The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden's Gas Price Spin and Putin's Motive and Opportunity, with Sen. Josh Hawley, Admiral James Stavridis, Vinnie Politan and Robert Barnes | Ep. 277

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Sen. Josh Hawley and former Admiral James Stavirdis to talk about the "religion" of green energy and activism, Biden's focus on Venezuela and Saudi Arabia rather than our own energy, the truth about why gas prices are rising, America's tough foreign policy choices now, the political ramifications of inflation, whether Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will have an easy confirmation, Putin's motive and opportunity, the Ukrainian people fighting back, the future of NATO, and more. Then, Kelly's Court with Court TV lead anchor Vinnie Politan and lawyer Robert Barnes, on the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case, a juror in the Maxwell case, Jeff Zucker's settlement, Alec Baldwin's latest public comments, a legal case about butts, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: 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. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. As talks between Ukraine and Russia collapse again, we have two very important guests today. Senator Josh Hawley, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, and retired four-star Admiral James Sturridis, who once served as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces. It'll be interesting to get his take, won't it? The talks failed just hours after a Russian airstrike hit a maternity ward in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. The reporters for the Associated Press were nearby when the attack happened and caught the explosion on camera.

A terrifying sound no matter the situation. The AP reporting that the ground shook more than a mile away. The reporters then rushed to the site and witnessed harrowing scenes. A mother crying while holding her little girl, who looks to be less than two. A pregnant mother. Oh, look at that. This poor mom. For you guys who are listening, it's a mom clutching her daughter in a pink snowsuit and just crying. A pregnant mom.

She looks at least six months pregnant, probably more, being carried out of the wreckage on a stretcher. It's hard to tell her condition. Soldiers trying to comfort an upset little boy, a little girl standing there wrapped in a blanket, just looking around, not knowing what's going on. According to local government officials, at least three people were killed, including a child whose age is not yet known. But the death toll is very likely to go up there. Britain is now also accusing Russia of using thermobaric vacuum bombs in its attack across the country, but the Pentagon is not yet confirming that that would be an outlawed weapon. Joining me now to react to this news and some economic news as well is Senator Josh Hawley. Senator, great to have you here.

Thanks for having me. I mean, this is just beyond, you know, I mean, every day there's new news about hitting civilian targets. And we see these scenes that just tear at your heartstrings. Like a maternity ward, you know, there's nothing that he's incapable of, Vladimir Putin. And the talk of like, okay, we'll set up a civilian corridor, we'll set up a limited no-fly zone to get the civilians out. Well, they've done that. The Ukrainians and the Russians have agreed to that already. He's not honoring it. So that's not, Vladimir Putin, right, to fold. We're not, we might do a limited no-fly zone. Again, that requires honor on his part. I don't see that. So what do you think of it? What's the way forward? Well, I think that the way forward here is that we've

got to help the Ukrainians in the defense of their homeland. What we're learning, Megan, is that they are terrific fighters. I mean, it's really, it's unbelievable to see their defense, to see their stand against the Russian military. And I can tell you that I don't think Vladimir Putin expected this. I don't think he expected this level of resistance. And the Ukrainians are proving that they are not just going to roll over, that they are not going to give in. They're not going to see their nation extinguished. And the United States, my view is, ought to be there to help them in their fight. I don't think we should fight it on their behalf, but I think we should help them in their fight by providing weapons, defensive weapons, by providing ammunition,

and then by sanctioning Russia's oil and gas sector and turning on American energy. I mean, Russia is a gas station. That's what it is. That's how Vladimir Putin makes his money. That's how he's financing this war. It's from his oil and natural gas station. That's what it is. That's how Vladimir Putin makes his money. That's how he's financing this war. It's from his oil and natural gas sales. And it's good that we're not importing energy anymore from Russia, thankfully. I mean, it took Joe Biden a year and a half to get there, but he finally did. But we need to do more than that.

We need to sanction their energy sector and we need to turn on American production. I wish the president would do that. I think that would send a strong message. We won't. We're not doing it. And even now, as he cuts off the 7% of our oil supplies we get from Russia, he and his press secretary and his surrogates are all focused on renewables, on how we are going to make up the difference with our little windmills and our solar panels, and that to the extent there's not more oil drilling, says Jen Psaki, that's on the oil companies. We have 9,000 outstanding leases.

If they're so desperate to drill, why aren't those applied for? You know, this is from the same president, Megan, who came into office and in his first days in office, shut down the Keystone Pipeline, shut down new oil and gas leases, shut down drilling on federal lands, applied a raft of new regulations to oil and gas and other forms of energy production in the United States. And he hasn't rolled any of that back. I mean, there's a reason why we were energy independent two years ago, actually just over a year ago, and now we're not.

There's a reason why gas prices are up 50%, 5-0, under Joe Biden. And that's not just in the last couple of days. That's over the last year. It's because of his policies. And this whole talk about, oh, let the American people just buy electric vehicles. I mean, that's the 21st century version of let them eat cake. I mean, that's the idea that, what, so we're going to go to China and beg them, because that's where the batteries are made, beg them for supplies, beg them for component parts, and somehow distribute these all to Americans. Listen, I'm in favor of every form of energy production, but that has got to include, in fact, right now it's got to begin with, oil and natural gas production in this country. If he would open up production, we'd see a shift in oil prices, I think, very quickly, it's a futures-based market. But Megan, you're right. He's not doing it. And the reason he's not doing it is because he is in thrall to the political left, the hard's a good goal. Nobody's saying that's

a terrible goal. But right now we're in a massive crisis and is now really the time to be focused on that. And we could reduce carbon emissions by using things like nuclear and not relying on, you know, basically the water wheel, which was how the country first got started before we had things like electricity. Let me ask you this, Those 9000 leases, is it because of this that those are not applied for and filled out and we're not humming in the oil industry to the extent we were under Donald Trump? Here's soundbite for this is Joe Biden during the campaign on the oil industry. Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production.

As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers in the interest of transitioning to that greener economy? The answer is yes. No more subsidies for fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period. Ends. I've been against Keystone from the beginning. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period. Ends. What do you make of it, Senator? The claims?

This is an area where Megan Megan, Joe Biden has been very successful. You know, he can't claim a lot of successes in his year as president, but this is one he has been successful in making us energy dependent. He has been successful in throttling down our energy production. And yeah, putting the premise of that question that we just heard, putting thousands of American workers, blue collar workers out of work, out of a job. Yep, he's done that too. And here's the thing that really gets me, Megan. I notice now that Joe Biden doesn't seem to have any objection to increased oil and natural gas production in general. He's begging Venezuela to do it. He's begging Saudi Arabia to do it. What he has an objection to is Americans producing

American energy in America. And by the way, who could do it more cleanly than any other nation? It would be us. I mean, who has the highest environmental standards? It would be us. But yet he's happy to beg these dictators for more oil and natural gas, let them get rich, but he doesn't want the American people to actually produce our own energy. It is insane. What do you make of that?

Because we are learning now that the president's team has been in touch with the regime in Venezuela for preparing to offer them a special package that been in touch with the regime in Venezuela. We're preparing to offer them a special package that will ease restrictions, the sanctions on them, get them to make up the difference in oil. The president also potentially planning a trip to Saudi Arabia to ask the Saudis to increase their oil production. So we really are on it. We're not looking at any American oil company and saying, could you drill more? Could you be part of the solution? Just these other regimes that are deeply problematic that he promised to make pariahs of. Now he goes to them on bended knee. And so far, the reports are that a couple of them

didn't take his call last week, that they're really not that interested in talking to him. Well, they know they've got the leverage now, Megan. I mean, this is what is so, frankly, pathetic about this. The president of the United States is groveling before murders like Maduro down in Venezuela. He's groveling before the Saudis. We even have reports that he's groveling to Iran. I mean, he's thinking about offering Iran new and better terms if they will increase their energy production. I mean, this is really, this is a reductio ad absurdum.

And this is the absurdity you get when you embrace the kind of delusional politics he has. And it just goes back to the fact, why should the American people be held hostage to Joe Biden's indebtedness to the political left? I mean, just because he's enthralled to the political left and he's made all these commitments to the hard environmental left of his party, why should the rest of the American people have to pay for that? They don't agree with those policies. They haven't made those commitments. They don't share those politics. So I would just call on the president, listen, this shouldn't be about politics anymore. This ought to be about the security of the American people. Open up American energy production.

