The Megyn Kelly Show - Afghanistan, Abortion, and COVID, with Lara Logan, Charles C.W. Cooke, and Alan Dershowitz | Ep. 154

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Charles C.W. Cooke, Senior Writer of National Review, Lara Logan, award-winning journalist and host of "Lara Logan Has No Agenda" on Fox Nation, and Alan Dershowitz, Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law School, to discuss the DeSantis COVID hysteria, mask mandate for children in schools, the latest in Afghanistan, Biden's accountability and responsibility, the brutality of the Taliban, the Texas abortion law, Dershowitz' run-in with Larry David, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly and welcome to the very first episode of The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM. We are so happy to be with you and excited for this next iteration of our show, which we actually just first launched as a podcast about, well, just under a year ago now. We're doing this program because we believe there's an urgent need for independent voices in the media landscape, hosts who are not beholden to corporate agendas, partisan jerseys, or simply just committed to stoking your outrage day in and day out. Here on SiriusXM, we're going to continue our mission of bringing you coverage of the news, politics, culture, law, entertainment,

and all the rest of it in a truly fair and balanced way. We are not woke and we're no one's sycophant. And we're entirely over the bullshit censorship of free speech and debate that has seized hold of most media, education, Hollywood sports, and corporate America. Nearly two-thirds of the American people right now are afraid to express their actual political opinions. Think about that. In the United States of America, nearly two-thirds don't want to say how they feel. It's insane, but it's our reality. And I know firsthand that when you hear the news discussed without a filter, without crippling concern for who's going to claim offense or try to cancel you, it's a joy. It is intellectually stimulating. It's wonderfully American. And it's what you can expect from us. We're bringing you the news made understandable

in an unvarnished, uncensored, unafraid, and hopefully entertaining way. Our corporate loyalty is to you and the truth. That's it. It's a simple mission, really. And we are all hoping that you will not only enjoy the show and its new format, but that you'll call in. This is actually gonna be fun because we can talk to one another and you'll let us know what you think when we take calls later in the program. I've never done a show where I actually get to interact with the viewers or the listeners real time. So that'll be fun. So without further ado, let's get to our great guests. We have an awesome lineup today. We've got Charles C.W. Cook of National Review. Laura Logan will be here of Fox Nation and later Alan Dershowitz, Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law, who had this very funny, weird dust up with Larry David. He's going to come on to talk about the abortion stuff happening down in Texas, but you got to hear the Larry

David story. Okay. We're going to start though with Charles Cook. Charles, what a pleasure. Very excited to have you as our very first guest as we're live on Sirius. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure. Okay. So let's dig in with COVID. You had a really interesting piece on National Review that basically said, here's the bitter truth. There's no rhyme or reason to this virus and that the pandemic doesn't hinge on whether the state has a Democrat or a Republican in the governor's mansion. The New York Times had an article suggesting the same, and some in the media lost their minds. You pointed out in your piece MSNBC's Kyle Griffin attacked the Times. This isn't true. Do better, because the Times had said, you know, exactly why Florida has been hit so hard remains an elusive question.

Soledad O'Brien called it journalistic malpractice. They really want to blame DeSantis and his aversion to mask certain people ahead of 2024, Ron DeSantis being one of them. But I think the broader problem and the reason that this works to an extent is people just don't like it when they're told that there's not a great deal they can do. Human beings don't enjoy that. They much prefer a conspiracy theory because a conspiracy theory gives you an easy answer, gives you an easy explanation, but it also gives you an easy answer. You can find the evil man up in the tower, put him in prison, then it'll stop. COVID doesn't really work like that.

I mean, there are some things we know. The vaccines work pretty well. They're not foolproof. They haven't prevented everyone from getting COVID, but you are very unlikely to die if you get vaccinated, which is why you should get vaccinated. I have a lot of friends around here in Florida who work in the medical profession, and that's the one thing that they will say is the pattern.

If you're vaccinated, you're probably not going to die if you get it. Other than that, it's tough. There are some states that have a lockdown. There are some states that have mask mandates. There are some states that have school masking policies. Doesn't seem to make too much of a difference. Israel has tried everything. I mean, Israel had pretty draconian lockdowns, enforced by drones, no less. They vaccinated everyone before any other country. They're doing booster shots now. They have countrywide mask mandates in schools. They still have mask mandates inside, and they're getting absolutely slammed. And it's not because they did nothing wrong. It's not because they're bad people. It's not because the witch doctors dislike them.

It's because this is a horrible and unpredictable disease and feedback loops are really hard to predict. And the point I wanted to make is, look, with the exception of Andrew Cuomo, who obviously made an active mistake and then tried to cover it up, there's really not much good pointing at Phil Murphy of New Jersey or Rhonda Santos of Florida or Governor Newsom in California or Greg

Abbott in Texas and saying, aha, it's because of them. It's them personally. It's their ideology. It's the people who vote for them. It's not. It's not how it works and we need to cut it out. But to your point, people do want to do something. And if you don't want to make people do something, you get villainized, right? That's what's happening to DeSantis and it's happening to regular old American citizens who oppose vaccine mandates or mask mandates. You know, to your point, it's like, I have no objection if somebody wants to send their child to class with a mask on or do anything with a mask on. That's that's their business.

But we've gotten to this point now where if you don't want the government to mandate that your eight year old have a piece of cloth over his face eight or nine hours a day, even though there's no proof that children are particularly good vectors of this virus and they remain, even though Delta has been problematic, they remain at very, very low risk to the outcomes of COVID, you're somehow part of the problem. And we refuse. We refuse to look at the data in Israel. We refuse to look at the limited data that's come out showing that masks have any effect one way or another in the school setting, right? People just, they feel like something must be done. And if you're against the mandating of doing it, you're on the wrong side. Well, and I think the idea is that if you're on the anti-mandate side, then you don't care enough. And I think this is what this is ultimately about.

It's a superstition. You know, I can't count the number of times I've now heard that Governor DeSantis doesn't tweet enough about vaccines. There's this new conventional wisdom that the reason that there are still people, as there are in every state, in fact, Florida's numbers are quite good, who are unvaccinated is because DeSantis hasn't been emphatic enough. And it's just not true. I mean, in the early days, he was emphatic. Indeed, he ran around the state for months, started with the elderly, and every publicity stunt he could imagine, he used. World War II veterans, Holocaust survivors, we saw them vaccinated first on television to send the message, look, this is available and it's worthwhile.

There are now much higher hanging pieces of fruit. We're not talking about people lining up around the block, as I did to get the vaccine. We're talking about the people who don't want it, either because they're indifferent towards politics, they don't follow politics, or because they're actively ideologically opposed to getting a vaccine. The idea that if the governor tweeted more, those people would come around, I think is silly. And we need to understand that. And so we have a choice to make. We can either lambast them and condescend to them and target them, or we can keep trying to convince them. And those who won't be convinced, and those people will exist.

This is the United States. Those people can be provided for. And, you know, it's one reason why the Biden administration moved on to, for example, Regneron, which it bought the whole supply of, I believe, and then has been helping states distribute it because, you know, you have a choice. If someone says, I'm not going to get this vaccine, and then they get COVID, well, you can say, well, that's your lot. Sorry, mate. Or you can say, well, actually, we have a backup plan. And I think the idea that having a backup plan and acknowledging some people are going to remain unvaccinated is somehow to indulge in sort of anti-vax ideas or to diminish the effort to get

people vaccinated is really, really silly. There has never been a time in American history where the government has said, you should go and do this, and everyone has gone and done it. That's not how we're built. No, I was listening to a great, it was a podcast on commentary, you know, from Commentary Magazine, John Podoros and company. And they were talking about how amazing the vaccines are. They really are. It's something we should be proud of. You've been saying it all along. It's a feat to American ingenuity. But how we're just terrible at following directions here in the United States. We're just too free. It's not in our makeup to take orders about how we live. And that hasn't been baked into the COVID response at all. And you know what? The country's done a pretty damn good job over the past 18 months of taking direction, of living their lives in a dramatically different way. And I do think we have to have some empathy for the fact that for many people, we're done. I know we still have a virus, but we're just done being told

by the government how we have to live, how our kids have to live. Given back to the first point, your piece, which I agree with fully, which is there's no rhyme or reason. The masks, they're not working on these children inside the schools. I don't believe they're working on us either. I don't want to wear mine anymore. I've been vaccinated. If I get COVID, I have very little fear of being hospitalized or dying because I do trust in the vaccine. And I'm just sick and tired of being told at every turn they're coming back because you know what? There's going to be another variant after Delta. There's already the mu variant and there's going to be another one after that. And Fauci is going to be giving us booster shots from now till the cows come home already saying the norm is going to be

the three boosters. You can't even get all of Americans to get one, nevermind three Fauci. Yeah. And you raise an interesting point, which is that ultimately, we're going to have to work out how to live with this. And we're not going to be a country that says, well, I guess we had a good run until 2019. And then we stayed inside forever. This will become endemic. And when it does, we will have some decisions to make in the way that we do with, dreaded word here, the flu. And COVID is not the flu. But at some point, it will become more like the flu. And I think it would be an enormous mistake to become so obsessed with it that we lose sight of how we evaluate risk in pretty much every other area. In no circumstances do we say as a country, we have to get to zero. Until we get to zero road deaths, no one can drive. Until we get to zero flu deaths, no one can get on an airplane. We don't do that.

