The Megyn Kelly Show - Bud Light's Lack of Apology, and Fani Willis' Next Move, with Kevin O'Leary, Mark Davis, and Dave Aronberg | Ep. 719

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by lawyers Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis to discuss whether the Supreme Court will weigh in the Trump "immunity" argument, whether the Democratic "freakout" about the delay caused a politically-motivated push in the case, Trump rushing to file his appeal, the 14th Amendment argument before the Supreme Court tomorrow, if Georgia DA Fani Willis will be removed from the Trump RICO case because of her affair, the "appearance of impropriety" threshold at play, the mother of the Michigan school shooter found guilty, the recklessness of her actions, the new precedent this sets, and more. Then Mr. Wonderful" Kevin O'Leary, of "Shark Tank" and O'Leary Ventures, joins to discuss why Bud Light keeps failing, what Mark Cuban gets wrong about DEI in hiring, the he importance of hiring based on merit, the failures of "Bidenomics," the current state of inflation, the alarming rise of males leaving the workforce, red flags when it comes to jobs in America, his biggest "Shark Tank" successes, the importance of social media, and more.Aronberg- https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAronbergFLDavis- https://article3project.org/O'Leary- https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv 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, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution disqualifies former President Donald Trump from running for the White House. This is Mr. Trump is likely to file an appeal with the high court over his immunity claims in the D.C. criminal election interference case. I'm already confused. Are you confused already? I am. So he's got the argument that he shouldn't be kicked off of these state ballots in Colorado and Maine and several other

states that are trying to kick him off as an alleged insurrectionist. That's that's going up to SCOTUS and the arguments are tomorrow. But then he's got this other argument that he raised in the D.C. federal case brought about based on January 6th, that you can't bring this charge against me at all because I was president when I did these acts and you can't come after a president under the criminal law for things he did while he was president. He just lost that one. He lost that with the trial court judge. It went up to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. They just ruled a three judge panel unanimously against him. And now he wants to take that one up, maybe to the en banc, the entire court of the D.C. circuit, but probably not.

And we'll explain why, but definitely he's going to try to get the U S Supreme court to weigh in on this. So that's one that's in SCOTUS, one that he's probably going to get to, you know, he's going to try to get to SCOTUS. And what are the different scenarios that are going to play out here? And how does it affect the timeline of these four cases? Because honestly, that could affect the outcome of the election and it could truly affect whether Trump goes to jail or not. I mean, will the Democrats abandon the state prosecutions if he becomes president and they haven't actually been tried to conclusion? You can bet he's going to pull those feds off the federal prosecutions if he becomes president again. So much lies in the balance. And we're going to get into the latest developments on all of this,

including the Fannie Willis case, some developments down there. And we're going to talk about Jussie Smollett back in the news and this trial in which the mother of that mass shooting, that mass shooter out in Michigan was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Lots to get to. Mike Davis is with us today. He's founder and president of the Article 3 Project. And Dave Ehrenberg is state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located. You can find Mike on Fox, Dave on MSNBC, but only together here on this show. Mike and Dave, welcome back. Great to have you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Great to be back with you, Megan. Okay. So let's first talk about the immunity case. No, no, strike that. I'm confusing myself.

Whether he gets ballot access in Colorado and Maine, because that actually is going to be heard by the Supreme Court. Arguments are tomorrow. Latest is that Trump will not show up to the Supreme Court himself. That's not that unusual. I don't mean sometimes in all my years covering the court for Fox News, the one client I remember who showed up and completely stopped the court in its tracks. Any guesses? Does anybody have a guess who might that that might have been?

I'll give you a hint. It was 2005, I think, right around there. She was beautiful. She was blonde. She was buxom. Oh, goodness. Give me another hint. Yes, it was amazing. Everybody was like, oh, my God. I never had so many hits that day. Every international news organization was like, will you please come on live from the Supreme Court? OK, I digress. It would be like that in a different way if Trump were to show up

tomorrow, but he's not going to. He's not going to. And I don't know. I'll start with you on this, Dave, because I feel like you're the underdog on this one, that Trump's going to win this, that this court is not going to say he can be kicked off the ballot. Am I wrong? Well, I agree with you. I think the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, does not want to bump Trump off the ballot. By the way, Megan, there's always a Florida connection everywhere and every time. Anna Nicole Smith actually passed away at the Hard Rock Hotel down here in South Florida. So just a little tidbit. And there's a room there and people go to her room and they say, I'm in the Anna Nicole

Nicole Swift suite. So that's just. Oh, wow. That's weird. It's kind of morbid. Yeah. Good old Florida. But you know, there's a thing on the internet where you're supposed to Google your birthday

and Florida and just see what comes up because there's always something absolutely wacky. It's a fun game to try. It's a big state. Keep going, Dave. I love my state. I call myself Florida law man. That's my nom de plume. So as far as the constitution and, you know and I think the Section 3 of Article of the Amendment,

the 14th Amendment, is pretty clear that you can't qualify for office if you engage in insurrection. It doesn't say you have to be convicted of it. Just engage in it. And you're also bumped if you provided comfort or aid there, too. And so I think there's grounds for the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado decision and Maine decision. But I have said this on your show previously, and I agree with you and Mike, that I do not think the Supreme Court wants to set a precedent where 50 different secretaries of state come up with their own different conflicting rules and policies, especially when we've not seen this before. Like there hasn't been an institutional mechanism to show people how to approach this issue. This is the first time. And I think the Supreme Court is going to step in and they're

going to point to Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, which gives Congress the power to enforce the 14th Amendment and say, Congress, do your job. We defer to Congress on this. And then, of course, Congress will sit back and do nothing. I, too, think they're going to try to get out of deciding whether he participated in an insurrection or anything like that, Mike. They don't like they don't like to get involved in political controversies and they'll find some other way to give him the W. I mean, what do you think it'll be? And I assume you agree, but what do you think it'll be? Well, I don't they don't need to get to whether Trump committed an insurrection because all they have to do is look at the Griffin's case

from over 150 years ago from then Chief Justice Salmon Chase. It was it's the case on point after the 14th Amendment was ratified, and it says if you want to disqualify under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Congress has to use its Section 5 power, as Dave just said, and pass a federal criminal statute on insurrection or rebellion, which Congress did nearly 150 years ago. It's still on the books. I think it was last updated in 1948, and it has a disqualification provision in the federal criminal statute. So if you want to disqualify, you have to bring federal charges, have a federal grand jury indict, a federal jury find guilt with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, unanimous guilt, a federal judge has to convict. That conviction has to be upheld on appeal. That's the only way you can disqualify. Let me just jump in just to clarify something, Mike, and I'll give you the floor back. But because the other side is arguing you don't have to jump through all those hoops. It's self-executing. If it's just clear he's insurrection. This is self-executing and you don't need to do anything more to boot him off of the ballot. Right.

That's that's the other side saying. Well, I mean, that's that's a four to three ruling, or you have an unelected main secretary of state, Shanna Bellows, just unilaterally decreeing. Who's not a lawyer, just unilaterally saying, hey, I feel like January 6th was an insurrection, even though House Democrats and the Biden Justice Department spent tens of millions of dollars hunting for evidence of insurrection. And Jack Smith didn't charge Trump with insurrection. But I think that Shenabella is this unelected non-lawyer in Maine is just going to say, you know, it felt kind of insurrection that day. So I'm going to throw him off the ballot. All right. Now, there's also the question about the 14th Amendment. This piece of it can only be applied to someone who's an officer of the United States.

It says if an officer engages in an insurrection, et cetera. I'm just paraphrasing. And there are dispute has arisen on this word, too, with Trump team arguing he's not an officer as the president. That's the people who are under Trump, who arguing that there's a Scalia opinion from 2014, one of every conservative's favorite justices, that helps them against Trump. Dave, they're citing a case involving this 14th Amendment and saying that there was a Scalia opinion back in 2014 between the Teamsters and a soda distributor, National Labor Relations Board versus Noel Canning. And in it, the court unanimously affirmed a challenge to the recess appointments of three

NLRB commissioners. And Scalia wrote in a concurrence in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Thomas and Justice Alito joined, saying, except where the Constitution or a valid federal law provides otherwise, all officers of the United States must be appointed by the president. So he's saying that would suggest the president is an officer because he's saying he's making an exception, it sounds like for the president, except where the constitution or a valid federal law provides. Otherwise all officers of the United States must be appointed by the president. He was asked then in a letter for a clarification by two legal scholars. And he did say, I meant exactly what I wrote. The manner by which the president and the vice president hold their office is provided otherwise by the constitution. In other

words, he would amend this sentence to read, except where we're talking about the president or the vice president, all officers of the United States must be appointed by the president. So that's basically what he was saying they were holding. That's a good argument that he believed in this ruling. The president was an officer. The president is an officer. That would be a very bad finding for Donald Trump by the Supreme Court this time. May not be dispositive because there are other ways for them to get out of it. But how do you it's an important issue. I know it's sticky and I know the audience is holding on right now by their fingertips. But do you think it's likely that they're going to say

