The Megyn Kelly Show - Could Trump Conviction Get Overturned on Appeal? With Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Fighting Collusion to Make Debate Stage | Ep. 806

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis to discuss the jury notes as they begin deliberations in the Trump business records trial, the importance of David Pecker’s testimony, whether the jury could be disagreeing behind-the-scenes, how confusing the jury instructions are, how its unfair the jurors haven't heard from an expert about campaign finance laws, whether the Trump conviction will be overturned on appeal and if that was the whole point of this pre-election trial anyway, the media’s attacks on Justice Alito’s wife over her "controversial" flag, and more. Then Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent presidential candidate, joins to discuss his fight to get on the debate stage next month despite "collusion" from the left, right, and media, his success in polls and in getting on state ballots, the value of debating Biden and Trump, what led him to change his position on "gender reassignment surgery" and radical transgender ideology, why he supports banning these procedures for minors, the big business behind the medicalization of kids, his public comments on abortion and how his position has evolved, the clarification of his opinion on when they should be banned and when they shouldn’t, whether his position is closer to Biden's or Trump's position, why he appeals to those who don't identify with Democrats or Republicans, how he thinks being “an American” should come first, the issues that matter most, and more. Davis- https://article3project.org/Aronberg- https://www.youtube.com/@TrueCrimeMTNKennedy- https://www.kennedy24.com/ 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. Later today, RFKJ, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is here back on the MK Show. Looking forward to asking him a bunch of questions, including why he's now really, really challenging the fact that he's been excluded from this presidential debate or these two that have been scheduled. But for now, we are on verdict watch as the jury deliberates in the business records trial of former President Donald Trump. This morning, the jury's back in court. They were in the actual courtroom when we kicked things off this morning as of 930, hearing a live reenactment, rereading of some of the testimony they've requested.

We'll go over what they wanted, plus a rereading of the jury instructions. Oh, were they a little confusing? So weird. I was shocked to hear they didn't understand them the first time around. Joining me today to discuss it all, Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 Project, and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, and host of True Crime MTN on YouTube. Find Mike only on Fox, Dave only on MSNBC, but only together right here on The Megyn Kelly Show. Guys, welcome back. Thank you for having us. Great to have you both. All right. So the jury wanted to have read back. Oh, yes, the jury instructions. We all know why. They didn't understand anything because New York State doesn't allow the jurors to take the jury instructions back into the room with them.

So it's my God, this is so confusing. It's not like, did he sell pot or didn't he? Right. It's like, good Lord, they have so many steps to go through. So they did that. And then they wanted to hear read back certain portions of the testimony. And I definitely want to hear your thoughts on what we can glean from what they wanted. They wanted certain sections of David Pecker's testimony, the guy who was running AMI, the National Enquirer, and they wanted a little bit of Michael Cohen's testimony as relates to one meeting he allegedly had with David Pecker. They're definitely interested in David Pecker.

And my note to myself reads, could the AMI payment to Karen McDougal carry the day? Like that, that was my takeaway, having read the portions that they wanted to hear. And this is where it got me. This jury may not be putting as much weight on Stormy Daniels as the rest of us did. They may be going with the theory that was argued quite a bit by the prosecutor in his closing, which did spend a lot of time on Karen McDougal, the catch and kill scheme, you know, that was the word used. And like the whole thing they try, even though we've all been focused on Stormy, the prosecution did argue that the whole thing with AMI was part of this alleged illegal scheme, even though Packer's done it for many other politicians,

including Democrat Rahm Emanuel. But OK. And and they wanted to hear Pecker's testimony as follows that Donald Trump acknowledged this is David Pecker telling the jurors this is what they had read back to them in part, Donald Trump acknowledged to me that he had spoken to Michael Cohen and acknowledged to me that he knew Karen McDougal and said, she's a nice girl. All right. So this was Pecker sort of saying, I recognize the story about Karen McDougal, allegedly having a year-long affair with Trump, was probably true because his response when asked was, she's a nice girl. David Pecker, let's say that he testified that Donald Trump, oh, he recommended that Donald Trump buy Karen McDougal's story and that Michael Cohen called David Pecker back and told Pecker, go ahead and do it, buy it. And that this was on behalf of Donald Trump. This is what David Pecker said he understood. He testified again that he believed the McDougal story and that he thought it would embarrass Donald Trump and hurt his campaign both. And he recommended, um, that they, that they buy it. And then Cohen called him back and said, do it, go ahead and do it. And that he understood that was Trump's. Okay. Um,

then David Pecker said, uh, the reason, yeah, the reason I bought the negative stories on Trump was to avoid personal embarrassment to him and to help his campaign on cross-examination. They tried to bring out that his memory wasn't perfect, that these events happened a long time ago. And they got into overall, this is still direct. David Pecker decided that he did not want to be repaid for Karen McDougal story after he paid her $150,000 for it. And this is something I missed first time around, guys. There was a reason he didn't want to be repaid. It's not that David Pecker had unlimited funds to spend for Donald Trump.

It's that he started to get scared that he was going to be in trouble for making an illegal campaign donation. And there was testimony to that effect, that in David Pecker's mind, he had some worries after consulting with a lawyer about seeking reimbursement. He thought it would be too on the nose, and it would underscore that this really was a deal to reimburse him for something, a contribution he made to Trump, and that he just decided to eat it. Now, that doesn't put that knowledge in Donald Trump's mind

that, holy shit, we might be violating election law, you know, which is what they need to do. The prosecution needs to get in Donald Trump's head. We're violating the law right now with this agreement. They haven't done that, but there is testimony by Pecker that he had concerns. And I'll just give you some of it here. Question by the prosecutor. Did you come to appreciate the legalities surrounding such an arrangement with a political candidate? Answer, yes. That was the first time I ever came across a political contribution. What a violation was., objection sustained. He asked again, well, what did you in your mind take away from that experience that you had as a result of the Arnold Schwarzenegger situation? And he said, based on

what happened 14 years ago, meaning with Schwarzenegger, I wanted it, meaning with Trump, to be comfortable that the arrangement we were going, the agreement we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to a campaign contribution. Did there come a time when someone at AMI consulted with an election law attorney? Yes. I called Michael Cohen. I told him that we finalized the agreement with Karen McDougal, that the contract was bulletproof, and we consulted with a campaign attorney. Question, and to your knowledge, what did the campaign attorney review? Answer, the agreement,

meaning the contract, yes. And then just a little bit more. Were you aware that expenditures by corporations made for the purpose of influencing an election, made in coordination with or at the request of a candidate or a campaigner unlawful? Answer, yes. Question, did either you or AMI ever report to the Federal Election Commission in 2016 that AMI had made a $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal? Answer, no, we did not. Why did AMI make this purchase of Karen McDougal's story? We purchased the story so it wouldn't be published by any other organization. And why did you not want it to be published by any other org? We didn't want, we didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.