We shouldn't do that. Now, COVID has been far more deadly and it has warranted more intrusive regulation. But there will be, and maybe we've reached it already, a tipping point here. major newspapers and on some of the cable channels where people are essentially treating this as if it's a war and until every last enemy soldier has surrendered, then we need to be on an emergency footing. Well, you just can't live like that and shouldn't. And meanwhile, we've talked about this, but people don't trust Dr. Fauci. They don't trust our authorities. So when he says we need a booster shot, people's instincts a money grab by Pfizer or Moderna or whether we really need to go back. And at the same time, the news broke late last week that two FDA officials reportedly resigned from the FDA, feeling that there was too much interference from the CDC and the administration when it came to approval of this booster shot and potentially even children's vaccine access. The director of the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research and Review and the deputy director,

Marion Gruber and Phil Krause, resigned, saying that they're at odds with the FDA's top vaccine official and they're discontent with the interference the FDA is getting. All of that undermines public faith in the science officials, right? Dr. Fauci, I am science, and them telling us what we have to do. This is a problem with treating science as a set of facts or as an ideology or a given approach rather than as a means by which to arrive at answers. I think Americans would have been quite forgiving if at various points throughout this pandemic, the CDC and other institutions had said, you know what, we operated on the best information we had

and we were wrong and we're updating our guidelines accordingly. But science has been wielded as a cudgel and we were wrong and we're updating our guidelines accordingly. But science has been wielded as a cudgel. And the people who have dissented have been told they were anti-science. And in some circumstances, they've actually been right. And people have noticed that. And I would argue this is one of the problems with progressivism. There is and has been been since the Wilson era, this idea on the American left that you can just find and then present to the public disinterested technocrats. vicissitudes of politics arrive at the correct answer and deliver their findings to a grateful voting public. But you can't abolish politics ever in any circumstance. And forget partisan

politics for a moment. One of the biggest mistakes that those supposedly disinterested technocrats have made from the beginning of this is they have been trying to work out themselves, well, what will the public bear? Or how can I use this information for what they conceive as the greater good? And so you've had mixed messaging on masks in the first instance. Don't go and buy them. They don't work. Why? Well, because the government didn't want to run on masks so that health professionals couldn't get them. I mean, that's an understandable aim, but the science didn't change when that didn't happen. And then the public was supposed to be masked itself. And I think this just underscores that you cannot separate out a branch of government from politics. And the attempt to do so has been absolutely deleterious,

not just for Anthony Fauci and public health officials in general, but I wonder maybe in the long run for progressivism. I mean, something I wrote about a few weeks ago, was that once people start to think that experts are wrong, or are conning them in the late 1960s, with Vietnam, with McNamara, and people said, okay, well, maybe the best and the brightest aren't. And I would be very nervous if I were the CDC right about now. I would especially avoid getting involved in hot button issues that aren't its job. I saw Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director last week,

started to wade into the gun control debate. I would not do that right now. She's hysterical enough. The last thing we need her is to talk about guns. All right, wait, let me pause the conversation there because I want to pick it up about the Rolling Stone debacle. They're citing this fake report on hospitals being overrun with patients who have OD'd on ivermectin. Not true. They refuse to retract it. We'll get into sort of treatments. But I also want to ask you about a column you

just wrote about. It's titled Joe Biden Needs to Stop Talking About Beau. And it's about how President Biden repeatedly brings up his late son when talking about the service members killed in Afghanistan. We're going to get into that next. Welcome back, everybody, to The Megyn Kelly Show. Still with me, Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer at National Review. So let's talk about treatments and the ivermectin debate, because this is another thing that has divided us politically. You even mentioned ivermectin, and a certain segment of the population will plug its ears and say, you're a kook, you're a lunatic. Why would you take your horse's dewormer? And I get that, but it's not just a horse dewormer. It has actually been used in humans. And now when somebody

uses it, like Joe Rogan, they get publicly attacked. And what's happened in the press is it's equated with tinfoil hat wearing. Rolling Stone just got caught. It just got embarrassed because it issued a report about this viral hospital ivermectin story that turned out to be totally false. They were citing a man named Dr. Jason McElyea, who made a claim about ERs being totally overrun with dumbass ivermectin patients who had taken this medication. And let me just, I'll play the claim by this Dr. Jason McElligot for you, and then I'll tell you what Rolling Stone did. Listen. The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities

where they could get definitive care. We treated all of their ambulances, are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so that they can take the patient in. Okay, so not true. Joy Reid promoted it. Rachel Maddow went with it. And it turns out it's not true. The hospital with which that guy is affiliated, they said he hasn't worked here in months and he hasn't treated any ivermectin overdoses

and neither have we. Then Rolling Stone was forced to issue what it's calling, Charles, an update, an update. We used to call it a correction or a retraction. Now it's just an update to the story, which I guess they think prevents embarrassment. Wrong, wrong, Rolling Stone, saying we actually haven't been able to independently verify that there have been any such cases at any ERs at all. And now Dr. McElyea, well, he's gone silent. He has not responded to any requests for further comment about his obvious lie. So your thoughts on the ivermectin narrative that's in the press and then

just what's happened with Rolling Stone. I mean, Glenn Greenwald made a point the other day of the reason that the Rolling Stone magazine doesn't call this a retraction is because they understand correctly, the rest of the media will not hold them accountable for their erroneous reporting because they had the right motive, which was to attack ivermectin. I have been baffled right from the beginning of COVID by the existence of national debates over medical procedures. The efficacy or lack thereof of ivermectin

or hydroxychloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine. or hydroxychloroquine is contingent upon external objective medical reality. It is contingent upon circumstances and biological facts that can be examined and evaluated by medical professionals. It's not contingent upon whether Donald Trump likes it or not. It's not contingent upon whether Republican voters like it or not. This is not the sort of thing we should have a national debate or a vote on. If it were the case that people around the country were drinking Roundup, I mean, yeah, sure. But it seems clear that both of these drugs do sometimes help. I mean, actually, as it happens, I haven't said or written a word about this ivermectin drug, but I actually do know somebody who was prescribed it when he got COVID a month

ago and said it helped marginally. Okay, I'm sure that's true. I'm sure that's true for others that it won't. But it's a great illustration of how we've federalized every question that that people feel a need to have a view on this um as good or bad and i think it probably intersects slightly with what we were talking about earlier uh which is the feeling that if anything helps covid then it's somehow competing with the vaccine which just just isn't true. On the Rolling Stones story, I mean, you can absolutely see why this went viral. This was almost built by a robot to appeal to a certain sort of American. It's no surprise that Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid picked this up. This is what MSNBC viewers think conservatives are.

