Glenn Greenwald joins Megyn Kelly to dissect the Brown University shooting's unresolved camera gaps and critique a flawed VeriSight poll showing AOC leading JD Vance. They analyze Bongino's FBI exit following his Epstein suicide stance, Kash Patel's controversial girlfriend interviews, and Nick Reiner's arraignment. The conversation covers Vanity Fair photographer Christopher Anderson's refusal to retouch JD Vance's lip injections, the toxic harassment of Jeannie Beaman by Michaela Ponce, and dismisses New York Times reporting on Trump-Epstein ties as evidence-lacking activism. Ultimately, the episode highlights how modern political discourse often prioritizes performative outrage over factual integrity and genuine accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
Dear Bill Meffiler, the family for Tuxforschopping Center of Alt Dube Hover under Ed Talk and the Time Frontier.
Welcome into Tuxfor Schopping Center.
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
Oh, it's such a festive set here today.
We've got our twinkly Christmas trees, and I've got a sparkly Christmas shirt.
And it's happening.
I mean, it is like happening now, people.
Like T-minus, what, seven days?
What's today?
The 18th?
So, yeah, T-minus seven.
My gosh, are you ready?
I'm not 100% ready, but there's still time.
It's high noon.
And we're going to tell you why that term is in the news today.
It's amazing.
It's actually, I think, my favorite story of the day.
It has something to do with that viral video of the couple at the Cold Play concert last summer.
But on the news, there's a lot happening.
The shooter who killed two and wounded nine at Brown University Saturday, still on the loose.
Amazingly, the completely dark, shaded, unreadable video that they put out of the suspect hasn't ginned up any leads.
I know you're shocked, shocked.
And the authorities don't seem to have much more, although there is one glimmer of hope, and we'll tell you what it is.
Plus, it's AOC versus JDV in a potential preview of 2028.
Very interesting development here.
Here to talk about all of this and more is Glenn Greenwald.
He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and host of Rumble's system update.
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Glenn, so good to see you.
Love the fact that you are here today.
Good to see you.
I did not come festive.
I feel a bit like the Grinch after that big build-up you gave yourself about how Christmassy you are, but I'm gonna try and get in the holiday spirit.
Even if it's hardcore background, like I have about 200 sparkly little diamonds, fake diamonds on my black shirt makes me feel like I'm ready for Santa and some Nog.
Okay, so there's so many fun things that I want to go through with you.
I'm like, genuinely, some days you just wake up and the news cycle is amazing and then you see who the guest is and you're like, it's Mana from heaven.
This is exactly the man I want to be talking about.
Let's have so much fun.
Exactly, exactly.
All right, so let's kick it off with JDV versus AOC.
A poll comes out.
The Daily Beast published it.
New poll puts Dem Star ahead of Vance in 2028 Showdown.
Newsweek, AOC leads JD Vance for first time in 2028 election matchup, colon poll.
AOC retweeted the poll with just the word bloop, B-L-O-O-P, and an exclamation point.
Not really sure what bloop is.
It's awfully close to poop.
I'm not, I don't, or boom.
I don't know, pick one.
Bloop doesn't seem to work for me, but Grock says it seems to be a playful exclamation, like a light-hearted there it is, or mic drop.
Okay, so this poll had her up 5149 over JD Vance in a poll of 1,500 registered voters taken between December 5th and 11th in a hypothetical 2028 matchup.
Great.
So she's run with it.
She's enjoying the fact that she's beating Vance, and so is the mainstream media running with it.
We actually took a look at this poll done by argument/slash VeriSight.
And the first thing we do with any poll here at the MK Show is we go to 538, which is an aggregator of polls, and we see whether they use it.
Will they, because they exclude the least reliable polls, and it's not rated by 538.
It is not accepted by 538 as a legitimate poll.
New York Times as well says it does not meet their standards to be included in their polling aggregation.
It is not a traditional independent polling outlet like Gallup or Pew.
It is a media organization offering proprietary polling alongside its opinion journalism.
It's a DC-based media company that employs people like Matt Iglesias.
They say we make a positive, combative case for liberalism.
And VeriSight is their offshoot of the polling firm.
So this is not an objective poll.
You can be a partisan outlet like Fox and have an objecting polling outlet.
Fox does.
They have really good pollsters.
Doesn't sound like this is it.
But in any event, what do you make of bloop?
Like she's beating JD Vance in a head-to-head matchup.
And what does it tell us about whether she's likely to run?
You know, I've been doing journalism for 20 years now.
I've been paying, as a result, very close attention to politics.
And it's a passion of mine.
It's something I really love.
The very first thing that ever made me have like even a glimmer of wanting to turn away is the way in which Democrats have decided that because it worked for Trump, they're now supposed to be, you know, kind of like loose with their language and show how cool they are and how they don't speak like DC politicians.
They have all these consultants advising them on what to do.
And AOC is a particularly horrible case of it because, you know, when she was elected, she was 27.
It's like a very young generation.
She's now like heading into her mid to late 30s, heading into 40 years old.
And she's still trying on top of like that really cringy Democratic effort to sound, you know, like playful and relatable and cool to kind of have it infused with this very young internet jargon.
And it's just the worst of all combinations.
And I also don't understand why if you are, you know, like a liberal outlet, which of course this is, trying to produce polling numbers that suggest that someone who has no chance to be president could actually credibly run when it seems so counterproductive.
Like, why would you want to build up somebody with a fake poll who you know will get destroyed?
So, it just, the whole thing seems so bizarre to me.
It's very true.
So, she came out today and she was asked about it by Pablo Menriquez.
And listen to what she said.
This is from yesterday.
Just hit this morning.
Watch.
Do you think that you'll beat that you could beat JD Vance in the head-to-head race for president as polling suggests in 2028?
Listen, these polls, like three years out, are, you know, they are what they are, but let the record show.
I will stomp him.
I will stomp him.
Thank you, Congresswoman.
I would stomp him.
To your point, Glenn.
That's what I mean, Megan.
If I really have to continue to watch Democrats behaving in this manner, I don't know if I can take it.
Like, for as much as I love the work, it might actually make me just go and want to like open a car dealership or something because, you know, it would be one thing of like, that's really how she were.
That were really her personality.
She actually doesn't even have a personality.
Everything is just so contrived with her.
Like, was that funny at all?
Was that, was there anything, you know, like just smooth about that?
You know, it's just, I think that is the main problem is, is, is Democrat, the big problem that Democrats have is they stand for nothing.
And if you don't even have a personality, it's very hard to convince people that you actually have a submitted set of beliefs.
Well, like, even if you're, if you're, even if your personality is fake, it wasn't clever.
It wasn't.
She thought it was.
She was so pleased with herself.
Wait, what did you say?
Do we have a response to it?
We have a response to the video.
Oh, oh, okay.
Stand by.
Hold on.
My team's always giving me the latest, which I appreciate.
David Axelrod.
Oh, God.
He tweeted out.
He tweeted out, AOC has something you can't teach.
I mean, I think we can agree on that.
What that thing is, we probably disagree on.
I mean, here's what I take on it, Glenn.
She is all performative emotion, very little substance.
And JD Vance is literally the opposite.
He's got no performative emotion.
He's extremely measured.
Frankly, as a lot of kids who grow up in alcoholic or drug adult households can be, like one of the things they learn is to like tamp down emotions.
They're like Presbyterians.
I'm married to one, so I can make the Presbyterian jokes.
But they are emotionally regulated because you can only have one explosive personality in the house.
And most kids born to drug addicts, like JD Vance was, she wasn't a drug addict when he was born, but his whole life, they don't have, they're not prone to overly emotional outbursts like AOC is.
And so honestly, if you actually think it through, like her out on the trail with her screaming, there's so many videos of her screaming at the crowds.
None of JD ever performing that way.
He's clever.
He's measured.
He's funny, but he's always substantive.
He would eviscerate her.
It would be like a surgeon with a scalpel against like a fish flopping on the deck, unable to control its last few moments.
For a long time, I think the way people thought who were Republicans and on the right side, right-wing side of media, was talk about her as though she were some sort of radical, like some sort of far-left dissident, some sort of extremist.
And the first person who actually understood what AOC really is was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who never attacked her as a radical, but always attacked her as a fraud.
Somebody who was actually really nothing more than this empty careerist, this Democratic Party partisan.
She had like a little bit of flavoring of trying to sound like more on the left-wing side of the Democratic Party.
But very quickly, she just morphed into a Democratic Party operative.
And that's all she really is.
So whatever else is unique about her is just pure show.
Like that, it's like it's like a theater kid sort of behavior that draws attention to herself, but it's not because of any interesting or compelling or substantive ideas.
She's really, there is nothing radical about her unless you just think that ordinary Democratic Party politics is radical.
And then on the JD Vance side, I always wondered about JD Vance's ability to be a compelling politician because of that lack of kind of overt charisma.
And the thing that really convinced me that I don't think he'll ever be, obviously in comparison to Trump, that's, it's almost like a bar too high for anybody, or even like Obama or Clinton, like the great politicians.
He doesn't have that.
But when he debated Tim Waltz and he was able to modulate how he was speaking and conducting himself while at the same time being uncompromising on his views, knowing that it was America's really first impression of him.
And it was a very kind of, you know, he kind of sandpapered the sharp edges off and the ability to do that for 90 minutes, no matter how much they're trying to provoke you, while at the same time delivering your message effectively.
And I think the more he's on the national stage, the better he's going to get.
No Democrat, I promise you, wants 2028 to be JD Vance versus AOC, no matter how much AOC is doing her little fake dances for journalists when asked.
I coined the term congressional Kardashian.
That's what she is.
She's a congressional Kardashian.
And I will say this, I just saw JD Vance.
I told the audience about this earlier this week.
I saw him last weekend.
And can I tell you, Glenn, he's gotten a lot better at the, like he always had charisma, but like, I think he put up a wall.
You know, I've known him for a long time.
He put up more of a wall.
He wasn't really ready to let you in when he was younger.
He was more defensive.
Obviously, I'm a member of the press.
So we're used to people being defensive toward us.
Their instincts are dead on.
And, but he is totally different now.
I have to tell you, like he worked that room like Bill Clinton.
He like remembered everybody's names.
He said the information back to them.
He was inquiring about people's children by name.
He was looking right at everybody.
He was making everyone feel like they were special in not an artificial way, not like an Obama kind of way, but like a real, like a talent, like a political talent.
And I think he's grown into that.
And so my number one thought in watching him was he's using this vice presidency, not just to help the nation, but to help his own political skills.
He's clearly sharpened them.
Well, and I think also, you know, we have to remember that he is still quite young and he has had a lot of very kind of contradictory impulses, right?
Like he grew up as, you know, in the way that you described with a like a very, you know, familiar now, like working class family with addiction and all kinds of family problems.