When you say who, when you say we, who's we? Myself and Mr. Cohen. But for Mr. Cohen's promise to reimburse, no, withdrawn. But for Mr. Cohen's promise that Mr. Trump would reimburse AMI, would you have entered into this agreement? No. Did you have any discussions with anyone in the Trump camp about Donald Trump reimbursing? Am I for the money paid to Karen? I did. I had

conversations with Michael Cohen. All right. So that's a long lead up to you guys. That seems to be what the jury's interested in this morning. Dave, what's your take on it? Well, good to be back with you, Megan. First time back since your Bill Maher interview, which I thought was riveting, by the way. Well done. Thank you. Yeah, I love how you have diverse viewpoints on, like mine. And good to be back with Mike. I do think the questions are good for the prosecution because, as you set forth, they

are framed in the prosecution's narrative, their story of the case, their theory of the case, rather than the defenses. If they had asked questions about Michael Cohen's credibility and about that controversial the prosecution's narrative, their story of the case, their theory of the case, rather than the defense's. If they had asked questions about Michael Cohen's credibility and about that controversial phone call where the 14-year-old was trolling him, then I think that would benefit the defense. But these are questions to buttress the prosecution's story. And it looks like they may have a couple of holdouts. And this is a way of trying to get them to go along. But yeah, you're right that the phone

call with Pecker while he was at the investor meeting is really important because that's where the prosecutor said that Trump deputized Cohen right in front of Pecker so that Pecker knows that any go ahead from Cohen is a go ahead Trump. That ties Trump directly to the scheme. So it makes it impossible for the defense to claim that Cohen was acting on his own. And I think it's important that when Pecker spoke about this, he talked three times about this call while he was on the stand.

And he said that he told Trump that I still think you should buy the Karen McDougal story. And then Trump said to me, this is according to Pecker, I'll speak to Michael and he'll get back to you. So I think that's really important. And then you're right about Pecker and the hundred and twenty five thousand dollars rather than one hundred fifty thousand dollars. That was a blow up with Michael Cohen that Pecker decided to back out of the deal where they were going to assign Karen McDougal's life rights back to Michael Cohen and Donald Trump in exchange for $125,000. And when Pecker backed out of the deal, he said that Cohen blew up and said the boss is going to

be really upset about this. So this is all a way to tie Trump directly to the scheme itself. So I think this is good for the prosecution. What do you think, Mike? They're very interested in the catch and kill scheme from the sound of his criminal trial, what the legal allegations were against him. They did not explain those legal allegations until the very end. And then this Judge Mershon, this corrupt Judge Mershon, who made an illegal campaign contribution to Biden that got him reprimanded from the New York court system, we found out several months ago. This judge's daughter is raising millions of dollars off of this case. This judge did not explain to the jury what the legal allegations are until the very end. And then these legal allegations are, you can pick one thing, you can pick another thing,

or you can pick another thing. You don't have to be unanimous. And that's the problem with this whole trial. It is fundamentally unconstitutional. It's fundamentally unfair against President Trump. And they don't care. I mean, the fact that the jurors are asking this question, it shows you that they're not being guided by the law. This judge has not done his job in instructing the jurors on what the law is and what is actually relevant, what facts actually matter. What's interesting to me is that there might be some disagreement at all. Like, you know, you could have thought that a New York jury would go back there and say, well, I think he's guilty. Does anyone disagree? And everybody's like, nope, I agree. Agree, agree, agree, agree. And they could have come right back out with a guilty. So there's a smidgen of hope in here for

Trump in that they they wanted to hear the instructions back. They wanted to hear testimony read back. They're definitely struggling with, you know, has the prosecution met all the elements and what is the proof that will get us there? It's not at least been a knee jerk. He's guilty, right? Everyone agree, right? You know, I mean, if you watch Dateline as much as I do, you know that that does happen in the most persuasive cases. It doesn't take the jury very long. I'm sure you guys have had trials like that where it's really not too tough and the jury comes right back. This at least is not that, Dave. And yet, when you hear the actual substance of what they want to hear back, it does sound more pro-prosecution than pro-defense. But there's also the possibility that they wanted all this focus on Pecker's testimony because he was witness

number one. Maybe they're're going through it chronologically. Very true. And reading the tea leaves is often a fool's errand. And so we're doing the best we can. But yes, you're absolutely right. That could be the case. There are reports that there is at least one juror who is very sympathetic to Trump, who was smiling when J.D. Vance walked in the room, the senator from Ohio, and was very pleased when other Republicans entered the courtroom. So that could be a holdout juror. And we just don't know. Now, one thing that New York needs to change, aside from allowing cameras in the courtroom, please, is also to allow the jury instructions to go into the deliberation room with the jurors. Why make it so much harder? Why slow things down? Why play hide the ball? So New York has some changes that they're going to have to make as a result of this trial. Haven't we been on this show for a year

now trying to figure out what the hell this case is about? And these 12 lay people, Mike, are supposed to go in there like after hearing the jury instructions now twice, magically have a complete run of it. You know, I know. Oh, yeah, exactly. No. Yeah. Well, we don't have to be unanimous on the underlying crime that he allegedly committed or tried to conceal. But we do have to be unanimous on the final verdict. So is everybody clear? OK, raise your hand if you think he violated federal election laws, the underlying crime. Raise your hand if you think it was more document falsification. You over there. Did you vote for tax fraud? Yeah, that was a tax fraud. Right. So we've got three. We got four.

We got another three. But how are we unanimous on the ultimate? I mean, can you imagine what's going on in there? And that is a clearly unconstitutional legal instruction that Judge Mershon gave to the jury where he instructed the jury that they don't have to be unanimous on whatever the second crime or second bad act that Trump supposedly committed in furtherance of this underlying bookkeeping misdemeanor that transformed this underlying bookkeeping misdemeanor. It's not a bookkeeping misdemeanor because a legal expense is a legal expense and it's in his private books. So how can this be a business bookkeeping misdemeanor? But let's play along. They don't even have, this juror was,

these jurors were told by Judge Mershon, they don't even have to be unanimous on what the second crime was to make these, this bookkeeping misdemeanor 34 felonies. That is a direct violation of a Supreme Court case that my former boss, Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in 2020, Ramos versus Louisiana. You have to have a unanimous jury verdict on all essential elements. And that applies to federal cases and state cases like this case in New York. This is clearly unconstitutional. And if New York statute says otherwise, that New York statute is unconstitutional. And if New York statute says otherwise, that New York statute is unconstitutional.

And if this judge were actually doing his job, he would have read that New York statute so it was in line with the U.S. Constitution. So it was in line with Ramos versus Louisiana from 2020. But he didn't do that because he is a corrupt partisan judge who is railroading President Trump because his daughter is raising millions of dollars off of this case. Megan, can I jump in on that? Yeah. Thank you. I know there's been a lot of talk about how you don't have to be unanimous, but I reread the jury instructions and you do. Number one, you have to be unanimous on the falsification of business records. Second, this according to jury instructions, it says the jury must find unanimously that Trump intended to defraud by concealing a conspiracy to promote his election as president by unlawful means.

That's that second statute that will be discussed in New York state law. You have to be unanimous on that. Not on what the what not on what he was trying to cover up the crime he was trying to cover up. Well, it was it's on the unlawful means what is unlawful means right within that state statute. What is unlawful means? And you could have different interpretations of what unlawful means, meaning it could be the campaign finance. It could be tax issues. It could be the subsequent falsification of records by Cohen when he applied for the loan from the bank. Those would be unlawful. I find this unfair to be like it's I said yesterday, it's like, let's make a deal in door number one. You have federal election violations. Who would like to choose that as your underlying crime? And door number two, you've got additional business

records falsification. Who would like to sign on to that in door number three, the little known and beloved tax fraud in which absolutely no one was hurt and New York state got paid more than it otherwise would have. Can I see a show of hands? You know, I mean that what kind of due process is that to a defendant? Well, the initial statute member, the underlying statute is falsification has to be unanimous. Then it has to lead to concealing another statute that too has to be unanimous. Then it has to lead to concealing another statute. That, too, has to be unanimous. And that's why, to me, it satisfies due process. The part that doesn't have to be unanimous is not an element of the crime.