It's what they think Oklahomans are. And it's probably not an accident that the patients that were supposedly being hurt by this were gunshot victims. Republicans in Oklahoma must all be gun-wielding kooks. But it does show you something very interesting about the press, and that is almost not its willingness to lie, although it does, but its feeling that if it lies or exaggerates or misleads in pursuit of what it considers to be a broader truth, that that is fine. No one, no one, not Joy Reid, not Rachel Maddow, not The Hill, not The Washington Post, no one seems to have picked up the phone here and asked. Because the moment somebody did, the story fell apart and fell apart in deeply embarrassing fashion. Well, actually, he doesn't work here anymore. He hasn't worked here for months, and it's not true. About as strong a repudiation of the story as you can get. And I would just reiterate, it is really, really sad that this whole COVID debate has

become squashed into our partisan fights. There are lots of things we should fight over, tons of things. I hate the idea that we shouldn't have politics, that we shouldn't be partisan. Yeah, politics, partisanship, they're part of the American character. They always have been. Free countries have people who argue strongly over politics, but sensible countries don't extend that to viruses and treatments. Yeah, no, it's funny to see the media change on what happened to

the complete aversion to any disinformation on COVID, right? Like that would be punished by Twitter, by Facebook. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow's tweet citing this doctor and this alleged story is still up. She hasn't taken it down. Where's the Twitter mob for her? No one cares. Suddenly the obsession with disinformation on this virus

on any social media evaporates, right? Because if it's in the one direction against hydroxychloroquine, against ivermectin, anything that's pro-vaccine and mandates, that'll be allowed. It's just if you go the other way, you'll be punished. Absolutely. And I would say cynically, I suspect a lot of the people who shared this story and now know it's false will keep the stories up because it's already gone viral. It helps whatever it is that they're trying to achieve here to leave it there.

It is worth saying, just as a matter of fact, that irrespective of its broad efficacy, it's not true that people are randomly ingesting horse dewormer. There are medical benefits to this drug. I mean, it's been under the auspices of the FDA since the 1980s. Whether it is the best choice for COVID is beyond my expertise. But I've been equally irritated by the way this has been talked about. All these idiots taking horse dewormer.

People aren't actually that irrational. You know, they don't just jump all over nonsense and damage themselves with it en masse. And that's just simply not what has happened now. Yeah. It's funny because I was, you know, we have a new puppy and we have a two-year-old dog and we have a new puppy and I've been sort of sorting out the heartworm medication and the flea medication, the different one for each dog and blah, blah, blah. And one of them is ivermectin. And I was like, people would think I am one of those people who if I get COVID, I'm just going to pop in one of my dog's dewormer pills, which I am not. I can't actually remember whether it was the dewormer or the flea and tick prevention, whatever. The point is there was ivermectin sitting there on my kitchen counter. The point is, if you want ivermectin because you have COVID, just call up your doctor. Just go to the health clinic down the road and ask them about ivermectin. And, you know, if you try hard enough, you'll find a doctor who'd be open minded to that possibility. There are plenty of them out there. But you definitely should not take your animal's medication no matter what it is. I think that's pretty clear. But yeah, you're right. That story

was tailor-made for a left-leaning press and left-leaning pundits who think Republicans are rubes. They're stupid. They're going to do things like this with impunity while they're shooting each other. And really, frankly, the end of that story is they don't really care. They don't actually care what happens to Republicans in ERs in Oklahoma. They're just they're just doing it to make a point. OK, let's shift gears and talk about Afghanistan and what's happening with the president. I listen to you because, you know, I love the podcast, the editors that you're on with Rich Lowry and everybody, MBD. And you I think as far as I know, you were you were one of the first, if not the first, to make the point about Joe Biden needs to stop to stop talking about beau and i thought that's a brave thing to say he'll probably

get hit for that because you're supposed to that's supposed to be an inviolate subject when it comes to the president and his son but soon thereafter others started to make the same point there was some blowback the new york times already caved they came out with a headline originally that red biden still grieving his son finds that not everyone wants to hear about it. Then tons of backlash on Twitter and so on. And they changed their headline to in invoking Bo Biden broaches a lost loss that has guided his presidency. But they had it right the first time. Not everyone does want to hear about Beau in this context. And can you explain for the audience how he keeps bringing it up and how I saw in an article you recently dropped,

it's very clearly intentional and strategic by the administration. Well, I think it is strategic. I also think that even if it's not, it's inappropriate. And that's the key point. Beau Biden's death was, of course, a tragedy. And there is no one in our politics who would disagree with that. No parent should have to bury their child. That is not a license to use it every time you are attacked. And it's not an invitation to share your grief in all circumstances. And Joe Biden is not just a guy. He's the President of the United States, and as such, he's a commander-in-chief. One of the criticisms that has been made

has come from the parents of the Marines who were killed in Afghanistan. You could say that's Joe Biden's fault, or you could say that he was commander-in-chief when it happened, but you cannot dispute that they were killed under Joe Biden's command. And as such, for them to be, you know, people across the political spectrum, to be complaining that when they got a few moments with the president and wanted to talk about their children, that he instead spoke about his own son, is a problem. It's a problem for a number of reasons. Firstly, that's not what you're supposed to do generally when someone is consumed by grief. You're supposed to listen and absorb as much of their pain as possible.

You're not supposed to say, hey, well, actually, what you're saying reminds me of me. You're especially not supposed to do that when you're the president of the United States, when you're the commander in chief, and when they might well be angry with you. It's a very difficult position to be in. It's not one I would want to be in. I don't want to be president. But if you are president, that's part of the job. It's also a problem because although Beau Biden's death was a tragedy,

Beau Biden died of cancer in a hospital in Virginia. He did not die in the field. He did die and he was a soldier, but he didn't die while a soldier. He didn't die of being a soldier. He was not killed in an instant in a foreign land. He died over a matter of months here in the United States of a medical condition. And for Joe Biden to say every time the topic comes up, well, look, I understand this as well as anyone, because I too have been through tragedy,

really is a non sequitur. I mean, there are a lot of people in the world who have been through tragedy, who've lost somebody they loved a great deal. Presumably Joe Biden knows how they feel. But that's not the same thing as being a gold star parent. And it's not the same thing as responding to criticisms of foreign policy. And I thought the moment when this tipped over from inappropriate habit into strategic choice was when Jen Psaki said at the same press conference a couple of weeks ago that Joe Biden knows how the parents feel because he himself had a son who died. It is one thing for the person affected to say that. It's another for his press secretary to begin throwing it back at reporters. And,

you know, I pointed out in the piece, there are many circumstances in American history in which presidents have grieved deeply over children, but knew that it would have been the wrong time and place for them to bring it up. Abraham Lincoln did not mention his son Willie at Gettysburg. George Washington did not mention the premature death of his adopted daughter during the Revolutionary War. Franklin Roosevelt did not say after D-Day that he knew how the families who lost their sons felt because his son, Franklin Jr., the first Franklin Jr., died as a boy. And there are times for that. And Biden has misjudged them. You're so right. And you make such a good point about how it feels like an intentional Dod or distraction because he's the commander in

chief. It's one thing to be standing there with another random person who's lost a child and for him to say, I lost my child and two parents randomly bonding over that kind of loss. It's another when you're the commander in chief and the gold star families are there. They're talking to you because their children are now within the past few days in a casket after your orders endangered them and ultimately led to the loss of life. Like that's a moment for accountability, responsibility. It's not right. It's not about you at all in your parental role or or anything that would make the parents job is not to feel empathy for you in that moment. I think that's exactly right. And it's certainly not a defense of foreign policy. I mean,

we can obviously disagree all day about Afghanistan, Iraq, any other foreign policy decision. But if you look back to the 2000s, George W. Bush was pretty good at standing there and taking it on the chin when parents said to him, you're a murderer and you killed my child. And that actually is the right course. I mean, I don't envy the man. And that's also not a defense of his foreign policy that can be evaluated outside of his empathy or lack thereof. But the job is to take it. The buck does stop there too. And I was struck by the more soft spoken among the parents and members of the families of the slain, who said, it really caught us off guard. It really struck us as being inappropriate. There are, of course, people who are very angry with the president. You have to

temper that a little bit. It's understandable. Grieving people often behave in ways that once they've come out the other side, they wouldn't. And there are people who really loathe Joe Biden. We live in a politically charged age. But not everyone who criticized him for this was in those categories. And I hope that he realizes now that that's not an appropriate way to respond to grief that occurred under his control. Well, it's between that and looking at his watch several times during the Dover ceremony, which he clearly did. And I understand he wears rosary beads there sometimes. But if you look at that tape, I mean, even his normal liberal defenders like Snopes is saying the guy was looking at his watch, looked at his watch repeatedly as dead bodies were going by. I mean, it was just there's an insensitivity there that the media would have been obsessed