Trump as president was an officer, which would be bad for Trump? I think they will. And the Scalia opinion referred to, Megan, was a concurring opinion. So it doesn't have necessarily the force of law, but it is something they could take into account. But it would make no sense if the framers of the 14th Amendment, who were so worried about former Confederate supporters being in government, would make an exception for the president. They were so worried about insurrectionists gaining control of government, but they would say it's okay if an insurrectionist became president. That's why I think this issue

of whether Trump is an officer of the United States is a no-brainer. The only person who ruled opposite is the original trial court judge in Colorado. She used that as a way to get out of it. Like she found that Trump engaged in insurrection, but Trump wasn't covered by the 14th Amendment. But every one of the Colorado Supreme Court justices, all seven of them in the 43 decision,

ruled that Trump was covered under that provision. And one other thing, what my friend Mike said about the provision being self-executing or not, it is self-executing because the 14th Amendment has other parts in it, like equal protection, like due process. And if it's not self-executing, then Congress could repeal its civil rights laws. And then we go back to the old days where blacks had no equal rights, even though the 14th Amendment due process equal protection exists. And so that doesn't make any sense. So I would submit that the best argument for the Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado and Maine decisions is just a punt, as we were saying, by saying

that the Section 5 of the 14th Amendment says Congress shall enforce this. Let Congress pass the laws. And until they do, we're staying out of it. OK, so those are the three things, just so people can have it in their heads. So was it an insurrection? They're going to dodge that. It's highly unlikely they're going to take that on. Then in order to keep him bounced off the highly unlikely they're going to take that on. Then

then in order to keep him bounced off the ballot and get this court to uphold the Colorado main decisions, you have to say or vice versa. I can't remember where the Colorado Colorado, the appellate court went Trump's way. Right. The Colorado district court's opinion went Trump's way by that technicality saying he wasn't an officer of the court. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. And then the appeals court overruled it. And now the Supreme Court's taking it. OK, so did he engage in an insurrection? They're not going to take that on, we think. Then is he covered? Is he an officer of the United States? And if that Scalia concurrence holds, it'd be bad for Trump. They'll probably say he is an officer as the president. So he does fall technically within this provision of the 14th

Amendment. But then they have to get to if he is an officer and allegedly committed an insurrection, is it is it self-executing? Is it? And if they can get to irrespective of whether he engaged in an insurrection or not, and he's an officer for purposes of this discussion, this thing's not self-executing. You would need a congressional law. We don't have one. Goodbye. All right. So he's got lots of wiggle room to get out of this.

And I think he will. And I think you guys were all in agreement on that one. So looks good for Trump to stay on the ballot in not just Colorado and Maine, but the 11 states that are interested in kicking him off. OK. Immunity. That's a different story. That's the one that was in front of Judge Chutkin, the D.C. federal district court judge who we know doesn't like Trump and really doesn't like the January 6th defendants at all. They all get prison time under her. She sitting president for civil litigation. And it makes no sense to change the rules when we were talking

about criminal charges. And that's what's happening here. So that was rejected by Judge Shutkin. Then Team Trump appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He just lost. The three-judge panel, two Biden judges, one H.W. Bush appointed judge said wrong. A president can be criminally held liable or guilty for criminal acts while he was president. So now tell me what you think of what the D.C. Circuit Court has done here, Mike, because they've said normally your move would be, especially if your goal was delay, to go to the en banc, seek an en banc hearing, get all the judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal to look at the case before you bother SCOTUS. But the D.C. Circuit, the three-judge panel said you have until February 12th for this

stay, like we're staying the lower court proceedings against you until you just tell us what you're going to do. Are you going to go up to SCOTUS or not? And they're kind of like doing an end around the en banc piece of this by saying you've got until February 12th to tell us whether you're going to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Many people are saying that's political. He has the right to take his time to go this, do this step by step. And you're shortening it because you, like his partisan prosecutors, want to get this thing tried as soon as possible. Is that what's happening here? Yes. And it's pretty shameful what the D.C. circuit did here. Generally,

parties have 30 days after they get a three judge panelge panel ruling with a federal appellate court to file. Sometimes it's 30, sometimes it's 45 days, but they generally get a set amount of time to file what's called a petition for rehearing with the panel or a petition for rehearing en banc, meaning the full circuit court, the full federal appellate court, all the active judges would hear the case. And when you have immunity cases against government officials, the proceedings are stayed until the immunity issue is resolved. And so there's no other explanation for why this three-judge panel short-circuited President Trump's procedural rights under the rules and procedures, the normal rules and procedures that every party has before the D.C. Circuit, other than they're trying to get this case rushed and tried before the

presidential election, right? Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department waited 30 months to bring these charges. What is the rush? Why are they trying to rush this trial? Why are they trying to bump other January 6th defendants and other defendants who are in the queue before Trump, other than the fact that they're trying to change the outcome of the election. They know Trump is on a glide path to victory on November 5th, 2024. And the only thing that changes that is a criminal conviction in D.C. under this January 6th case, according to the polling. Right, because the voters are saying they're pro-Trump, but they might not be if he gets convicted prior to November. So, Dave, what is with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals saying you don't have 45 days to file your petition with the,

you know, for an en banc full appeals court review and you don't have 90 days after that to go to the high court? You have until Monday. This ruling just came out yesterday. They say you have until Monday to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, Jack Smith asked for the expedited review, and I think this decision is part of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the expedited review. And then on my side of the aisle, people were so frustrated with this court because it looked like they were dragging their feet. And then they came out with this very thorough, powerful ruling. And now they're putting it on the fast track. So I understand where Mike is coming from. If you look at it and say, hey, why speed it up now? But those judges know reality like the rest of us. They know that Trump's legal strategy is to delay this past the election where you would not have a trial. And then Trump gets elected very possibly and then,

you know, dismisses the attorney general and Jack Smith. And that's the end of that. So for the interest of justice and the rule of law, they're saying, let's get this decided as soon as possible. But, you know, despite all that, the Supreme Court can still drag its feet and delay it and prevent this from being heard before the election. So this is not the end. But we'll get to that in one second, what the Supreme Court's going to do. But I I kind of feel like we have an admission there that that it was a political decision to get this thing fast tracked up to SCOTUS by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And I realize that we have at least one Republican appointed judge on that three judge panel, H.W. Bush. I don't know what that tells us. That's not that's not necessarily what I think

of when I think of like a MAGA pro Trump judge. So I don't know. But I'm sure Trump's not happy about this expedited process. He doesn't want till Monday. He wants 45 days to go to the full D.C. circuit and then his 90 days to file before SCOTUS, and then to drag that out and wait for an opinion that won't come until June, probably. And let's say he loses in June. By that point, it's going to be really hard to put the pedal down so fast in that January 6th federal trial that it gets resolved before August. That was his plan. But now it's on a fast track. And you raised something, Dave, that I wanted to raise. The outcry, the outcry from many, you know, respected legal scholars, some less respected, on the left, that the D.C. Circuit, this three-judge panel, was taking forever, in their view,

to issue a ruling on whether he had immunity or he didn't have immunity. We just pulled a little sampling of some of the hysterics that I was listening to. Like, my God, this is people need to calm down. Take a listen here in SOT1 MSNBC. I am officially now at the freak out stage. I can't imagine a more compelling need for speed than the idea that American citizens deserve to know before the election whether a candidate for office is a felon and an insurrectionist. Neil and I are in violent agreement. So that was Weissman at the end there, Andrew Weissman and Neil Katyal, former Solicitor General under Obama there before him. So they were freaked out. And I think it's fair to say, Mike, that the justices or the judges who just ruled that this everything has to be filed by Monday and you have to skip the en banc may have been feeling some of that pressure. trial before an election, because apparently these are political forums for the voters

to decide the election, these federal courts, that is the stupidest argument I've heard. And you're rushing, you're making Trump rush to file a petition with the Supreme Court on Monday when they know that he has this Thursday oral argument with the Supreme Court? Why are they trying to GM him up? Why are they ignoring normal rules and procedures for every other party except for Trump? They keep saying this mantra that Trump's not above the law. Well, he's not below the law. And why are they treating him like he's below the law? This is an important constitutional issue. This is a critically important constitutional issue. This is a critically important constitutional issue. When the Supreme Court decided the issue of civil immunity for presidents of the United

States, it took almost two years for that to happen. So why do they think that they need to rush and decide this issue in like 30 days before the Supreme Court, other than the fact that these Democrats want Jack Smith to try President Trump in D.C. in front of this D.C. Obama judge, Tanya Shetkin, and this 95 percent Trump deranged D.C. jury pool and convict him before the election because they know that's the one way that President Trump could lose. If if the high court were to rule that Trump does have immunity, if they, you know, they take the appeal, which is a big question. I know you've got your doubts, Dave. But if they take the appeal and they rule he is immune, we disagree with the three judge panel. Do all the cases go away? It depends on the scope of the opinion. If they say that he's immune for everything he did while he's president, then a lot of

those charges would go away, but not the Mar-a-Lago documents case, because that happened after he left the White House. And you could say the New York case wouldn't go away because that happened before he entered the White House, the Stormy Daniels hush money payments. But the Jack Smith case would be gutted. And the Fannie Willis case would not entirely go away because some of the actions took place after he was out. But most of it would. So yeah, it would gut at least two of the cases against him. Okay, so now that's the question. So I think we all agree Trump will file his appeal with SCOTUS on Monday. He's not going to waive his appeal.