It's the what are the unlawful means within the second statute. Unlawful means is an element of the crime. You don't have unlawful means unless they find that he was either committing or concealing one of those three things. Well, that's going to be on appeal, whether it's interpreted as an element of the crime or a manner in which the crime was accomplished. And that's why, to me, it seems too satisfied due process. I think the bigger challenge— Let me ask you a follow-up on that. Okay, a follow-up.

Sure. Because Andy McCarthy's been writing for a couple months now about something he broke on this show, which is that that it's so confusing to my audience members. I know you're hanging on by your fingernails. We all are. But just go with me. The first crime is falsification of business records. That's the misdemeanor that got elevated because he allegedly did it for unlawful means. And that unlawful means part is a New York state law that says you can't conspire to win an election by unlawful means. And we used the example yesterday, like, okay,

if you steal ballots out of somebody's box, you know, mailbox, yeah, I got it. That could potentially violate that New York state statute. But what Andy's been pointing out is that there's a New York state constitutional provision that requires, that says you cannot incorporate by reference when making something unlawful. You have to say specifically what law they're not allowed to violate. In other words, that law, that's right on layer two there, right? Falsification of business records was a misdemeanor, but it goes up to a felony if you do, if it's to, you know, campaign by unlawful means. And that law right there is not going to be upheld on appeal, Dave, because you can't just say, oh, lawful means, let's make a deal. That's

what led to the let's make a deal. And Andy's been making the point that that law is going to be struck down under New York's constitution. Forget due process in our federal constitution, which is also at play. It is a real possibility. My friend Eric Columbus, who is a progressive legal expert, said that he expects there to be a conviction, no jail time, and the conviction would be overturned on appeal. And I think if it is overturned on appeal, it would be because of that. But it is a legitimate debate whether that unlawful means is a manner in which the crime is accomplished or an element of the crime. Because remember, it's the two words within that secondary statute. And that statute still has to be proven

beyond a reasonable doubt by a unanimous jury. It's just up to the jury to determine what are the unlawful means. Is it the tax issue? Is it the campaign finance issue under federal law? Or is it the falsification of business documents that Michael Cohen did to get the loan from the bank? So where was the legal expert, Mike Davis, on New York state or federal tax law? Where did I miss that testimony? Where was the election law expert, Brad Smith, to actually help illuminate this is what would be illegal? Where was that? Because I'm going to venture to guess these jurors don't understand what rises to the level of illegality under the tax laws, under the election laws, or the business records laws, the three possibilities in front of those doors, any more than any other layperson walking around out there in New York does.

That's a very good question, this corrupt, biased, Democrat, Biden donor judge, Juan Mershon, refused to allow President Trump to call Brad Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, as an expert in federal election law. And this judge is saying, it's my job as the judge to instruct the jurors on what the law is. Well, he didn't do that. And he actually let Michael Cohen and even David Pecker testify as to what this election law is, which is, you know, I don't know how that's not reversible error in itself, but this jury is left utterly confused as lay people. I guess there are two uh lawyers on this this jury but that we we have this jury that's utterly confused on as to what election law is this judge will not give them the jury

instructions on paper so they can look at this and try to make sense of it and here we are three lawyers on your show right now i mean i think that you two are much smarter than i am but we have reasonable intelligence between the three of us. And we don't know what the hell the legal allegations are in this case after the trial's over. I know. That's what's so scary. Think about it, Dave. You prosecute cases for a living. And we're still like, well, this part may or may not be constitutional. Well, this seems to be making a reference over here. And federal election law. I mean, for the record, this is what happened. The defense wanted to call Brad Smith to offer testimony on federal election law,

which the feds have specifically said needs to be handled by the Federal Election Commission, because it's so complex. It should not be a law that's enforced by any rope-a-dope prosecutor, like Alvin Bragg. That's why they gave them the exclusive jurisdiction over these claims. But Bragg backdoored it into the case. And then when Trump said, well, somebody should hear from an expert on what that statute actually requires and doesn't, the judge said no. Finally, he said, you could put Brad Smith on the stage, on the stand, to define a couple of terms, and that's it. And Trump's like, oh, forget that. And Brad Smith tweeted on X. He limited, he's so limited what I could say that it became pointless

and the defense decided not to call me. So for those saying like Trump decided not to call him, that's not what happened. He got limited such that Brad Smith's testimony would have been irrelevant. But you guys and I have been rounding around on Brad Smith, Dave. We just played that famous soundbite that we had yesterday when you were on with Arthur and Arthur was here yesterday and Brad Smith was here and he was explaining federal election law and you asked him about the John Edwards case and he had a good answer for you on it. And I actually in my spare time, because I have no real life, was watching old C-SPAN clips of Brad Smith. I need help. I hope sometime I get the help I so desperately need.

Anyway, he was even more interesting, believe it or not, on C-SPAN right after Michael Cohen got arrested. And even then, he was like, I don't think they've got him on federal election claims. And he went on there about why. So we cut a decent soundbite of that. Let's take a listen. I think it's Kelly. I think it's soundbite nine. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not nine. I'm skeptical, though. I will tell you, John, that this is a violation of campaign finance laws for a couple of reasons. First, the law has long wrestled with this idea of anything that's for the purpose of influencing a campaign. That could be anything.

That could be hosting a Fourth of July party in your backyard, right? And so the law has always said we need to narrow that down. And there are a number of exceptions. Some are in the statute and some have been created by courts as a constitutional matter. But the one that's of interest to me here is there is an exception for what is called personal use. That is, you can't use campaign funds for personal use, even if it might be being done to benefit your campaign. Let me give a couple examples. If you were to say as a candidate, boy, I'd look great in that debate next week if I had that nice new suit, right?

Can you use your campaign funds to buy that suit? No. Even if you're honestly thinking that'll make you look better in the campaign debate the following week, can you say, at the end of a hard day of campaigning and to be ready for the next day, I need a good massage. Can you use campaign funds? No. And then I'll just continue it. Here he goes on in Saktan. I think it's a common sense matter. You know, if I were to ask people three years ago before there was Donald Trump, I said, look, do you think paying hush money to quiet charges of sexual harassment or somebody who's

trying to get hush money for an affair you had, do you think that's a legitimate campaign expense? I think almost everyone would say, no, you can't use campaign funds for that. That's not what campaign funds are for. And I think that's the way the law is, in fact, written. The law says very clearly that it has to, the obligation has to have been created by the campaign. Again, a dalliance you had years before created the obligation. That Again, a dalliance you had years before created the obligation. That's not a campaign expenditure. The obligation has to be created by the campaign. And he said to us, it's not a subjective evaluation. It's an objective evaluation

on what is the nature of this payment and is it one that could ever be used outside of the campaign context. So polling, yes, campaign expenditure. Get out the vote materials, yes, campaign expenditure. But hush money to pay off, somebody threatening to embarrass you in the media, definitely not. People do that all the time, as David Pecker testified. But this jury definitely does not understand that, Dave. Well, I point to John Edwards again, and there was a prosecution, not a successful one, but the feds brought it because donors paid his mistress to keep her quiet. Now, his case was stronger than Trump's because they paid her well in advance and they kept paying her well after the election. Here, there's plenty of evidence that Trump wanted to pay off Stormy Daniels