with had it been Donald Trump and seems very willing to forgive or excuse, given that it's a president with a D after his name. Charles, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Good luck. All right. Thank you. Up next, we're going to be joined by Fox Nation journalist, Laura Logan. She's with Fox News now. She does reports for Fox Nation and she lived and reported from Afghanistan for years. She's been following the outbreak of protests across the country, which are painting a very different narrative about the Taliban, our new painting a very different narrative about

the Taliban, our new buddy, than we've been told. She's fired up and she's here next. Don't go away. And welcome back, everybody, to The Megyn Kelly Show. Joining me now, Lara Logan. She's a journalist and host of fox nations lara logan has no agenda i love that that's like the greatest i should have chosen that title i wish i had that for my show too uh lara are you with me i'm with you megan thank you hi it's wonderful to see you okay let's dive right in and talk about what's happening in afghanistan now um i saw you tweeting about the Secretary General of the UN talking about engaging with the Taliban on a humanitarian basis, dovetails nicely with a Wall Street Journal

editorial yesterday that that is entitled Our Friends the Taliban. And you and the journal and others are trying to put the lie to this notion that somehow, just because Biden pulled the troops out, we now need to pretend that this is a reasonable group that's going to treat women well, that we can engage with on a humanitarian basis, and that somehow is willing to turn over a new leaf. Your thoughts on it? Well, my first thought is that there is a democratically elected government of Afghanistan that is still in the country. And the United States has been complicit in telling one of the most egregious lies of all about this whole situation, which is to write these people off the face of the earth, to try and write them out of history as if they don't exist. I mean, Amr al-Assad was the vice president of Afghanistan. He is now the acting president under the Afghan constitution. And instead of recognizing that, which, by the way, we've recognized for the past 20 years, we are now rushing and falling over ourselves to legitimize and recognize a government of terrorists who are creating a terrorist super state in Afghanistan, right on the borders with Iran and Pakistan, who are the two greatest sponsors, state sponsors of terror in the world.

Wait, let me pause you right there. Let me pause you for one second, because I think your mic fell because you're you're sounding like slightly scratchy. Just reiterate the point you were just making just in case people weren't following. Well, so the point is that there is actually a democratically elected government of Afghanistan that is still so the point is that there is actually a democratically elected government of Afghanistan that is still functioning and that is still there. And it is, it's in the Panjshir Valley and in other places, and they're fighting for freedom. So the Biden administration is complicit in telling one of the greatest lies of this entire situation, which is to try and write these people out of existence, to erase them from history and

erase them from reality. You know, this country has a choice to make. You would have thought that this wasn't even a choice. But to every American and to every person in the free world who believes in, you know, ruling by consensus, the choice that we have to make is do we stand with terrorists who use fear as their only form of governing, the way the UN has now done, right? They have stood with the Taliban, with the terrorists of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network and all of the others who are part of this government. And we have said that we are giving them humanitarian assistance, which is we are legitimizing them and recognizing them as a

legitimate power. So what we're doing in that moment is we're saying that fear, ruling by fear and terror, is a legitimate form of governing. And that is fundamental to who we are. So the fight in Afghanistan has never been just about Afghanistan. It has been a war of ideas from the very beginning. And Amrullah Saleh is the democratically elected leader of the country. He was vice president at the time of the Taliban entering Kabul. He has never left the country. He declared himself acting president under the Afghan constitution. These are the people that we have stood by and accepted and legitimized and recognized for the past 20 years. So why suddenly are we acting as if they're not fighting for freedom? Why are we pretending that all Afghans surrendered and that all Afghans gave up and that the Afghan military isn't fighting for its life and fighting for the right to live freely?

And why are we pretending that Afghans all surrendered and want the Taliban? Because there are protests in Kabul. There were protests in Herat. I mean, Megan, can you imagine anything more terrifying as a woman in Afghanistan than the return of the Taliban? Could you imagine the courage that it takes to go onto the streets of Afghanistan today and to protest, whether you're a man or a woman. That is truly the embodiment of everything this country stands for. These are people who are standing up for principle and for their freedom and the right to not live under a regime of tyranny and terrorism. And you would think that those are our natural allies. And that is what this country was founded

on. They are the living embodiment of everything we are supposed to believe in and stand for. And yet we are ignoring them. We're not asking our leaders to acknowledge them. We're not sanctioning any of our so-called allies like Pakistan, who have invaded Afghanistan through a proxy force and are slaughtering these people? And where are all the women's groups and all the leaders on both sides of the aisle? Do you know that an Afghan woman, a police woman, was murdered this weekend in front of her children, according to her young son, who was a witness. He's about 12 or 13 or 14 years old from the video of him describing what happened. And she was murdered in front of her children. She was six months pregnant. And he said that the Taliban fighters, the terrorists who killed her, government, some of whom are declared foreign terrorists by the United States. Siraj Akhani, the new interior minister who was just announced, has a $5 million bounty on his head, right? We don't worry about them. We're interested in the actions of the Taliban in this government, and we think we can work with them. How can you work with people who carve a pregnant woman's brains out of her head with screwdrivers? Can you tell me?

No, it's a point we've been trying to make here. This is a group that has engaged in serial child rape and torture. How are we negotiating with them? And you've got our Secretary of State coming out and saying, a new chapter in America's relationship with the Taliban has begun. It's it's one in which we are going to lead with our diplomacy. How do you have diplomacy with child rapists, with serial murderers? I mean, and you make a good point, which is the legitimately elected government. The president fled, but it's still in place. They're still fighting. They're out in the streets right now protesting as the Taliban shoots into the air, try to send them back

into their homes. And we're still trying to pretend that that group at the top is one we can deal with and that we're going to make some progress with our diplomacy, though we've pulled every single one of our diplomats out of Afghanistan. Those diplomats, many, you know, the U.S. embassy, when it was evacuated, they went to Doha. So what people don't really know is that Zomal Khalilzad, the U.S. presidential envoy, was appointed by Trump and kept by Biden. And, you know, Biden fired almost everyone that was associated with Trump and rescinded every executive order just about that he'd ever made. So there is no justification for keeping Khalilzad except that you wanted him, right? And they can lie about that all day long,

but they wanted him. And Khalilzad opened an office there. They call it a coordination office, right? To make the coordinations in the wake of the Doha agreement. Well, the plan is to turn that into a liaison office with the Taliban. And that is a significant step towards recognizing

terrorists and legitimizing fear as a form of governing. And at the same time, they're going to pass off the money they want to send to the Taliban as humanitarian aid. So Megan, what people don't know is that the Afghan government was kept afloat by the U.S. We were sending over 150 million dollars in cash every week to Afghanistan. Well, hold hold right there, because I actually do want to pick it up with you on the money and whether we might be on the hook for funding some of the Taliban's new agenda. Laura's going to stay with us. We'll pick it up with her right after we take a quick break. Plus, Professor Alan Dershowitz is here and fired up to talk about his recent fight with Larry David. We'll be right back.

All right, let's pick back up with the money, because the money to me is very interesting, what we funded to them, what it says about us. And now you touched on it a minute ago, whether we're prepared to, in the form of, quote, aid or some other way, start funding the Taliban, which is close with Al Qaeda, no matter what the press tells you, and its resurgence. I mean, we could be in a position where the American taxpayer is funding the very terrorist group that we went to Afghanistan to fight 20 plus years ago. Well, it's much worse than that, Megan,

because we already are funding the Taliban. We've let them hold on to $80 billion worth of military equipment. And what most Americans don't know is that it literally is as quick as the flick of a switch for us to destroy every attack helicopter and airplane and armored vehicle that is now in the hands of the Taliban

and al-Qaeda. And it is important to address this point of Taliban versus al-Qaeda versus the Haqqani network and ISIS. What people are constantly deceived about is that all of these groups have the same goal. They may fight with each other for power and vie for position and so on, but essentially they all adhere to the ideology of Al-Qaeda Islamic emirates, and they will form and join to form the entire caliphate in the end. They're working on one in Nigeria as we speak. That's why, you know, so many people, Muslims and Christian, but they're mostly Christians, are being slaughtered every day. This is part of Osama bin Laden's plan. And what is really hard to understand is why, why would the Biden administration or any administration do this to the United States of America? Why would we give victory to Al Qaeda on the 20th anniversary of 9-11? And not just Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, every Islamic terrorist group and every terrorist group in the world now sees that the United States, the leader of the free world, the nation

that is supposed to stand for democracy and supposed to stand for liberty and freedom as a way of life is now saying, well, we're okay with the fact that you don't believe in freedom and that you rule by fear. And in fact, not only are we okay with it, we're going to endorse it. We're going to legitimize it. We're going to lie about it to our people because they know the U.S. is lying and we're going to fund it for you. So it's like, I feel like we've gone into insanity land and people say to me, well, that makes no sense. Why would they do that? I cannot answer that question. That is a question for those leaders to answer. It's a question for Americans to ask of their leaders. It doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican.