That's the only smart thing to do. At a time of record inflation, of eye-popping numbers at the gas pump, we're talking about oil prices that could come in 200, even $300 a barrel, they're talking about if things go really south, even more than they have with Putin. Yeah, why wouldn't we look internally? It should be an all-hands-on-deck situation, but it's not. And now, with that serious pain in the pump, I mean, you and I have never seen anything like it in our lifetimes, right? It hasn't been that we haven't been in a global energy crisis this bad in 50 years. And I know you're not even 50 years old. political problems for them that were already in place. They were already rising long before the battle with Putin in Ukraine. But listen to Jen Psaki. This is today. She sent out a tweet of her on video addressing the gas prices. You may have noticed this week that your gas prices have gone

up. I want to talk to you a little bit about why. A lot of it has to do with Vladimir Putin. U.S. production of oil and gas is rising. In fact, in the first year of the Biden presidency, there was more oil and gas produced in the United States than the first year of the Trump presidency. Part of this is on the oil companies. Right now, there are 9,000 approved unused permits that oil and gas companies could tap into now. The only way to protect the United States over the long term is to become energy independent. That's why the president has been so focused on investing in clean energy technologies so that we can rely on that

and not President Putin to set the price of gas. Energy independent, meaning renewables only, only not nukes, not more drilling, not natural gas, which we have in such abundance, not oil, not just back to the windmill. But what do you make of that claim about the gas prices are they're rising because of Putin? Yeah, she really ought to get out more. I mean, I noticed she said, if you've noticed in the last week, your gas prices have gone up. We try the last year and a half. I mean, ever since this president came to office, we have seen a steady uptick in gas prices, again, to the tune of more than 50%. And I can tell you, in Missouri,

we have been paying even above the national average. I mean, our inflation in gas has been higher than it has been in other parts of the nation. We have a chart of it on the board. You can't see it, Senator, but it shows that the climb started back in November 2020, for sure the last most recent upward spike happening in the context of Ukraine. But he wants to blame this entire graph, which goes over the course of a year and a half, on Vladimir Putin, not on his own policies. Just not credible. And listen, everybody knows it's not credible. I mean, the American people aren't stupid. They pay for gas. I mean, people who have to fill up their trucks, their minivans, get to work, take the kids to school.

They have been paying higher gas prices for over a year. And they know that. And they know that Joe Biden has boasted. You just play the clip. He has boasted about shutting down American energy production. You can't have it both ways. You can't say that, oh, we are shutting down American energy production. We are happy to do that. We're no more drilling, no more exploration. You can't say that at one time and then turn around later and say, oh, but we're for increasing it. We've tried to increase it. It's just not true. It's not credible. Even now, their policies are throttling down American energy production.

Even now, they're saying that, oh, no, we shouldn't drill more. We shouldn't pump more. We shouldn't do more biofuels. What we ought to do is clean energy sometime in the future, who knows when, rely on China for all of those component parts. It's just not credible at all, Megan. The American people know that. You know, we're so ethically compromised in these choices because this is all right now because of the terrible actions of Vladimir Putin. he's killing civilians. There's no question about it in Ukraine and innocent people. And so we want to punish him and we say, forget it.

We're cutting off, among other things, the 7% of oil we buy from you. What are we going to do instead? We're going to become more energy independent again. Okay, what are we going to do? We're going to do windmills and solar. Where do we get the solar panels from? From China, which is conducting a genocide on its own people on the Muslim minority, the Uyghurs that were willing to look the other way on that.

I mean, they'll they'll be able to host a whole Olympics. Never mind suffer the penalties that we're imposing now. Well, what who else do we have? Let's see. There's the Saudis that killed Jamal Khashoggi and that that's the regime he said he'd make a pariah out of. No, we're going to increase our business with them and the Venezuelans and maybe Iran. Maybe Iran could come to our rescue. You see how it's like it's not that the American people don't care about Ukraine and at all. I mean, they care

deeply. The polls show that. But his solutions and the underdogs he's looking to to, you know, fly in and save the day are also deeply problematic. Yeah, and they also put us in a position of weakness, Megan. I mean, groveling to these people, begging them, whether it's China, whether it's Venezuela, whether it's Saudi Arabia, you name it, that puts us in a position of weakness. Think about this. One of the reasons Vladimir Putin felt empowered

and boldened to do what he's done in Ukraine is because he supplies 55% of Germany's energy, particularly natural gas. He supplies about, I think it's 40% of Europe's overall energy between oil and natural gas. Why should we allow Vladimir Putin to have that kind of a near monopoly on the energy sector anywhere, let alone in Europe? The United States' absence of leadership under Joe Biden is a huge reason for this. I mean, it's not just Americans who pay at the pump and who pay with these outrageous inflationary prices. It's the whole world that suffers when America doesn't lead. And abdicating our energy independence, withdrawing from our energy production is a form of weakness. And every American knows that. And

this is why it's embarrassing to see the president of the United States go and beg these other countries, especially these dictators, for help. When we could help ourselves, we could stand up for ourselves. And I think that's what Americans want. They want somebody who's going to say, listen, it's time to get tough. We're the strongest country in the world. We should act like it. What is likely to happen now with inflation again at record highs and the gas prices going only one direction, the bad one, people just sort of wobbling out of this two-year COVID hell and the financial

penalties that were imposed upon them by the government, people who have lost their jobs because of Joe Biden and other companies who impose these vaccine mandates and so on, you get fired. What is going to happen given all of that? Well, I think the inflation, unfortunately, Megan, there's really no end in sight. And as you and I speak, Congress, the Senate is debating another $1.5 trillion, that's with a T, trillion dollars in spending in Joe Biden's latest budget. I mean, you talk about inflationary pressures. I mean, this is a tax and spend bonanza that Joe Biden is trying to get through. And I'm afraid the Senate is going to pass it today. I certainly am not going to vote for it.

But unless there is a change in policy, Megan, unless we actually produce our own energy, unless we work on bringing our supply chains out of China, out from overseas, and back home to the United States, and unless we stop the socialist economics at home, this inflationary binge is just going to continue and as you point out who gets hurt from this I tell you gets hurt working people get hurt working people's wages are flat or declining because they're not keeping pace with inflation parents get hurt they can't afford basic things for their kids they can't afford to supply you know buy the gas to go to there to take the kids to school, to buy school supplies. All of that costs more and more and more. And that's because of this

president. And something sooner or later has got to give. Let me ask you a quick politics question, because prior to Ukraine and so on, I think most pundits were predicting a bloodbath for the Democrats in the midterm elections in definitely the House and also maybe the Senate. And now President Biden's polls have gone up. Generally, they do for the sitting American president when there's a conflict like this. It's sort of a patriotic rallying behind our leader. We've seen that many times in the past. Don't know whether that will hold. But as I understand it, the Democrats have won a bunch of court battles recently when it comes to their efforts at redistricting and defeating Republicans, you know, similar efforts at redistricting. So the Republicans efforts to sort of rejigger the voting map to save more seats for them, they are not working out.

And the Democrats efforts for them are working out. So how does that change, if at all, what you think is going to happen in November? You know, I don't think that's, I don't think that last thing, Megan, and you're right about it, the gerrymandering. You're right that the Democrats are furiously gerrymandering wherever they can. New York State is a prime example, trying to reach out these maps in the most implausible manners, you know, in order to save Democrat seats. I don't think it's going to save them. And the reason is the American people, I think, have reached a judgment on this administration

and the course that we're on. And they are screaming to anybody who will listen, pump the brakes, stop the car, and turn this thing around. They do not like the direction that this country is going. And they hold Joe Biden accountable for it. And that's the right person to blame. And the Democrats in Congress are with him 100% of the way. I just listened to my Democrat colleagues on the floor of the Senate yesterday and this entire week talk

about how we don't need energy independence in America. That's an overblown concept. That's antiquated. We don't need to worry about inflation. That's an overblown problem. I think that normal people who are trying to just make it through the day, have their kids make it through the day and have some prospect of a decent future, they listen to that and they just think, who are you talking to? And what are you talking about? Megan, I think for those reasons in November, I think you're going to see the American people deliver a pretty strong message that we need to go a different way.

Another question back on Ukraine. There's a question as we debate whether we need to create a no-fly zone, whether NATO needs to create a no-fly zone, either limited or more broadly, whether that would be a decision only appropriate for the U.S. Congress, because obviously that is very likely to be perceived as an act of war by Vladimir Putin and really could be the beginning of World War III. Do you believe that Biden would have to submit that question to Congress? And how do you think it would fare? It's a good question. I think Congress should be involved if there is a circumstance where we may have American troops of any kind, I mean, American airmen and women, American service members of any kind involved in hostilities

against the Russians. I mean, I think Congress would need to weigh in at that point because that would be war. And, you know, I have been opposed to American soldiers, American troops, American service members fighting in this war. But that's different than helping the Ukrainians fight their own war and fight their own battle while taking every action we can against Russia through sanctions and other means to push back against this invasion and push back against his offensive. So what I would prefer to see happen, Megan, and what I hope this administration will do is get serious about arming the Ukrainians, about providing them the weapons they need, the ammunition they need, including the planes that they are asking for. I think they ought to get all of those things. The administration is dragging its feet on a number of these requests.

Okay, so you think they should get the Polish MiGs? Yeah, I don't see any problem with that, Megan. I mean, if the Polish government wants to give these MiGs, and the key thing about the MiGs is the Ukrainians know how to fly them. I mean, you got to give them planes that they can fly, that their pilots are trained on. They can fly the MiGs. I think we ought to give them the MiGs. Okay, because that's, I mean, Joe Biden has said no, and that's what Zelensky has been begging for. And I guess Poland is ready to do it, but we're not. the air, I'd rather see us help them get airplanes they can fly than American pilots do the flying and do the shooting, which would take us right into the war. So I would look to arm them in every way that we can. And then at the same time, bring the Russian energy sector to its knees. I mean, certainly I assume they're hearing messages from the Kremlin that they would

perceive that as an act of war if we allow the Polish to use the MiGs. But that, I have to wonder whether that's true. If it's not an American, you know, in the cockpit, I have to wonder whether Vladimir Putin really would treat that as American direct intervention because he doesn't actually want us in that war, I think. I mean, I don't know the man, but, and I know there's some who are saying he does, he wants World War III. I don't really believe that. Well, Putin has also said that he thinks that the sanctions, he said he'll treat the sanctions as an act of war. I mean, come on. This is, that is just bluster, I think.