to keep her quiet before the election and didn't even want to pay her, wanted to delay the payment until after the election so he wouldn't have to pay her at all. So I think that's where- But you're getting an emotive. You're getting an emotive, which I get. You're right in line with the judge's instructions

in doing so. I mean, I get it. And this is what the jury is going to be debating right now behind closed doors. But that, and you raised John Edwards with him and he shot that down saying that they got it wrong. That was not an appropriate reference to the campaign laws back then. And sometimes judges and juries and even prosecutors, they get it wrong, too. And, you know, two wrongs don't make a right is basically what he's saying. And here, here we have, you know, it's, it's like the underlying basis for the cry. It's like,

they've think about the norms they've crossed, you know, Mike, I'll give this one to you. It's not even like, oh my God, this is such an egregious violation of the election laws. We've got to do it. And it's the feds, the feds who have the jurisdiction. This is a state prosecutor without jurisdiction. Who's a state prosecutor without jurisdiction who's gotten this in in front of this jury, backdoor, backdoor, because first thing is falsification of business records. Then you add the unlawful means to make it into a felony. Then you got to ask what unlawful means are. And he's got the three doors, right? Federal election law, tax law, and additional business record falsification. And it's only down there that

he tries to resurrect this claim in a way that they did in the John Edwards case, which wasn't one and which has been criticized by people who understand the law, like Brad Smith, who got the boot on the forehead when he tried to get in front of this judge and jury. Well, first of all, we have to clarify this. Did John Edwards use campaign funds to pay his mistress or did he use personal funds? I just don't know that. And that makes a big difference. It was Bunny Mellon paying off Riel Hunter. My God, a Democrat, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, the Federal Election Commission, and Alvin Bragg himself, even though he campaigned on getting Trump, there is a reason they passed over this bogus, partisan, corrupt legal theory. And it's because, as we are seeing right now after the end of this multi-week trial, it is a bogus legal theory that three lawyers on your show right now can't figure out.

So how the hell can this Manhattan jury of laypeople figure this out? legally flawed rigged process against President Trump by this corrupt Manhattan judge, Juan Merchan, whose daughter is raising millions off of this case, Matthew Colangelo, who got deployed from the Biden Justice Department, and Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded DA who campaigned on getting Trump. This is an alleged crime seven years ago. They brought this case to interfere perfectly in the 2024 presidential election. It sounds like if there's an election interference crime, it seems that the prosecutors are the ones who are perpetuating it. It's being committed right now. Wait, Dave, let me ask you about a Jonathan Turley post on X, lawyer and constitutional law professor at GW Law School in D.C. and also a Fox News contributor.

He wrote as follows. The request for instructions is particularly interesting, meaning reread us the jury instructions. I cannot imagine a need for the instruction unless there was an early disagreement in that room on the evidence and the standards. That could indicate at least one juror who is not convinced by either Steinglass, the assistant district attorney, or Todd Blanch, Trump's lawyer, saying that this is all a no-brainer. Another intriguing possibility, one threshold issue is whether any of Michael Cohen's testimony should be considered. What if a juror invoked Judge Mershon's instruction that if Cohen lied on any material point, the jury should feel free to disregard the entirety of his testimony? That would raise whether there is corroboration, as in the Trump Tower meeting, I think he means, as well as the instruction. Obviously,

this is all speculation, but it gives us something to do. That is interesting. They didn't really go to Michael Cohen. They did want some of Cohen's testimony about that meeting, but the three main requests were all about Pecker. And so what of that? Because they were told not only, you know, if he lied on one thing, you can disregard him and everything. But they were also told that since Michael Cohen is a co-conspirator here, you can't convict Trump based on his word alone. You would need corroboration. Right. And that's why reading the tea leaves are so, so difficult. But I would agree with Professor Turley's first point that I do think perhaps there were a couple holdouts at the beginning. Just like you said, they went around the room and there were people like, eh, and that's why they

went and got this additional information. I disagree with him on the second point, because I think if Michael Cohen's credibility were the issue, they would have focused on the gotcha moment of the trial. And they did not. They didn't ask about that. That's that call involving the 14 year old troll and whether the 96 second phone call was enough to talk to Trump about the hush money payment. So I would disagree on that second point. And just to go back to what my friend Mike Davis said, he said the three of us can't understand what the charges are. I don't want to put myself in that group. I actually understand the charges, falsification of business records leading to that second crime, that state crime.

The only question I have is, is on appeal, will the court say that unlawful means is an element of the crime as opposed to just the means to commit the crime? Because it does need to be unanimous what the unlawful means that they exist. It just doesn't need to be unanimous on what specifically the unlawful means were. And that leads me back to the Andy McCarthy argument that that law, speaking of the unlawful means, is too vague as to be upheld under the New York State Constitution, which says you can't just incorporate all laws by reference. You have to give defendants fair notice of what they might do that would be illegal, that would get them in trouble with the criminal law. And that statute, just like doing this stuff by illegal means, by unlawful means, isn't good enough. All right, stand by. We're going to take a quick break. And there's a lot more to get to. So just, you know, it's going to be good. Stand by. Mike and Dave, stay with us. With respect to Judge Marchand, I mean, I am like now, you know, I felt like a man crush on him.

He is such a great judge that it's hard to see that the jurors wouldn't have the same impression. And he's just you just keep on thinking if you looked in a dictionary for like judicial temperament, that's what you get. OK, Mike Davis, that's your favorite judge. Judge, that's he's talking about your favorite judge. That's Andrew Weissman, former general counsel of the FBI with a man crush. What's wrong with his man crush, Mike? Well, this is Andrew Weissman, who was Bob Mueller's lead prosecutor for the Russian collusion hoax against President Trump, the crossfire hurricane bogus investigation made up with the Obama, President Obama, Biden, Hillary, the DNC. So it's actually quite amusing to watch Andrew Weissman go on MSNBC, puts down the wine glass, it goes on MSNBC,

and says these most outrageous partisan things that just proves that this Democrat lawfare and election interference against President Trump for the last seven years has actually eight years has actually been not a conspiracy theory. It's pretty amazing to hear him talking like that wasn't what Alan Dershowitz said on the show yesterday, having been in the courtroom for his excoriation of Robert Costello, the witness. As Alan put it, it was a, you looking at me? He was mad.

He was getting the side eye. Whatever. It's kind of beside the point at this point. The jury's got the case, and we continue to await. They deliberated for about four hours yesterday. They're back in there. They had all the readbacks.

I think they went probably back into deliberations around, I don't know, was it about 11? So now they're another hour, 40 minutes into it. It doesn't seem all that easy, whichever way they go. It seems like they are struggling with something. All right, let me shift gears because I've got to talk to you guys about the Alito story. It's been everywhere. And I want to know what you think about it. So the story is, for the audience members who haven't been paying attention, Justice Samuel Alito has a home down in the D.C. area, and then he has a vacation home on the Jersey Shore.