And then suddenly he's in Ivy League schools and he's with Peter Thiel and he's, you know, in high finance in Silicon Valley, hating Donald Trump.
And then he starts, you know, evolving politically as well.
And sometimes it just takes a while in life to find yourself, like to feel comfortable with who you are, to really have a good sense of self-possession.
And that can take, you know, into your 30s or early 40s, which is where JD Vance is in life.
And I don't think that's a very uncommon evolution.
And I do think that you can see a kind of more greater comfort in JD Vance's own skin the more he kind of becomes convinced about the values he wants to pursue and the things he believed in.
Kamala Harris Nominee Entitlement00:08:53
I still think it's going to take a lot of work, given that people do have suspicions when somebody has had so many different kinds of manifestations of who they are and what they believe.
But he's obviously very skilled at expressing himself and at communicating.
And he has a lot of time to build that trust that the public needs.
Well, it'd be very interesting too to see him up against an AOC when they start talking about their personal backgrounds because AOC wants us to believe that she grew up the way JD Vance actually did.
You know, like she had it rough.
She came, she knows poverty.
She could barely get food onto the table.
Like these are lies.
It's bullshit.
And JD Vance's history is actually extremely tumultuous.
Middletown, Ohio is a working class neighborhood when he grew up in it.
It wasn't like he was not going to eat, but he did have Pepsi in his baby bottle.
I mean, he grew up in a way that is really not great and slept in his jeans, you know, read Hillebilegy.
He writes about how when he was at Yale Law School, he went to a party that they offered and like he didn't even understand.
I think it was, I'm trying to remember the analogy, but like they offered him maybe like Chardonnay.
He had no idea what they were talking about.
He did not understand the silverware on the plates, you know, next to the plates.
He really came from nothing.
And Miss, you know, it's literally saying, I could barely put food on the table.
That was all lies.
She grew up in Yorktown Heights, which is a lovely suburb of Westchester.
She lived in the Bronx for about two minutes.
So just from that standpoint, it would be fun to watch them on the, you know, destitution derby that these politicians always engage in.
Well, and also like, you know, she plays out that bartender thing, like being a bartender in Manhattan is not exactly like being on the factory line in the middle of like some, you know, Michigan assembly line, the way she likes to pretend it is, you know, like in your mid-20s, you're a bartender.
Most people consider that, you know, quite fun.
I think like, but I think like the Donald Trump appeal makes like illustrates a really important point.
I mean, Donald Trump didn't grow up poor.
His, his, you know, father was, was quite wealthy.
He was a real estate developer who was quite wealthy.
Nonetheless, the way in which he was kind of a real estate developer, you know, they lived in Queens.
The real estate that they had was not very glamorous.
And Trump was always looking at Manhattan and seeing this kind of, you know, glamour that he didn't have.
And when he got to Manhattan, he was always looked down upon because he came from the outer borough in Queens.
You need to live in New York to really understand that socioeconomic dynamic of how people in Manhattan look at the outer boroughs.
And that did develop in Donald Trump this genuine outsider resentment and mentality that I think is almost a prerequisite to being a popular politician in the United States and even in the broader West because of how much contempt people have for the elite class.
And if you seem like you're too comfortable within or that you really are more identified with that elite class and that you don't have that genuine outsider mentality, I think a lot of people are going to sniff that out and immediately kind of reject you.
I think it was Kamala Harris's big problem.
You know, I think I said on your show before, she always reminds me of somebody who just came out of like a board of directors meeting at like a health insurance company where she's the general counsel.
You know, like there's absolutely everything about her reeks of like insider establishment comfort.
And if you're JD Vance, no matter how you end up, and you know, I had a working class background as well.
I'm not comparing it to JD Vance's, but there's always a part of you.
You know, it's always something that you feel.
There's always a little bit of resentment in you that you grew up in a certain way and didn't have things that most other, that a lot of people, other people had.
And I think that is a prerequisite for being successful in American politics, given how much the establishment is hated in general.
All right.
Speaking of the Democrat HR meeting that Kamala Harris just walked out of, there's a headline that just broke before air by Shane Goldmacher in the New York Times.
The DNC is scrapping its report on what went wrong in 2024, Glenn.
Listen to this.
It's killing its autopsy of the 2024 election.
Ken Martin, the chairman of the DNC, said on Thursday he had decided not to publish a report.
So the report exists that he ordered months ago into what went wrong for the Dems last year.
Party officials have conducted more than 300 interviews with Democrats in all 50 states to create a document that Mr. Martin had once pitched as crucial to charting a path forward.
Mr. Martin will instead keep the findings under seal, saying he believes the following.
Here's our North Star.
Does this help us win?
If the answer is no, it's a distraction from the core mission.
So we don't get to know.
He knows, but they don't want to release it to the public.
And my only thought on this is, does it read at the top, Kamala Harris is a shitty candidate?
And he's like, holy shit, our entire base is black women who love her, but they're not enough to get us over the top.
We cannot put that out.
They really have dug their own grave.
And it was so obvious in 2024 what that grave was, which was they were between, you know, they were faced with two awful choices.
Either they went with Kamala Harris, who they, you know, everybody, it was a consensus until the day she became the nominee that she was one of the all-time worst politicians.
Every time she opened her mouth, she embarrassed herself.
Everybody understood that.
Everybody knew that.
Her 2020 campaign was a complete disaster.
She had every advantage and yet couldn't even make it to the first primary.
And then, of course, as soon as she becomes a nominee, everybody just in the media comes together and says, oh, no, this is one of the most exciting candidates ever.
Look, Charlie X or XC or whoever is like Brat Summer.
And this was going to, you know, take her over the line of victory.
But everyone in the Democratic Party knew she was a terrible candidate.
The problem was they couldn't pass over her, even though she was second in the line, because black women are an important part of their base.
And there'd be a lot of anger and a lot of resentment had they said gone to Galvin Newsome or some white man with whom they had a better chance of winning.
And have come up.
What's so amazing is so they took their medicine.
They held their noses and they swallowed their medicine like good boys and girls.
And now she's back.
She's not grateful that like, okay, we gave, she's like, yo, bitches, you only gave me 107 days because listen to what she said on a podcast this week, Sop 30.
You have said in previous interviews, your focus is on 2026.
You're not talking about 2028 yet.
But, you know, I have to ask you, are you thinking about 2028?
Do you feel like you have unfinished business that you want to do?
You could always break news at our table.
We'd love to have that.
I have not made any decisions about that.
Well, if you do make a decision, and whatever the decision that you make, there are going to be millions of people who will support you with whatever you want to do.
There's so much love for you.
And you're seeing it on your book tour.
So she didn't even downplay it.
She was like, haven't made a decision.
Like, that is leaving the door as wide open as one possibly can without saying, obviously, I'm doing it, Jamie.
I would bet any amount of money she's running.
And first of all, when she decided not to run for governor in 2026, meaning like that office is beneath her, that was already an announcement that she's running in 2028.
She certainly doesn't intend to disappear from political life.
That's for sure.
But the whole point of her book, starting with the title, as you just alluded to, was that the only reason I lost was not because I'm a terrible candidate, because I stood for nothing, because people don't really want to hear me speaking because they don't trust me, because I have no charisma.
No, it was because I only had 107 days.
And so if that really is in your mind, the reason you lost, which of course in her mind it is, of course you're going to then think, oh, but if I get to be the nominee, but this time with a normal amount of time, I'm going to roll over everybody.
And I'm sure that's what she's convinced of.
And, you know, again, going back to that problem that Democrats have, if Kamala Harris wants to be the nominee, there's going to be a lot of people on whom that party depends who believe that it is her entitlement.
And if she doesn't get it, there's going to be a lot of concern that those people are going to be so angry that they're going to stay at home and the Democrats can't win again with Kamala Harris or without the people who are going to be alienated if she's not the nominee.
FBI Investigation Incompetence00:14:26
It's amazing.
This is like, how lucky can the Republicans be that she won't go away?
She really believes she can do it.
And you're right, girl.
Do not let them crap on you.
You come back.
It was the 107.
If you had 108, could have had a different result.
You get in there and you fight.
You fight for your right to rule the party.
All right, I want to keep going.
Staying on hard news before we get to the really fun stuff, which I'm looking forward to.
We got to talk about Brown University and the shit show that is the police situation there.
Here is the one piece of good news.
They are saying now that they have DNA from the scene, like the killer's DNA.
They said for the first time yesterday that they have some DNA on shell casings.
Chief Perez said, told reporters that they have it.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity also said that the DNA as well as fingerprints came from the shell casings.
He just told reporters that they have DNA.
That's what the chief said.
And then on background, somebody else added, it's on the shell casings, which is great.
If that's true, that's huge, huge.
Fox News on Wednesday asked Chief Perez whether investigators were able to find live ammo on the scene.
And he said investigators were able to get physical evidence.
Oh yeah, we seized a few physical evidence.
This is his, these are his words.
And we're in the process of examining that evidence.
And yes, we have some DNA that we manipulated so it just progresses every day.
And so what that means is that they're now going to run that through the federal database of perps who are already in the system and see if there are any matches.
And if there aren't, then they're going to bring in a genetic genealogist like a Cece Moore who can take whatever DNA relational hit they might get.
Because, you know, if I commit a crime, but I'm not in the, I think it's called CODIS, the system that they have, they're not going to have a match.
But they might, if like my fourth cousin twice removed, if their DNA is in there, they might say, oh, this the killer's fourth cousin twice removed is in here.
And then you have a genetic genealogy come in here and like map out that person's whole family tree, start figuring it out.
It's investigative work and figure out like who could have been at Brown University on Saturday, December X, and so on.
So I do think it's great news that they have DNA and that hopefully will help us get a name and solve it.
However, if you have doubts, you are more than entitled because they really don't know what they're doing out there.
They announced yesterday, made clear, they haven't even interviewed all the students who were in the classroom where the shooting took place.
They announced that it was a review course for an exam.
So we're not sure who showed up and who didn't.
What?
Why wouldn't you just go to all students who take the class door by door and interview all of them?
Why is it like, gee, I don't know.
Listen to here to stop five.
Can you now explain to us five days later how many students were in that classroom?
Can you now say how many kids were in that classroom?
And did the guy come in from the back so these people never knew it was coming?
Or did he come in front with full view of everybody?
And that's all part of the interviews.
And actually, we're cooperating with Brown to get the roster.
That was a study hall, so we don't have the number.
We're still getting information as far as who was there.
I know Brown sent out an email to the students to notify us if they were present.
And we're still getting that.
So I can't give you an exact account now.
Well, Brown said on an email, Glenn.
So they're on it.
I think what's amazing here, Megan, is that, I mean, you know, any human institution, no matter how capable you think it is, is going to have incompetence, is going to have mistakes, is going to have failures.