And what are the odds they'll take it? Michael, I'll ask you that one first, because I kind of teased what Dave's position is. But what do you think SCOTUS is going to take it? Well, what I think Trump should do is file a motion to stay the proceedings with the Supreme Court. And I think the Supreme Court is going to grant that because I think the Supreme Court is going to resent the political games that this panel, this D.C. Circuit panel is playing where they're trying to put a burning bag of political manure on the Supreme Court's staff. Right. So I think the Supreme Court will issue a stay of all these proceedings pending President Trump's trial court. When stay of all these proceedings pending President Trump.

Just the trial court. When you say all these proceedings, you're saying stay the trial court federal case against Trump until it can weigh in the Supreme Court. And I actually think the Supreme Court is going to say we're going to stay these proceedings so Trump can file his petition for rehearing on Bonk with the D.C. circuits. And then if they deny that, then Trump can file his petition for cert with the Supreme Court of the United States. The bottom line is, is even if the Supreme Court grants Trump's petition for cert immediately, they're not going to hear this case before the election anyway, because they have cases before Trump's case that are already piled up on the docket. You're not going to get a resolution by the Supreme Court of this case before the

presidential election. Really? Why do you think that? I mean, wouldn't they give it at least expedited review? And they have what it's February now. They have till June. This seems like one of those you might want to squeeze into the docket and make some time for. Why would you have to why would they have to rush this case before June? Why? What's the urgency of this case other than election interference? Right. And that's that's the point. The D.C. circuit is trying to rush this case and they're playing political games to interfere in the election. It does not matter whether President Trump is convicted or not. He could still be the president of the United States. There is no reason that the Supreme Court needs to rush this

immunity case. And it is an important case. They did not rush the civil immunity case back in 1981. Again, that took almost two years for the Supreme Court to resolve. Why would they rush this case? The disqualification case, they have to rush because they have to decide whether Trump's going to be on the ballots or not. But the immunity case, there's no reason to rush it. And why would the Supreme Court want to rush this case and get itself in the middle of a very hot political issue before the presidential election? They don't. They will not want to do that. That is OK. That is the most robust argument that, you know, Trump could have. And that would be the best case scenario for him. That'd be a great scenario for him

as they take it. They brush back the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, three judge panels saying you don't tell the litigants what the schedule is. The schedule is a schedule. There was no grounds to expedite any of this. And we'll decide when and if we take this up. And we're not in any rush just because you are. It's like the little sign in my mom's cupboard. Dave, when I was growing up, you know, Mike points out that Jack Smith had 30 months to bring this. And now suddenly it's emergency. The little sign read lack of planning on your part does not justify an emergency on my part. So we might get that ruling, Mike says, from the Supreme Court.

What do you think? Yeah, it's like the person who tries to get in front of you in the line at airport security because he's late for his plane. Bad planning, right? And you know it's a lie. I've been that person.

But you know half the time it's a lie. Then you see that guy at Sparrow. You know, you get there. Hey, what are you doing at Sparrow? Well, exactly. Well, first, kudos to Mike for bringing the hot take. That was a sizzling one. I've not heard that before. I got to believe, though, that this Supreme Court with Chief Justice Roberts, you know, the number one thing in his mind is the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

He wants us badly to believe in the Supreme Court as an institution and nothing would discredit the Supreme Court more than I think than dragging this out past the election Court as an institution. And nothing would discredit the Supreme Court more, I think, than dragging this out past the election, make a decision. I think the decision will be that they are going to reject cert, meaning they're not going to review it. They're going to send this back to the trial court and say it's done. And then it's game on. Now, you need five justices to implement a stay.

I do think that they'll get a stay at least until they decide on the issue of certiorari, cert. Of whether they're taking it on the merits. So just to clarify that, and I'll give you the back of the floor, what he needs to file by Monday is a request to continue staying the case while he pursues his appellate rights. It's not a judgment that the court's going to take the case or a judgment on the case. It's will you please keep it stayed for now while I can fulfill my appellate obligations? Well, he has Trump has two choices and he's in a bit of a trick bag here. Either he asked for the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to meet and bunk where he doesn't get an automatic stay there. And then Chuck can keep moving or he goes straight to the Supreme Court, which is what he's going to do, because there he can ask for the stay

while they determine whether they take the case. That's what's going to happen. And I don't know how long they're going to take, but I do think that they don't want to get involved in this one too heavily when they are going to get involved heavily in the issue we just discussed on Colorado, Maine, and whether he qualifies for the ballot. So I'm on the opposite side of this as Mike. I think they're going to act quickly and then they'll be up to Judge Chubkin to move ahead with the calendar. I think this case does get heard before the election. The last time I was on with you, Megan, I predicted by the end of May. I think that may have been a little too ambitious.

I'm now thinking perhaps by the end of June or July, but I do think it's going. Even if he gets Supreme Court review, if they take the case, you think he's getting he'll have to face a June trial? Yeah, that's a tougher question. I do, but I don't think they're going to take the case. But if they do take the case, I do think they'll have an expedited review. They did that with Bush v. Gore, And I realize it's a different situation, but there is precedent when you're involved, when you're dealing with the president and you're dealing with matters of great public importance, like an election coming up that they want to get this resolved before then. You know, Mike, I was looking at this. They estimate that this trial,

the one we're talking about in D.C., is going to take two months. I don't know if I believe that. I mean, if you're Trump and this thing starts, let's say, June or July or August, right around there, depending on what SCOTUS does and all this stuff we're talking about. You know how it is as a lawyer. When you're on trial, you could object to everything. You could try to appeal every ruling. You could push for a mistrial. You could actually cause a mistrial. You could do so many things to cause chaos at the trial. And you might feel emboldened to do that because you think the entire thing is illegitimate election interference. It's really just a time game at that point to see if you can

cause enough chaos to get this thing extended beyond November 8th or whatever election day is this year? It's going to take two months to seat the jury in D.C. I mean, we have a 95% anti-Trump jury pool, and you have a lot of people on that jury who could have been affected by January 6th. They worked in the Capitol or they worked for the D.C. police or their spouse did or their kid did. I mean, this is not going to get resolved in two months. Frankly, it's not going to go to trial before the election,

because the Supreme Court is going to stay these proceedings because they see the D.C. Circuit's political games that are being played. The Supreme Court is going to accept cert on this case because you're dealing with novel, weighty constitutional issues, whether the president of the United States, any president of the United States can be thrown in prison by his successor based upon his official acts. Because guess what? When the Trump 47 Justice Department is back in the game. Does that mean that Trump can throw Obama in prison

for capital murder for drone striking American citizens? Does that mean that U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron, who helped Obama with the Office of Legal Counsel, Barron advised Obama he can drone strike American citizens, including a 17 year old. Does that mean this this now federal circuit judge can stand trial with Obama for capital murder? Do we really want to go down this path? And the answer is no. The Supreme Court will have to fix this and they're going to fix this after the election. Can you speak to that point of delay? I mean, it's that it's going to take two months just to pick a jury. And if that's just picking a jury. And so if this thing under your timeline,

starting in June, maybe July, maybe even August, depending on if the Supreme Court takes it, let's say July, just for argument's sake here. So that takes us to August to September. And then you think we're really going to get a trial completed September, October, like hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. November is coming. If anything, there would be an ethical obligation to slow it down because that's just going to feel like such interference. So what do you make of the obvious delay tactics that we will undoubtedly see if this thing does get started in the summer? Yeah, that's a $64,000 question to date me there. I think that is it's difficult to know exactly how long it would take. But if it does go

by May or June, then I'm confident it can be done before the election. Once you get to July and August, if Mike is right and it takes two months to pick a jury, then this thing may have to be put on hold. But I don't think it will take that long. I've dealt with a lot of high profile cases in my jurisdiction, and I've never had an issue because it's not whether people have heard about the case. It's whether they can put their biases aside. And although Mike is right that Trump only got 5% of the vote in Washington, D.C., it doesn't mean you can't find people who can put their biases aside and just pay attention to the law and the evidence and just do justice. So I think because you have a judge like Judge Chuckin, who is so motivated to hear that she said that she was going to cancel her international trip in August if it took that long, that I think this case will go and it'll be done enough time before the election that it won't constitute what Mike calls election interference.