And listen, nobody is more skeptical of American service members fighting a war against Russia than I am, not least because it would detract from our ability to confront another big problem we haven't talked about, Megan, but that's huge for us security-wise, and that's China. China is a huge and pressing issue for us, and we can't get bogged down in a war in Europe that would distract us from the situation in China, which is very serious, and it's going to be serious for probably the rest of our lifetimes. But having said that, there's a difference between saying, no, American service members aren't going to fight in war. We're not going to go to war. There's a difference between saying, no, American service members aren't going to fight in war. We're not going to go to war. There's a difference between that and providing the Ukrainians help. And I think we ought to help them. Okay. Let's shift gears and talk about

domestic politics and the U.S. Supreme Court, which are kind of hand in hand. The Supreme Court nominee, Katonji Brown Jackson, nominated by President Biden. And you will have to vote on her at some point soon when she gets her confirmation hearing before the Senate. She is seems to be doing rather well in her meetings. So far, she seems to be a very charming person. She's got a big smile. She talks about loving America. She's got a couple of brothers who are cops, one who was in the military. She doesn't sound like one of those crazed lunatics from the left. I think there was a piece on National Review, I think, by Dan McLaughlin saying,

Americans know that when they see it, sort of the lunatic left-wing professor who wants to indoctrinate us all. She doesn't seem like that, but she's of the left and her opinions are certainly in line with the left. She won't answer whether she believes in a quote living constitution, which is code for I believe it can be changed by me. By the way, when I was in law school, I know you graduated from law school. They literally taught us that it was a living constitution. There wasn't even like, oh, some believe this. And then the more originalists believe that it was it is a living constitution.

Anyway, what do you make of her? And, you know, is she likely to sail through? Well, I met with her yesterday, Megan. We is a living constitution. Anyway, what do you make of her? And is she likely to sail through? Well, I met with her yesterday, Megan. We had a good talk. We had a long talk. We talked for a solid hour, which is all the White House would give me. But it was a very thorough conversation, and it would bring you back to your law school days. We went through lines of doctrine. We talked about substantive due process. We talked about stare decisis. I mean, everything that listeners are saying, what in the world is he talking about? But all of the key people. Rule against perpetuities.

Yeah, exactly. There you go. We didn't quite get to that, but there you are. You're right on. So we had a very substantive conversation. I asked her about the living constitution and she wouldn't answer that for me either. You know, she said, well, she wasn't sure she quite understood that theory. So she wasn't sure what to make of it. I think there's going to be a lot more questions for her for the hearings. Here's what I'm focused on, Megan, out of our meeting. Judge Jackson, as a private attorney, represented Guantanamo Bay terrorists. She did it both when she was in the public defender's office, four different ones, four different terrorists she represented. And then even when she went to private practice at a law firm, she continued to represent these terrorists and later participated on their behalf in two different Supreme Court cases. I'm concerned about that. And we talked about that. I told her.

I said, you know, this is of concern to me. Tell me about this. So I would like to hear more from her about why she chose to represent these terrorists, why she continued the representation in private practice, why she was very aggressive against the United States government at the time in seeking sanctions against them on behalf of these terrorists. And I also want to hear about her work on the Sentencing Commission, where she did things like recommend getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences for criminals. I mean, I think we're seeing, unfortunately, the negative effects of getting soft on crime in this country. The Democrats have advocated. It's soaring crime wave all across the country. So I want to hear more from her on these key issues. And I think the hearings are going to be critical. Let me ask you this,

and then I'll let you go. To those who are worried, she's sort of a far left loon, you know, like she's going to be hardcore left. And I frankly think Sonia Sotomayor is falling into that category, but not Eleni Kagan, I would say. Should they be worried that she is that way? Do you feel like it could have been worse, right? Like he could have gone worse ideologically? Well, I think we need to know more. I would say I think the hearings are going to be important, Megan, because there's a lot we need to learn about Judge Jackson. I really liked her. I mean, I want to be clear about that. we had a great conversation and I respect her and I really liked her. Now, I don't vote for judges though

on the basis of whether or not I like them. I vote for them on the basis of whether or not they're gonna uphold the constitution. That's the key thing. So I need to get some more clarity from her on that. And I am concerned. I'm concerned about what I think is her penchant for living constitutionalism.

I'm concerned about her approach to the constitution and I'm concerned about her representation of terrorists and what that means about her views on criminal law, on getting tough on crime. I don't think we need a soft on crime justice in this country, not right now. So I need to learn more, and I think the hearings are going to be pretty key. Yeah. Sonia Sotomayor is also a delightful human being to spend time with, but that doesn't mean she's a good jurist or has any business sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. And as it turns out, she is just an ideological partisan up there. That's been my impression of her, even though I was open-minded. I covered up those confirmation hearings very closely.

It's always a pleasure, Senator. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. All right. Talk soon, I hope. Up next, Admiral James Stavridis. This is the guy who ran NATO for several years under Barack Obama. What does he think about what's going on and what our next move should be? Joining me now, retired four-star Admiral James Stavridis, who served as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces from 2009 to 2013.

Admiral, thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure. Megan, always great to see you. So, my goodness, things have certainly changed since the last time we spoke while I was at NBC and interviewing Vladimir Putin at the time. Here we are, you know, years later, and he's, it turns out it wasn't just saber rattling, right? I mean, it turns out, I don't know if he's always had it in mind that he would do this kind of thing, but he's taken it to a level I think a

lot of us didn't actually believe he'd go to. So let me just ask you for your broad picture on what you think is happening here, why he's doing this? Yeah, I get that question a lot. And, you know, it's often said, and you're a lawyer and have been around crime. Crime is where motive meets opportunity. I think here the motive has been pretty clear for a long time that his goal is to kind of reestablish the arc of the old Soviet Union. And what he's seeking to do, Megan, is reel back those republics that broke away, to include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and for our purposes here today, most specifically Ukraine, which is of course the crown jewel of all of them in terms

of strategic minerals, agrarian production. So his motive is to rebuild that Soviet Union, really recast, not as a communist project, but as the old Russian empire. His ambition is that breathtaking. That's the motive. The opportunity, he felt the West was distracted with COVID. He felt the United States, He watched the debacle in Afghanistan and felt they're weak. They won't oppose me. He saw a new chancellor in Germany, Chancellor Schulz. And he saw the divisions here in the United States. I think he put all that together. Motive, opportunity, like in Top Gun, Maverick, he took his shot. Here he is. And here we are. What how much does it have to do with his particular concerns about Ukraine,

his immediate neighbor, a country he said repeatedly he views as part of Russia, a country that he has said all along he would never allow to be militarized by NATO right on his border in the same way we here in America wouldn't allow, for example, Cuba to be militarized by NATO right on his border in the same way we here in America wouldn't allow, for example, Cuba to be militarized by another superpower. So how much of that is real and what is going into his motivation? I think it's quite real, Megan. And you can kind of drop a plumb line to the earliest days of Vladimir Putin and listen to his speeches and read his writing. Most recently, last summer, he published, and I think he actually wrote it, a long, lengthy essay on the importance of Russia, on the bond between Slavic peoples. I think he sincerely believes that Ukraine and the Ukrainians

are really just a part of the Rodina, Mother Russia. Unfortunately for him, the Ukrainians don't see it that way. They're fighting very fiercely. They have their own language, their own culture, their own history. And at the moment, I don't see any quit on the part of the Ukrainians, nor do I see any climb down on the part of Vladimir Putin. I think it's sincere. Can you walk us through what really happened in 2014 with so-called Maidan revolution, where Putin says it was a coup by the West to get rid of the pro-Russian guy who was running Ukraine, Yanukovych, and to install somebody who was more friendly to the West? You hear

Western representatives talk about that and say, no, the Ukrainians wanted democracy. But what really happened there is important. And it led to Crimea, him annexing Crimea. So I had just left as Supreme Allied Commander in 2013. We were watching events very, very closely there. I mentioned that, Megan, to share with you that was there a U.S. coup or did we have involvement in pushing this through the CIA or anything else? Believe me, I would have been aware of it. We did not. It was a sincere movement on the part of the people of Ukraine who were sick of the dictator who had been driving the country, and they rose up. And this was not something manufactured from the West as much, I think, as Vladimir Putin would like to categorize it as such. It was, like all these color revolutions, a quite sincere, ground-up kind of thing. And,

you know, if you think back to the Cold War, which I'm old enough to remember, and you look at the Warsaw Pact nations, tanks rolled into Budapest, tanks rolled into Prague, tanks rolled across that stretch of Central Europe, and the people fought back. And in this case, in Ukraine, they fought back and they won. And that has stuck in Vladimir Putin's throat like a chicken bone. He just can't get out of there. What about the argument that NATO, and this is your area of expertise, has been too expansionary, you know, that we allegedly promised the Russians back in the 1990s that we would not expand eastward

if only they at that time would get out of East Germany. They've been claiming all along we made that promise. We've been kind of denying it. We say it kind of was put out there by George Shultz, but then it was never agreed on by George H.W. Bush. So you didn't have a deal. They've held onto it as though it was a blood oath, even though that's not what the ultimate treaty said. Okay, we got that. But still, there's been a lot of pushback on NATO. Why did it need to keep expanding eastward? Why was that necessary? The USSR had collapsed. That's why it was born,