It's way too late for partisan politics to have any relevance here whatsoever. We're fighting for our survival and we're fighting for the survival of the American dream and the American idea. That is what is being obliterated right now. And with every person who is killed in the Panjshir Valley, where the Afghan government forces, the special operations troops who are fighting against all the odds. Megan, can you imagine? I mean, the U.S. was mocked and, you know, and sort of ridiculed for 20 years of building Afghan forces. And look what you did. They just collapsed. Why would we participate in that false narrative? The Afghan special operations forces and commandos that are in the Panjshir Valley now, I mean, they are in a desperate humanitarian situation because there's a quarter of a million

people there with them who need food and who need medical supplies. But they have inflicted massive losses on Taliban forces. They're holding out against Pakistan, China, Russia, U.S. armor, U.S. assets, air power, and they are still fighting. They're still holding their ground and they're willing to fight to the death for their freedom. So to every person who calls Afghanistan a failed American experiment, you are dishonoring some of the bravest people on the face of the earth who truly believe in freedom because they're willing to give their lives for it. So don't demean them and patronize them and dismiss them and ignore them. Because in so doing, you

are sowing the seeds for the end of everything that you value in this country, the end of American authority and moral authority on the world stage and American power. And what's clear is we don't seem to care. Our president doesn't seem much to care about that. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Milley, was out there just this weekend sounding very cavalier about what's about to happen there and then back stateside as a result to us. Listen to him. Is the U.S. safer today since the U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan? Well, you know, this is something that I've thought a lot about. And I personally think that my military estimate is that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war. I don't know if the Taliban is going to be able to consolidate power and

establish governance. They may be, maybe not. But I think there's at least a very good probability of a broader civil war. And that will then in turn lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad of terrorist groups. So I think the short answer to your question is, we don't know yet. But the conditions are very likely, in my opinion, that and I've testified this, and I've said it in public, that you could see a resurgence of terrorism coming out of that general region within 12, 24, 36 months. OMG. Oh, um, what? Right? Like, that seems like something we should have factored in.

Oh, Megan, there's just not a single thing in there. And there's nothing left of General Milley that speaks to integrity and honesty and good standing. He has failed this country in every possible respect, and the soldiers under his command, and the American people and the Afghan people because he knows he's lying. I mean, you know, this is what people really need to factor in when they try to make up their minds about what, you know, what is true and what isn't. General Milley knows more than you. He knows more than me. He knows more than every American out there, right? He knows that there's already a civil war in Afghanistan. He knows that Al Qaeda never left. He knows that some of the most senior figures in

al Qaeda returned already from Pakistan and are working with the Afghan al Qaeda, Siraj Haqqani, that's the Haqqani network, and who is a designated terrorist. General Milley and General Austin, all of these people, they had soldiers on the ground in the fight, right? I mean, they have seen the remains of U.S. servicemen coming back. Do you know what they did, Megan? Siraj Haqqani, who was designated as a foreign terrorist in 2012, who the Taliban has named as their interior minister in their new government, he has been in charge of security in Kabul from the moment the Taliban entered. You know why? Because the Haqqani network has always owned Kabul. They are responsible for most of the terrorist attacks in that city. It's their

natural terrain. They are the same people who are most likely responsible for the bombing of U.S. forces that killed 13 Americans and over 100 Afghans. More than 80 percent of the bombs used in Kabul have been traced to two fertilizer factories in Pakistan by the head of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, JAL, that was set up to counter IEDs. So all of these generals, they know exactly what's going on on the ground. They know that the soldiers they trained are fighting in the mountains in the Panjshir Valley. They know that they have been killing the Taliban fighters in extraordinary numbers. They know that there's a stench of death rising from the floor of the valley, from all of the unclaimed bodies. And this is not by any means, you know, a great situation for any of the people involved. They're under an extraordinary amount of pressure. They

are at risk of running out of ammo. They're low on food and so on. But you know what they have in their side? The truth. Because they're fighting for something noble and they're fighting with dignity. And also they know the terrain. It is, it is, there's snow in the mountains, Megan, and winter is coming. And they, the U.S. chose, General Milley, General Austin, all of them, they chose to do this withdrawal in the summer months, the fighting season, when the Taliban

and its fighters are most engaged and most active. If they had chosen to do this in the winter months, the Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda and all of them, they're in Pakistan during the winter months. They don't like the snow and they don't like the cold. They come from the south of the country, from Kandahar and Helmand and places like this, where they're used to the heat. And so this is a factor that is going to play very much into the hands of the government forces and President Saleh and his people around him in the mountains of Panjshir. But it also speaks to the fact that the U.S. had a very simple choice. They could have done this much more easily in the winter months, or they could have picked a fight. They could have let the Taliban do this on their terms

when they could inflict the most damage on the Afghan forces and the Afghan government. And that was the choice that they made. They have chosen to leave the U.S.'s military equipment in the hands of terrorists. They have chosen not to use their air power. They've chosen not to put sanctions on Pakistan. They've chosen not to sanction Qatar or to use any of their diplomatic or economic power to change the effects on the battlefield. They've chosen to ignore President Saleh and the Afghan government forces in the mountains. They've chosen not to supply them or to support them in any way. They've chosen to pressure neighboring governments not to let Afghan refugees come out, not to assist Americans doing private evacuation flights. They've made all these decisions. These are not mistakes. These are not failures in policy that

they're rushing to rectify. These are the chosen courses of action that they're sticking by and that they're defending and that they're pushing forward. So that tells me as a regime, they wouldn't be doing it because nobody's got a gun to their head saying that you have to do it. In fact, the Taliban is holding American citizens as hostages. The State Department has rules about this, right? If you hold an American against their will, prevent them from leaving the country for a certain period of time, they are considered a hostage by the U.S. government. Well, there are American citizens who can't leave Mazar-e-Sharif right now because the Taliban is using them as leverage. And one other thing, there is a man by the name of Nurzai who is serving life in prison right now because he is a significant person in setting up the Taliban's NACO terror network that has been trafficking in heroin and financing the Taliban

and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups for some time now. The Taliban want Noorzai back, and they have an American hostage. We never hear the Biden administration or anybody talking about the fact that we gave up all of what we've given up to the Taliban, and we never talk about getting this American back. We never talk about the deal that we're considering, releasing Noorzai from prison. And what I understand from very senior sources in the DEA, you know, they wanted to indict the top eight tier leaders of the Taliban back in 2013 on narcotics trafficking charges. And they were prevented from doing so by the Obama administration that said,

oh, we couldn't possibly do that. We don't have an extradition treaty with the Afghan government. Well, these are pathetic excuses. They're made up reasons to justify policy decisions that hurt the United States. And it's time for leaders on both sides to realize that Americans are united in their disgust and shame at the betrayal and what's going on in Afghanistan. And if we don't do something about it, the consequences for this country are very, very grave because we are empowering a terrorist super state whose main goal is the annihilation of every free person on the face of the earth. And you heard General Milley say it explicitly there that it wouldn't be surprised at all if we see terrorism brought from there to here within the next 12 to 36 months. Well, that's not a shock to any of us. We all saw that coming. It's one of the questions why many of us asked, why do all the troops have to come out? Why? Well, there was no massive movement back here at home to have every last troop removed from Afghanistan. This wasn't a Vietnam situation where Americans were in the streets saying, pull them all. It's not like when Trump first said, I want the troops to go home. We had 15,000 and he started to withdraw or withdraw them down. We only had 4 left and and we were holding the peace OK. And we were preventing the surrender of Afghanistan to this terrorist group that that foments more terrorism with Al Qaeda. And if you look at sort of the latest, you've got the New York Times coming out and writing