Yes, same. Go Jersey. And I'm going to look for him. I didn't know he was down there. I'm going to be annoying. Anyway, so then what happened was outside of his D.C. area home, his wife, we now know, was flying an upside-down American flag right after January 6th because Alito said, after this was reported by the New York Times breathlessly, she'd gotten into a dispute with a neighbor

who was very nasty and very hardcore political, and this person wound up calling Mrs. Alito the C- and had signs on their lawn that read F Trump, but more explicitly. And she didn't like that. There were kids at a bus stop. You know, she she objected to the language. Anyway, it went from bad to worse. And this was her little protest. You know, she she turned the flag upside down. And The New York Times thinks he should recuse himself, as do a lot of lefties from the J6 case that's now pending before the Supreme Court, the immunity case that is going to come out any day now on Trump. I mean, to me, that's just absurd. And then they were like, oh, it's not just that black at the Jersey Shore house, they were flying an appeal to heaven flag, which was, uh, checks notes on George Washington's ships during the revolutionary war.

So F Mrs. Alito and her alliance with GW. And now he needs to recuse himself because of that. So it led to something I've never seen from a justice before, because the New York Times is all over this. They've made this Jodi Kantor's full beat for a while. She did me two cases and now she's on the Samuel Alito beat. He writes, it's basically F you. I'm not recusing myself from anything. He says, I understand you want me to go because you claim these two incidents created an appearance of impropriety that requires my recusal. He says, I'm going to read you excerpts. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of the flag. He's talking about the upside down one in Virginia. I was not even aware of the upside down

flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days she refused. Okay, it is getting interesting. My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly. She therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit. And there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly. All right, I'm starting to have questions that I didn't have before. My wife's reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes, but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time, due in large part to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement. A house on the street displayed a sign attacking her personally, and a man who was living in the house trailed her all the way down the street,

berated her in my presence using foul language, including what I regard as the vilest epithet that can be addressed to a woman. My wife's a private citizen and she possesses the same first amendment rights as every other American. She makes her own decisions and I have always respected her right to do so. She has made many sacrifices to accommodate my service on the Supreme Court, including the insult of having to endure numerous loud, obscene, and personally insulting protests in front of our home that continue to this day and now threaten to escalate. As for the appeal to heaven flag, I had no involvement in the decision to fly that flag either. He says, my wife is fond of flying flags. I'm not. She was solely responsible for having the flagpoles

put up at our residences and has flown a wide variety of them over the years. College flags, sports flags, religious flags, seasonal flags, and on. I was not familiar with the appeal to heaven flag when my wife flew it. She may have mentioned that it dates back to the American Revolution, and I assumed she was flying it to express a patriotic and religious message. I was not aware of any connection between the historic flag and the Stop the Steal movement, as is now alleged, FYI, and neither was my wife. She did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group, and the use of an old historic flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings. She makes her own decisions. I honor her right to do so. Our

vacation home was purchased with money she inherited from her parents and is titled in her name. It's a place away from Washington where she should be able to relax. This is so interesting. I'm so interested. Like he went deep. He went to the legalities of ownership and control over one's wife. Like I, I would have expected him to be like, bye, I'm not doing it. So what does it tell us? I'll start with you on it, Dave, that he went this far. Me doth protest too much, right? Or he doth protest too much. I, I, I'm troubled by it, Megan, because he's got a rap sheet. He was the one at Obama's State of the Union speech who broke custom and shook his head. And so that's not true. When Obama was talking about the system, the United States. Obama broke custom and shook his head. And that's not true. When Obama was talking about custom by attacking the justices personally, as they did him the courtesy of showing up to his

state of the union. Right. But you got to sit, you got to sit there and you got to be stone faced because you're supposed to be above politics and he's there fighting back. And then what does he do to respond to these charges, these allegations? He goes on Fox News and gives an interview. And so you see Weilop, you're like, man, this guy should be above politics. And the fact that he is throwing his wife under the bus for flying these flags that have been co-opted by the January 6th rioters is troubling. And look, the Supreme Court makes its own rules. They interpret their own rules.

They can get away with anything. And I think that's one reason why so many people have had a loss of faith in the John Roberts Supreme Court. And John Roberts is bemoaning that fact. But look at the mirror, because it's your own justice taking these trips, not reporting them. Clarence Thomas's wife being involved with January 6th, and they do nothing about it. So that's the frustration that a lot of people on my side of the aisle are feeling. Oh, my God, Mike. I love Dave, but there was a lot wrong in what he just said there.

A lot. Yeah, I would say this, that these Supreme Court justices don't own their wives. And if anyone's ever met Martha Ann Alito or Jenny Thomas or Louise Gorsuch. I don't think that their husbands are going to be able to tell them to keep their mouth shut. They're very strong, independent women. And by the way, there's no ethical issue here requiring anyone's recusal. And if there were, why hasn't the Biden Justice Department filed a motion with the Supreme Court requesting any justices recusal? And the reason they haven't done that is they know any such motion to recuse a justice would be legally frivolous, right? Washington has flown, that Americans have flown clear across this country for centuries, including in San Francisco. The city of San Francisco flew it until, you know, until Alito flew this flag.

And then somehow it became a January 6th flag. Somehow that was a January 6th flag that requires Justice Alito's recusal. And somehow an American distress flag after this crazy neighbor called Martha Ann Alito the C word and had an F Trump sign in front of a school bus stop. Somehow that was a January 6 solidarity flag for Mrs. Alito. That is utter nonsense. Ginsburg wore her dissent collar after President Trump was elected. I mean, there's no other explanation because they didn't even issue opinions that day from which she could have dissented. She wore her dissent collar because President Trump was elected. I don't remember seeing anyone calling for Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recusal from Trump cases. This is political garbage. So, Dave, a leader did not go on Fox News and give an interview. Shannon Bream, who is for years the Supreme Court correspondent,

called him up and he gave her a statement about the wife having been harassed, which was totally appropriate. I mean, he spoke to Fox. He didn't speak to The New York Times. Right on. I would do the same thing. I wouldn't speak to The New York Times. They've tried to get me many times that I don't consider them honest brokers. So I get where he was coming from and he just issued, and then he issued a widely distributed paper statement. And then he wrote this in response to the partisans in the house and the Senate breathing down his neck. So what, while the left is making this up into a big thing, what they're really mad about is he had two flags outside of his houses where another person lives, who's allowed to be a partisan, by the way. She's 100% allowed to be a rabid partisan

if that's what she wants. There's absolutely no prohibition against her being political or acting politically. And he points out she has the right to live here. She has the right to fly the flag. Yes, it's a little weird that he's like, she's an independent woman. And I could have done without the weird language, but fine. I'm on his side, totally on his side. And what this really seems to me to be about is the left is upset that for the first time in our lifetimes, we have a conservative majority on the high court. So they do everything within their power to delegitimize them. Well, there are also reports that this flag was flown, the upside down American flag was flown well before this incident

where she was spitting on her neighbor who was calling her this ugly word. So it's a mess and it doesn't look good. So even if, no, no, no, but even if she was, even if she had a stop the steal, if she had a banner that read stop the steal, that he's coming out and saying, I represent to you as a sitting Supreme Court justice.

That was my wife's flag. I was not behind it. And I did ask her to take it down. That's enough. It's over. Even if Justice Alito has those thoughts privately, you can't prove it, first of all. And he has no obligation to recuse himself from a case in which he may have private feelings. The question is, can he separate himself?

You don't think Ruth Bader Ginsburg had private feelings when abortion cases went up to the U.S. Supreme Court, having come from Planned Parenthood? I mean, or whatever it was. It was ACLU. My point is, he's done nothing wrong. Well, because the Supreme Court gets to establish its own rules and interpret their own rules, he can do what he wants. It's ironic, though, he did write an opinion where he said a homeowner who flew a flag, it represents that homeowner's views. It's like right on point.

