me, Gail.
[01:35:59]  Yeah.
[01:36:01]  I'm going to take the under.
[01:36:02]  Wow.
[01:36:04]  I'm going to take the under on that.
[01:36:06]  That show was on for six months.
[01:36:08]  For real?
[01:36:09]  Done.
[01:36:09]  They only had 14 episodes.
[01:36:12]  They were drawing an average of 459,000 total viewers, 100,000 in the key demo of 25 to 54.
[01:36:21]  That's a nightmare.
[01:36:22]  They were up against Gutfeld just for comparison.
[01:36:25]  That'll do it.
[01:36:25]  He's getting 2.2 million total, 320,000 in the demo.
[01:36:30]  Even Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC had 1.5 million up against this.
[01:36:34]  This was a nightmare.
[01:36:35]  Absolutely nobody watched it.
[01:36:37]  And the only thing CNN is able to say is it wasn't a failure because we attracted an audience that was 44% non-white.
[01:36:46]  Oh my God.
[01:36:48]  That's a metric for success.
[01:36:49]  That's it.
[01:36:50]  Well, that's amazing.
[01:36:51]  I was listening to, I'm kind of a fan of Charles Barkley and his NBA and basketball analysis.
[01:36:55]  And I was listening to a sports talk thing when this whole thing was announced.
[01:36:58]  And he's like, yeah, man, all my friends tell me this is a tremendous mistake.
[01:37:02]  I don't know.
[01:37:03]  I guess we'll find out.
[01:37:04]  And I was like, well, I guess you did, right?
[01:37:06]  I guess we did find out.
[01:37:07]  It wasn't.
[01:37:08]  It was a mistake to tell you.
[01:37:09]  Do you feel like people didn't want a close-up of Gail King's cold sore?
[01:37:14]  Is that what we were seeing there?
[01:37:15]  I don't know what she was calling attention to on her lips.
[01:37:17]  Tell me ill-advised.
[01:37:19]  I mean, they should be ashamed.
[01:37:21]  They subjected people of color to that garbage.
[01:37:25]  Enhanced interrogation or torture.

=== Sports Talkers Fear Agenda (01:09) ===

[01:37:28]  Depends on your feelings.
[01:37:29]  If they can't find good TV and are listening on NPR, now CNN is gone.
[01:37:34]  I guess it's back to Ruthless.
[01:37:36]  Guys, so fun talking to you.
[01:37:38]  You're the best, Megan.
[01:37:39]  Thanks for having us.
[01:37:40]  Thank you, Megan.
[01:37:41]  Oh, the pleasure is all mine.
[01:37:43]  Go check them out.
[01:37:44]  YouTube.com/slash Ruthless Podcast.
[01:37:48]  Well worth your time.
[01:37:49]  The laughs are always there and great info too.
[01:37:51]  Stay with us all week.
[01:37:52]  We're going to bring you the latest on the truck trial in New York like no one else.
[01:37:55]  See you tomorrow.
[01:37:59]  Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
[01:38:01]  No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
[01:38:27]  At the same time, Hilson Zweivessen.
[01:38:36]  Talk for obmax mappen.