NATO was, right, to fight the USSR. It's gone now. So why be so provocative over the years? First, let's debunk this idea that promises were made. And you didn't mention, I think, the actual central actor in that time, James Baker. Go read his memoir. It's crystal clear. I think there were perhaps some casual conversations, but when it came time to sign documents, NATO and the West did nothing to promise that there would not be an avenue for democracies, new democracies to apply for membership in NATO. So now you have the Warsaw Pact nations. They had just spent 40 plus years with a Russian boot on their throat. I am quite sympathetic to their view that never again, we want to be part of NATO. And as to the Russian sense that

somehow that's provocative, Megan, I would say, open up the book of history and show me that page, the page where the NATO tanks rolled into Russia or even rolled into a Warsaw Pact country. You can't find that page, but you can find the pages in 48 and 56 and many other times when Soviet tanks rolled into those Warsaw Pact countries. So bottom line, NATO is a treaty organization. And under the treaty, which all the nations have signed, it's an open application process for a democracy in Europe in a position to further the ideals of the alliance, democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, and so forth. As a result, I feel NATO did the right thing allowing those Warsaw Pact countries to come in. Final thought, do you really think, not you, but do people really think we'd be in a better

position today if we had rejected all those Warsaw Pact countries and made them an opportunity for Vladimir Putin, the way he is using the opportunity of Ukraine not being inside NATO. I don't think that's a better world. For the audience, over the course of the 90s, this is from NPR, in early 20s, 2000s, NATO expanded three times, first to add the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, then seven more countries even farther east, including the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, finally with Albania and Croatia in 2009. And Putin has been angry about each one of those eastward progressions, getting closer to him, closer to his border, and so on. So we are where we are, and he's done what he's done.

Can I add one other thought, Megan, which is I think there's going to be another wave of expansion and this one is really going to make his head explode. And it's going to come from Finland and Sweden. These are two highly capable techno democracies. Their troops deployed under my command to Afghanistan. They were part of our mission in Afghanistan as a partner to NATO. Both of them are watching events in Ukraine and thinking, hmm, that NATO membership card looks pretty good to me about now. Watch for Stockholm and Helsinki to make a move. So he's getting more and more trapped, more cornered. Maybe, I don't know if I would use the word panic when it comes to Vladimir Putin. Right. But he recognizes the water's rising. So what does he do next? Where do you see this going?

I think the chances are probably better than even call it maybe 60 percent that this will end up in a negotiated conclusion, kind of like the Balkans did in the 1990s, which is to say the ethnic Russians and Russian speakers will gravitate toward the southeast of the country, Crimea, Donbass, that whole region. The Ukrainian ethnic group will be in the left-hand two-thirds of the country, if you will. Putin will then negotiate from a position of strength, if you will, to claim that southeastern corner. And I think that could be, again, 60% chance how this comes out, using the Balkans as a model. Look, Megan, everyone will hate it. Putin will hate it because he will not have achieved his fundamental objective to conquer the whole country and get rid of Zelensky. The Zelensky government under this

scenario will hate it because it breaks Ukraine and throws away that Russian speaking part. The West will hate it because it affords Vladimir Putin a chunk of territory. So that's what compromise is. The key element here is we've got to come up with a solution that ends this killing, ends these waves of refugees. We've got to do it in a way that gives Vladimir Putin some level of climb down, but still preserves the sovereignty of Ukraine. It's going to be a tough passage. Why can't that happen right now? I mean, Zelensky sounds like he's getting more and more desperate, and he's already said, well, we may be rolling back our interest in NATO. And obviously that's a tip of the hat to Putin.

They're not actually interested in rolling back their entry in NATO. So why can't that just happen now? How could we make that happen? How would Henry Kissinger go make that happen? It can't happen this minute because of Russian behavior. And what I mean by that is we need to remember who's the aggressor here. Russian troops in the country. They are indiscriminately destroying residential areas, hospitals. They've attacked a nuclear power plant. It's creating a wave of bitterness, anger alongside those now 2 million, probably headed to 5 million refugees. So we're in a moment of extreme crisis here. I think the next step in the drama is actually not going to be on the battlefields of Ukraine, which I think are going to continue to be somewhat stagnant, but trending toward

Russian success simply because of masks. The next act in the drama, Megan, will be the sanctions. As they really hit the Russian economy and the Russians start to realize, you know, they're going to be eating bread from their own wheat, eating potatoes from their fields, and maybe drinking vodka from the potatoes, and not much else. I think that's when Putin may be willing to come to the table. And by the way, just today was not successful, but just today, very high level delegations, the two foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia had some talks. I think over time, we'll get to what I mentioned in terms of a solution, but I think it's going to be some months coming, unfortunately.

That would certainly be the alternative of the possibility of a 10-year insurgency, where Putin's got some sort of a puppet government in there, but the Ukrainians won't give up. And now they're dying weekly and monthly in shocking numbers that this goes on and on and on. And no one wants to see that. So yes, we'd like to see some sort of negotiated settlement. That would be ideal. Can we talk for a minute about the Russian military? Because I never know whether what I'm getting fed is propaganda, right? Even here, right?

Because the Ukrainians do it too, right? Zelensky's putting out information that may not be 100% trustworthy because he's got a certain goal. Obviously the same with Putin. So what's real? Because it doesn't seem from a laywoman's perspective like Putin's military is doing so well. I personally expected them to be a lot stronger and more efficient and faster in their mission. Megan, you are on a pace with many, many military analysts. And I've spent my life in the Cold War assessing the Soviet military,

watched it fall apart completely. But over the last five, seven years, I thought Putin had managed to really rebuild some quality into this army. As it turns out, first and foremost, the logistics are a shambles. They can't get food, fuel, ammunition forward. They're having trouble just kind of keeping the lights on and keeping the troops warm, let alone moving them into combat. So logistics a failure. Number two, too many conscripts, too many reservists. You know, I thought there would be a much more professional army emerging from the efforts and the rubles that have been spent on it. And third, finally, you know, I say this as an admiral, bad generalship. The generals have failed Putin here. They gave him a crummy battle plan, spread out over six different axes. We say in the military, when you try to attack everywhere,

you attack nowhere. They spread their forces too thin. So they look bad. And this is going to hurt Vladimir Putin going forward, not only at home, but also around the world. His vaunted military for which he has spent a great deal has fallen kind of flat on their face here. We know he has nukes. He also is apparently willing to use thermobaric bombs, which I'm told are outlawed. And we have reports at least that he dropped one. If too much of that happens, does it change our military willingness? To be determined. Let's face it, we watched him use these techniques in Chechnya. We watched him use them in support of a war criminal, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria. He pulverized Syrian cities. Go Google Aleppo after the battle and you'll see an absolutely destroyed city. in the frustration of his generals and his own frustration, is an increasing tendency to take that Syrian battle plan and start turning these Ukrainian cities into rubble. He needs to be careful that it does not create a wave of simply passionate, we've got to do something from the

West that would lead toward boots on the ground or a no-fly zone overhead. I think those are both dangerous moves on the part of the West. What we need to do is to stick with our current plan, let the Ukrainians do the fighting, but give them every tool they need or want to do that fighting, hit Putin with massive sanctions, reinforce the borders of NATO so he doesn't have the idea for another adventure. And I think if we do those three things over the coming months, the pressure will build. We'll be able to get them to a negotiating table and hopefully the Ukrainians as well. You know, Admiral, you were Supreme NATO Commander at a time when Barack Obama was president. And I know, I remember you were trying to raise concerns about Russia and this situation.

You didn't have much of an audience. What do you think Barack Obama should have done differently that might have helped prevent some of this? You know, I wouldn't personalize it to the president. This was the whole interagency, and it was my fellow admirals and generals. I remember as we constructed the national military strategy, everyone, again, this is back in 10, 11, 12, everyone was completely seized with the idea of Afghanistan and Iraq. We had 400,000 troops engaged in two massive conflicts. I was the guy on the side, US European command saying, yeah, that's important. We are fighting

terrorism, but we need to keep Navy term alert here. We need to keep a weather eye on what's coming from potentially Vladimir Putin. And I couldn't make that case. In today's world, I think it's become clear that the pivot to the Pacific, which makes some sense geopolitically, the complete focus on terrorism, which tactically made a lot of sense, we missed a turn on preparing for what Vladimir Putin has delivered on our doorstep. Thank you for your service and thanks for coming on. It's great to connect again. Same here, Megan. Let's do it again. Yeah. All the best, Admiral. And remember, folks, you can only find conversations like that right here on The Megyn Kelly Show. How great is it to go in depth with a guy like that, right? who's actually been and who's served our country honorably

for as many years as he did. It's our honor to bring him to you. If you want more of these conversations, you can find them on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly, or you can download and subscribe to this show as a podcast on Apple, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

We'll be right back. So the vice president is in Poland, visiting over there to try to negotiate some something of use in this whole conflict. And here's how that's going. Is the United States willing to make a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees? And for President Duda, I wanted to know if you think and if you asked the United States to specifically accept more refugees. Okay. A friend in need is a friend in need. Okay. So, oh's okay. Oh my God. Does it have to continue like that? And by the way, we're saying she's negotiating nothing.