Mike, she's such a dedicated, selfless public servant. That is that's really extraordinary. I mean, there have been a thousand carjackings in D.C. I wish Tanya Shudkin would find time on her docket and maybe take time from her vacation schedule to put violent carjackers who are murdering D.C. residents in prison. I mean, she's so excited to try Trump before the election that proves that she's a partisan operative who's trying to interfere in the election. Yeah, it's got a little stink to it, I admit. OK, so that leaves us with Georgia. Yeah, go ahead. Just one quick thing. If you call Judge Shuckian a political operative for

rushing this, then what do you say about Judge Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago documents case who is slow walking that case where it can't be heard before the election at all? That case is a mess, though. That was always going to take forever with all the classified documents case who is slow walking that case where it can't be heard before the election at all. That case is a mess, though. That was always going to take forever with all the classified documents, clearances and who gets to see what even Team Trump can't see everything because he's no longer the sitting president. They're going through that right now. They're like that. That was a morass of a case from the start, whatever. But it is a Trump appointed judge who's overseeing it. OK, we have more to talk about. There's a lot more to talk about. Stand by. Mike and David got to squeeze in a quick break. Be right back. The New York state case will be the first

one to go. It probably will be tried to completion. The Alvin Bragg hush money payment case against Trump. But he's not facing any jail time in that one. So I just, I, and everyone, even Democrats agree, that's the weakest. I'm not inclined to spend too much time on it with you guys today, but if we go further South down to Georgia, uh, that's, that's not a good case for Trump, but there've been some favorable developments with the implosion of Fannie Willis, her reputation and her potential ability to stay on this case. She's now admitted that she has a personal relationship with the special prosecutor she brought in. They're having an affair. That's what's been alleged and she is no longer denying it. But she says it did not start

until after she brought him on board as special prosecutor. However, the lawyer for the defendant, Mike Roman, he's one of Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia case. The lawyer who represents that guy, Ashley Merchant, says that's a lie. It did start before he was appointed to this case and is suggesting thereby that that's one of the reasons he was appointed to this case and potentially paid more than the others, something Fannie Willis denies. She also, this lawyer, has subpoenaed documents from Atlanta-area travel agencies and financial records tied to Nathan Wade, the alleged paramour, and his law firm. So where does this stand? Because you've got this heating up as she tries to avoid. Fannie Willis does not want this February 15th.

That's next Friday. Evidentiary hearings on the accusations against her. I'm going to guess that the judge is going to hold it anyway. What do you think, Mike? I think Fannie is in big trouble down in Georgia because it looks like she hired her unqualified secret boyfriend. She paid him $250 per hour out of Fulton County and federal COVID funds. She paid him substantially more than an actually qualified RICO special prosecutor. She's paid him nearly $700,000. She paid him to go meet with the Biden White House, including the Biden White House counsel, before they brought

this unprecedented RICO indictment against President Trump and 18 co-defendants. And she allegedly took kickbacks from this nearly $700,000 that this boyfriend billed Fannie's office, including these lavish trips to Napa and the Caribbean. And like you said, she represented to the courts that this relationship didn't start until after she hired him. Well, that seems to be a lie, or at least the evidence could show that's a lie and that she's gonna have perjury problems. But the bigger issue is that she hired him and she started this relationship by her own admission before they indict it.

And she has a financial interest in this case, which you cannot have, as Dave knows, as a prosecutor. She's paying someone who's giving her illegal kickbacks and she's paying him by the hour. So, of course, he's going to bring a very broad case because he's going to be able to bill seven hundred thousand dollars and counting, and then he can take her on trips. And generally in the law, Dave, it wouldn't be required for anybody to prove any of that. They just have to prove the appearance of that, which creates an appearance of impropriety,

which, as you know, you do this for a living. You're not allowed to have, especially as a prosecutor. We hold you guys to an extra high ethical standard given the power you have. So what do you make of what Mike just said? Well, when I was last on with you, Megan, you said that you had me on my heels on this one. And yeah, it's tough to defend these allegations because it's the appearance, even if some of this stuff isn't true. Like for example, it's been proven that the money didn't come from COVID funds. He is being paid $250 an hour, but so are the other two special prosecutors.

But he has billed a lot more. One of the days he billed 24 hours in a day. That's the thing that gave me the most heartburn because I don't know how you can do that. But it would be a conflict, a clear conflict, and really undermine the case if this relationship with a judge or the public defender or any defense lawyer. But when you're having a relationship with someone in your own office, and if Bonnie Willis's affidavit is true that the relationship didn't take place until after he was already hired, then there's no there there except it looks bad. And I think Nathan Wade should not be on this case anymore. I think she should find someone else to help lead this case for the perceptions. And it's this is an unforced error, because if you're going to go after Donald Trump,

you need to be just totally clean and not have any issues that the other side can exploit. And they're exploiting this. But in the end, facts are facts. The law is the law. And if this case wasn't a good case, then the judge in this case, a Federalist Society member would have dismissed it already. He has not. Not that not that, but that's not, yes, he's seeking to have it dismissed too. But before we get to that, it's should she be dismissed from the case, which is, you know, a much, I think, easier issue. I think she should go. I don't, I do not think she has any business staying on this case after what she has done. She's behaved disgracefully. I mean, this is not something Dave Ehrenberg would never, ever do. And he would fire, I know he may not say it.

You would fire somebody who did this, did this in your office. So I don't know that the whole case goes away, but she's, I think she's going to go away, but we'll see. It's Georgia. I don't know. We'll find out. Okay. I want to get to these other two quickly while I have you guys. This woman, Jennifer Crumbly, the mother of a shooter, one of these school shooters whose

name we don't say on our show, convicted for counts of involuntary manslaughter because the jury found she played too much of an active role in ignoring his mental health problems, in buying him a gun four days before he went on the rampage. And that morning was called to the school, shown all sorts of disturbing drawings and did not pull her kid from the school. So, Dave, what do you make of this? It's the novel. I don't I don't think this has ever happened before. This is sort of a new chapter in accountability for these mass shootings. Do you think they've reached the right conclusion? Absolutely, Megan. Kudos to the prosecutor, my counterpart up there in Oxford, Michigan. This was an unprecedented case by a gutsy prosecutor who reflected the mood of the country that we've

had enough of these school shooters and someone needs to be held accountable. It's not enough. And it's unsatisfying just to throw the then 15 year old in jail for life when the parents here acted so egregiously. I mean, I've talked about this on my YouTube channel, Megan, because this thing was so beyond the pale that it's not just that they ignored these clear signs of mental illness, but instead of getting him a therapist, they bought him a gun and then they didn't secure the gun. And then when the kid was found looking for ammunition in school on his cell phone, the mother ignored the calls from the school and then LOL'd her son, texted him, LOL, I'm not mad at you. Just don't get caught. And then the worst thing is when the

kid drew a very disturbing drawing of shooting up a school, you know, with a gun and saying, the thoughts won't stop. Help me. Blood everywhere. The teacher found the drawing, called the principal, and the parents were brought in. The parents never mentioned to the school that they had bought him a gun. They never checked his backpack, and they refused to take him home. So guilty of all counts, and that's justice. I mean, it's not your average case, Mike. It doesn't mean all parents who have a school shooter for a child are now going to be held accountable. This case does seem egregious. I mean, as the facts developed, it got worse. Yeah, it was the recklessness on this mother's part that makes her criminally culpable in

this case. And I would say this, look, I was raised in Iowa. My siblings and I had guns when we were kids, but we knew how to use guns. We used it for hunting, right? It is so I don't think that the fact that he had a gun should be dispositive. It's the fact that he was so clearly mentally ill. This mother knew he was clearly mentally ill. She knew he was dangerous. He was drawing pictures and making comments that were clearly dangerous. He was a clear danger to others. And when the school contacted her to get

this kid help, she blew them up. So I agree with Dave there. But I would like to see this. I would like to. Yeah, you have to wonder how these people who are cheering on this criminal case here, how would they respond if we use this same criminal theory for parents in D.C. whose minor children are carjacking and robbing and causing mayhem in Washington, D.C. I'm all for arresting their parents. But I for some reason, I don't think that too many people in D.C. would agree with that theory here. That's fascinating. Fascinating point. I've been raising this because I actually wrote my law review article on the dangerous instrumentality exception to the negligence supervision doctrine. It was crazy. I wrote my law review article on it because I thought it was really interesting. And then it wound up one of the three essay questions

on the bar exam. I was like, yes! Everybody was like, what was that doing on the bar exam? I was like, I have an angel looking out for me. Anywho, yeah, you're right. If we're opening up that floodgate, who knows where it could go. Okay, last but not least,

and by the way, the father's gonna get tried, I think, in March. Jussie Smollett back in the news. The chronology of this is he did get convicted for God, what was the actual disorderly conduct for all of the lying he did to cops in relation to his fake hoax race crime? He was sentenced to 150 days in jail. He served six before he was released on appeal. The appellate court of Cook County denied his appeal saying, nope, go back to jail two to one. And now he's still out pending this other appeal. He's appealed to the U.S. or to the Illinois Supreme Court, repeating his earlier arguments, saying double jeopardy should stop this because the Cook County prosecutors, you know, who are these sort of left wing, soft on crime prosecutors, Kim Fox, right, wasn't it? Drop this thing. And a special prosecutor was brought in and he thinks that's double jeopardy. I cannot do this

segment without bringing you back to the brilliantly done piece at Fox News, which involved the Osundario brothers, the two black men he hired to beat him up, who reenacted the thing for Fox here. Watch. So we waited here for about what? Four minutes. It was about four minutes, but it felt like forever. Because it was cold as balls. As we crossed the street, we said, hey, to get his attention. And that's when we started yelling the famous slurs he wanted us to yell. Hey, aren't you that empire? It's MAGA country.

He wanted it to look like he fought back. That was very important for him, because he said, hey, don't just beat my ass. Make it look like I'm fighting back and whatnot. So we did that and then I threw him to the ground and while after I threw him to the ground,

he had no bruise. I wanted it to look more real. So then I threw him to the ground. After I threw him to the ground, I used my knuckle and gave him a noogie. I finally put the rope around his face. I did not put it around his neck.