And obviously it's not going to mean he has to recuse himself from this case. But I do think when you have an appearance of impropriety, and yes, if his wife did fly the stop the steal flag, I would think that he should recuse himself. I do think this is one level below that, but it's enough where so many people have lost their confidence in the Supreme Court that perhaps they shouldn't step aside. The left, the left has lost its confidence in the Supreme

Court. Mike, you used to clerk there. The left has lost its confidence because they've lost their majority. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. And I was the chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee with oversight over the federal judiciary, including ethics for the Supreme Court. Remember with the Supreme Court, they're not interchangeable like the lower federal court judges. You can't substitute them out. There is a presumption, a strong presumption that Supreme Court justices do not recuse on cases based upon the appearance of impropriety because they don't want people playing games to try to target conservative or liberal justices to get them to recuse on key cases like presidential immunity to flip the outcome in a case.

That's exactly what the Democrats are doing here. But Dick Durbin, Senate Judiciary Chairman, is actually he's got the nerve to try to summon Alito and Thomas to come into the Senate to answer to, I guess, Chief Justice Dick Durbin on their alleged ethical lapses. This really does require a middle finger. I mean, like they might actually want to send a middle finger like a printout of one to Dick Durbin. Am I wrong? No, you're absolutely right. Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Chairman, knows better than this. I worked with him when I was to dick durbin am i wrong no you're absolutely right dick durbin the senate judiciary chairman knows better than this i worked with him when i was there he is being dragged around by senator sheldon whitehouse his deranged colleague who is a partisan hack and it is a shame that dick

durbin is allowing this to happen get get white house under control, Dick Durbin, you coward. Let me tell you something, Dick Durbin. You don't control the U.S. Supreme Court. You don't control Justice Alito or Justice Thomas. And that was a hack move that was disrespectful to the separation of powers. And he knows it. You guys are great. You're respectful and not hacks. Mike Davis, Dave Ehrenberg, always so fun. Always so fun. Wait, before I let you go, Jiffy Quick, do you think we'll get a verdict today, Dave? Iberg, always so fun. Always so fun. Wait, before I let you go, Jiffy Quick, do you think we'll get a verdict today? Dave? I think he'll come tomorrow. Mike?

I think there's going to be a guilty verdict because this is so partisan, corrupt, and Okay, bye. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, accusing President Biden, former President Trump and CNN of colluding to keep him out of CNN's upcoming presidential debate. It has been over 30 years since an independent presidential candidate appeared in a general election debate. And RFKJ is vowing to make this stage. This is RFKJ's fifth time, fifth on our show. Back in March of 2022, we did a two-part in-depth series with Bobby that is a must listen. We did two hours on vaccines, and then we did a full two hours on his amazing background, tackled it all, a lot on Anthony

Fauci. It was just so good. Everybody loved these episodes. You will too, if you want to check them out. Their numbers 282 and 283. Bobby Kennedy, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Megan. And yeah, thanks for putting me on back in, what was it? Was it March of 2022? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because you were one of the first people to let me on at a time when it was, you know, very dangerous for other outlets to give me a platform. And I've always been very grateful to you for that. Oh, that was all so silly. And I'm thrilled to see you out there with your message and doing so well as as you should be. That whole thing was

so not nonsensical. OK, let me jump right back right into some of the issues. So this is interesting that you want into this debate. I would love to see you in this debate personally, but they're doing their level best to keep you out. Both Trump, Biden have said the terms are the terms. It's a two man debate. That's it. And so what can the FEC do? You want them to to bar CNN from holding it if they don't let you in? Well, the FEC rules say that candidates can't collude, particularly with a network, to exclude other candidates. Otherwise, it becomes an illegal campaign contribution. So what we know from the accounts, both from our conversations with CNN and also from the accounts in the Washington Post and other press outlets, and just to back up for a second,

what the FEC rules require is that the rules for the debate be pre-existing. In other words, the candidates have no input in them and also that they be objective. So they can't be designed to exclude somebody. But in the conversations that were reported by the Washington Post between the Biden administration, between the Biden White House, President Trump's staff, and CNN, that President Biden's staff was adamant that the rules needed to be designed to keep me off the platform. They said, if he's going to be on, we're not going to be on. He has to be off.

President Biden said the same thing. Now, when we asked CNN, did you, after hearing that, did you then create the rules? And CNN said, that's privileged, which of course, it's not privileged. You know what it is, right? It's the opposite of privilege. It should be very transparent and available to the public. So if you do collude with them, it becomes, as I said, an illegal campaign contribution. And we filed a complaint with the FEC to address that and to make rules that allow me into the debate. The other thing is, at the rules that they came up with is ironic. There's two rules that are designed to exclude other candidates. One of those rules is that each candidate has to have polls from four separate firms that are on a list of 12 polling firms, an approved list of 12 polling firms. Four of those polls need to show me at 15 percent or more of the public. And I think CNN assumed that I did not have the polls, but we submitted

five polls, including their own poll from last month, which shows me at 16%. And the other polls all from the list. And since then, yet another poll has come out from that list that has me at 15%. The final rule that they use to try to exclude me is a rule that says that you have to be on the ballot in enough states to get 270 electoral votes by June 20th. So we are now, we have enough, We're on the ballot in the seven states. We have enough signatures now as of today for 17 states. By June 20th, we will have enough signatures for 343 electoral votes. Today we have, I think, 225. But ironically, we are the only one who's on a ballot anywhere because president trump president biden are not on any ballots anywhere they are you know people presume they're going to be the nominees for the democratic republican party but that is not locked in yet so i'm the only one who will qualify for that, with that requirement.

And so CNN is kind of in a jam. And, you know, we think that if FEC acts, then we will win this. They don't want you. ABC doesn't want you. Trump and Biden don't want you. And right now, given the bypassing of the Commission on Presidential Debates,

they're calling the shots. So this will be interesting to watch unfold. I think you'd be a great addition up there. I think it'd be fascinating to watch them respond to you and some of your issues, which are important. That's why you're polling well with a certain segment of the population. Let me ask you, Donald Trump quickly is on trial. The jury is deliberating the charges against him right now. We have read this week in Politico that President Biden intends to address the verdict when it comes down. We presume, assuming it's guilty.

I don't know if he's going to do anything if it's not guilty. From the White House, that he's going to comment on a criminal case from the White House. Do you think that's appropriate? You know, I try to stay away from commenting on these cases because I think it feeds into this, you know, national polarization. And I don't comment on President Trump's personal issues on Hunter Biden or, you know, any of the Biden administration's personal interviews. I try to really talk about the economy, about the fact that we've got a $34 trillion debt that nobody's talking about,

the fact that 60% of our kids are sick with chronic disease, the fact that 57% of Americans can't put their hands on $1,000 if they have an emergency, on our forever wars that both President Trump and President Biden support, and on this polarization that they both feed into, which is toxic and is more dangerous, I think, to our country than any time since the American Civil War. What I've tried to do, what I said when I declared a year ago, is I'm going to stay away from these little cultural war issues that are designed, are orchestrated to keep us all at each other's throats,

and to focus instead on the values that keep us together and the issues that are critical to us healing our country, both economically, spiritually, culturally, and healing the rift. I've been pretty disciplined about not commenting on the legal case. I don't. Well, this isn't an ask for that. This is a question about whether you think it's appropriate,

you're running for president, for the president of the United States to comment on an individual criminal matter, even one that involves a former president and not for nothing, his chief political rival? I don't think that I would comment if I were president. I don't think I would comment on this particular case. I think this is the weakest of the case against President Trump. And it's it's not kind of an existential case. I mean, maybe it's appropriate to comment if the case about the January 6 election,

if that came down, it may be appropriate to make a comment about it. If it were me, I would try to focus on making healing comments rather than comments that demonize, you know, the president who's likely to be the nominee in the Republican Party or that demonize people who vote for him and support him. I would really try to do something that was that was going to heal our country rather than increase the division. It looks like it's going another way, but we'll see. We'll have to see what this jury does. And as I say, I'd be surprised to be said as anything if Trump gets acquitted and hung jury. We'll find out. I guess we'll find out. All right. So I've got to ask you a couple of questions.