That's what the administration is saying. Up next, Kelly's court. Don't miss it. Stay with me. Kelly's court is back in session. Today, we're going to bring you the latest on the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case, which has now gone to trial. They're in the midst of it.

The defendants there, accused of plotting to kidnap her, are claiming that they were entrapped and plied with drugs. We're also going to talk his juror questionnaire, only to then brag about it to the Daily Mail and about how he used it to turn the jury against her during the jury deliberations. That was a problem. Now he's offering a bizarre reason, as he gets cross-examined by the judge for his dishonesty, for lying during the jury selection. Then we'll get to Alec Baldwin taking a public swipe

at the grieving widower of Helena Hutchins, the woman Baldwin killed on set of his movie. He should just be quiet, but he won't. Here to discuss it all, lead anchor of Court TV, Vinny Palatant. Vinny, great to have you. How are you? Oh, I'm great. Thanks so much. Great to be here and great to have you. How are you? Oh, I'm great. Thanks so much. Great to be here and great to see you. Oh, you too. All right. Robert Barnes is going to be here in a minute, too. He just got out of court.

So we'll we'll firm up the both sides in a second. Wait, a working attorney? I hate to tell you we brought in the big gun. All right. So let's talk about Whitmer. Can you set it up for the audience? Like, you know, there was this horrible plot and everybody's like, my God, that's terrible. Whether you like her politically or not, what was allegedly being plotted against her was awful. Then it turns out that like some healthy proportion of the plotters were government agents and informants and so on. And now the remaining few defendants are like, this whole thing was set up by the feds. So they're claiming entrapment.

You take it from there. Yeah, absolutely. And my background is I was a state prosecutor. And I think I have to explain this first. State prosecutors, what we would do is a crime would happen. Our investigators or the local police would investigate, figure out who was responsible, and then we would prosecute them. That's like old fashioned prosecution. Simple. In the federal system, it's a little different. It's a little different. Sometimes there's like, hey,. Simple. In the federal system, it's a little different. It's a little different. Sometimes there's like, hey, there may be some criminal activity over here. And then the feds always seem to infiltrate the plot themselves. And they do it for a couple of reasons.

One is it's a stronger case when you get to trial because you've got audio tapes, you've got video tapes, you've got cooperating witnesses, you've got eyewitnesses, you have direct evidence, you have circumstantial evidence, so you have a lock solid case. But on the other hand, it makes us wonder sometimes, sometimes whether or not the crime would actually have gone forward without the help of the FBI and the informants and the paid informants that they use. And that's one of the problems in this case is that you've got people who are part of this alleged plot to kidnap the governor who were paid informants. So it was like their job was to make sure that this thing kept going forward because the more it went forward, the more they would get paid. And that's one problem that I have

with the whole thing. That being said, the feds are very successful at trial. We know their track record of winning, you know, 90% of their cases that go to trial. Most of them don't. And if they have a bad case, they'll plead it out or just dismiss it outright because they hate to lose more than state prosecutors like me. But in this case, the problem you have is that who is actually leading all of this? And the defense is saying it's not really being led by the defendants who are at trial. It's really being led by these informants. And you've got FBI agents who have infiltrated as well. So you get this argument that is this really a crime? Did they really intend to kidnap Governor Whitmer? Or are they just kind of following along with these informants

and agents who were actually spearheading the plot? And that's what this jury has to figure out. And it's the FBI is good at this, though. The FBI is really good at straddling that line between getting great information, you know, great testimony and videos and audio tapes of this plot of plots like this happening and not quite crossing that line to entrapment. And once you get it in front of a jury, unless you have defendants who are like pillars of the community, have led a great life up until this point, present themselves very well in court and are leading very innocent lives. I think it's going to be difficult to convince a jury of the entrapment that they are, in fact, the victims of the FBI agents and victims of the informants in this case. It doesn't sound like these are the most stellar,

upstanding citizens you've ever found in your life. The legal test, as I understand it, is did the government induce them to do something they would not otherwise have done? If the government hadn't stepped in, would these guys have still conspired to kidnap the governor? And the defendants are saying, no, it was like loose talk. We're like a couple of losers sitting around like, yeah, we're going to get her. And I like some of the talk that they cite does sound a little crazy. I mean, it's like we're going to we're going to get like a Blackhawk helicopter. We're going to do like stuff that they could never do. And I think that does help the defendants argue, this wasn't real. This was

a bunch of nonsense fired up over and over by the informants. We just didn't like her. But at no point were we actually going to get a Blackhawk helicopter and go kidnap the woman. Right. So so the question is, how much evidence is there of them taking some sort of a step, right, like doing something that makes it a little more real than a bunch of guys who are high? That's what the defense is saying. Everybody stoned out of their minds when they're talking about all this. And that it was one of the informants who was giving them all the all the pot the drugs, right? Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, that's problematic. And it's not the cleanest case for prosecutors. And I'm kind of surprised that it's going to trial because a lot of times we have a case where it's kind of on that

borderline, could go either way. The feds will fold and just give you a great deal and give you, you know, a sweetheart deal that you can't walk away from. But that's not happening here. So I'm wondering what type of evidence they'll be able to produce during the course of this trial, whether they're going out and practicing, whether they're sketching things out. If there's some sort of a step like that, I think that gets the feds a lot closer. Because, again, we come back to the first point, which i think is the most important point who are these defendants you know is the jury you know they're not supposed to put themselves in the shoes of the defense but they always do of the defendants but they always do and it's like well you know i wouldn't have done that you know yeah maybe i don't like the governor

either but i never would have done that and and these guys i don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt right uh it's not so want to give them the benefit of the doubt, right? It's not so much about reasonable doubt, it's about benefit of the doubt about what exactly is going on here. But again, the feds are going to come into court, they're going to have the direct evidence, which is the testimony of the informants who were part of all this. They're going to have recordings of it. And all of that is difficult to overcome because you've got so much to explain. Okay, but here's the thing. So they're not going to call the three special FBI agents who are publicly identified in the case, but they are going to call these other three guys who seem to

have, I don't know, like the guys that they're calling are the ones who were informants in the case. They seem problematic to me. And whether they're I don't know if they're taking a stand or not, but the defense is certainly going to raise how problematic these guys are. One of them was like a double agent and decided he was more aligned with the alleged bad guys than he was with the FBI and started warning them, like, get rid of that stuff. The FBI is monitoring all. So like their witnesses on the FBI side and the government side don't seem all that pristine. And the way that the defense was spinning yesterday at the opening statements, they were saying, look, here's my guy. There's

this guy, Fox, Adam Fox. He's one of the guys that he he accepted his co-defendant, Barry Croft Jr.'s call to action in April 2020. That's actually what the prosecution alleged that they that this guy, I think it was Croft, was a national figure in the Boogaloo movement, which believes the second civil war is coming and they want it. And that that meant violence, that they wanted violence and that Croft asked God for permission to kill and got it. OK, so far, we're not at anything criminal yet. It just sounds like crazy musings. You know, I mean, a lot of people get weird musings from above and they don't get charged. Adam Fox, similar stuff, claimed to be anointed by God,

anointed by God to wage war on the country, blah, blah, blah. They were going to break into her office, into her home, kidnap her at gunpoint. They would hogtie her and take her away. It's not just talk, they said. Their actions were louder and just as disturbing as their words because just just, you know, talk about I could kill her. I could hog tie her. That's not going to do it. The defense says they did agree that they did not agree with anybody to kidnap the governor. There was no plan. And they say Fox, this guy, Adam Fox,

was basically a loser who lived in the basement of a vacuum cleaner shop. He didn't have any friends. He was taken in, Vinny. He was taken in by Big Dan. Big Dan, who ID'd himself as a militia member, but was really an FBI informant. And I think that the defense plan is to make Big Dan the villain and the one who secretly pushed this whole thing.

Oh, I agree. I think you're spot on with that analysis of where they're going to go. Because he's testifying. Big Dan's testifying. He's going to testify. Now, here's what prosecutors do, because sometimes I would have to do this as a prosecutor as well. When you have these witnesses who are the key to your case, who are not the pillars of the community either, who are, you know, they're bad dudes, right? You have to explain it to the jury. You say, well, let me just tell you, we don't pick these people.