about, Laura, how the administration quickly adjusted to the chaos in Afghanistan. And by the time the last American soldiers left on Monday, the U.S. military and its allies had evacuated around 124,000 people. It was a moment of victory for them, as far as they see. Ezra Klein of the New York Times, a better withdrawal was possible, but so was a worse one. And then there was John Carl over on ABC. Biden accomplished exactly what Trump had tried to do, but perhaps not as quickly and with more regard for the Afghan citizens who worked with the United States. So already they're trying to run cover for him and, of course, shift the narrative to more domestic stories because everyone in the press realizes this has been disastrous for Biden and his poll numbers. Give you the last word. that while another member of the church was on the line with the Christians who were gathered together from that church and they were praying together, they could hear the Taliban come to

their door. They could hear the door open and they could hear the gunfire. And they believe that everyone in that underground church was executed this weekend. So I would say to the New York Times and to ABC and to all of the other reporters that anybody who is defending this and trying to portray this as if it was Biden was more humane and did better for the Afghan people. It is an absolute the scale and depth of that lie and that dishonesty is so overwhelming. I don't even know how to address it. I have an Afghan friend, my colleague from 60 Minutes, who has been here the last few days. We have volunteers that have come from all over the country that are trying to help get humanitarian assistance into Afghanistan and get people rescued. And one after another, after another, I mean, people are just absolutely shocked and

stunned at the news that's coming out. The phone, every time it rings on Saturday night, it was another relative of his who had been killed in the fighting in the Panjshir Valley. And then it was his uncle who had been shot. And then it was his uncle's brother who had been killed. And then it was his village that had been overrun. And, you know, it's never ending. And what you see happening here with the press is what Biden, what the Biden administration did very effectively. Remember the images of all those

people running under the tarmac, those people clinging to that last flight. That's the image of Afghanistan that they did not want anyone to see, because we were supposed to believe that none of the Afghan people were resisting, that everyone supports the Taliban. They really wanted the Taliban. Democracy was a failed experiment and so on. Right. And none of them had the will. What did General Austin say? You can't buy willpower. That was the narrative and they didn't want anything to interfere. Well, as long as you had journalists on the ground witnessing the desperation and the truth, that was an uncomfortable position for the administration to be in. So they quickly evacuated all of those journalists, you know, the New York Times,

Wall Street Journal, they got them all out. Problem number one solved. Number two, they went to Siraj Haqqani, the man responsible for killing more people in Kabul than anybody else. The one man, right? And they asked him to help them secure the airport. And they put a perimeter around it by the Taliban. And what happened immediately after that? The Taliban put up a gazillion checkpoints and people were beaten. People were stopped at those checkpoints. People were unable to reach the airport. So the Biden administration working with terrorists made sure that they had full control over the narrative. And in that space, they then went about lying to the American people every time they opened their mouths. Now it comes back to a compliant press that sees his falling approval numbers.

He's down to 45.8% approval. That was from a high of 54% approval at the end of his first 100 days. He's had a drop in seven key congressional districts that Democrats are defending in the next year, according to a GOP poll that just came out. So they can feel the political consequences of these decisions. Lara Logan, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for bringing your expertise and just a pleasure to talk to you again. Lots of love. I want to pretend, Megan, that I'm the rational, cool-headed journalist, but I got to tell you when I hear that and I know the reality, I, I can only say there's a special place in hell for all of those people. Listen, it's personal for you. Unlike most of us, you've been there, you know, these people,

that's one of the reasons why your insights are invaluable. And I, I feel like your, your passion makes us listen to you more. So don't apologize. It's wonderful to hear you. Thank you for caring. Well, that's a love lady. Okay, up next, Alan Dershowitz is here. He's going to talk about this major abortion rights case. That's, well, we've had the dust up down in Texas. And we've also had another, we have another case that's going up to the Supreme Court.

And he just got into a weird fight with Larry David. You got to hear this story. And by the way, we'd love to know your thoughts on anything we've discussed today or recently on the show. You know, before we launched the series, we had a show and continue to on podcasting. It's free. And if you have any personal questions, well, screw you. No, just kidding. I may, I may answer them. It depends. How are they? How personal are they? Give us a call. 833-44-MEGAN. 833-44-63496. 833-446-3496. I'm going to get it straight. I don't have it, but listen, it's 833-44-MEGAN. M-E-G-Y-N. Boom. Joining me now, one of my favorite people, Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and scourge of Larry David. We'll get to that in one second. Great to see you, Alan.

Let's start with the thing that's been... Yeah, go ahead. I'm a little tired. I've been up all night trying to help rescue 200 or so women judges from Afghanistan, trying to put together a team to do that. So it's been an exhausting, exhausting couple of days. And I hope we're making some progress. Are you? We hope so. You know, the Talmud says, and the Quran says, he who saves or she who saves, even a single human life, it's as if they've saved the world. And, you know, I see images of the Holocaust as I see these judges and their families running to safety with Taliban men threatening to kill them and their families because they served as female judges. Imagine the arrogance of a female

judge sentencing a male member of the Taliban to prison. So they're after them. And we, everybody who believes in justice has to fight back. So that's been my cause for the last few days. Oh, I love that. I want to help you do that. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with that. It's horrifying to me how quickly and how cavalierly we've discarded people like that and just sort of said, oh, you know, we're running a diplomatic mission now. But let's be honest, what's Blinken doing to help those women? What's anyone in the administration doing to help the little girls who are now being forced into child marriage after child rape? Nothing, nothing. We don't even have diplomats in Afghanistan now. No, and they're being trafficked. You know, some of them are going to the border to Pakistan, and they're being picked up in Pakistan by traffickers and being sold for sex. So we have to do something about this. You know, most of the world stood by as 6 million Jews and many millions of people died in the early 1940s. We've learned that lesson. You cannot stand idly by whether you're a Christian. I mean, it's been probably the most consequential cultural issue that we've been dealing with for the past 50 years since Roe v. Wade in 73. And it's had massive positive effects on the conservative movement in a waybeing, obviously, of our future generations and so on. We get this law out of Texas, the Texas Heartbeat Act, which for those who haven't been paying attention, nearly all Republican lawmakers signed on to it as authors

or sponsors and only one Democrat sponsor. And it was signed into law by Governor Abbott, who has, we believe, presidential ambitions in 24. It makes Texas the most restrictive in the nation for access to abortion. It bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. When you see a heartbeat, fetal heartbeat, no exception for rape or incest, permits later abortion if the mother's life is endangered, and it deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids and abets an abortion, but cleverly bars state officials in Texas from actually enforcing the law. That's how they're avoiding federal jurisdiction over this.

They're trying to ban the Supreme Court or prevent the Supreme Court from getting involved. And so far, they've been cleverly successful. The plaintiffs need to have a connection to the patient or the clinic if they want to sue. And you can sue. It incentivizes lawsuits against those performing or helping with an abortion at $10,000 in reward money. Okay. So this is just the latest, but again, the most clever and controversial attempt to get around Roe versus Wade, which will come up for

review this term in the normal way, in the way where both parties are going to argue that it should be overturned, it was bad law and so on. This is a different way to crack away at it. And the Supreme Court did not decline to hear the case. All of the reports I read, Alan, are basically Supreme Court is basically backing the law. They're backing the law. They allow it. Well, I don't see it that way. I don't I don't see them backing the law. In fact, they expressed skepticism about its constitutionality. So you tell me what the Supreme Court actually did and then we'll get into what you them backing the law. In fact, they expressed skepticism about its constitutionality. So you tell me what the Supreme Court actually did, and then we'll get into what you think of the law. The Supreme Court did not have the courage to do what it should have done. It

shouldn't even have breached the abortion issue. This is the most dangerously unconstitutional process for challenging a law that I've seen in the 55 years I've practiced. Imagine if it was turned now next against gay marriage. So the state outlaws gay marriage. It's unconstitutional. But the state says anybody who wants to challenge a gay marriage just has to go to court and collect $10,000. What the state has done is deputized ordinary Budinsky's who are money hungry to do the job for them. Well, let's turn it on its on its side and say, let's say the progressives who don't care about the law and don't care about due process decide to turn this against the Second Amendment so they can pass a law in New York or in California saying nobody has the right

to have any guns. We know we're violating the Second Amendment. Nobody has any right to have any guns, but the state's not going to enforce it. Any anti-gun person can sue any store, any company that sells guns and can get $10,000 for that. The process is what's so dangerous. Imagine if that were used to stop desegregation in the South. It could be used to stop anything constitutional. And that's what was so disappointing about five justices of the Supreme Court not stepping in. And I think Justice Sotomayor got it exactly right when she focused on the process, not even getting to the

abortion issue, just the process by which the state is trying to circumvent Mulberry versus Madison, the Supreme Court, the Article Three of the Constitution. It's just undercutting everything that the process of law stands for. And I hope that a wiser Supreme Court will ultimately strike down this statute and tell Texas and tell the rest of the states, you cannot circumvent the law and the constitution in this way. You can call it clever. I call it devious. There's no question that that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to circumvent Roe versus Wade. I mean, there's no question about that. But I would say, you know, the people who I've heard defending this, and to be honest, there haven't been that many. I mean, to be perfectly honest, even legal scholars who are

from the Federalist Society, I've saying, no, no, no. Even Donald Trump, even Donald Trump has not really done what one might have expected him to do. He's remained relatively quiet on this because it's indefensible. It's indefensible. And just as a political matter, it's a slippery slope. As you point out, there are a lot of trusted or valued rights on the right half of the country, like gun rights, as you point out, that they don't want states like New York or California messing with. And it's based, gun rights are specifically spelled out in the Constitution.