I just placed it on his face. And that's when we took off. They actually ran. They showed how they ran. In your life, you never get that good a witness, Dave, like those two guys. All right, so Mike, is Jussie Smollett going to prevail on this appeal? I hope not, just because he's such a pain. But I mean, I will say this.

It's not illegal to be a pain. It's not illegal to be obnoxious. Where he crossed the line is he created this hoax and diverted law enforcement resources to go investigate his hoax. So he deserves what he's getting here uh you know i think his uh yeah who knows what happens in illinois with the illinois supreme court but he should go to it's not it can't be double jeopardy just because one decided not to bring charges and then another one did but you what i'll I'll give you the last word. I mean, I mean, jeopardy attaches when the jury is sworn in in a jury trial. Dave knows this.

Or you have the first witness testifying. All right. Dave's getting the last word. I only have 20 seconds. All right. It's nice. We can we can conclude by agreeing on the last two issues. It's not double jeopardy. No jury was seated. In fact, in the plea agreement, it allowed for future proceedings to be brought. He's going to lose before the Illinois Supreme Court and he should go right back to jail. Yes, we'll look forward to that chapter of this event. See you guys. Thank you. We are shifting gears now and turning to the state of the economy.

How's that Bidenomics going? Mr. Wonderful himself, Kevin O'Leary, joins me for the first time on this show that we've spoken before. Kevin's an investor, financial commentator, and television personality, best known for his role on the huge hit ABC reality show Shark Tank. My mom loves it. If you watch the show, you know he can be savage in his assessments, but they're good. Here's a short sample. The market has spoken, and it's basically telling you people hate this product. I hate it too.

Part of what I have to do every day is to try and find opportunities where I put money in harm's way and I get a return. I don't pick places where there are thousands of dead and rotting corpses. There's always that classic scene in a movie. Grandma's maybe 105. She's on the bed. She's looking at her family. They've all loved her. They're having that moment.

They've had a great life together. And she says, pull the cord. I'm ready. You got to pull the cord. I don't want you to pursue the path to hell on earth. It's a hobby that eventually should be taken behind the barn and shot. I hate it. The reaction shots are so good.

Kevin, welcome to the show. It's great to see you again. Great to be here. Thank you. All right. So have you been doing this for 10 years? 16. 16 years.

Wow. We can't believe what's happened. I mean, who knew this? It's on in 42 countries. It's a giant, iconic platform. We've created hundreds of millionaires, sold billions of dollars worth of product. Look, it's the American dream encapsulated into a one-hour show.

That's basically what Shark Tank is. So of all the investments that have come before you that you've chosen, name a couple that stand out that have really been huge successes. You know, Megan, it's interesting because I now have 15 years of data. We're taping season 16 now. And what we've learned, and this is for all of the investors on Shark Tank, you're in that moment, you're making the investment, you're sure, you're absolutely sure this is the winner of the investors on Shark Tank. You're in that moment. You're making the investment. You're sure. You're absolutely sure this is the winner of the season for you. And that never happens. That's why you've got to do, I don't mean sometimes, it just never happens. And you have to

do 10, 12, 15 deals in each year, not knowing what's going to work because venture investing is very serendipitous. Sometimes luck is the most important thing, but over the years I've had extraordinary outcomes. Most recently, a deal called Base Paws, which was cat DNA testing just prior to the pandemic in 2019. You really don't know for a few years that the things are going to work, but I didn't know that there's 110 million cats in America, more than dogs. Why is this necessary? Why do we need a DNA test for the cats? Well, that's exactly what I said. I said, why would you spend $29.95 on a cat DNA test when you can buy a new cat for five bucks? That didn't go over that well within the cat community. But the point is, if you follow the data you get from this testing, you can extend your cat life 20, 30%. They die from the wrong

nutrition. Those tiny little teeth rot out. You can't do a root canal on a cat, so they die of abscessed teeth or whatever it is. If you feed your cat right based on the DNA data, instead of lasting eight or nine or 10 years, they can last 20 years. So people are willing to pay for that. Anyways, that company sold for a ton of money, so much so that we had to sign an NDA that the pharma company that bought it in their animal health science wouldn't be tainted by the fact that people knew what multiple they paid. It was a monster hit for me, a monster hit. And one of the great ones I invested in. What, I mean, I'm curious, just like I picture these are just regular folks coming before you with great ideas that they've come up with and somewhat of a business plan, but who the hell

sitting around figuring out how to analyze cat DNA? That sounds like a sophisticated pitch. That's next level. Well, that was part of her pitch. Anna Skya was her name. By the way, almost 70% of my returns over the 15 years have come from companies run by women. So I'm very biased now. And she came on as an entrepreneur and said, look, I've had two successes in the past as an entrepreneur. I'm well-versed in bioscience and I've developed this cat DNA testing. And I think you should think about it. All the other sharks said, what? Who's going to buy this? And I thought she was so compelling. I thought, I'll take a shot. You never know. And look what happened. Paid for all the mistakes

that season and then some. In another life, I practiced law. And when I was very young lawyer, I had a case in New York State Supreme and I had to go in there and it was a motion for a TRO, which is that's an emergency motion where you need attention right away and they'll interrupt the ongoing trial to hear your case and you make a quick argument. And the trial I interrupted this one particular day was of a woman who was getting sued over royalties or copyright, something small like that. And, um, the judge was covered in this certain product on his bench. And this woman was the inventor of this product. And I was like, what is that up there? What, what, what are they doing? They're arguing so fiercely over the money related to

these things. And it was the woman who came up with the hair scrunchie. And she talked about how she had a little rubber band and she just took a bunch of fabric and she kind of fashioned it, the fabric around the rubber band. And she would, she ran, you know, from person to person saying, do you think this could be a thing? Could, could you invest in this? And of course, no one thought this was a good idea. And then she went to the Woolworth back in the day, the Kmart, the Walmart. There was nothing else like it. And finally, she found a guy to take a chance on her. And of course, it ended in ruination and despair because they were suing one another. But it was a great idea. Well, they're only suing each other because it was wildly successful. And that's the thing about Shark Tank. You don't know who's going to walk through those doors. I

don't know. We don't get to know. There's a game show law from the 60s that makes sure that we are not privy to information before the contest begins, if you want to call it that. And as a result, we go through the peel the onion discovery with everybody else watching the show. And I think that's the magic of it. And the outcomes are remarkable. Very often now, there's so many people watching the show live and, of course, through syndication. They'll make our money back the night it airs. And so it's a really amazing platform and obviously keeps working. I mean, very few television shows, as you know, Megan, last 16 years. This is one of these outliers.

Now, I'm just going to say there's another very well-known public figure who made his name a household name by going on TV every week for NBC, and he wound up the president of the United States. Is there any interest in politics at all for you, kind of on a similar path? Well, you know, it just shows you the power of social media because that show started around the same time Shark Tank did. And I remember when the cast, we would all go to New York to sell the forwards, which are the ad sales during the season, and working to sell mostly at that time to car and automotive companies. They were the largest advertisers. What has really amazed me over the years is the power of social media, whether it's to sell consumer goods or services or to expand one's personal brand or to go into politics.

There's nothing like it. And nobody saw it that way in the early days. And it has downsides to it, obviously. But every day I've learned now, you know, my own network of over 8 million people is a business of which 15 people make a living off. And I never saw that coming. And it's international. I've got followers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, 42 countries. I mean, how does that happen? You couldn't even dream it up. And it was recently, there's a great case study at Harvard that just got published about six weeks ago about the power of social media.

I was featured in it, but it really looked at things like Bud Light 2. Just think about losing billions of dollars of market share from one 15-second commercial. Think about that. That never happened before. If you look at beer market- It wasn't even really a commercial. Well, the power of that messaging was so viral that it cost billions of dollars that the brand still hasn't survived. And so that's the case I teach now in saying, look, we talk about risk mitigation on anything from, if you look at board audit committees, there's risk there. Directors take DNO insurance, but none of these S&P 500 public companies have set up for social media risk because often they don't control their

own messaging or they don't think about what they're putting out there. Now they have to. Let me ask you about Bud Light since you bring it up. Trump tried to get people to forgive Bud Light yesterday. The understanding is that he's gotten money from Anheuser-Busch and suddenly wants everyone to forgive. I will tell you, the people who I follow on X are a hard no on it until and unless there's an apology. And the CEO at Bud Light has not issued one. Instead, he's trying to throw his arms around Americana-type brands and sort of manly men-type products, hoping that the consumer base will just forget about what they did with Dylan Mulvaney and all that. I really think that's a mistake. I really think this guy could find forgiveness if he came out and said, we screwed up. We misjudged our audience, our base. And we want to say out loud, we hear you. We're sorry

for the partnership. And we're sorry for this marketing person who said our customers were too fratty. She's been let go. And we hope you'll allow us to make it right. I think people are forgiving and they, but what they want is forgiveness without the apology. And I don't know. I mean, you tell me whether you think that was well handled. Well, Megan, you've brought up the key points in the case. When you have a cohort of 200 young managers and you bring forward those points

and they debate this extraordinary economic outcome, and it's really a case of what would you do next when you saw the first viral, remember, this thing had started to happen in 15 hours. It was really remarkable. So the first lesson I think is know your customer. Who do you sell your product or service to? In the case of Bud Light, beer is a total commodity. There's nothing different. The only difference is the brand. And what does that brand mean to your consumer? Now, you know, beer, we know that the target audience for beer, and we also know that they don't want to be educated on gender neutrality. That's not of interest to them. And so I'm not saying that,

you know, the commercial has merit or it doesn't, it's just, it doesn't fit. And then of course, in trying to fix it afterwards, when you saw the really large market declines, that gets down to idiot management. At some point, you're watching billions go out the door in market share and market capitalization. Sure, they whack the marketing people, but at the end of the day, you're the CEO and you lose billions. I think you have to look at yourself and say, what did I learn from this? And am I going to be able to fix it at all? And of course, the whacking stick came out all over the place. And that's the right thing to do. But the more

important lesson to every other CEO of every other S&P 500 company is, look what happened there. Don't let that happen to you. And it continues to happen. Every time you bring this up, and this is what I teach the students, I mean, at some point, don't you think you should stop talking about it and move in a different direction? Because not a single chance of anything they've done has worked, nothing.