And obviously that includes the police and investigators.
They make mistakes all the time.
But for a crime of this magnitude at one of our nation's top universities, for 11 people to have been shot, two of whom have been killed on campus, where everything is monitored.
There are cameras everywhere, or at least there should be.
It turns out apparently that there aren't for whatever reasons.
There's speculation about why.
When you see police incompetence on this level, it really is, it's alarming.
I think the other interesting aspect of it is, is because, you know, I've spent a lot of time in my work on things like mass surveillance and facial recognition and all the ways that we might be surveilled.
There's obviously real dangers to having mass surveillance, but in a case like this, you kind of wish that police were able to trace everybody's movements in a way that that's a lot easier.
And it kind of points to this conflict that we have.
But I think everybody finds it inconceivable, not that there's police incompetence, but that on a case of this magnitude, of this scale, at a place like Brown, it looks like the Keystone cops.
And you really do start wondering why, like, is this just really how incompetent they are?
Or is there something about this case and like the university environment and academia and all the values that we know prevail there that are causing impediments in the investigation that's making this incompetence worse?
I want like, it's amazing to me that they have not yet interviewed all the students present, the immediate eyewitnesses to the shooting, not only because they may have identifying information about the shooter, they may be able to actually clarify what he yelled, because so far all we've heard is from that one TA who said to me it was incomprehensible.
And to the students I know of, they couldn't understand what he was yelling either.
Maybe some other student has a different story.
And maybe a lot of these students record prep meetings.
They have like one of those newfangled apps that everybody has on their phone who are college students, Glenn, where they record these things.
And maybe one of those students has a whole recording of it and the police just need to find them.
Why wouldn't they get the full roster of 200 students and in one day knock on all of their doors?
This is so crazy.
Oh, well, they sent out an email.
Oh, well, great.
Okay.
Terrific.
Because the killer's on a loose.
So you might actually want to put pedal to the metal and get on this.
Now, there was another sort of heated moment where the Providence mayor, who's really just the worst actor, I mean, there's a lot to choose from.
The university president seems like a complete nimrod.
Not impressed at all with the police chief.
The AG is contradicting the Providence mayor, but the Providence mayor is the worst.
He is the worst.
And he's the one who's like, I don't think there's an ongoing threat.
Why not?
Well, because no one's been shot since Saturday.
Oh, okay.
Terrific.
I'm sure we're fine then.
He was asked a question about the lack of cameras.
And I have heard this from multiple people who I know who are like in the area and asking these same questions.
Whether the lack of cameras is somehow related to the fact that Providence is a sanctuary city and whether there was a conscious decision to take down some of the cameras or deactivate some of the cameras so as not to get alleged illegals on camera in a way that would be used by the feds or capturable by the feds.
This guy's going to ask this question.
It's hard to understand him, and I'm going to summarize it when we come back.
So just take a listen, see what you can glean, and then I'll clarify what he's asking.
His name is Chas Kalanda, and he's speaking to the Providence mayor yesterday.
Sanctuary city law that we have.
You don't want to recall illegal immigrants and you don't want to provide the footage to the FBI or immigration authority.
One camera and now the other.
It comes out from your detectives.
They are friends of mine.
They're angry at this investigation.
These people in Brown University put the camera off.
They can't identify that person.
You imagine how the family want to go through?
Tell the truth to the media here.
We can't put the cameras off.
We heard from both the Brown police chief and the provost of Brown who have shared that they have been fully cooperative and shared, been forthcoming with all data and evidence that they have.
Okay, but that doesn't answer the question.
Just to reiterate what the question was, because we went back and verbated it.
We have a sanctuary city law here.
You don't want to record illegal immigrants and you don't want to provide the footage to the FBI or immigration authorities.
One camera, and now it's come out from your detectives.
They're friends of mine.
They're angry at this investigation.
These people at Brown University put the camera out.
That's how he phrased it.
They can identify that person.
You imagine how the family is going through what they're going through.
Tell the truth to the media.
Put the cameras open.
So that was our best verbatim.
He's suggesting that they turned off cameras.
I've heard this from others on the scene that they believe Providence residents that some of these cameras were intentionally turned off for the very reasons that reporters stated.
Your thoughts on it.
Here's the thing.
So there's been a lot of speculation online about what happened at Brown and also what happened with the killing that some people think might be related of this nuclear physicist who was also killed in roughly this at MIT.
Exactly.
And a lot of the speculation, some of it turned out to be false.
Others of it turned out to be very unfounded.
And a lot of people are saying, not unreasonably, that one of the problems with this kind of online sleuth thing is that it often leads to politically motivated speculation or things.
Okay, I agree with that.
I do think that's an issue.
The reason that happens, though, is because of the inability or refusal of people in power and in authorities to answer the most basic questions, to give us the most basic information about a crime that, of course, is a great concern to huge numbers of people and ought to be.
And it's in that vacuum of like this evasive kind of answer, this refusal to give to give any kind of, to be accountable in any way that citizens start thinking, we can't trust the police.
We can't trust investigators.
They lied to us.
They're incompetent.
They cover things up.
And this is why you see so much of this kind of doubting, like with the Charlie Kirk shooting or with any kind of crime, any kind of major event where people no longer trust institutions of authority.
And I think in that exchange, you see the reason.
Like if that's the reason they turned off the cameras, say so.
Were the cameras turned off?
Like, why can't you just give straight answers on that?
And when we don't get those, that's when people start thinking, we have to figure out on our own and we can't trust the information we're being given.
And although it can be a problem because it leads to false speculation that spreads like wildfire, it's also the fault of the people who are supposed to be exercising this power responsibly when they do things that make other people lose trust in what they're saying.
Mm-hmm.
All right, I want to keep going.
There's a lot of news to get to.
Speaking of lack of trust, the FBI has been suffering that for many years now.
And the two people at the top of it under Trump are, of course, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who I think most Republicans, I mean, maybe not the establishment types, but most MAGA faithful supported going into those two top roles.
And then there was some real questioning after the Epstein debacle, both when the pair of them went on with Maria Berta-Romo and said they believe Epstein did kill himself and that there wasn't a murder and you just had to look at the tape from the prison cell.
And then even the left-wing media started to challenge that.
So there was a real crisis of confidence then.
Dan Bongino threatened to quit over his blowout with Pam Bondi, but he didn't quit.
He stayed.
And it's been a tumultuous nine, 10 months, I think it's fair to say, even for two guys who had previously been trusted by MAGA.
But there's no question there's been an erosion of that since they went on the inside, you know, as can happen, especially when you go to an organization that distrusted.
Now we get news that Dan Bongino's stepping down.
He sent out a tweet yesterday.
I think he said effective early January.
So he did not make it a year.
And now he's already getting some blowback.
This is what the left is saying, but this is the reason I'm playing this is you're also hearing this online from some on the right, which is kind of telling because I love Bongino and I've been kind of taken aback at like the, I don't know, the shift in opinion by some, even on the right.
But here's Nicole Wallace with her two cent take.
This guy is a freaking joke.
He wears t-shirts that are obviously too small.
And he went on Fox News and complained about how long the workday is as the number two at the FBI.
Do you think the FBI, as you two know better than anyone, protects children from child sex traffickers?
And on that topic, Dan Bongino had a successful podcast in part because he peddled conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein and then got to the FBI and let Pam Bondi roll over him when they decided to cover up the files because Donald Trump's name is in them, a fact confirmed by Susie Wiles this week in 11 on the record interviews with Chris Whipple.
I want to know if either of you can speak to the lasting damage or the danger that we're in because a guy that is a joke was the number two at the FBI.
Okay.
First of all, they did not let Pam Bondi roll over them.
She's their boss.
The FBI is not an independent agency that doesn't answer to anybody.
They answer to Pam Bondi.
If Pam Bondi directs the strategy that we're not releasing anything more on the FBI on the Epstein's file, then that is what Cash and Dan had to do.
I'm sorry that they were very outspoken on Epstein beforehand, but like to pretend that they had independent autonomy when DOJ, and frankly, let's face it, it must have been Trump's call, made a call is to ignore reality.
However, I'm going to give you one more soundbite, Glenn.
Pam Bondi Leadership Control00:08:45
And it is the moment you referenced when Dan went on Fox in May of 2025, SOT 20C.
I gave up everything for this.
I mean, you know, my wife is struggling.
I'm not a victim.
I'm not Jim Comey.
It's fine.
I did this and I'm proud I did it.
But if you think we're there for tea and crumpets, well, I mean, Cash is there all day.
We share our offices are linked.
He turns on the faucet.
I hear it.
He's there at, he gets in at like six o'clock in the morning.
He doesn't leave till seven at night.
You know, I'm in there at 7.30 in the morning.
You know, he uses the gym.
I work out in my apartment.
But I stare at these four walls all day in DC, you know, by myself, divorced from my wife.
Not divorced, but I mean, separated divorce.
And it's hard.
I mean, you know, we love each other and it's hard to be a part.
So she mocked him for it.
Many did.
But to me, that explains why he's leaving.
I mean, there's a thankless job where he's losing support even amongst the MAGA faithful because of the nature of the FBI and what I said with Epstein, even though I think Dan was very opposed to how it was handled by Bondi.
And I'm sure he, I haven't talked to him, but I'm sure he's like, this is a fucking thankless job.
I'm out of here.
I want to go back to my family, my wife, and my podcast.
So my question to you is: can he do that now, given some of those issues that I just highlighted?
I don't know if people realize Dan Bongino had his podcast on Rumble, where he's also a major investor.
And that podcast was, I mean, to call it a success is to wildly understate the case.
He was making enormous amounts of money.
He had a massive audience of people unbelievably loyal to him and loyal to him because of how much trust they had in him.
And one of the reasons they had so much trust in him was because he was such an emphatic critic of the deep state of these organizations.
And among the things he was telling them was that the U.S. government was concealing the Epstein files because it was trying to protect the world's most powerful people from being exposed as child predators because they know that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself and because Jeffrey Epstein had blackmail power over all these people and were therefore forcing them to keep these pro these files concealed.
This was not an ancillary issue for Dan Bongino.
This is something he talked about over and over and over.
And then also other things as well, you know, like the guy who killed Trump and all the stuff that supposedly was being covered up about that, none of which has been released under the FBI's leadership.
And so when you then, months into Dan Bongino's stint, watch him go on Fox and obviously in a very uncomfortable way say, we found no evidence of blackmail.
We don't think it's appropriate to release these files.
Please trust us when we tell you that he absolutely killed himself.
Obviously, the people who have been listening to Dan Bongino for all these years and believing that this is like one of the very few people who they could trust turn around and in an instant, as soon as they're inside, abandon so many of the core beliefs that they had been insisting were true is obviously going to erode the confidence and trust that people have in you.