Yeah, he's an informant, but why is he hanging out with this guy? Because they're the ones who are friends, right? You know, we didn't go to them. We found this guy, and he ended up testifying for us. But he's the one the defendant is the one hanging out with him. So it's birds of a feather kind of argument. But I think the fact that he's coming out of this thing clean and he seems to be the leader is the the best argument you can make is who's really pushing this thing forward and what is the incentive to do it, right? If you're the FBI informant, why are you doing it? Well, if you're getting paid on the one hand, that's an incentive to do it because now it's a job

all of a sudden. Wow, it's great part-time work. Good point. Yeah, exactly. So I think there's a chance, but I always, because I just know the way the feds work, is if they really believe there's a decent chance of losing this case, they would never try it. Me as a state prosecutor, if I believed I had the right person for the crime, regardless of what I was able to get in front of the jury, but I knew that this was the person, I'm trying to get a case anyway, right? Feds, they don't think that way because it's so much more about the headlines and the politics of it because the attorneys, the U.S. attorneys are very, very political. They love the press conference. The local prosecutors local prosecutors, give or take, you know,

it's the political process, but not as much. These U.S. attorneys are people that maybe want to be senator one day. Maybe they want to be mayor of a really big city. Maybe they want to run for president. And they're much more focused that way. And they hate to lose. And that's why every time I see these cases, I'm like, well, if it's a real bad case, they're going to get a sweetheart deal. Just like some of the parents in the college admission scandal got really good deals at the end. The ones that stuck it out to the end got great deals because they did not want to try some of those cases. Big Dan, by the way, got paid $54,000. This other guy, Steven Robeson, one of the informants got paid fifty four thousand dollars uh this other guy steven robeson one of

the informants got paid more than nineteen thousand and i found the wacky stuff uh they said that they were talking about pyramids they said they were talking about black hawk helicopters and they said that they were talking about somehow like barking like dogs out around gretchen widmer's um college or a cottage so that they could convince her that even the animals had turned against her. They were high as kites. This is like stupid ass talk. This wasn't a criminal conspiracy. But you know what? We haven't heard the tapes. Yeah. So and again, you know, they've got to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. So that's the other burden. Prosecutors, as you know, everyone knows people listening now know they've got to prove it. So it's not just, yeah, I think

they I think they would have done it anyway. No, I'm going to be convinced that, oh, absolutely. Beyond any reasonable doubt, they would have done this even without all the all the things that Dan was doing. That's going to be a that's a high bar. And let's not forget, there's some politics at play, too. You know, a lot of people don't like her. Well, who's on that jury? Who's on that jury? That's a big question. Right. Because especially now in the wake of, you know, blue state, red state covid, it's like you get some Republicans on the jury who are like, ah, I remember her. She is annoying. You know, it's like not like they want her to be kidnapped, but they're like, you whiner. Nothing was going to happen to you.

You never know. That's what you're supposed to probe for during voir dire. Like, could you convict a man who wanted to hurt Governor Whitmer, even though you might be on the same or, you know, the opposite of her political lab? Right. And, you know, how sympathetic is the victim or alleged victim as the defense sees it. So that's another part of the equation, the politics infiltrating all of this. But I'll tell you what I've been seeing on Court TV is that as much as I think the politics infiltrate things, at the end of the day, I trust jurors that they really listen to the judge's instructions. And when it comes time to get to a verdict, they do it based on the evidence. And they kind of put the politics of it aside. And to me, the biggest point in case is the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Because that was

the most divisive case I've ever covered in my entire career. And going into it, I thought the most likely outcome was going to be a hung jury, because there was no way it was going to be all right or all left on that jury. There was going to be some sort of a there was no way it was going to be all right or all left on that jury. There was going to be some sort of a split. But at the end of the day, the jury actually focused on the evidence, the facts of the case, and the legal standards. And they were able to come to a unanimous verdict. So at the end of the day, I still trust jurors. I don't trust that Casey Anthony jury from years ago, but that's another story for me.

Oh my God. I had on, I had on her lawyer. It was the craziest two hour interview. We aired it. I was on vacation and we aired like a crime series, which people loved. His name was Chaney Mason.

And we had Beth Karas on. She was on court TV back in the day. You got, you got, you were there. She was there. I was your fan. I watched both of you guys.

And she was sort of offering more of the prosecution's vantage point, and he was offering the defense. And we had such – it was – Vinny, you would have laughed because we started off very contentious. He came in loaded for bear, was all over me. I'm like, all right, slow your roll, sir. I'm like, I'm giving you a chance here. I'm open-minded. I think she did it, but I'm going to let you make your case. And by the end, he and I had really bonded. And he was crying about the loss of his wife.

And it was actually like it's a whole emotional roller coaster. In all your spare time, you should go listen to it. Okay, let's talk about Ghislaine Maxwell. Okay, speaking of reason not to trust a juror, this juror number 50 is a moron. So this guy sat on the Ghislaine Maxwell jury. He did not check either the boxes on the jury questionnaire that said, are you have you been the victim of a crime? Have you been the victim of a sexual assault or sexual abuse? No, no, I haven't. Nope, not me. Are you or anybody, you know? Nope. This is a picture of more showing for the YouTube audience. And then he waits until after the verdict, finding Ghislaine Maxwell guilty in crimes

involving sex assaults, sexual, you know, nature of a sexual nature. And he's like, he brags to the Daily Mail, to Reuters, to anybody who will sit with him saying, I was instrumental in that jury where you should have seen me. I was amazing. I was telling all the jurors about what it's like for a sexual assault victim and how they really couldn't question the alleged victim's testimonials for being sketchy on the details because I can tell you firsthand that's what happens. You forget, but you don't forget what happened to you. Right. So it's like, OK, maybe that could have been OK if he had disclosed the fact that he was an alleged victim to the court and had been exposed to questioning, but he didn't. So then like a dumb ass, he goes and tells everybody that he did this.

Then people go back and check the questionnaire. Nope, he didn't come clean on it. And now they're having a hearing with the judge and she's cross-examining him to figure out why did you not tell the truth on your form, juror 50. And you tell me what his new reason is or why he didn't feel the need to disclose that. Okay, I can start here. Juror misconduct is a big problem. And criminal appeals are very rarely successful. But when we start focusing on jurors and things that they've done, things that they've said and reasons that they get, it's problematic. And to me, this one is really, really serious. It's really, really troubling. a hearing on it. You got the judge involved herself in all this. So that's a huge problem for this case. And the bottom line, though, when we start talking about criminal appeals, okay, what do you win? What does the defendant win? You win a new trial and the ability to be prosecuted once again. And yeah, you maybe get a different jury,

different outcome, but the evidence will be the same. That's better than a standing guilty verdict. Than where she is now. But this isn't about the evidence. It's not like as a result of this appeal, she's going to go in front of another jury and have brand new evidence

or the prosecution will be limited with some of the evidence that they brought. So it's always better to get a second bite at the apple now that you've seen that the government's case forward and backward. You know what they're going to do with every witness. And now you're like, OK, I got it. We'll have a much better game plan for attacking all these points. Right. But I get that. I get that. But the case isn't going to isn't going to change. And by the way, on retrials, when there's a hung jury, the prosecution always has the advantage. So I don't see the prosecution case here getting any weaker.

But I am very, very troubled by this knucklehead. But I think it's more serious than being a knucklehead because we need our jurors to be 100% honest and we need them to disclose everything. Scott Peterson, the same issue, same sort of issue has popped up in his case years ago. He was convicted, he was on death row. And these are the most problematic because our system is predicated upon ordinary citizens coming in and being very honest and having an open mind and basing everything on the evidence, but also disclosing everything. straightforward that if he disclosed this, there's no way Maxwell's team is not going to use one of their peremptory strikes on him and eliminate him from the jury pool. He would have been gone, but he made it on. And now he's saying, well, I didn't lie. And it matters whether it was a lie or just an omission because he forgot. Because if he lied, the question is, why did you lie?

And were you just one of those jurors who just wanted to make it on the jury so that you could write a book or you could feel like a big man or you had it in for her, or you're trying to work out your own issues about your own past experience on this woman who doesn't deserve that. So it does matter. And the judge is cross examining him saying, you know, you didn't fill out the form. Why didn't you fill out the form? And this guy says, well, I was thinking about, um, he first, he says, I was thinking, I didn't really see that I was a crime victim. He says, um, I wasn't thinking of my sexual abuse as being a victim of a crime because

I no longer associate with being a victim. He says. And really what happened was I was thinking about my breakup. My girlfriend had just dumped me. So I was distracted, Vinny. I was distracted by my loss of love. And that's why I went haywire on those couple of questions. And then the judge says, well, you made it to the second round of jury selection, which took place on a different date. And then you answered all those questions accurately. But there wasn't one about sexual abuse or assault.

And she said, how were you able to do that? And he said, well, I wasn't thinking about my ex at that second. I mean, this guy's full of it. He is. I mean, to me, it's obvious. I don't. And it's great that people want to serve on a jury, but you don't lie so you can serve on a jury. Right. And most of us lie to get out of serving. Yeah. Yeah. Usually you get used to the other way around. That's the American way. It's the same situation with Peterson on the other coast. He's saying that, oh, I didn't think it was really I didn't think I was.

But when it becomes an issue and you remember it afterwards and you remember it during the deliberations, it's a big, big problem. So I think there is a real chance that she gets another trial. Me too. But, you know, I think you have the same result because the evidence is not changing. I mean, there's still going to be pictures of her rubbing Jeffrey Epstein's feet on the private plane. And she cannot separate herself from this guy. She just can't. She was there with him way too long. Well, she she behaved, I mean, in a way that was criminal. It wasn't just you knew what he was doing.