You know, they're right there in the Second Amendment, whereas the privacy right from Griswold. Well, I'm just saying, but the Second Amendment talks about the right to bear arms. Whereas privacy and abortion is judge made law. It is. But so is Heller. So is the decision to undo 200 years of precedent that said the Second Amendment doesn't convey a personal right to own guns. I'm not quarreling with that, but the Constitution is very rarely clear. It's clear. You can't run for president unless you're 35 years old. But the Second Amendment isn't so clear. And the right, many of our most fundamental rights derive from other amendments, the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. So I don't see the distinction between gun rights and abortion rights. Both are controversial. Brown versus

Board of Education. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that separate but equal is not for women. I'm a strong supporter of women's right to choose abortion if it had been left to state legislatures and we hadn't politicized the issue and turned it into something that strengthened the conservative movement. Remember, we're the only country in the Western world that is focused on abortion. Ireland has permitted it. Italy, the most Catholic countries in the world, now permit abortion. Only the United States. It still remains an issue. So whatever you think of Roe versus Wade, there were scholars also who criticized the rationale of Brown versus Board of Education. Herbert Wexler, the great constitutional scholar. Many, many others. Nobody would dream now of reversing a 1954 decision and nobody should think about reversing a 1973 decision. Whatever you may think of it originally, Marbury versus Madison was very, very, very, very controversial at the time it was rendered. But precedent has its role in constitutional adjudication. Stand by what you have said. Okay. So on that front, given that,

given that the court, and I will say, I disagree with you that the court did the wrong thing in punting on this, because I do think it was a weird circumstance. They were being asked to enjoin something where, enjoin a judge basically, but no one had actually sued. If somebody had sued under the law and said, I'm, you owe me $10,000 for driving somebody to an abortion clinic, bingo, you're on. There's a judicial, whatever, issue and justiciable. And they would have taken that case, I believe. It was just that they were like, there's no one here real who's been sued and we don't really have a live case in front of. I think if and when it gets back up to them, I do think they're going to

decide it against Texas. But let me just ask you, because I want to get to Larry David, but I want to ask you about the bigger Roe case coming up to the Supreme Court this term and ask you if you think there, because there is an adherence to precedent, even amongst conservatives as a general rule. But now we've got a 6-3 split. Roberts voted with the liberals on this local Texas case that we just talked about. But so let's say it's even 5-4, if Roberts, you can assume he's with the Democrats or the more liberal justices. Do you think that there are the votes on the Supreme Court right now to overturn Roe? Well, nobody knows for sure. But Justice Kavanaugh has generally followed on the issue of President Roberts. They were colleagues, of course, on the D.C. Circuit together, and Gorsuch may. I think the other

side has two definite votes, Alito and Thomas, but I think the others are up for grabs. So I can imagine a decision that says, look, many of us have doubts about Roe v. Wade, but precedent has its call, and so we're not going to allow Texas unilaterally to undo a constitutional precedent. Now, remember, the case is Mississippi and it doesn't involve six weeks. It involves more than that. So there's some way of actually coming to a decision which gives both sides a little bit. They may compromise.

We may see a process begin, which will ultimately result in what Texas wants, but I don't think it's going to do it this year. And just to remind folks, if the Supreme Court were to find Roe versus Wade unconstitutional, that doesn't automatically outlaw abortion. It would be, it would refer to the states, and it would be a state by state matter, which is still controversial, but just to be clear. And there could be a federal statute. Remember that the Biden administration is thinking of introducing a federal statute saying that abortion is an interstate matter because people travel from state to state to get it. So we hereby declare as and ask them to find something, a constitution that wasn't there. You go to the legislature, you go to the lawmakers, make them pass a law or constitutional amendment. Okay, let's table that because I don't have that much time and I've written more books than anybody in Chilmock history. They cancel me at the Jewish Center.

Oh, come on. Because they made this terrible, I made this terrible mistake of doing what John Adams did. And that is defending somebody for an unconstitutional act, even though I voted against them. Yes, I defended the Constitution on behalf of Donald Trump. I'm very proud that I did that. I helped defeat an unconstitutional impeachment. And now Larry David comes up to me on the porch of the Chilmark store and starts screaming at me. I'm disgusting. He saw me put my hand around the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Of course, he was my former student. I'm very proud of what Mike Pompeo helped

to do with the Abraham Accords, with the peace rollout in the Middle East, with the recognition of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. I played a role in all those, and I worked in tandem with Pompeo. But the small-minded zealots of Chilmark, who think they know everything, led by Larry David, cannot tolerate dissent. And it's the Larry Davids of the world that may cause the Democrats the next two elections. How could Larry David cause the Democrats the elections? I think people are sick and tired of cancel culture. They're sick and tired of Larry David and others like them on the extreme left telling people what they can think, what they can say, and what they can do. These are people with totalitarian minds. They think they know the truth with a capital T and a capital T. Therefore, there's no need for dissent. There's no need for due process.

And there's no need for liberty of those who disagree with you. Either agree with us or goodbye. That's the attitude of Larry David. That's the attitude of the small minded people of Chilmark. And that's the attitude I have been fighting against all my life. I started fighting against it in college against McCarthyism. And now I'm going to continue to fight against the McCarthyism of the hard left. You have I mean, you if people don't doubt you, they should listen to our very first interview together on this podcast where we went through a lot of your cases. It's not like you were a huge believer in OJ Simpson or necessarily Klaus von Buehler. You're a lawyer. Lawyers represent causes. They defend the Constitution. They represent the law. There's a place for them in our country. And Donald Trump won that case. But, you know, the only the only the only other two cases I've ever

done politically like this, I represented Alan Krantz, the Democratic senator on the floor of the Senate. I helped to represent Bill Clinton, a Democrat. I've had six or seven other cases in courts representing politicians, all of them Democrats. Yes. Finally, the principles that I believe in happened to come down on the side of Republican I voted against. And one of the small minded people on the vineyard, a doctor, once said to me, I can never talk to a Republican. I mean, that's the kind of intolerance. That's like Ben Affleck. You won't act across from a Republican. Wait, wait, you got to tell me. But I got to give my friend whose kid just got into Harvard, and he never got into Harvard. And it said Harvard Law, just kidding. But under that shirt,

I had a shirt my wife had made for me saying, it's the Constitution, stupid. So I took off my top shirt and I showed Larry David, it's the Constitution, stupid. I didn't say a word, but he walked away screaming and yelling. His face turned red. I thought he was going to have a stroke. He said, you're disgusting. I can never talk to you because I saw your arm around Mike Pompeo. You and all those people, you're disgusting. I mean, that's the attitude that those folks have, small-minded, intolerant people. Americans won't stand for that. They're not going to stand for that unless the Democratic party disassociates itself from the extreme left the intolerant extreme left they're going to start losing yeah that's right donald trump he was impeached but he was not uh convicted

and you know you stood up for your principles irrespective of whether you voted for that candidate which you've been very open about the fact you haven't. Now, always a pleasure. We'll continue to talk. Good luck on your new show. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Up next, I'm going to do something Alan Dershowitz has done on his podcast many times,

which is take listener calls for the very first time ever in my case. What could possibly go wrong? If you have a question, call us now. This is it. 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N. That's 833-446-3496. That's next. Welcome back, everyone, to The Megyn Kelly Show. We're taking your calls today at 833-44-MEGYN.