And I also think one of the things that it's worth remembering, you know, we all have talents and we all have talents, which means we're not talented at everything.
Usually we're all talented at something.
And it's important to be humble enough to realize that because you succeed in one thing doesn't mean you can succeed in something in anything else.
Dan Bongino is a very effective outsider, like a very effective critic.
He brings people along with him.
Running the FBI is an entirely different skill set.
And I think a lot of people in the MAGA movement, because of how validly critical they were of these institutions, decided that the people who are there for their whole career, who have the quote unquote expertise, all need to be thrown out.
And I totally understand that and in part even agree with it.
But it doesn't mean that you can just pop up some guy who's a very talented podcaster and put him in this like administrative job that he obviously doesn't want to be in.
Like, sorry, but getting to work at 7:30 and leaving at seven o'clock inside an office, that is not exactly uncommon.
That's not a backbreaking job.
That's the experience of most Americans.
Like you go out to your office, you're separated from your family, your kids, because you're working.
Like Dan Bongino made it sound like this was, you know, he was like carrying the cross of the crucifix on his back for days.
And I just think it kind of illustrates that humility is needed, like to realize what you're good at and what you're not.
So I think, I think he didn't really want to do it.
That's what I think.
I think he didn't really want to do this, but he, I'm guessing here, I haven't talked to anybody about this, but I'm guessing that Trump thought he'd be the perfect person to do it, he and cash because they'd been so critical of the FBI.
So he found FBI critics to come in so that the MAGA base would trust the new leadership.
But then I think neither one of them fully appreciated, just like they didn't appreciate over at HHS or DHS or DOJ, the fact that these organizations are completely replete with leftists.
And it's very freaking hard to change the culture, to change the motion, the forward motion of these things in a leftist direction, just because you have leadership that's different.
They're trying.
They're definitely trying.
And so I've felt very much for both of them.
And I will say this, I think really the catching of the January 6th pipe bomber, you know, assuming this is the guy, which so far I believe it is, was huge.
Like I almost feel like if you're Dan Bongino, you can say, you know what?
It was a divine right order.
Like they put me in there because it seems like he really spearheaded that.
I did something that really mattered.
Who knows what this guy was capable of?
What if he had tried to bomb something else?
And maybe he saved lives.
You know, maybe he was there at that time, which was another one of his quote unquote conspiracy theories.
I'm not citing you there, but like another thing that people point to.
And he pushed it and he wanted January 6th pipe bomber found and he found him.
And maybe Dan just said, you know what?
I did something that really mattered.
You know, I let cops be cops again, as he in cash keeps saying.
And now I just want to get back to, as you point out, the thing that I'm great at and my family and government service is not for me.
Yeah, let me just say one thing, though, to, and it's not really like disagreeing per se, but I think just for me, at least a more precise way to explain it.
I don't think these institutions are filled with what I would call leftists.
Like I've never met a leftist who says my goal is to go work at the FBI or become like a CIA operative.
I think what these people are are more like establishment operatives.
They're like institutionalists.
These are people who want to protect the permanent power faction in Washington that's really not subject to elections.
And you can put people at the top who are determined to kind of blow it all up.
But, you know, being at the top doesn't mean that the entire infrastructure under you that's been cultivated for decades and these people are inculcated about how these institutions should work, they can easily resist, you know, the comings and goings of politicians.
Every American president has discovered that, that there's this huge part of Washington that they nominally control, but that don't, they don't really have any ability to change at all, no matter how much they want to.
And I bet you that was also part of Dan Bongino's frustration is you can get in there and say, okay, we're in control now.
We're going to fix this institution.
And yet, you know, you can't just get rid of the entire FBI.
There's experienced, you know, operatives in there and investigators, and they have like an ideology about how things should be done.
And they're not going to just instantly give up the power that they have and the ideology that they've been trained to have forever simply because a couple of guys at the top have been critics on a podcast.
And I'm sure that has to be frustrating to try and reform the deep state and find that you're actually not able to do so, even though you have a democratic mandate from the American people to do it.
And then you, and then you get what to me seems like a clear order from the president himself not to keep going on Epstein.
Oh my God.
It's a worst case scenario.
But by the way, I do believe, I totally agree with, and it's an important point about the FBI and more institutionalists, but I do know for a fact that over at DOJ, they're having a problem with actual leftists in the lawyer class up and down the ranks who will not just do what the leadership wants them to do.
And that makes sense, right?
You and I are both lawyers.
We know how lawyers are.
Okay, I want to keep going.
Katie Miller Dating Controversy00:02:14
Kash Patel went on with Katie Miller.
And again, I like Cash and he was just on the show two weeks ago today.
But while under fire for like paying too much attention to his girlfriend, Alexis, he brought his girlfriend Alexis and they did a joint interview, which I don't think was a great move.
Like I understand why Katie Miller wanted it.
That makes sense.
I understand why Alexis wanted it.
But Cash, like my advice to Cash, this is free.
Take it or leave it.
The romance should not be in the papers.
It should not be in the news.
It should not be on podcasts.
You know, it should just be off the radar because too much attention has been brought to it already because he's been flying around in the FBI playing playing to like go see her.
That was raised in the interview.
And here is what that sounded like, SOT 18.
This nonsense about, oh, you're taking a private jet.
We're taking the FBI plane because Congress 20 years ago said FBI directors are not allowed to take commercial air travel ever.
It's ironic that they're saying, oh, you're going on vacation or you're going to see your girlfriend perform.
And if I was actually abusing it, I would go see every one of her shows.
I think I get to like 15%.
Okay, I'm just going to give you one more.
SOT 19.
Just stand by.
SOT 19.
What's an area that you disagree with Cash on?
Oh, come on now.
Oh, no.
I think that it's really in like random things like I don't like spice and he does.
Like I like spice.
I just, I can't handle spicy foods.
I'm trying.
I'm working on it.
Like I said, I'm Mediterranean.
So I have it in me.
I just, I need to get there with it.
No, the going out, the going out to eat is hilarious because I'm Hindu and I don't eat beef and she has a really significant seafood allergy.
So when we sit down at a dinner table or go to an event, we have to like make sure we've provided these instructions.
And so then when we're out to dinner at a nice dinner, she'll order like a steak, which is great.
And then I'll order like the seafood and everything else.
And it's like on a divided line, like it can't cross over.
But we make a really good surf and turf team at like events.
If it's like, hey, it's going to be steak and lobster.
Like that's great.
Perfect.
Just different plates.
Private Christian University Issues00:02:40
Divvy us up.
Like we're, we're happy.
It's less than ideal, Glenn.
It's less than ideal when they're already in the news.
Well, let me just say, first of all, I'm uncomfortable with this whole Katie Miller podcast, not because I don't think she should be able to have a podcast.
She's, you know, perfectly entitled to one.
She, she, she, before the Trump administration was doing this sort of work, it's not like she just invented this.
At the same time, her husband is, I would say, the most powerful person in the Trump administration.
Wait, do me a favor.
Do me a favor and like hold that point right there.
So at the same time, Stephen Miller is one of the most powerful people because I got to hit this hard break.
And we'll come back right after Glenn, lucky for us, is here for the whole show.
What a great Thursday.
Don't go away.
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Glenn Greenwald is back with me now.
He is the host of Rumble's system update.
If you want to get smarter, listen to Glenn.
Glenn, you were saying you have a problem with the podcast because Katie Miller's married to one of the administration's most powerful people, Stephen Miller.
Right.
Stephen Miller White House Power00:14:42
And so, first of all, I'm not even sure that people who get invited onto Katie Miller's show really feel the ability to say no, given the power that her husband has.
But also, I don't have any problem with partisan media.
I used to compliment you on the fag of audience, and yet you would interview Republican and conservative politicians as a journalist, like in an adversarial way.
This podcast is not designed to do that.
It's almost like a form of state TV, but then it doesn't like it tries to personalize these people.
Like the last one she had before Cash and his girlfriend, she had a Mike Johnson, and for some reason, Mike Johnson's wife.
Like, there's a lot to ask Mike Johnson.
He's the speaker of the house, but maybe she's trying to do a softer job.
You know, there's like a million angles of Mike Johnson being asked tough questions.
She's trying to do like a more softer side.
I know, but like, you know, I ended up learning that like the person who wears the pants in the family, as they put it, the one with the veto power, the one who makes all the decisions, is Mike Johnson's wife.
And I'm like, why am I listening to this?
But that doesn't mean it's not for anybody.
By the way, I, I mean, Mike Johnson is actually quite funny, and I think showing his softer side and like his personal side might be of interest to some people.
I like Mike Johnson too.
I just don't know why I have to hear the details of you don't have to.
Don't click on her face.
Telling his girlfriend.
Like, and that is even something.
Oh, man.
Glenn, your connection is struggling.
We're like, struggling.
Okay, but like, that's fine.
But the speaker of the house is the FBI director.
And I get what you're saying.
Like, not everything has to be very substantive.
And these are people who have, you know, personal lives and private lives.
It just all seems a bit incestuous because it's Katie Miller.
So it's just, it seems very propagandistic to me.
It all seems like designed to promote these people and not really get to know them.
Well, I mean, you can know that.
You know, I mean, Laura Trump has a show on Fox.
So, of course, you go on with Laura Trump, who I love.
Obviously, you know, you're not getting an objective interviewer, but so you take it for what it's worth.
You know, you take it with that grain of salt.
But it's no different than you'd see over on MSNBC where they're more in the tank for the Democrats than Katie Miller is for the Republicans.
You know, it's like she's doing a different thing over there when it comes to like hard versus softer news, which is fine.
I guess.
I mean, but like, but you were even making the point, you know, like Kash Patel and his girlfriend and their relationships.
A lot of people have talked about that.
That's not Katie Miller's fault.
That's like Katie Miller wanted to do that with her show, which is like, okay, great.
And Cash, but Cash should have said no, in my view, not because Katie's inappropriate, but because there's too much news already about Cash and his girlfriend, which I'm sure they would love to put.
Could you say no?
I would love that to go over.
Can we say no?
Can you say no?
Like, isn't the weight of our husband behind her?
I'm not even saying that you're using that.
That's an answer.
I'm just saying, like, I take it.
I feel like there's a dynamic there that is, you know, her husband doesn't just work in the White House.
I do think he's the one who Trump listens to more than anybody.
Well, let's hope so.
Stand by.
I want to play a little bit more from Cash and Alexis on the show.
Watch this.
So what's the ideal date night?
Staying in.
Yeah, I was going to say at this point, probably like doing nothing.
Sitting on the couch, watching whatever, sleeping.
Our favorite restaurant is Mizumi in Las Vegas.
We go there as often as we can, but Las Vegas has the best food in the country, so we're spoiled in that matter.