It was you helped abuse me. You were there. You also abused me. I mean, it was her directly with these witness testimonials. So it really came down to whether the jury believed these witnesses or not. And you're right. For the record, it actually is OK for a juror who has disclosed everything properly on a questionnaire who then makes it on the jury to talk about his own personal experiences in there. That's allowed. So a lot of people think that wouldn't have been okay for him to do, even if he had disclosed. You can, you're allowed to say that stuff, but not unless you've given the court fair notice about who you are and what your

past experiences are. Okay. Let's pause it there because I'm going to squeeze in a quick break. And then we have a case that we're going to crack open this case on butts. Not even kidding. I'm going to squeeze in a quick break. And then we have a case that we're going to we're going to crack open this case on butts. Not even kidding. I'm sorry. But the nature of Kelly's Court when it first started was that of a 12 year old boy. And we're doing it. We're feeling blue enough about what's happening overseas. Now it's time for a little fun. Kelly's Court is back in session with lead anchor of Court TV, Vinnie Palitan, and just out of real court, trial lawyer and founding attorney of Barnes Law, Robert Barnes. Okay, Robert, we're glad that you could make it. I know you're just in a recess, so you've got to go back in shortly because you're doing real, real law. So let me start with one that I really want you to get to weigh in on. And that is there are reports in the news now that CNN has settled with Jeff Zucker,

the ousted head of CNN for $10 million, according to the news, in exchange for him not suing them for what I have no idea since he was fired for cause. But you tell me whether that makes sense to you and how, if at all, because I don't see how either Chris Cuomo or Zucker have a legitimate legal claim. What they have is a potential PR claim that could do damage to the CNN brand. That's the only logic I see behind these huge settlements. They're even paying Alison Gallist a million dollars, which actually isn't that much for an executive, but it's hush money. It's 100% hush money because Zucker and Gallus were fired for cause. It's very clear you cannot have an affair with your underling. He was forced to resign because he broke the rules. Check CNN's own website if you don't believe me as to what

the rules are. And that's if you accept their version of the story. The real version of the story, which we've been reporting and has been everywhere, is that they did a lot more things than they're being accused of that were unethical and completely grounds for termination at any news organization, including advising Governor Cuomo, helping him come up with one liners in response to President Trump, telling him exactly when he should have his press conferences so that they would get the most play and CNN could air them wall to wall. It goes on from there. But all of that is unethical and you could be fired for it. And so, yeah, your take on it, Vinny, on whether this is in fact just hush money. Yeah, I think it is. But I don't think it's much different than most corporations.

Whenever there's a separation from someone who's very high up in a corporation, it's it's a way to eliminate uncertainty. And before I was at Court TV and between being a trial attorney, I worked at a big, big insurance company and handled a lot of these types of claims. And the one thing that corporations, insurance companies, everything else, whoever might pay some money out, what they don't like is uncertainty. Settlements are certain and then you seal. So it's done. You move on. It's off the books. You don't have to worry about any potential judgments. And then when you're a very public company like CNN, like you're saying, you don't have to worry about the PR aspect of it. But this is very, very common for high level people who are dismissed from their jobs with large corporations. And there's a lot of money at stake. But I think you're right.

But I think there's even more to it. This is corporate America. This is what they do. And sometimes it's great. You get paid to not work. Andrew Cuomo and Jeff Zucker and Alison Gallust and Chris Cuomo worked together to cover up for the governor who was flailing in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And they presented him as a hero who was to be celebrated and possibly even replace Joe Biden as the top of the ticket on the Democratic nomination. And meanwhile, he had been issuing these orders to put COVID positive patients into nursing homes, 15,000 of whom would later die. And there's been absolutely no accountability for that. Those people haven't

gotten any money at all, Robert, any money at all. And now you've got three out of the four I just named collecting million dollar checks, multiple millions from CNN, happy to pay them off, right? At least Zucker and Gallist and Chris Cuomo suing. And the families who were hurt by these lies, who had a public turn against them, ignore them by these lies, they get a public turn against them, ignore them by these lies, they get nothing. I mean, no doubt. I mean, the guy who should be getting checks and the people

who should be getting checks is not Jeff Suckers, not Chris Cuomo, is not any of the people that were part of the false reporting and fake news reporting at CNN for more than a year, covering for all of Cuomo's different crimes, giving him advice behind the scenes, which has come out in little bits and pieces. And presumably this is the kind of hush money payment to make sure this other scandals that are present at CNN, along with the Cuomo scandals, don't get fully put on broadcast around the world. And it's a continuing effort to cover up the corruption in corporate news rather than deal with it honestly and address the concerns of those people who are truly injured by what they did. All right, let's shift gears to Alec Baldwin, who is just making dumb decision after dumb

decision. I mean, I'm fascinated for your take on this, Vinny, because we haven't talked about it yet, but he gave that disastrous interview to ABC where he's like, I don't feel guilty. You know, I don't feel I don't feel good. OK, sure. Great. You can spin it however you don't feel I don't feel good. Okay, sure. Great. You can spin it however you want. That's going to come back to haunt you. Virtually every lawyer I know predicted that. Sure enough, it did. Then came the lawsuit from Helena Hutchins husband. She's the cinematographer he killed on set of Rust. This movie he was shooting where

she was a cinematographer and he had a loaded gun in his hand, which he didn't know. He says he didn't know. I think most people would agree he didn't know. But he pointed at her and it went off and she died. So now he's being sued. And this is what Alec Baldwin, he decided to comment again. Here he is. What you have is a certain group of people, litigants and whatever, on whatever side, who their attitude is, well, the people who likely seem negligent have no money.

And the people who have money are not negligent. But we're not going to let that stop us from doing what we need to do in terms of litigation. So we have people that are suing people that they think are deep pockets litigants, where they're going to be able to, well, why sue people if they're not going to get money? That's what you're doing it for. Your thoughts on that, Vinny? In what world does a man who's holding a gun and points it at someone and squeezes the trigger and kills them not responsible for doing that? Right. And this we're not talking about the criminal responsibility, which is is still being investigated.

We're talking about simple negligence. This is gun being investigated. We're talking about simple negligence. This is gun handling 101. To me, he's saying, because I have deep pockets, I'm not negligent, but the people who were negligent don't have deep pockets. Now, more than one person can be responsible. There can be contributory negligence in this. And I said from the beginning in this case, I said, there is no doubt that there is negligence here. There's no doubt there is liability here in a civil sense. To me, the whole debate was whether or not he's going to be indicted. But now he's taken it that next level saying, oh, I'm not negligent. Really? Really? Is there some sort of shield that actors have from handling a gun that the rest of society doesn't have?

For instance, if, say, someone handed me a gun and said it's not loaded and I pointed at someone and killed them, you don't think I'm responsible for their gun? Right? So you don't get a shield for being an actor. And you don't get a shield because you're at work. Because when a trained police officer accidentally kills someone, their civil liability is automatic. And the criminal responsibility we're seeing is even there. That's Kim Potter. He's Kim Potter.

Yeah. Right. So I don't understand this world he's living in where he's distancing himself embraced the negligence and in order to try to distance himself from the criminal liability, which I think there's a real possibility for that as well. How about, Robert, just the of course they want money. Why do you sue somebody? Why sue people if you're not going to get money? That's what you're doing it for. Why doesn't the husband of the woman you killed deserve some money?

None of us has a problem with him getting money. I mean, absolutely. And not only that, but I mean, her minor child who now gets to grow up without a mother. I mean, clearly what Alec Baldwin did was illicit. The only question is whether just civil liability should attach or should also criminal liability should attach. Because what Kim Potter was convicted of was for far less conduct than what Alec Baldwin did. He aimed the gun at a human being, cocked it back, and then pulled the trigger. Claims he didn't, but that logically doesn't hold. So he's likely lying about the fact that he pulled the trigger. So you look at those aggregate

consequences. He and the production companies are absolutely civilly liable for what they did, and it's going to be a big check that they have to write. And the plaintiff's firm that is representing the husband and the young son is one of the top in the country. So Baldwin should just get his checkbook out. Yeah, there's going to be an insurance company is going to write this check. Vinny, why is he even out there fighting a PR war that is unwinnable? All of the public sympathy is with the victim and her family. It may be part of a personality when you are that public and you're a celebrity. Yes, he's been a controversial celebrity, but I think that's part of his DNA. You think you can talk your way out of it. We see this with other criminal defendants sometimes trying to talk their way out of it. And it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work.

To me, it's a case of where a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, right? Alec Baldwin is obviously intelligent, right? He's obviously, this has been the center of his life. So he understands a little bit about the law and the way it works. But that little bit of knowledge is turned into a dangerous public relations disaster. But now some of these things he's saying may end up in a courtroom and be used against him. And I don't think making statements like that in any way set things up better for his criminal liability either, because you've got a DA who I think this is really a call for the DA to make. Should I or should I not go forward with prosecuting this case?