Everything they've tried hasn't worked. You just see that slow grind down in market share. Keep reminding your customers why they hate you every day. How dumb is that, is my answer. It's so true. Okay. So that leads me to our mutual friend, Mark Cuban, who I actually like Mark Cuban, but he's a controversial figure and he picks fights on X a lot and has a lot of swagger. And he stepped in it recently because he was touting on X how he loves to factor in race and gender into his hiring.

And that is still illegal in America. That's not lawful. And one of the commissioners at the EEOC piped in and said, sorry, Mark, EEOC commissioner weighing in here. It's not allowed. It's not allowed as a plus factor, as a bonus, as a consideration. It's against the law. But he's been one of the biggest defenders of this so-called DEI hiring, where we're supposed to prize people's skin color as like an acceptable reason to hire them instead of somebody who looks different or is of a different gender. So I realize everyone's doing it, even though it's unlawful,

but I understand that you have a difference of opinion with him on this. Well, we differ on a lot of things. And I think that's what makes our interaction interesting, certainly on structure of deals and everything else. But, you know, I watched the Harvard situation and Bill Ackerman's attacks on other institutions. And, you know, there's merit in both sides of that argument. And, you know, when I guest lecture at Harvard, it's quite obvious that that issue hasn't gone away. You see lots of students still very active on either side. But I look back over time, I've been doing venture capital and investing in private equity for about 25 years now. And in aggregate, we've probably have over 10,000 employees in our companies and our supply chains.

And what I've learned actually works in this topic that isn't mandated by government is merit. We hire people on their ability to execute their mandates. We don't look at their gender. We don't look at their color. We don't care about their background. We hire on their ability to do the job. And as a result, we have a massively diverse workforce. I mean, almost every nationality represented, every gender, every background from an ethnicity

standpoint. And all we did was hire good people. What's wrong with that is what I say. But you know it's going another way. Why isn't that what we're doing? Yeah, I've reported on this show before. I have a friend who's high up at one of the big banks. And he told me personally that he said, we got to get rid of three guys. It's, you know, three employees just because we're cutting headcount. And he was told by his supervisor, make sure it's three white guys. Like whatever you do, it's got to be three white guys. Do not. That's illegal. But it's, you know, and I both know it's three white guys. Like whatever you do, it's got to be three white guys. Do not. That's illegal, but it's how you know, and I both know it's happening. Yeah. But I think it's very difficult to mandate policy on this. And I understand why you'd want

to, but actually what makes companies work and be successful and be able to employ people and support their families over a long period of time is merit, is their ability to do the work. And it never did look, it's blind to ethnicity or gender or race. And it should be. I mean, that's how it works. I have no bias other than can you do the job? And I think, you know, as a half Lebanese Irish immigrant, I mean, I've seen everything, you know, as a half Lebanese Irish immigrant, I mean, I've seen everything,

you know, and I've been called everything. But I look at it and say to myself, if we just followed what's good for everybody, I think we'd solve this problem, Megan, in society. When the government mandates policy and tries to contort what's successful about building a business, it virtually never works. Yeah, the ESG programs and so on have been disastrous on a number of levels. All right, so I want to go back to something you said about social media because it's huge and it's huge. It's not just huge in making stars like Trump and making stars like you, but stars like AOC. And I firmly believe that one of the reasons she gets any attention at all, the main reason is her social media. She's young and she knows how to use it. It's certainly not all the great legislation that she's passing. So she, she, she fell within your crosshairs not too long ago because you detected a hint of capitalism inside of this declared socialist and responded accordingly.

Here's a bit you posted on X back in 2021 after she was pushing her expensive sweatshirts. Watch this. Check this out. I look spectacular in this. I was walking on the beach earlier today, right out there. See that? Everybody wants to buy this off me. I got this from the official AOC site. Now let's talk about gross margins. Check this out. Yep. Official AOC shop. I paid $67.22 for this. I'm going to guess she lands this or, you know, basically for, I don't know, six bucks. It's fleeceware and five bucks for shipping. That's 85% gross margin. That's spectacular. Listen, you know what this proves? Inside of every socialist, there's a capitalist screaming to get out. AOC, call me. We could blow this thing up together.

We could make a fortune. I only want 7% royalty. That's being reasonable. Call me. Mr. Wonderful, you saw a sign for optimism, a cause for optimism in her message. I took a lot of poo-poo for that, I got to tell you. I remember that. But I will say one thing about AOC, and I'll include Elizabeth Warren in these comments. They are social media geniuses when it comes to raising money. You know, they got to spend 60% of their time. Almost every politician does fundraising.

Sometimes it's 70%. Nobody beats those two. They know how to harness television. They know how to harness the 20-second message. They know TikTok. They're geniuses at it. They're better than any of their counterparts. And it doesn't matter. I don't agree with any of their policy, obviously. But when it comes to raising money and harnessing marketing, everybody should look at them as an example. Nobody does it better. They're a force of nature. You know, I recently was very fortunate to receive an award because I grew my family up in Boston. We don't live there

anymore. It's one of the loser states. It's not competitive anymore for business. And of course, Elizabeth Warren's put the tax the rich supercharge on everybody. They're all moving out like water falling over a waterfall. You see them all here living in Miami, where I live. And, you know, it's so bad policy does hurt business. And when legislature invited me back to talk about, you know, my early days in Boston, I let them know what I thought. I thought they had bad policy. I thought they're turning themselves into a loser state. I don't invest there anymore. Most people don't. You never start a business there. Why would you punish people for being successful? That's all Elizabeth Warren and her policy. But as a marketer, sheer genius. I can't disagree. Although I would say, this is my opinion, Elizabeth Warren is very

smart. She's smart outside of the social media lane. I don't agree with her policies either, but I don't think the same is true of AOC. I think she's kind of dopey and she just wants to be a star. And I don't, I object to people using our Congress to become stars to, you know, to build up brand. I miss the olden days when we had citizen servants who'd get in, do some good, get out, and they weren't looking to profit off of their, their time in, in public service. Okay. So I want, there's a lot more I want to get to. And that is, uh, first of all, the, the Biden economy. You know, we're at a we're at a crossroads right now because a lot of the country still doesn't love Donald Trump. They're kind of a lot of drama. A lot of country loves Trump. But then they look across the aisle and they're thinking, OK, we've got record inflation. Yes, it's going down a little bit, but that doesn't bring me a lot of comfort. And then they hear the president talking about inflation and they don't feel any better because he sounds like this. We have soundbite, guys. Let's play Biden on inflation. We have the best economy in the world. Inflation is coming down.

There's still too much expensive, too much expense and a little bit of corporate greed going on, too. There's a little article written. You got to get your connection to it. It's called what's happened with Snickers bars. Yeah. Snickers bars. You know that candy? Well, they haven't raised the price of Snicker bar.

They just took 10% of it out. Oh, boy. So should people be feeling better about inflation? Because notwithstanding how it was delivered there, the White House message is, it's going down. Our plan is working. These rate hikes from the Fed have made money less available. And that's why we're getting inflation going down, down, down. Still not perfect, but you're welcome.

Yeah. You know, Megan, I look at the political narrative through the lens of an investor, and I've never made money in politics. I've made money with policy. My job is to figure out over the next 24 months what the policy looks like and then invest accordingly now because the market looks forward, as you know, about 24 months. And so this is very difficult. But the challenge the incumbent has, let's look at it from both sides of the equation, trying to figure out. Today, I actually spent the morning going over our portfolios on the assumption that there's a 50-50 chance that there's going to be an administrative change. I don't think you can call it any better. I don't know how you would. But as a result of that 50-50,

not knowing the outcome of the election, we're putting more and more money into mid-cap U.S. companies. And we've been rewarded richly for it because they traded lower PE. And the reason you would do that is you think that policy would change. There'd be less regulation in the case of a change in administration. And 50 cents of every dollar is betting on that right now.