But DC, I don't know.
What do you like?
How do you keep your personal relationship strong when so much of what you do during the day isn't discussed outside of, you know, a classified setting?
She has this great ability to not only never ask me about my job, but never care to because she knows we're not going to discuss it.
What's the most important meeting she's ever called and you stepped out of?
I've never had to step out of a meeting because if it was an emergency, I obviously would.
I really never had to do that.
I think I had to call you during a dinner, though, when I cut my finger open.
Oh, yeah, there was that.
I did.
That was.
I was, yes, I was not in D.C.
And she informed me she accidentally cut her finger open.
And I said, okay, are we getting stitches?
Are we at the hospital?
Are we good to go?
And her mom was sending me funny texts, and I knew it was fine.
Yeah.
Have you written any love songs about Cash?
You know what's funny?
I don't think anyone's ever asked that.
Yeah, I have.
Okay.
So again, this is my advice.
This is my free advice that they are free to ignore it.
But I think, and I believe they're in love.
I actually think they'll wind up married and it'll actually be quite sweet.
And good for them.
It's hard to find love in Washington.
But, but since she's so much, like this relationship has been too much in the news and it's undermining Cash now.
It's undermined.
I know he doesn't like that because he loves her and he's been defensive of her, which is also sweet.
But I think she, no, she should be off air.
It should be just cash.
And if he wants to personalize himself by going on a softer interview, you know, format, that works.
That's good.
But this is calling too much attention to something that's already become an Achilles heel for him.
The right doesn't like it.
Go look at Twitter.
Go look at X. Like there are no positive comments about it.
So that's fine.
We may not like reality, but we should accept reality and just keep the private life private.
Keep it over there.
Stop talking about it.
Stop making news on it.
You know, people are going to try to make news about every time he goes to visit her for a concert anyway.
There's no reason to like lean in.
Yeah, I mean, I do think part of the issue is that it is different.
Like Mike Johnson and his wife have been married 20 years.
They have seven kids.
They adopted two.
They have five biological kids.
You know, so I think people are more open to the fact that, you know, if you want to know Mike Johnson, you kind of have to know his family and his wife.
Like that is an important part of a politician's public profile.
A girlfriend is different.
They're young.
There have been, and even though, yes, it is true, he does have to fly on the FBI private plane.
When you have enemies inside the FBI, as we just talked about, resisting his reform and they're leaking things like he's constantly taking his private plane to Las Vegas.
He's constantly taking it to Nashville to see her shows.
I just, as you said, it just rubs people the wrong way when people are economically struggling, when there's already a perception that people in the political class live this way.
And I agree with you.
It's a poor decision to go in and do it.
But I do question whether he felt kind of compelled.
It just, I don't know.
That's an interesting record.
I'm not the person who's not going to be able to do that.
I think they should follow the Doug Brown.
I don't enjoy listening to those clips.
Doug's family, when he was younger, before we had met, they would take a big trip every year, like a big family vacation.
And their rule when their kids, they had four kids, Doug's one of four.
Their rule when the kids started to get in their 20s was no one can, no significant other can come unless you're at least engaged.
Because they didn't want the cast of girlfriends or boyfriends temporarily coming with their family on like their biggest memories and biggest vacations.
And that's probably not a bad rule for administration officials.
Like don't for an interview, like don't bring the person in for an interview if they're not, if you're not at least engaged, because you're probably going to take a lot of shit.
And God forbid they break up.
It's going to get even worse.
But I don't think they will.
I actually think they're a very sweet couple.
My money is on them getting married.
But okay, let's move on.
And all the best to them because I am rooting for them.
Okay, where do we go next?
Oh, let's spend a minute on Rob Reiner.
There's really not a lot of news in that case today.
Nick Reiner was arraigned.
He was brought in.
He was charged officially.
And the judge confirmed that he had waived his right to a speedy arraignment.
And they continued it till January 7th.
He was wearing a suicide smock, they called it.
We weren't allowed to see him in court.
And then his attorney, Alan Jackson, who's like a famous attorney, came out after the fact and called the whole situation very complex and serious.
Let's allow the system to move forward in a way it was designed.
No one understood exactly what he was telegraphing, but he wants you to know this is very complex.
Is it?
And then there was this, which I thought was worth playing.
Wall Street Journal reporter John Juergenson had an interesting report yesterday on the party at Conan O'Brien's the night that Rob and Michelle were killed.
They had been there and they had brought their son Nick, who by all accounts had been acting inappropriately.
And he filled in some of those details in this report, which he then spoke about on CNN, SOT3.
During the party, he was approaching people there asking questions that in that context seemed confrontational, strange, especially, are you famous?
Asking people out there, are you famous?
So you can imagine a party of actual famous people and famous Jason people who are really used to strange behavior out in public, but here they are at a gathering of their peers at a party hosted by Conan.
It was unsettling to some.
So Bill Hayter was one of the people he approached at the party.
There was an awkward exchange made more awkward by the fact that he had met Hayter earlier in the night.
So when Prue Rob had introduced him, so when he came up and asked him questions such as, what's your name?
Are you famous?
It was unsettling and described as scary from haters' perspective.
So think about it, Glenn.
It wasn't just this guy hater, but apparently Nick was going up to all these famous people, if you listen to the longer interview, all these famous people at Conan O'Brien's house.
And he was making the point, the reporter there, that, you know, in a room full of famous people at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party, it's very strange to keep asking people, are you famous?
Right.
It's one thing if one famous person shows up at a party of non-famous people and then meets somebody who doesn't know who they are and the person says, oh, are you famous?
You know, like that's happened to all of us.
Actually, funny story, just as an aside, Doug and I one year, we went to the Met Gala.
We were, we went to the after party after we went to the gala.
We're standing in the red rope line waiting to get into the after party.
We're speaking with this young woman.
And, you know, one thing leads to another and it's pretty clear that she's some sort of an athlete.
I'm like, oh, what do you do?
She goes, I play soccer.
I'm like, oh, are you any good?
She's like, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty good.
That woman was Alex Morgan, who is in fact very, very good at soccer.
So I'm just saying sometimes you meet somebody who's famous.
And if it's not in your wheelhouse, you don't know.
That's not, that's not what was happening with Nick Reiner.
He was behaving weirdly and inappropriately.
And it just sort of sets the stage for his bizarre behavior that evening, but not so bizarre.
He's going to get off on an insanity defense.
So I haven't had the chance to ask you about this whole case.
Where are you on it?
What do you think of it?
Well, because of my husband's political career, I used to be at parties all the time with like big Brazilian celebrities who I don't actually recognize.
And probably Brazil's most famous singer came up to me once and said, oh, I'm so happy to meet you.
I really respect your work.
And I said, oh, what do you do?
Just to get it off me.
I was like, do you work for this political candidate whose event we're at?
And he's like, no, I'm in music.
And I pictured him like, you know, kind of playing like the, like a clarinet on the corner.
And then my husband was dying of embarrassment.
And he interrupted.
He's like, Caetano, I'm a huge fan of his name is Caetano Velozo, like the most famous musician in all of Brazil, kind of like the Michael Jackson or Bob Dylan.
I was like, what do you do?
Do you like or do you work?
Yeah, it was horrible.
Anyway, I think, you know, one of the things I think is interesting about this case is that a lot of American families suffer from addiction.
It used to be a lot more stigmatized than it was in the sense that people really thought it was like a moral failing.
And here you see, you know, the son of an extremely famous, wealthy person who, by all accounts, was like a very dedicated father and his wife, a very dedicated mother doing everything they could for this kid and then even into adulthood to save him in some way from addiction.
And as so many American families have experienced, like sometimes that demon is the hardest one to battle.
And I think it's a good reminder that it cuts across all socioeconomic lines.
And then I also think there's this sort of interesting aspect, you know, if you're poor and you're trying to raise kids, that's very difficult.
But sometimes if you're very rich and your kid is born into great wealth, that also can be very difficult because they might not have motivation.
They might, you know, feel like too heavy of an expectation.
I think there's a lot of things in this story, kind of like as a morality play that Americans can learn from.
And especially when it comes to addiction, because of what a pervasive problem it is for families across the country, I think every time there's a story that involves addiction, it can be important to kind of break down the stigma and create some empathy for families who, you know, might feel like it's their fault, but in reality, it's something that, you know, infects so many parts of society.
And it sounds like Nick Reiner had some significant mental health issues prior to the addiction, which, you know, from all accounts, like by age 10, we're really manifesting in the family.
It's a nightmare.
I mean, what do you do with a child who is mentally disturbed in a way that they have really upsetting social behaviors, but they're not committable.
It's not at that level.
They haven't broken the criminal law, so they're not going to go to jail.
They're just going to be dependent on you in an upsetting and disruptive, negative way forever.
I mean, that's a curse.
That is why you sit around, if you're lucky enough to have healthy children and look at your life and say, thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God, for giving me three healthy children.
And it's not saddling me with that burden.
I feel like the Reiners got saddled with that burden.
That's how it looks to me.
Kiss Cam Mishandling Scandal00:15:19
Yeah.
And like in their situation, it's like impossible to know what to do.
You can like let them end up on the street and be homeless, but you're still your kid.
Like you love him.
You've raised him.
He's your ball, you know, your family.
But then if you let them stay in your guest house and support him, are you like enable?
It's just such an awful dilemma.
And to go through that for so many years and have your payment be that in that manner at the hands of that person, it's like uniquely sickening.
And so sad because Rob Reiner was 78.
His dad, Carl Reiner, also famous, or Rob had been in a similar situation to that of his son, lived to 98.
You know, I mean, he clearly had some good genes, even on the male side, which is rare.
And who knows how much longer he could have lived.
You know, the other two children seem to be madly in love with their parents.
And there's a third child too, a first daughter that he adopted when he's married to Penny Marshall.
So, you know, your heart has to go out to them.
All right, I want to keep going because there's a lot of other stuff we want to get to.
And this is the story that I've been waiting for.
The Cold Play Kiss Cam lady has decided to speak out.
And the headline is, she's the victim, just in case you didn't know.
She's the victim.
We made her the victim.
She really, she did something very minor that was wrong, but it wasn't really that big.
People are nasty and they need to stop harassing her.
The only part of that that I agree with is people should stop harassing her.
Apparently she said some in-person and like nasty writings and so on.
That's unnecessary.
But the rest of us are fully free to comment on her behavior and she's going to have to deal with it because it happened.
It happened on camera and it wasn't well handled.
So she has sat, she has now sat with the New York Times and also with The Telegraph, I think, or no, Times of London for dueling interviews.
She sat for an entire day with the New York Times and Lucy Liu, who writes, okay, about how, okay, Cold Play Kiss Cam HR boss Kristen Cabot on 16 seconds that ruined her life.