And you keep saying things like this. It could get under her skin. And she may just file those criminal charges. I should tell our audience that Robert went back to his court hearing. I guess he's doing it via Zoom, thankfully for us, because he can pop into our court. He can go into real court. This is kind of fun. Now we can debunk all of his points while he's gone. Vinny, why do you think that he's actually facing the real potential of criminal charges in this case? Because a you know, a lot of lawyers have

poo-pooed that. Yeah, I would not poo-poo that. And again, you know, one analogy I use a lot is take it out of the context of a movie set. And, you know, there's no way there would not be some level of criminal responsibility. Also coming up with the Kim Potter case. You know, I make that comparison all the time. Here's someone who thought she had one weapon in her hand and had it had the wrong weapon. Well, he thought he had an unloaded gun in his hand, but it's supposed to happen. That gun is supposed to be checked. If he's not going to personally check it, it should be checked in front of him. So if the armorer or whoever is going to say, this is not a loaded weapon, that check of the weapon should be done in front of him so he can eyeball it himself. That is the industry norm. And he deviated from the industry norm, just like you could say Kim Potter deviated from the industry norm of not doing a cross draw for the taser.

Right? I mean, the way our courts have expanded criminal liability and the way prosecutors have gotten more aggressive, especially going after police officers, should apply across the board. And I think that's why there's a real chance here in this case of criminal responsibility for Alec Baldwin. He's got the gun in his hand. And there's also potential evidence that he refused to do the training that was offered by the armorer. So if all of that is true as well, now you're getting into reckless, uh, extreme recklessness where they just hand me the gun. All right. And I'll trust whatever you say. Well, what if you weren't an actor and someone handed you a gun and are we supposed to trust them? Yeah. And you, and you refuse the training. If you refuse the

training and then mishandled the gun on set and the jury rejects his claim about, I never pulled the trigger. It just went off because most of the gun experts have said, no, that's not true. It's awfully convenient for him, but it's not true. Then yeah, he could be in a lot of trouble. I want to ask you about the armor. I find this piece of the case fascinating. The armor is also getting sued and she's suing the guy who provided the ammo and the ammo is absolutely the problem i mean if you want to talk about you want to go like ground zero of the problems somebody put a real bullet instead of uh just the blank uh or the the dummy round um blanks just

like make sound and the dummy rounds um look they just look like real bullets. Anyway, somebody put an actual live round of a live bullet in that gun. So you tell me who is more liable and does it matter at all? It might matter for criminal reasons. If the armorer was given live rounds by the guy who provided the ammo and she put it in the gun, not knowing that it was live, right? It looked like a dummy bullet and she was expecting a dummy bullet, right? Who is more responsible as, cause those two are pointing the finger at each other right now. Yeah, they are. And, and you know, there's the, the dummies look like live rounds. There is a slight difference, but the dummies look like live rounds. The blanks look much different. They'd be easier to distinguish. I think there's a level of equal responsibility

here because as the armorer, you still have to physically place those rounds into the weapon. So you should inspect each one. So there's a level there that she's assuming that's what's in a box that has a certain label. Everything in that box is what it purports to be. And also one of them, I can't remember which one, Vinny. It's either the dummy round or the live round. If you shake it, you can hear movement inside. I don't remember whether that's a live round, but the point is somebody who's an expert

in firearms would purportedly, supposedly know. Right. And that's your job. And that's your job. That's why I think most people, when they look at this case, look at the armorers having the most responsibility, even though you're sort of the middle person between the ammo supplier. But she's the one getting the ammo. She's the one grabbing the individual rounds and placing them in. She's the one saying it's a cold weapon. It's fine. It's good to go.

So I would say she probably has a little bit more than the supplier does, but they're both on the hook here. I think it's going to be a little more difficult to prove that the supplier had live rounds in there unless they've retained the rest of that box of ammo and have found live rounds in there. Then there's more of a connection, but there's also the chain of custody, right? Who else had access to that box? Was it sealed when she opened it? All the things that could potentially go wrong. I think they're all going to be civilly liable for different amounts. And, you know, different percentages of responsibility. But I don't think they use up 100% of it. There's going to be a percentage that is left over for the man who actually squeezes the trigger and aims the weapon. So there's so many things that went wrong here. Was at least in name, a producer on the movie as well. And that's going to come back to haunt him. The production company is going to, their insurance company is going to wind up cutting

a check and it's going to be a big one. Okay. Let's talk butts. Your esteemed legal career and my own have led us to this moment, Vinny, but we need a laugh. And this one is absurd. It makes me want to laugh and cry. Mississippi elementary school assistant principal is fired for reading a children's book called I Need a New Butt about a boy who notices there's a problem with his bottom. It has a crack in it and sets out to find a new one. So I have an eight-year-old. This was read to seven and eight-year-olds. This is genius. This is right up their alley. This is 100% the way you should be bonding with seven and eight-year-olds. I'm sure they ate it up. They probably freaking loved it.

How does a guy get fired over this? Well, some people are upset. People raising a stink about the butt book. Boo-hoo. Someone's always upset about everything today. Yeah. Well, that's part of it. Did you say raising a stink?

Did you just say that? That was blue right past that? That was on purpose. There are no accidental words here. Well done. So it's the perception, right? The judgment, you know, you've got to know your audience. Yes, he knows his audience. It's ideal.

But your audience, when you're reading to eight-year-olds, is not the eight-year-olds. Your audience is the parents of the eight-year-olds. Oh, oh well why don't we just bust out some dust afski yeah come on i i get it i i wouldn't have a problem with it you know i would probably crack up as much as the next guy there we go thank you give a little counter below you You can keep track of these, but, uh, but, uh, you're talking about bodily functions. You're talking about, um, parts of the body that we expose. Let's give our audience a flavor exposed. Let's give our audience a flavor. I had my team pull. I need a new butt by Don McMillan illustrated by Ross. Are you going to do a dramatic reading? Here we go.

Ready? Or should we get Sir Mix-a-Lot to do this? I like big butts and I can't. No, that's a different. Okay. I need a new butt. Mine's got a crack. I can see in the mirror a crack at the back.

Did I do it on the slide or on the banister inside? Or when I jumped my BMX or with the fart? That happened next. Of course, the fart. That happened next. Of course, the fart. That's what blew my butt apart. It works on 51-year-old women too. Split the thing clean in two. Now I wonder what to do.

I need a new one, a green one or a blue one, a fat one or a thin one, a wood one or a tin one. Why not an arty farty butt? Or one not to be forgotten with watercolors on the top and a mural on the bottom? Or yellow spotted, purple dotted, a butt with color, a butt with flair, a butt as bright as I dare to wear, a butt as bright as dad's underwear. And it goes on from there. Vinny, this teacher should be elevated to principal. Nevermind. The guy's got two kids with autism. Now he's asking, he's got to start a GoFundMe to help him pay his bills.

He got fired over that stupid ass reading, which was fun and on point. Yeah. I don't, you know, there was nothing. I don't think there's anything in his heart that was wrong at that moment. He wasn't trying to push some agenda. And, you know, we've seen stories like that. And that's not what this was about. I think he came into it with an innocent mind. People are saying it shows a lack of judgment. I I understand why, but I think this is one where maybe you get a second

chance. We're like, okay, maybe you have a meeting with the parents and you try to explain it and that sort of thing. It seems like- I bet you the parents are on his side, most of them. The vice president or the head of the school district, this is Gary Road Elementary in Mississippi. The head of the school district says he caused unnecessary embarrassment to know a kindergartner who's not a silly heart, right? Like that's he, this guy needs that speech. I don't think I want to know somebody who reads to second graders who has total professionalism and judgment when it comes to the book selections, which should be fun and silly. That's what the guy is saying that the guy got fired, Toby Price. He says, I got fired for reading an awesome book to kids. That's exactly right. So he's got to go find me if you care to support him, not endorsing, have no idea whether it's, you know, what's happening there, but he's not asking for much.

I hope he can get another job. I hope he can get another job. It looks like he's the type of teacher that we want or type of administrator that we want in our school systems that has a sense of humor and wants to make that connection with the kids, which is that we want in our school systems that has a sense of humor and wants to make that connection with the kids, which is what we want. A hundred percent. This is not even close to like the weird sexual stuff that's showing up in some school districts that parents are like, well, that's too much that I get those objections. This is just fun. It's he's right. It's a funny, silly hearted book. And frankly, I'm going to be ordering it today because my little Thatcher is going to love it. My kids will come over to me and be like, mom,

look at this. They'll show me just like a pronouncer. You know how you can Google pronouncer. Vinny, you know, this is an anchor before you go on the air. You're like, how do you say that? And they'll give it to me. And all it says is butts, butts, butts. I'll be honest with you. I have not read the book. I am waiting for the movie to come out. I'm telling you right now, you have a duty to do it. Oh. One more call, please. We have a winner.

We have a winner. Pull me into your dark, dark world. Vinny, such a pleasure. Hope you come back. Great to be on. Yeah, I'll be back anytime. I hope Robert's winning. I hope he was prepared. What was he doing with us? It depends who he's representing. I don't know if I'm cheering for him. Great to be on. Yeah, I'll be back anytime. I hope Robert's winning. I like, I hope he was prepared.

What was he doing with us? It depends who he's representing. I don't know if I'm cheering for him if he's not representing the right side. I'm sure he is. Don't miss tomorrow. Dave Rubin is back with us for a fun Friday afternoon.

Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.