Last time we spoke, I asked you about your stance on legislation banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and these gender reassignment procedures for minors. And you said that you would support a ban if the minor didn't have parental permission, but you weren't sure about an outright ban, even where there's parental permission. Have you given any more thought to this issue? Yeah, I have. My stance now is that I'm against them altogether for people under 18. And a lot of that is, you know, a lot of against the bans or against the procedures, against the procedure. I would ban them in kids under 18. You know, and I would say this, I think people who have gender confusion, that they need to be treated with compassion,

with kindness, with utmost respect, and that any kind of bullying or, you know, vilification of people who are struggling with those issues should be itself contemptible. there are a lot of this recent study in Europe

particularly from the UK that throws water on a lot of the claims that were being made by the pharmaceutical industry and by the proponents of these gender blockers. Yeah. And, you know, having looked at that report, the results of that report, with some horror, I became convinced that this is, you know, it's something that shouldn't happen. You know, we, we stop kids from driving. We stop, you know, we don't, don't allow children to drink until they're 18. And these decisions are 18 or 21. My kids used to drive up to Montreal and I grew up in, you know, when it was legal.

Way back when we were little. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, the 21. So the decision to do this, you know, these puberty blockers is is consequential and it has lifetime consequences. And a lot of people are remorseful about the result who make those decisions when they're young are later on remorseful about the results. So I, you know, my, my, uh, position is that we shouldn't allow them at all for kids under 18. Well, this makes perfect sense to me much more sense than before, because you, one of the things people love about you is how you are totally unafraid to call out the medical industrial complex. And that's why you were so vocal during the covid lockdowns and about the vaccines and how we were being misled.

And this, to me, seems like yet another area in which we could really use your honest voice. You touched on it in your answer there about how that same complex is making money hand over fist off of hurting children, off of chopping off the body parts of 14-year-old kids. It's nuts. And it's completely backwards to what the Hippocratic oath requires of them. And yet we're seeing for ourselves now in this one example, some of the things you've been saying for years, which is they they don't care about you. They care about themselves and their bottom line. Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that. You know.

The last what I always say to people is you can't convince me of anything by, you know, defaming me or calling me names. But if you show me facts, I'm going to, you know, that I will change my policies or my worldview if I see facts that are not consistent with it. And, you know, since the last time I've talked to you, I've done more research and I, you know, that report had a, I would say, transformative effect on me. And I guess, you know, the revulsion of just reading a couple of pages of it. I think anybody who reads that is going to be is going to, you know, come to the same conclusion that I did. All right. What do you make of President Biden's changes to Title IX?

I don't really understand exactly what the implications are. Why don't you tell me? You know, I know that they have that he's giving more. He's opening it up to people who are transgender. You know, my position on that has been very, very clear. My uncle wrote Title IX, Senator Ted Kennedy. He wrote it because women's sports were not being recognized or funded by the colleges. And, you know, women had been fighting for years and years to get those rights. And he was very, very proud of that. We're all proud of that accomplishment.

I have right now, Megan, a niece, Zoe Hines, who is one of the star softball players on the BC college team. She's on a full scholarship. When she was growing up, Cheryl and I would invite her and her twin brother, who's also an athlete, to come skiing every year and to come to us at the Cape in the summer. She really wanted to do it, but she would never do it because she was devoting her life to trying to get these scholarships so she could go to college. It would be really ironic and tragic, in my view, if she could lose her place on that team to a boy who walks off of a boy's softball field and just says, well, I'm a girl now, and knocks her out of competitive play. So I don't think that's a good result.

To the extent that President Biden's changes to Title IX would allow a result like that, I would oppose it. But I don't really know exactly what those changes are. I'd love to hear from you if you have if you have better knowledge than I. Well, I mean, this is a big issue for me and I think a lot of my audience. He's changed Title nine with, you know, the stroke of his pen with his administrative agency to redefine who's protected by it. It's no longer just girls and women. It's now trans girls and women who, which means men,

men are now protected by title nine. When title nine was a response to what had already been men's rights in the school setting, right. To create at the time, equal sports and equal facilities and that kind of thing. But now because of his changes, men have the right to use women's locker rooms and women's bathrooms, girls' bathrooms, K through college, K through college, and they can't say no. So if you have some hulking 275 pound man who last week ran as a male runner and he decides he's a girl now and he wants to run against the female runners, he can do it and he can use their restroom and he can do it, you know, full man, full, full genitalia, no hormone therapy, no dress, nothing. He can parade around. You know,

I went to college when I was 17, a 17 year old girl's locker room in college or, or beneath that with impunity. And on top of that, at the college level of young man who gets accused, and I know you are related to Michael Skakel. And that's a case I have a lot of interest in because I'm a true crime lover. Anyway, he's Kennedy who was accused of killing a young girl in a Connecticut neighborhood. And anybody and you had another family member who was accused down in Florida of a sexual sort of me too situation. In any event, my point of raising this is not to bring up the family tragedies, but these young men in college campuses, thanks to his changes are no longer going to be afforded due process.

Now they no longer have the right to counsel the right to cross examine. They now have the hearings held their, their trials, their kangaroo courts by the same person who investigated them. So the prosecutor winds up being their judge. They have no right to demand evidence. So if this girl's been texting her roommates, I was totally into it. It was consensual. These guys will never know that all because of President Biden's stroke of the pen. I'm just in defense of my cousin, Michael Skake. I did do a book on that. Yeah, I read it. On that.

And I was able to track down the people who were actually responsible for the murder, which was not my cousin. And he was then released from prison because of that investigation. So I just want to say a word about him. Questions linger. to be fair. Go ahead. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I agree. I agree that, you know, what you're saying,

if those are the results, they're not good results. And I'm very, you know, like I said, I'm against allowing males, biologically born males, to participate in consequential female sports. Right. But this goes beyond that. We're talking about locker rooms and bathrooms now in the school setting. Yeah, that probably doesn't make any sense either. Okay. While we're on the topic of women's rights, let's talk about abortion. That's another issue that you've sent some mixed signals on. And I want to ask you about your position. Last August, you were speaking to reporters at the Iowa State Fair and you said you'd sign a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks or 21 weeks if you were elected.