And this whole piece is an attempt, I think, to shame us for shaming her and to talk about how she's been sort of slut shamed and also to paint it as totally unfair because according to Kristen Cabot, when she got caught on the Kiss Cam with the, with her boss of this company, Astronomer, she was head of HR, that her sin was simply, quote,
I made a bad decision and had a couple of high noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss.
And it's not nothing.
And I took accountability and I gave up my career for that.
That's the price I chose to pay.
You did not choose.
It was not your choice.
I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes and you can really screw up, but you don't have to be threatened or be killed for them.
Well, obviously that last line is true.
But she's trying to turn this into like a heroic moment for her.
First of all, it's too soon.
We're still too fresh on the mind.
You have demanded that we restore you to your pedestal in life before we're kind of over what we saw.
And second of all, I don't believe you that you were both separated when that happened at all, which seems to be her main defense, Glenn.
She says she was separated from her husband.
And the reason she recoiled when the spotlight, the kiss cam was placed on her and this astronomer guy, the CEO, was that her soon-to-be ex-husband was in the audience that night at Cold Play and she didn't want to humiliate him.
And you have to go like halfway into the New York Times article, which is lengthy, before they even mention the fact that her boss was also married.
And that was the focus of the outrage.
It only came out weeks into it that she too, Kristen Cabot, was also married.
And it did come out at that time that they were in some sort of a separation.
But the boss was not separated, even though he now claims that he was.
I don't believe him for one second.
What his wife did when the story broke was to take down her socials, to change her last name back to her maiden name immediately on some of her socials.
And you know, here's the most telling part.
You know what the boss didn't do?
His name is Andy Byron.
You know what he didn't do when the scandal broke and he was about to get fired and he'd been publicly humiliated?
He did not release a statement saying, my wife and I are separated.
That is literally all he had to do for me to believe him.
But he did not do that.
And his wife did not do that.
By the way, there are reports that they are together right now.
They are still together.
So I don't believe that he was separated.
I accept that this gal, Kristen Cabot, was, but that was the scandal, that it was a cheating situation as called out by Chris Martin when we all saw their reaction.
We should play the video just so we can remind people how it looked.
Here it is.
Look at these.
Okay, there.
All right, come on.
You're okay.
Either they're having an affair or this is very shy.
Either they're having an affair or they're very shy.
Okay, so your thoughts on Kristen Cabot trying to rehabilitate herself.
I don't know how many months is it that happened in July.
So what, five months after the event?
I'm a little conflicted on this.
I don't know if we see this the same way.
I think the thing that was most bothersome was that she's head of HR.
And that's a job where you're supposed to be enforcing rules of workplace propriety.
And so for all, for all the people who might, you know, be having an affair with their boss to have it be the head of the H HR, who a lot of you, like, there are few worse people in general.
I don't mean to like overly generalize, but usually like HR managers are the worst.
Like those are the people who are just constantly like monitoring you and like pretending they're trying to support you.
And in reality, they're really just working for the corporation to protect the corporation against you.
So I think a lot of the sh yeah, yeah, for anything.
I think a lot of the shot and Freuda is from people's experience with HR and the fact that she was an HR manager.
I do think there's a question when there's a married couple and then there's a woman who ends up having sex with the man in that married couple.
Who actually bears most of the blame in that situation?
Like to me, it has always seemed like the person in the marriage who has promised the fidelity is the one who bears most of the blame and not the woman who doesn't have a similar commitment.
And then, you know, we also disagree with that.
Person who's breaking the vow has to answer to the person they made the vow to.
That's really the main sin.
Right.
And a lot of times we don't know what's taking place in other people's marriages.
I mean, the fact that they are still together might signify that for whatever reason, she, the wife, had didn't react in the way that other people reacted on her behalf.
And then why did she change all her social media then?
I mean, she clearly did have a reaction to it.
Right.
She was probably embarrassed.
Yeah.
And it was a very embarrassing situation.
Like, I don't blame her for wanting to distance herself.
But the fact that she's still with him, who knows why?
And then finally, we have a lot of people in very, exactly.
Probably that's one of the reasons.
But then they're also like, there are people in very high political positions that we elect and that we let lead us these days who 40 years ago would never have been even remotely conceivably possible.
Gary Hart got driven out of the 1998 1988 race when he was discovered having an affair with Donna Rice.
Probably for anyone younger than us, that's old.
That's things they've never heard of.
And yet, you know, you fast forward it and you have people like Bill Clinton who gets reelected and Donald Trump who has had his own very public adulteries and affairs and overlapping sorts of people.
Totally.
Just makes me start to wonder, like, why are we so obsessed with that couple and shaming them when the Maurys have clearly changed the people who have a lot more power and influence than they?
Okay, so it's interesting.
I mean, like, you're not wrong that they hold women to different standards than they hold men to, like the public.
And that's wrong.
I mean, a shitty marriage can lead to infidelity on either side.
And not to quote Woody Allen, but I am going to quote Woody Allen, who I don't believe did anything to his daughter Dylan at all.
These are lies that were made up against him by Mia Farrell, who was trying to manipulate her daughter to avoid losing custody during a divorce and to hurt Woody.
But in any event, he did have an affair with and fall in love with and then marry Mia's adopted daughter, Sunyee, when she was young.
She was, I don't know, 19.
The heart wants what it wants.
So these, you know, it is true that couples in bad marriages sometimes make bad decisions.
And this only became the public's business because they were caught on the cold play kiss cam.
I guess what I think they should have done is just come out right away.
Like come out right away and give, just give an interview and don't have even a hint of a tone that you're the victim.
Just come out and say, I'm totally humiliated.
I shouldn't have done it.
And she is calling herself out for being the head of HR here.
She acknowledges that's bad to be with the head of the company.
But I mean, I had a couple of high noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss.
And it's not nothing.
It's not nothing.
But I mean, come on.
Like that.
Now that is downplaying what happened.
And I will tell you just from talking to other women, they get very angry when they see this kind of thing because they start to picture their own husband up there with another woman.
And even though the husband made the vow, they start to think about like, well, who's working against me and how?
Without thinking about their own role in sending the marriage south to where the husband would be potentially in a position to want to look at another woman, right?
And it's like, it raises very complicated feelings for everyone involved.
People look at it through the prism of their own lives and what has either happened in their own lives, what they've done, what their spouse has done, what they fear might happen.
And I think that's where the kind of, that's why some of these things resonate.
I guess all I'm saying is that the public morality being imposed on them seems inconsistent for me with the public morality that we've kind of allowed to take root, where we know that a lot of people with a lot of power in politics or in business do this and far worse.
And I'm going to the conclusion as a society.
That's not our business.
Let me ask you a question.
Is it because of the way they reacted on cam?
Like they telegraphed shame immediately, which is something Trump has never done.
Right.
Like I think that that changed the way we all felt about it.
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
They exactly.
I think that's, you're absolutely right.
I thought about it that, but I think that's exactly the key to it is that they, and Chris, Chris Martin noticed it right away, right?
He said, oh my God, look at how ashamed they are.
Like they must be doing something wrong.
So if they react like they're doing something wrong, of course the public is going to say, oh, yeah, they've done something wrong.
And so I do think that's the part where like either you do this behavior and you say, look, this is my life.
This is my choice.
This is not your business.
Or, you know, if you're going to act like you just got caught doing something terribly wrong, don't be surprised when everybody else sees it the same way.
And I think that is the key to why that became such a big story.
I think you're very right about that.
She's now trying to turn it around into like an example for her children.
I don't know.
I think leave the kids out of it.
Just keep out of it.
Like that's just meant to humanize her in the public's eye.
Like she's really, she's trying to play up the death threat she got.
She's trying to play up like certain people have said something to her, like she alleges at the gas station, some woman was like, oh, how can you live with yourself or whatever?
Okay.
When you are embroiled in a public scandal, people are going to react.
Like that's modern day America 2025.
And for whatever reason, her moment was caught on tape.
She's going to have to live with that.
Yeah, I can't stand when people act like that is something that has only happened to them.
You know, if you're at all in the public realm, and I guess in defense of her, like they didn't choose to be, although if you, you know, if you want to do that, go to a place that's private.
Keep it behind closed.
You can do it with cold play concepts.
Everybody in the public.
Exactly.
But if you're, you know, if you're in the public realm, you're going to get people angry at you.
You're going to hear terrible things said about you.
And so often, like, we all know this happens, you know, to any of us in the public realm.
And I really can't stand when people whine about it as though they're uniquely victimized by it, especially when they've made a choice to enter the public realm and to do that.
Like there's benefits from having a public platform and that's one of the costs.
And just accept that and stop whining about it because it happens to everybody.
Totally.
In my own case, if somebody says something nasty to me, I usually just blow them off.
Or if they're particularly aggressive, I'll shoot a remark back.
But I don't take it any further than that unless they actually physically threaten me or my family.
And then they're going to get a visit from the cops.
But that's my general rule.
Like, and if they're truly nuts, then they're going to get a restraining order against them.
Like you have to assess whether this is an actual threat to you and your family or whether this is just some critic, which is like, if you're in the public eye, you have to take criticism.
You have to take pot shots.
Sadly, it's part of the deal.
Like toughen up, get a thicker skin.
And unfortunately for this woman, her bad moment, you know, her bad decision was caught on camera.
That wouldn't have happened had she kept her bad decision private behind closed doors, like civilized people having at affairs, like in a dark corner of some bar, not on the coal play kiss cam, something with which she's always going to be associated.
Okay, so that was it.
She's back and she really, really would like us to know she's not exactly sorry, but she's kind of pissed off at the rest of us.
Epstein Photographer Disingenuous Claims00:14:52
All right, stand by.
We have to take a quick break and then we're going to be right back more with Glenn Greenwald.
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Glenn Greenwald is back with me.
Glenn, the news is breaking right now from the New York Times on Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
They think they've got him this time.
They've really got him this time.
Here are some highlights.
Hold on a second.
My team's sending me the name of the article.
It's Don's Best Friend, How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women.
And left-wing X is going nuts over what's in this article right now.
Here are some highlights.
The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse, and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years.
Again, I feel the need to point out victims of his abuse gets used very loosely by everyone about Jeffrey Epstein.
Who?
Have their claims been proven in a court of law or otherwise?
Like, we don't know.
They continue to just accept like certain women who are adults who were allegedly, quote, molested by Jeffrey Epstein when they were 22.
This is tricky.
In any event, that's what they say.
An examination of their history by the New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein's abuse and trafficking of minors.
Okay, that's great.
That seems like an important thing to remember.
During a flight together in the early 1990s, Mr. Trump came on to another Epstein employee traveling with them, telling her that he could have anyone he wanted, according to a different Epstein worker who learned of the incident.
A separate Epstein employee from that era recalled, Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards to Epstein to peruse like a menu.