You see the fund flows going into mid-cap companies, some portion of the Russell 2000. I don't want to get too technical, but the market's betting that there's at least half a chance. Now, having said that, what's the challenge the incumbent has is, you know, the fact that there are a lot of metrics right now that show that inflation really hasn't been tailored down that much. So here's the challenge you've got at the kitchen table in Champaign or Bannon, Illinois, when you're thinking about if you're going to vote. Well, I went to Bottenfield High School there, so I always use that as my middle America example. I lived there for a few years. I love the place. Greencroft Avenue. Greencroft Avenue. Love it.

But, you know, Midwestern children at heart. Yeah. By the way, I invest accordingly. It's interesting that a lot of the winner states are now emerging like North Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia. I'd never gone there before, but now I'm putting money to work there because they're winner states versus loser states. Where you are in New York, that's a loser state. I would never put a dime in there. New Jersey, loser state, losers, complete losers. But let's get back to the question. Here's the problem. Prior pandemic, if you're buying a steak or eggs, whatever, you're still paying 33% more for that protein today, even after this slowdown. So you see that, but your salary is only increased 4% during the pandemic. So your average $62,000 salary doesn't get you anything what it used to pre-pandemic.

And now you're mad about it. And that's why you're seeing that the messaging around, oh, the economy is great. Well, it's not so great if you're making the average salary, because you've been inflated into just low-protein diet. Yeah, you've got food prices, as you point out, up 33.7% from the start of 21. Shelter costs up 18.7%. Energy prices up 32.8%. The cost of necessities in food, gasoline, rent, childcare remain far more expensive than they were just one year ago, reading here from a foxbusiness.com article, and pointing out that

this is forcing Americans to spend about $650 more per month than they did just two years ago. So that's, to me, it seems like that's what's happening where people, okay, you can look at the fact that inflation has come down since its peak about a year or so ago, but people are still suffering. They still have all these inflated prices. They don't have inflated paychecks and they're still in the hole from the two plus years they were dealing with even worse numbers. Well, you just nailed it. That's why the polling is what it is. You have 100% nailed it. That is the issue.

Everybody feels it. Everybody. You can't escape it. That's the pain point in politics about inflation. We have never had a cycle like this. We've never had the Fed raise rates so quickly. It's stabilized at 550 basis points of terminal rate, which means your mortgage went from 3.5% to 7.75%. That's a huge pain point. Food is up over 33%. You just said that. And gasoline, same situation. So everybody touches

those every day and they don't forget it when they go to vote. That's the challenge. So the other thing is people are in huge amounts of credit card debt. And, you know, with these rates, it's a really scary thing. Most people don't have savings even for one month ahead, especially young people. And they see these credit card numbers going like this right now. So what do you say to those people, Kevin, who are, they don't see a way out right now. They're not sure what to do. You can't just, you know, leave your job and find one that pays 33% more so you can match these prices, or you'd actually need more than that if you want to get yourself out of an existing hole and pay off your credit card debt. I mean, to those Americans feeling like, I don't,

I'm not even sure where this is going for me. What's your message? That is the number one question I get to the transom on all social media platforms. The number one question I get every single day, speaking to the massive interest costs of credit cards, anywhere from 21 to 23%. And everybody used them during the pandemic as sort of a safety blanket or a cushion. And now they're paying the price.

So the only way to fix for that and to solve for it, you can't make 21% a year in the markets like you can with credit cards. That's why I own all those companies. I'm an equity shareholder in them, pretty well every credit card, because if you're dumb enough to actually carry a balance, you're going to pay me, which you shouldn't do. You shouldn't do. So here's how you fix it. Most people, luckily, again, at the $62,000 average salary, buy about 15% more crap than they need, whether it's sneakers, jeans, t-shirts, coffees, all that stuff. You have to adjust your lifestyle slightly. You have to reduce your spend by 15%. And each month, use that to pay off a portion of the balance. It's the only way you can do it. And the easiest test, and I ask, you don't need a computer to do this. You don't even

need a spreadsheet. You simply take two pieces of paper, one on the left, you list all your sources of income, including your salary and your side hustle or wherever you make money or get from your grandmother over a 90 day period. So look at lifestyle, you need 90 days, not 30 days. The other side, everything you spend money on, which is primarily most people's case rent, which is I have a solution for that too. I'll give it to you in a second. But what you're going to find is that most people are overspending what they're taking in. And that's going to the balance.

Even really wealthy people, and I show them this test, they're amazed at their burn rates. So you actually have to cut back by around 15%. And that's how you solve that problem. The other hack that I've discovered, and of course, I invested in it, was a card called BILT, B-I-L-T, that you could pay your rent on and get the points. Because my kids, their number one expense, one lives in San Francisco, one lives in New York.

I show them this card and they said, are you kidding? I can pay my rent on this? And that's what they do. They pay their rent, which you have to pay every month anyways, and they get points. And the credit rating goes up because they have to pay their rent every month. And so I invested in that card when it was a nascent startup. It just got valued at $3 billion because it's spreading like wildfire. So if you know people that are paying rent, put it on a built card.

That's another hack. And I don't want it to be a shameless promotion, but it's a fantastic tool. Can you buy other things with built or just your rent? You can buy anything you want. But that's the whole point. So but it's a fantastic tool. Can you buy other things with built or just, just, you can buy anything you want, but that's the whole point. What they did, what these guys were smart, anchor Gian was his name. He was an entrepreneur. He approached me with this idea. And I thought originally, that's crazy. How are you going to convince landlords? So what he did is he went to black stone and black rock and the massive institution that own apartment buildings all over America.

And they looked at it and said, it's sheer genius. They became shareholders, too. So all these landlords are on the card. And even if your landlord isn't, they'll send them a check. The landlord pays no fee. It was one of those magical moments when he had a big pain point, figured it out. And, you know, I love entrepreneurs like that, a real shit disturber.

And he did something great. And so I backed him and so did many others, but it works. And obviously, word of mouth, my kids told all their friends. There was such a lineup to get that card that I had to call in favors. It was crazy in the beginning.

Wow. All right, so you mentioned side hustle. This is becoming a necessity for more and more Americans just to pay their bills, that keeping just the one job isn't good enough anymore. They actually are now working two jobs and they're tired and they're not feeling good about the economy for that, too. But here's a couple of other things. They're calling them, even in The New York Times, red flags to the latest news on job growth in America. So people on the left and even on the right were celebrating what was a good jobs number for last month. We added, employers did, 353,000 jobs last month, which was almost double the forecasts for what was expected. Yay, 350,000 jobs. But as I point out, even the New York Times pointing out that there's some red flags here. And one of them is some people like retail, construction, hospitality sectors worked fewer hours, which probably ate

into their pay. So, okay, more jobs, but fewer hours, that's not great. And that workers are increasingly anxious about changing jobs. Quit rates have fallen to a four-year low, suggesting the employees are feeling less confident they can find a better position. And then here's the one I wanted to ask you about. They report that big segments of the workforce are checking out. U.S.-born male workers are leaving the workforce in larger numbers and saying, on the flip side, foreign-born labor force participants have accounted for all of the job growth over the last year. So what's happening to American male workers? Part of it's a demographic change, but I have my own petri dish that I get to look at every Tuesday when I see the tear sheets of my

over 50 companies. These are private companies. We're almost in every state and we have them in all 11 sectors of the economy. The first data point that really shocked me, we made the assumption post-pandemic that 15, 1.5% of the workforce would remain working at home. We were wrong about that by a massive amount. It's 40%, 4-0. And the reason that caught us offside is we trimmed back

our leasehold square footage in New York, Florida, Texas, and California, the nexus of most of our headquarters. And we were shocked at how many wouldn't be compliant. And so particularly in the areas of accounting, logistics, compliance departments. They used to sit in cubicles. They won't do it anymore. And very, very hard to get a lot of people that work in finance to sit at a desk anymore five days a week. And so we've had to be flexible with that.