That's 833-446-3496. And we're also going to be answering some of our listener mail, our viewer mail, in a segment we call Asked and Answered. That is where our listeners submit questions via email to questions at devilmaycaremedia.com. Or sometimes they submit the questions on any of our social media accounts, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. And for this portion of the program, my executive producer, Steve Krakauer, joins me. Steve, what's happening? How do you feel like we're doing so far? Hey, Megan. I think it was great.

I'm feeling great. And because of our launch day here, we made a full call out on questions at devilmaycaremedia.com, all of our social media accounts. Today's first question comes to us from Lily Cooper from Instagram. And she has an interesting question. She wants to know what tips do you have for dating in a world of online dating kind of a new area here? Okay. Well, Lily, I confess I'm such an old hag. I've never done online dating. I met my husband before and my first husband, if that mattered before that was really a thing. But I would say in general, when it comes to online dating, keep it short. Keep the first date short, lest you need to pull the rip card and get the hell out of there. Because it's not

like being set up with somebody who a friend is vouching for and so on. So if it's just you and somebody you met briefly online, you don't know if the picture's real. You don't know if this is actually a good person or someone who just knows how to market an online profile. Keep it short, keep it in a public space and do what I did when I first met my husband, which is have a friend nearby just in case, just in case things go south. Little did I know I was meeting the love of my life. The other thing I would say just in terms of dating in general is I think too many women spend the first couple of weeks, couple of months, what have you, just trying to figure out, maybe men do this too, just trying to figure out what the other person wants and then trying to be

that, or at least lead the person to believe that they are that. And then they decide, then the person doing the pretending will decide whether they're into the relationship or not. And that's totally bass-ackwards, right? That's not the way to go after it. You should completely be honest about who you are. I mean, you don't have to show all your sort of warts and all, as they say, but I think you really need to be as true to who you are as possible because they're going to discover the real you eventually. And it's better that they come in eyes open. And I also think that every time you find yourself obsessing over your new relationship or the person you're dating, you've got to remind yourself, just like, just like you tell your dog, no, when he gets up on

the counter, you know, with his paws, that's what my puppy's doing. Every time, um, you've got to remind yourself, you're focused on the wrong person. Every bit of energy you spend obsessing about a relationship needs to be rechanneled into obsessing about how to improve your own life, how to make yourself interesting, how to make yourself interested, how to learn how to play an instrument, how to spend your time better as opposed to just sitting on the couch vegging, right? Take every single one of those moments and reinvest it from how do I tantalize the other person into how do I tantalize myself? How do I make my own life better? And it has the wonderful added benefit of then making you more attractive. So everything, everything works. All right,

keep it short and tantalize yourself, which will make tantalizing him or her a self-fulfilling prophecy. What do you think, Steve? Wait, before we go on to the viewer questions, can I just ask you, so I feel like you kind of blew me off on how it's going. I feel like everything's been smooth, except Laura's, Laura Logan's mic fell off, but we fixed that. Kind of fucked up that one sound bite that played out of nowhere. Other than that, I feel like we're doing okay. I think so. You know, this is day one of a very different way of doing the Megyn Kelly show. At the same time, I think people that have been listening for almost a year now on all their podcast platforms will find it very similar, which I think is the goal. Yeah. Well, we have more guests in this podcast and this radio show because it's our first and

we had a lot we wanted to cover. Normally we only have like one big guest or two guests. So it's been chock full. It's been 20 pounds of potatoes in a 10-pound bag, as our old pal Jay Sirocco used to say at Fox News. All right. So I guess our first caller, I'm told, is Paul in New York. This is exciting, Paul. You're my very first caller here on The Megyn Kelly Show. Are you with me? I am honored, Megyn.

Yes. Oh, I'm so happy to talk to you. This is so fun. I miss you on TV, but we'll take any way we can get you. Thank you. I'm honored that you're still with me. Yeah. Congratulations on your new show. I'll be a loyal listener. Thank you very much. So what's on your mind? So I just wanted to talk about, I heard you, Chris, I won't do it, but, you know, Biden's ratings, Biden's ratings, I don't understand how they're going up.

I mean, it almost seems like this nation is self-destructing on autopilot, you know, and it's allowed to be being done. It's really effed up. I mean, I just don't understand. What's it going to take another 9-11 event for for them to take any accountability? I mean, from the very top of President Biden all the way down to these jackass generals, you know, that it was the State Department, they're taking credit for something they didn't even do. I mean, is this an alternate reality? I don't I don't get it. Well, I think it's a combination of things, right? It's like he soared into office and had big numbers because he was not named Donald Trump. And that's really all you needed to do not be

Donald Trump. As we saw during the campaign, you can stay in your basement and win a presidential election just as long as you're not Donald Trump. And he continued that for a while. And then and then came the drunken spending, you know, the drunken sailor spending and just one thing after the other that the American people didn't ask for, you know, the the radical agenda when it came to social issues, when it came to the reversal of men's rights on college campuses and when it came to all of the critical race theory and so on. And people, I think we're sitting back saying we didn't elect that. We didn't elect any of that. And I think that's why it's so everything fell away so quickly after Afghanistan. Not to mention you tell me, Paul, but I feel like he promised us that he was going to get COVID under control. And it's not to blame him for COVID, but he is the one who said he was going to get under control and is far from under control. So I completely get everything you're saying. So like what what is wrong with the Republicans? I know that we're not we're not

activists, not, you know, not the Democrats. I don't want to label the parties, but you have to go into the parties. But I just feel that the right-minded people, if you want to call them Republicans, whatever, we're not activists. We're not out there with signs. Black Lives Matter. Come on, give me a break. And I feel like our country is just self-destructing and we don't have enough willpower in the Republican Party or, you know, independence, whatever. And I think you can't don't focus on the Republican Party. I know. I mean, as you know, from listening to me at all, I don't like partisan jerseys. That's all BS. They don't deserve your loyalty. They don't. They don't fight. They're so afraid. They're so weak-kneed. Not all of them, but many, maybe most. And this isn't about Dems versus Republicans. It's about reason versus unreason. And I do think that most people are just living their lives, having a good time and trying to take care of their kids and make money and put food on the table. So they're starting now to pay attention. And I do think they're ready to fight this battle. They're going to get more involved in these culture wars because they're becoming more consequential and they're being thrust in

your face in a way they never have before. So I think that this is a winnable battle and those woke, loud, annoying 10% of the population are going to be forced to stand down or they're just going to lose because the rational, not even middle 90% is starting to pay more attention. Okay. Let's get to our next caller, which is Timothy. Timothy is on the line with us. Timothy, how you doing? I'm fine, Megan. It's Cardinal Dolan here. And do I appreciate the invitation and welcome, welcome, welcome to, to the Catholicolic channel it's good you know i was getting so i was getting so tired of having a uh being the only irishman on the channel so it is really good to have you so carnal dolan i am so excited this is a surprise and a thrill i love you

so much and i'm such an admirer with the fact that you would call me on my first day. Can I just tell people a nice story about you? This is who Cardinal Dolan is. He doesn't know me that well. He came on my show a couple of times at NBC. And then I had an unfortunate ending at NBC and I was home licking my wounds, feeling sorry for myself. And guess who sent me the most beautiful, handwritten, kind, supportive note, just reaching out to me to offer love and support. You, Cardinal Doe. It was amazing. I was so touched. That you would remember that means a lot to me. And thanks for not mentioning that I also asked you to borrow some money. We don't have to bring that up. But I'm just glad you're a fellow here on the satellite radio. It's good to have you.

I admired you so much. I think I was with you. You were kind enough to invite me on a show on Good Friday of all times. But it turned into a very beautiful... You remember that? You had an audience there, and it turned into a real kind of thoughtful, reflective discussion of the cross and suffering in the world and what Good Friday meant. And boy, I thought, heck, this is better than being at St. Patrick's. I probably have more listeners and more viewers and with nice people here. So we go back and I hope we stay together. Lots of love and thank you so much. And thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow, Larry Elder and Caitlyn Jenner. That'll be fun in advance of this California recall effort.

And don't forget, today's show will be available this afternoon on any podcast platform for free. Just search The Megyn Kelly Show. And we will also be posting a video version to YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.