Okay.
So he sent over modeling cards to Epstein and he said on a plane that he could have anyone he wanted.
Got it.
A few times a week, the phone would ring in Mr. Epstein's office.
Trump would be on the line.
On one occasion, recalled an Epstein assistant from the mid-1990s.
Mr. Trump refused to give any name at all.
The first assistant, who often worked late, recalled that sometimes when the office emptied out, Mr. Epstein, oh, this is the part that they're loving, Mr. Epstein would check to see that she was at her desk, and then he would put Trump on speaker.
Mr. Trump, she said, seemed to enjoy regaling Mr. Epstein with tales of his sexual exploits.
And Mr. Epstein seemed to delight in how uncomfortable it made her to overhear them.
She remembered one call in the mid-1990s on which the two men discussed how much pubic care a woman, particular woman, had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss his teeth with.
On another, Mr. Trump told Epstein about having sex with another woman on a pool table, according to the former assistant.
Now, there's this other woman who says she's afraid to be identified or even to be talking to the New York Times because she is afraid she will be executed.
One woman, then a model and a college student in her early 20s living in Manhattan, said she attended four parties at Epstein's mansion.
It was like a pissing contest.
Who had the most women?
She recalled.
She requested anonymity to describe her experiences in detail, saying she feared for her family's safety after Mr. Trump said some of his critics could be executed for sedition.
Okay, that was, I think, very different from her situation.
Last but not least, this one involves Marla Maples, Trump's second wife.
Tina Davis, who modeled for Ford in the mid-1990s and her mother, Sandra Coleman, attended a Mar-a-Lago party in late 1994 when Tina was 14.
During a trip to the bathroom, they ran into Trump's new wife, Marla Maples.
They had not met her earlier.
Ms. Maples clasped her hands, Ms. Coleman recalled, and looked her in the eye.
Quote, whatever you do, do not let her around any of these men, and especially my husband, she told Ms. Coleman.
Protect her.
Okay, Ms. Maples, because you remember like all the negative comments Ms. Maples has said about Trump since their divorce, since Trump ran for office.
She's constantly been out there saying, he's a me too, or he's an Epstein enabler.
No, not a word.
She's never disparaged him.
Ms. Maples denied making the comment.
I would always protect young women in any way I could, she said, but I am sure I did not specifically say that about my daughter's father.
So that's the big dump from the New York Times: Trump and his best friend, Epstein.
Your thoughts on it, Glenn.
Okay.
Is it actually breaking news that Donald Trump in the 80s and 90s, as a young, good-looking, extremely rich Manhattan real estate developer, had a strong interest in women and even womenized?
Like we heard the Access Hollywood tape in 2016.
People thought it was going to sabotage his campaign and it didn't.
Yes, Donald Trump had a very active sex life, a very strong interest in women, even when he was married.
This is kind of what I was talking about earlier.
And people have decided that this is not disqualifying.
And the other part of it is, and this is something that I think is so important, the whole Jeffrey Epstein thing, and I have to say, in a way, the American right kind of made this monster and it's now sort of attacking them, where it became like every person who ever talked to Jeffrey Epstein, who ever met Jeffrey Epstein, somehow had suspicion on them that they were a pedophile or had an interest in underage girls.
A lot of the so-called victims, as you said, Michael Tracy has been really doing among the most courageous work on this because he's been fighting against the tide in this.
A lot of these women who claim to have been victims of sex trafficking or Epstein victims never met Jeffrey Epstein until they're like 22 or 23 or 24, not underage Underage at all.
So he was also surrounded by a lot of women who were definitely young, but well above the age of consent.
And all of this is being done now with innuendo by the New York Times and by the American left, just trying in any way to take some of this dirt from Jeffrey Epstein and throw as much of it as they can on Trump, which might be politically effective given everybody watched Trump fight so hard to conceal the files.
But until there's evidence that Trump actually had any kind of relationship with an underage girl, and there actually has never been anything remotely close to that, all this is political activism disguised as journalism, which is everything that you read me from the New York Times, which I haven't read yet, but the parts that you read me are empty in terms of anything significant.
I know.
I'm yawning.
Like, okay.
He was a playboy and he loved to talk about his sexual exploits.
Got it.
I want to tell you this is just in this is breaking from wpri.com, which I think is a local news outlet.
The headline is: Police probe potential ties between Brown University attack and MIT professor slaying.
That is interesting.
It doesn't mean there is a link.
It's police are probing it.
And previously, they had said, we don't believe there's a link.
So now it is news that there could be.
Here's the excerpt.
Target 12 is confirmed law enforcement is now examining possible ties between the two crimes.
Multiple people familiar with the investigation said they have discovered evidence showing the two may be linked.
Well, now that's interesting.
And I don't know how.
I'm not jumping to conclusions, but I will note the MIT professor was Jewish.
The professor whose class was attacked isn't.
He wasn't.
He wasn't.
He wasn't Jewish.
There was a lot of people.
My team just told me that he wasn't.
No, the latest I saw is that he wasn't.
I think he was like a defender of Israel, but not himself Jewish.
But, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on aroundline.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I don't know that, but as my team told me that they had seen he was.
In any event, we have no idea what the ties were.
And the woman whose class was attacked at Brown is an Israeli, a pro-Israeli activist.
However, she was not even there that day.
It was a review class.
She was not even in the class.
And it does not look like, you know, there hasn't been a mention that like the kids targeted were Jewish, et cetera, inside.
In fact, all we know so far is that the one girl who was killed was the vice president of the college Republicans.
And the other young man who was killed was a naturalized citizen from Uzbekistan who was studying to be a neurosurgeon.
So we don't see the pattern so far and it may not emerge, but it is news that they are probing it and there's potential links.
I mean, but don't worry, Glenn, everyone's safe.
Don't worry.
Go out there and live your life as normal, just like the mayor of Providence said, because, you know, no one's been shot since Saturday.
Oh, wait, maybe, maybe they have.
I don't know.
Keep sending your child into this class.
And also, these are super sophisticated investigators.
Don't worry.
They're going to catch this person anytime now.
I think their confidence level should be very high in these police investigators and the local politicians.
I know.
All right.
One other thing I want to get to.
Well, there's two if I have time.
The Vanity Fair photographer who took those hideous pictures of the Trump administration for their big piece.
Susie Wiles gives them 11 months of access, 11 interviews with this guy, Chris Whipple.
Then the thanks that they get is what Susie says are out of context pull quotes.
I get it.
Shame on her for trusting them.
But the pictures were so offensively unflattering of a good-looking group.
JD Vance is attractive.
Caroline Levitt's attractive.
Susie Wiles is attractive.
It's not hard to take a nice picture of them at all.
This photographer went out of his way to make them look bad.
His name is Christopher Anderson.
He works for Vanity Fair as a freelancer, showing the extreme close-up of poor Caroline Levitt, who is like so much more attractive than this JD Vance, who looks like some sort of a demon in this weird picture.
And then Susie Wiles, who really looks like she is not Marco Rubio, who looks like ruddy and poorly complected and, I don't know, dirty.
There's Susie Wiles in what looks like a mug shot with somebody potentially pinching her ass.
That's what that looks like to me.
It's just so bad all around.
Now, this photographer says, he's not sorry.
He says, what?
Because you can see Caroline Levitt's lip injections.
You can see the little marks where the needles had gone in not too long before this.
And just note to all ladies, do not sit for a photograph or a photo shoot.
If you have those marks on your face, trust no one.
She had to learn that the hard way, sadly.
But here's what he says.
I didn't put the injection sites on her.
People seem to be shocked that I didn't use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks.
I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch out those things.
I'm surprised that a journalist would even need to ask me the question of why didn't I retouch out the blemishes?
Because if I had, that would be a lie.
I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there.
Well, what can I say?
That's the makeup she puts on.
Those are the injections she gave herself.
If they show up in a photo, what do you want me to say?
I don't know if it says something about the world we live in, the age of Photoshop, the age of AI filters on your Insta, but the fact that the internet is freaking out because they're seeing real photos and not retouched ones says something to me.
And he says, I've been doing this for a long, long time.
He points to his picture, the photos he took of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Now, let me show you what those look like.
The photo of Barack Obama, it's close, but it is a one-third shot.
It's got his necktie.
Here's Michelle Obama, who by the way, looks pretty.
She's doing like a kissing face, and it's a profile, which by the way, will look better on virtually everybody instead of straight on.
And she looks cute because she's like making like a kissing motion and she's got shadows on her face that are kind of flattering.
And there's Barack Obama.
Again, a profile, which is better for anybody who's going super up close.
And you've got enough of his shoulders and chest that you can see necktie, collar, and the lapels of his jacket.
Same thing here.
You can see his neck and the neck of his shirt.
And again, it's in profile, which I'm just telling you is more flattering on everyone.
And this is his defense to trying to make them obviously, Glenn, look terrible.
Your thoughts?
Two things.
One is that is such a disingenuous statement from the photographer.
Like, hey, I just take pictures.
However, they come out.
That's not my fault.
You know, when I went during the Sony reporting, I had profiles in every single magazine.
They were almost overwhelmingly positive because people, the media liked the work and the pictures were great.
And then I had a whole new set of profiles when I kind of started splitting over at the left over Russia Gate and Trump going on Fox a lot.
And they all looked like I was some kind of like demon troll unleashed from the depths of hell.
You know, it's so obvious that they play that game.
They pick the photos and make you look good or bad based on whether they like you or not.
Everybody who has any role in media understands that.
But I will say, I do think like Trump has spent 10 years calling these media outlets fake news.
Everybody knows like Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone or whatever hates Trump and the Trump administration.
So I do kind of blame, you know, Susie Wiles and like these Trump officials who continuously give access to these media outlets that they know hate them and then act like surprised or indignant when they're not treated fairly.
Like, you know, if it like, you know, Trump used to get, Trump gave Maggie Haberman, you know, full access to the Oval Office and every article that came out would be incredibly negative.
And he'd be like, she's a liar.
She's a fake reporter.
And then the next week, she'd be right back in the office.
Michael Wolf, too.
Exactly.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, Michael Wolf.
So many of those kinds of choices.
And I get, you know, maybe you hope that this time they're going to be fair, especially if you give them a lot.
They're not going to be fair to you ever.
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That it's embedded in their DNA.
Like, don't have any expectation other than the fact that this is going to be the result.
But that statement by the photographer, like, why are you blaming me for the fact that her like pock marks are her injection marks as though he has no choice or the editors have no choice over which photo they use?
Please, it's like so insultingly deceitful.
Totally.
And to think like he would ever have done this to Michelle Obama, which he didn't, or Kamala Harris, is a lie.
It's a lie.
And there is no question he did his level best to take attractive people and make them look bad.