Other companies have tried to demand workforces back. They're having a very hard time, even in the engineering sector. And so as a result of that, when you're working at home and you're getting your job done on a project basis. So the way we work is, let's say you've got to get the audit report out by Friday at noon for the bank statement. We don't care when you do it. You can work at two in the morning, you know, watch Netflix all day. We don't care as long as you get your job done on time. But that has encouraged a lot of people to take on side hustles, particularly in setting up direct-to-consumer online sales about goods and services that they're passionate about. So you find a lot of these people

are now running little Shopify stores. And I see this in my own sales force, and I see it in my management teams all the time. And I'm not against it as long as they get their work done. But on an aggregate basis, when you're reporting jobs, it's very hard to capture that. The economy is quite buoyant as a result of this massive shift to direct to consumer. And it allows a low barrier to entry on side hustles in a big way. And the other side hustle, which I never saw coming either, I used to say, you know, when I was teaching in colleges, the top three careers that's going to let you pay back your student debt, there's only three of them. Number one,

engineering, number two, engineering, and number three, engineering. I'm wrong about that. The fastest, today I am, the fastest cost increase for me is social media production. Artists, writers, videographers, editors, the cost of these people is ballooning. They used to be 40,000 a year, now they're a quarter of a million a year. And so that's reflecting part of this job data and the changing nature of work. Now, if you don't embrace this, you don't understand it, you're going to fail because 50% of our goods and services are sold direct. And the only way you do that now is through social media. So that TikTok ad, that LinkedIn message, what we're doing on Facebook, on X, they're all different. They require different

producers. Megan, the cost of this is millions of dollars a quarter. And I'm doing everything in my power to try and control it, including hiring people in Abu Dhabi. I've got an AI lab there. I now speak 42 languages, including fluent Cantonese. Who knew? I can barely speak English. I'm dyslexic, but I'm great in French, fantastic in Spanish. And I do this on all the social media platforms now. But that is the changing nature of our workforce. You know, I can see it. I mean, the young people are so facile with all these devices and it does seem like job training. It doesn't seem like just a pure pleasure to see them on the devices and

figuring it out. I was joking the other day. If you give your kid your phone, I mean, in two seconds, it comes back completely rearranged, much more user friendly. And mine are pretty little. Like if they can do that at, you know, 10 and 12, then I can only imagine in 10 years. But I do, I do wonder, like, what do you, I don't know if you even know the answer, but what do you think is the answer? Why are, why are American male workers leaving the workforce in such large numbers, but foreign-born workers are accounting for the job growth. They're cheaper. Is it malaise? What's your guess? They work harder. They try harder. They're willing to take jobs that we don't take. They want the American dream. That's what they come here for. It's still there for them. But if you know you're a baby boomer now, you've set your eye on retirement. You're not as hungry as you used to be. And I think that the changing nature of work today, including the side hustle we just detailed, has made it easier for people to go into semi-retirement. So the jobs may not

reflect the fact that many people are still working, but not just nine to five. They're not on W-2s anymore, where a lot of this data is gathered. And a lot of the people we hire in our companies now come from other countries that are willing to work really hard. And again, we're blind to race and nationality. As long as they come here legally, we're willing to hire them and to gender. I don't care. I care about productivity and the ability to execute and I have no bias. And so that has served us all well. And I think immigrants tend to both work very hard and tend to love America. They tend to be our biggest promoters.

I don't like illegal. I don't like illegal. I think we've got a broken immigration policy. I think we've been debating that forever. And I think there's a lot of pressure on whoever wins the election to fix that border. Obviously, there's a safety concern. Also, there are too many people that are being neglected in the process of getting official work permits because our systems jam. But, you know, I even look at when I teach a class at MIT or Harvard and two thirds are foreigners.

And after we give them this world class education, we kick them out. What are we, crazy? They came here to be world class engineers or,class engineers or whatever discipline that we taught them. And then they're begging to stay in the country and we kick them out? I mean, I don't get that one. There's another broken policy. And I raised my hand.

I spent a lot of time in Washington, usually two days a month now, walking up and down the halls, just saying, hey, this is broken. This is broken. Fix this. This state's a loser. This one's a winner. If you want to be part of the narrative, you got to go ring the bell there. And I look at these bills they wrote, chips and science, the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Act, not a single line in there for small business, not a single line, not one line, not one program. And the small business of which I'm an advocate for, obviously,

we create 62% of the jobs. I mean, what happened there? I even asked Elizabeth Warren that. What happened? Didn't you have anybody in the room when you were writing this stuff? Next time you do this, call me up, put me in the room. I'll make sure you don't make this mistake again. She had to run because she had to go meet with her mom on her pawpaw. I'm sure after all right, stand by Kevin. I got to go to a quick commercial break and then we're going to come back and I have a couple more questions for you. I want to talk to you in particular about Gen Z and millennials, the younger millennials,

and how that's going. See if you agree with Jodie Foster's take. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph,

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I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free. Offer details apply. All right, Kevin. So you mentioned the commercial real estate market, and it's really been

hurting in large part, thanks to the vacancies and the absence of people as the COVID stay at home policy has continued to linger, and you suggest may be permanent. So there was something in the news today, maybe you can explain it to me, but about a year ago, we were dealing with the shutdown of these banks or the possible shutdown of other banks, Silicon Valley Bank and another bank. And it seems like today we had another scare with a bank, New York Community Bank, and people wondering about whether we're likely to face another potential round of bank failures as a result of this very problem. Do you think that's a realistic concern? And if so, how worried are you?

Yes, we are going to have a series of failures. This one we're talking about, New York Community Bank, is also going to go to zero, in my opinion, and I'll explain why. But it's a good context upon which this sector is going to consolidate. We have 4,100 regional banks. Some are super regionals, but 4,100 in aggregate. I know this number because I deal with a lot of them in the companies that we invest in. But if you look at other countries as an example of what's going to happen over the next three to five years in regional banking, because of the onset of online banking, you don't need branches anymore. That was a concept when you had your horse and a buggy and you rode up and took out your gold bars or whatever. My son has never been inside of a bank.

He doesn't bank that way. And he's 27, works at Tesla, the classic newbie coming into the market. They don't understand why they'd wait in a line in a bank. They'd never do that. So these regional banks operations are slowly going to consolidate. So if you look at a country like Australia or England or even Switzerland, which is down to one bank now, Canada has five. So they consolidate, they come together because

that's the right economic answer for risk mitigation. So the problem with these regionals, and we saw the first of it last March at Silicon Valley Bank, is primarily idiot management, because these managers, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but you have to understand they've never worked in a rising rate environment. So the whole new generation of bank managers came up in a 30-year period where interest rates only went down. Now they're going up, and in this case, an unprecedented increase from practically zero to 3.5%, 3.5%. So they were offside on the actual loan books they created. In Silicon Valley Bank, the idiots there bought really, really long-term T-bills. And of course, they had to start paying

out higher rates on short rates. And they just basically went bankrupt. And they did stupid loans and a bunch of other stuff. Same thing you're going to find in this New York thing when they scrutinize it. Idiot management at play, basically putting out loans at, let's say, two or three percent on commercial real estate office primarily. And now in New York, which is why I call it a loser state every day, you've got rent controls. These poor landlords can't raise rates when their cost of borrowing has gone up 60%. Well, of course, these buildings are going to zero as a result, and they're on the bank balance sheet, and the bank will go to zero too. That, again, is bad policy in a loser state. And so that's what you get. You get these follow-on effects. But net-net, we're going to be okay because this will happen in waves.

First, the idiot managers. In every state, you've got some. And so they'll go to zero first. And because of our bankruptcy system on regional banks, if I'm an investor, always wait for the bankruptcy because then the government, FDIC insurance, buys all the crappy assets for you. And you're left with whatever is good, which is also very stupid. We should change that policy because people should understand FDIC is paid by you and me in bank fees. So we're basically guaranteeing these guys. There's a lot of things broken here. We can spend a whole show talking about it. But you don't get involved in buying assets out of a bank till you've cleaned the crappy assets out. You don't have to pay for that as an investor, which, again, I say is absurd.

But it is what it is. Five years from now, maybe there's 2,000 super regionals. And that'll be a good thing. In the meantime, think about this. Why would New York Community you know, community bank go to zero? Megan, how many dollars of your own personal money are you going to put in that bank now that you know this story? Are you going to go, oh, gee, I'm going to open an account there? I think it's a great idea to open an account there. Right now, as we speak, money's bleeding out of that bank. I'm sure of it. Who would want to put a dime into that thing? And that will eventually collapse it. You just don't know when. And if you have a payroll account in there for a small business, there's going to have

to be some kind of bailout. And I think Hagerty, Senator Hagerty, had a good idea. Give the payroll accounts a guarantee just while the consolidation is going on for the next three years of all these banks. Pay no interest on it. When you can make 5% or 4.5%,, you're not to put your money in that. But you could have a guarantee by the government during consolidation. But lots more bank failures, lots and lots and lots and lots more. So everybody get ready for a little rock and roll.

Well, last question here in the time we have is Gen Z, the answer to the problems that we've discussed today, because Jodi Foster, who's a Gen Xer, she's a little older, said they're really annoying, especially in the workplace. They're like, nah, I'm not feeling it today. I'm going to come in at like 1030 a.m. She says, or in emails, I'll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect. Did you not check your spelling? And they're like, why would I do that? Isn't that kind of limiting? Is that your experience with the young folks? Yeah, no, no, we, you know, she's not wrong. I would tell people as an employer, and I do a lot of hiring through our CEOs of our companies, we try and filter that attitude out. We want our competitors to hire those people. And so one thing I look for is I look at your job history,

and I'll tell a little hack for everybody. If I see you've been hopping jobs every six months, or even less every three months or nine months, I take that resume and I put it in the garbage. I'm looking for commitments of 24 months minimum. Those are the ones we consider. We're very, very selective. And then we do a deep dive into your social media. How many pictures of you hanging off a balcony naked in Florida during spring break, all that kind of stuff. And believe me, every employer does that. We're looking for people. And I've learned something really interesting, particularly at the management level. These are slightly older in their mid thirties. If you have a talent as a musician

or a dancer or a painter or photographer as an artist, we, we tend to favor those to balance the yin and yang of business. Yeah. Cause you're, you're exercising all sides of your brain. I got to leave it back. I'm out of time. Kevin O'Leary, what a pleasure. Great to see you. Mr. Wonderful lives up to his name yet again. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.