And so, yeah, I mean, to quote the genius of Animal House, you fucked up.
You trusted us.
And yeah, that's live and learn.
Now, wait, stay with me another 10 minutes, Glenn, because there's one other story I want to talk to you about.
It's a great, great story.
Doesn't start great, but it finishes great.
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Michaela Apology and Racism00:14:50
Hello!
Dear Bibbs, the family for Tuxforschwapping Center of Alt Dubehover under Et Talk and Austin Folly or Tesla.
Welcome to Tuxfors Shopping Center.
Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Nick Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Drushinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.
It's bold no BS news only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 111, and on SiriusXM app.
Glenn Greenwald is back with me.
So tomorrow, we're going to do the show in the morning, and then I will be getting on a plane to go to Arizona to speak at the turning point big event, their Amfest production stands for America Fest 2025.
And it was very important of me to go to this.
Though normally I can't go to this one because we're usually going off to our family vacation for the holidays in Montana.
So this year I said, I'm absolutely going.
Try to keep me away because we're all getting out there to try to honor Charlie.
This is the first big event since he died.
And the last one I was at as well, which was in July where he interviewed me and we talked all about Epstein.
So I will be there.
And Charlie's been on my mind a lot lately for many reasons.
And that's why this news jumped out at me and what I wanted to talk to you about, Glenn.
There is a woman named Jeannie Beaman and she works at a Target store in Orland, California.
She's older, Jeannie is, and she was minding her own business doing her job when a much younger woman who we now know is named Michaela Ponce, P-O-N-C-E, came over and harassed poor Jeannie over the fact that she was wearing a shirt honoring Charlie.
And here is the video that we know of because the videographer, Michaela Ponce, posted it to her TikTok, SAT 26.
Let you wear that shirt here?
Yes.
Why?
Why are you taking my picture?
Why are you wearing that shirt?
You're working.
It's not a Target shirt.
I can wear a red, fitty red shirt.
It's not a plain shirt.
It doesn't have to be.
It's a Charlie Kirk shirt.
Yes.
Oh, yes, I know.
Are you fucking stupid?
No.
Why the fuck would you wear that?
You're at work at Target.
That's not a Target shirt.
It's not a plain red shirt.
You support a racist.
It's not racist.
You support a racist.
He's not a racist.
Yes, he is.
Yes, he fucking is.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sit here and argue with you.
You're not.
You should go get your manager.
You should not be allowed to wear that at work.
Unacceptable.
Unfucking acceptable.
That's your opinion.
The opinion is he's a fucking racist and you support him.
That's your opinion, ma'am.
And you should not be allowed to wear that.
This is going to be taken above your fucking head.
That's insane.
Insane.
And fucking safe.
Piece of shit.
Oh, it's infuriating.
It's really, really infuriating.
This is an older woman.
Jeannie's obviously, you know, not a spring chicken.
And she's obviously not a rich woman.
And she's working at Target, paying her bills, making an honest living, trying to pick up after people.
And she gets harassed by this absolute prick, Michaela Ponce.
And Michaela's so proud of herself for harassing Jeannie that Michaela posts it on her own TikTok because she's looking for likes, Glenn.
She's looking for thumbs up and hearts and props from her leftist crowd that's going to think she's awesome for saying Charlie Kirk's a racist and calling Jeannie fucking stupid.
You're fucking stupid.
Well, that's not how it went.
What happened since then is Michaela has, we've now found out, who works as a medical assistant employed by Enlow Health, a nonprofit healthcare system in Chico, Northern California.
Michaela's place of employment, the medical center, has now received over 6,000 calls from some very upset Charlie Kirk fans.
Here is the CEO of Enlow Health, the employer of Michaela Ponce, who spoke out on it the other day, SAT 27.
Hello Health acknowledges that the off-hours behavior by a medical assistant employed in one of our outpatient clinics as depicted in a recent social media post was borrowed and deeply concerning.
We appreciate the many individuals who have seen this post and exercised restraint as they voice their personal views regarding the situation.
Unfortunately, many thousands of others have chosen to use profanity-laced language to express their disapproval to ML caregivers.
I believe there was a period of a few hours where we received over 6,000 calls and those are starting to abate a little bit right now.
I can tell from my own email box that the emails are starting to subside a little bit.
But yeah, we were overwhelmed there for a while.
That's Mike Wiltermood, the CEO.
And had I had his number, I probably would have been one of the people leaving a profanity-laced message.
Like, Mike, what the fuck is going on with Michaela?
She sucks because you feel better when you express your outrage about her abject harassment of an elderly woman just trying to pay her bills and honor Charlie Kirk while doing it, who was assassinated three months ago.
Now, clearly, Michaela has learned that there are millions of us who loved Charlie and have felt inspired by his faith-based conservative messaging and who are 100% in Jeannie's corner because Michaela has been forced to issue the following statement to Action News Now.
I want to take full responsibility for my actions and say clearly and sincerely that I was wrong.
I behaved badly and I regret it deeply.
I want to directly apologize to Jeannie.
I'm truly sorry for approaching you at your workplace and putting you in an uncomfortable and unfair position.
You did not deserve that and my behavior was wrong.
She's not, she hasn't changed her mind about Charlie or apparently about thinking Jeannie's fucking stupid.
She's just sorry that she approached her at work and acknowledges maybe Jeannie didn't deserve that.
And I would submit to you the reason that Michaela issued that statement is because old Mike Withermood Wiltermood is probably thinking about firing her ass because of the 6,000 profanity-laced phone calls he's received.
Now, let's check back in with Jeannie at this point in our story and see how she's doing.
She gave an interview and did not know that this had turned into a thing because Jeannie's older and probably is not following Michaela on TikTok.
But she did speak to Action News Now on Wednesday.
Watch.
I know people are calling for her to be fired for this.
Do you think that that's right?
Would you like that direction?
No, I don't think that's right.
Like one saying I have is two wrongs don't make a right.
You know, she wronged me, but I don't want to wrong her or I don't want her wrong because it's not going to make it right.
I mean, that was her opinion.
She, but she's the one that put it on Facebook or put it on that.
So, you know, but I really wouldn't want to see somebody lose their job over it.
That is so sweet.
Jeannie is so sweet.
I mean, it had it been me, I would have been like, fire her ass, Mike.
She's terrible.
Why would you employ this person?
But I'm a hothead on these things.
And here is the final piece of the story, Glenn, that will make you believe in the power of the American people.
Just one week before Christmas and in the middle of Hanukkah.
Here it is.
Since the incident, multiple fundraising campaigns have been set up to help Jeannie from Target recover from the incident.
She wasn't fired.
Target, to its credit, is standing by Jeannie and not telling her she does not, she cannot wear that shirt.
But people are, they just want to make Jeannie feel good and show her that we love her.
And they originally were trying to raise $20,000 to send Jeannie on a nice vacation.
When we last checked, the Give, Send, Go campaign had already raised over $200,000 for Jeannie just to show her that we love her.
So this story has it all.
It's got the outrage factor.
It's got the benevolent Jeannie who didn't call for the firing.
It's got the berated Mike with Wilter mood who would like the profanity lace phone calls to stop.
And it's got our villain, Michaela, who was very well forced into issuing an apology, which I'll take.
It's better than no apology.
And the great American people who said, we love Jeannie and we're on her side and we want her life to be better.
So here's 200,000 bucks.
Ah, all right.
Now, tell me everything you think.
Well, first of all, I can't wait to go donate right when I'm done with this interview.
And I'll tell you why.
It's not because she wore the Charlie Kirk shirt.
It's because imagine like the generosity of spirit to have somebody.
I mean, this, like, this is a woman who works at Target.
That is a hard job.
That is not an easy life.
She's making very poor money.
And, you know, you can be filled with resentment.
Obviously, the woman who that Michaela wanted her fired.
So imagine turning around and saying, no, I don't want her fired just because she did that to me.
That already is such an admirable person.
Like, how many of us would react that way?
As you said, like, you're kind of a hot.
I don't know at all that that would be my reaction, but I respect it and admire it so much.
But I also think there's like this generational thing, which is like, I don't mind that people dislike Charlie Kirk's ideology.
He was a very political person.
He had very strong political views.
People disagreed with it.
That's totally fine.
The idea, though, that like we now attack each other, not politicians, right?
Like you can yell at politicians for the, you go into a Target and see some like older woman working because she has to at a very difficult job, standing on her feet all day, and you're going to berate her and attack her and film it and put it on the internet like you've done something noble.
That to me signifies like this very rotted spirit that has entered our discourse based on the idea that anyone who has different political views than us is an evil person who should suffer in every single way.
And the fact that you have this one woman who's supposedly the villain because she's wearing a t-shirt of a racist, evil person being so clearly the better person, while you have this other woman so self-righteous, thinking she's so moral, acting in a way that no matter your ideology is so revolting.
I think there's a lot of lessons in there that I hope people take away who are like Michaela, but I doubt will.
It does happen on both sides.
There have been a lot of people who have been attacked for other kinds of views for wearing.
And I think we need to get back to the spirit that like part of what is America, like part of what we love about it is that if you're a private citizen, you can express whatever views you want and you don't lose your job over it.
You don't get publicly attacked for it.
You know, that behavior needs to be scorned.
And it was scorned in this case.
And the cherry on top is that that woman who displayed so much like moral kindness and generosity of spirit got a just reward.
Like it's so rare to have karmic justice like that on every aspect of the story.
So it is a really enjoyable one.
It's one I hadn't heard.
So I went with you on that journey and was so happy at the end.
Shout out to Genie for keeping it together in the moment too, right?
When your blood could really be boiling, you could be, you know, sure she felt under attack.
The woman called her a piece of shit.
She called her fucking stupid.
She was threatened her job.
Yeah, threatened her job, which I'm sure Jeannie needs.
Exactly.
Obviously, she was saying that she supported a racist, which implies that Jeannie's racist.
Like it had it all.
And then she tried to publicly shame Genie by putting on her TikTok, just waiting for all the likes.
Michaela just couldn't wait for everyone to give her props and finger snaps.
And the side of reason roared, roared.
I love it.
And I kind of do support the profanity-laced phone calls, though it's not Mike's fault.
But he heard us.
Sorry, Mike Wilterspoon.
Wilter Mood, Wilter Mood.
It's an interesting name, CEO of California-based and low health.
But I do think you should keep an eye on this one, Mike, because I have a feeling Michaela does not have a generosity of spirit when it comes to people who are on the right side of the aisle, who may indeed walk into your clinic one day wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt or not, but deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, even if they happen to be right-leaning.
So there's that, Glenn.
It's a nice story to end our segment with.
Perfect ending, Megan.
Absolutely.
Reason and sanity prevail, even in California.
Great to see you, my friend.
Have a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and we'll see you on the back end.