And your campaign came out and said you misunderstood the question and that your position on abortion is that, quote, it is always the woman's right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion, period. Then this month you sat down with our pal Sage Steele, who has her own podcast she just launched. And you said that women should have the right to an abortion even if full term, which lines up with your campaign's statement after your own spoken words at the Iowa State Fair saying 15 or 21 week ban. They said, no, when you spoke to stage, you seem to be saying no bans. Women should have the right to choose even if full term, quote, we shouldn't have government involved even if it's full term. Then there was outcry and you reversed yourself there saying in a tweet,

once the baby's viable outside the womb, it should have rights. It deserves society's protection. So at this point in your campaign, isn't it fair to say you should have a firm position on this and be able to espouse it clearly and uniformly? I suppose I should. I'll tell you what my own evolution was on this. I've been a medical freedom activist for my entire life. My inclination is that government should stay out of medical procedures and that with abortions, that we should trust women. We should just trust the judgment of a mother.

My understanding was that, well, you know, my initial understanding when I gave that interview in Iowa was that, was the same as Roe v. Wade, which protects mothers and the woman's choice during the early part of pregnancy, but then later on in pregnancy after viability, that the state has an increasing interest in regulating and protecting that unborn child. And that interest would increase up to the day of pregnancy, of birth. I got blowback on that position, and particularly from my wife and her sisters who are very close advisors to me.

And one of the points that they made is that there's no woman who wants to get pregnant and then carry that pregnancy for nine months and then at the last minute abort it. That just doesn't happen. And indeed, there's a lot of advocacy groups that say that that literally never happens, that the choices that are made at the end of pregnancy to abort are choices that are made on usually on dire medical emergencies that involve either the health of the child or the health of the mother. And that's, to me, it seemed like that's the last place that we want to bring in bureaucrats or government officials to make decisions. That's when you really want to leave the decision to a mother. When I gave that decision on Sage Steel,

when I talked about that position on Sage Steel's program, I got a lot of blowback from people. And some data then indicated that actually there are a lot of, not a dramatic number, but in the thousands of births each year that are elective abortions during the final month of pregnancy. And in my view, those should not happen. And, you know, I've seen the pictures that are very gruesome, as I'm sure you have. So I changed my position again. I'll change my position always based upon if I was wrong on the facts. I'm not going to dig in and defend a position where factually I believe that my initial position was wrong. So that's my, you know, my position now is basically the same position as in Roe v. Wade, that the government does have at the end of pregnancy, you saw gruesome photos about abortions there,

which would be 36 weeks to 40 weeks. A pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. Are you saying that you would allow abortions all the way up to 36 weeks? Because viability happens a lot earlier, happens in the low 20s. Depends on who you ask, but between the low 20s to 28 weeks. Yeah, I wouldn't pick a week, Megan. I would say that my policy would be the same as under Roe v. Wade, that the state, after viability, the state has an interest in protecting the baby. Okay, because under Roe v. Wade, that's where we did have third-term abortions happening in in some places because they would leave it in various states up to the woman. And there, while it's true that it's rare for to their menstrual cycle, who will find themselves pregnant and who abort a perfectly healthy baby under the auspices of mental health, mental health. Should that be banned? Well, as I said, I would get, I would leave it to the states during the,

to make their determination about when viability happens and what kind of regulation. I'm not going to dictate to the states where, you know, exactly what kind of regulation. I think that should be up to the people of that state. That position you just espoused is currently Trump's position, that it should be left to the states. It's a state's issue. And it's the default constitutional provision post Dobbs, which got rid of Roe versus Wade. So I think I think President I think President Trump would give no protection to, as I understand his position, to the woman's right to choose even early on in the pregnancy. And that's not my position. He says it's a state's rights issue. He says it's a state's rights issue.

Yeah, it's a state's rights issue. And I would say that women should have federal protection up until viability, that it's a woman's right to choose up until then. So because President Biden wants to codify Roe and Roe, I mean, you know, Roe is kind of loose, right? Like you could use Roe to say a woman has the right to choose all the way through the ninth month if her health depends on it is how they use it. And when you think about, okay, the mother's life, that's one thing. Of course, the life that's here and existing always gets precedence over the unborn life. But what they do is they create health exceptions. And then a mother, an irresponsible

one, a person who doesn't care about her unborn fetus says it's my mental health. And there are some ethical doctors who will perform abortion on a totally viable, healthy baby as late as 38 weeks because of that. Like that doesn't seem to me like it should be allowed. All right. I think we've, we've beaten that one. We got it. Um, talk about immigration because that's another one that's very important to I know right leaning and now even left leaning audiences and voters. More and more, this is the number one issue for Democrats, which is really telling that I've never seen that so high up on the issue ranking for Democrat voters. But it's there now. In October, you went to a rally and admitted that in the past you believed in an open border and that you felt that if a person was for sealing the border, it meant you were probably a xenophobe or a racist. You admitted that that's how you used

to feel. Then you said you went to the border in Arizona and Yuma and you called that border crisis you saw unsustainable and said a person's not bigoted for wanting a secure border. But then this month at a rally in Austin, you said the border issue is not an existential issue. Use that term in our interview today. It's not an existential issue. So how can you say that when we're looking at over eight million illegal immigrants coming into this country under Joe Biden's presidency alone? How is that not existential for life? I don't think that I that that was my characterization. If it was, then, you know, I would not make that characterization. I think what I was doing was talking about a

number of cultural issues that generally are, like, you know, I said, very important issues. That's right. Here, I'll play it. We have this down, but I'll play it so the audience knows what we're talking about. It's not 22. We have two presidents who are running today, two ex-presidents. One is the current president.

They both had four years in office. They couldn't be more different than each other. But the issues that they're actually disputing on are a very narrow Overton window. It's what Nicole was saying. It's guns. It's abortion. It's the border. It's trans rights.

These issues are all important, but none of them are existential. None of them are the issues that really matter to you, to me, to our children. The border. Yeah, well, you know, I was talking about another class of issues that are actually existential. I would I think arguably the border is existential and maybe more than arguably, it just may be. You know, what I saw on the border was cataclysmic. And I never thought that people who oppose, and I never thought we should have an open border, by the way, Megan. I thought that I opposed for a time President Trump's wall. And I said I was wrong about that. We do need a wall.

We don't need a wall. 2200 miles all the way from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego. But we do need a wall in the populated places that where immigrants can, undocumented immigrants can disappear very, very quickly. I think it was a huge, not just a mistake, but a catastrophe that President Biden suspended the construction on the wall when he first came into office and also began tearing down a lot of the infrastructure for making sure that didn't happen and essentially implemented an open border policy although the president biden's administration denies that everybody border knows that to be true and but i you know i watched 300 immigrants come across the border at between 2 a.m and 4 a a.m. The first time I was there, you know, I'd been back, et cetera.

But they were coming from all over the world. They were coming on buses that were owned by the Sinaloa drug cartel that was bringing them from the airport in Mexicali to the border in Yuma, and then allowing about 105 people on each bus. The first two buses that came were West Africans. That whole evening, I only saw two Latin American families, one from Colombia, one from Peru. The rest of the immigrants were coming from Asia, from Ukraine, from China, from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,

Nepal, Tibet, India, Bangladesh. And they were responding to advertisements that the drug cartels put on TikTok and YouTube, where they offer immigration to the United States for $10,000 to $15,000 per person. And they all knew exactly what was going to happen to them when they crossed the border. The Border Patrol had been reduced instead of defending the border to processing all these new immigrants coming across. They give them a fingerprint check to see if they have a criminal record.

If they don't have a criminal record, they bring them to the Yuma airport and put them on an airplane to any destination in the United States with a court date in the asylum court seven years in the future. And nine million, up to nine million people have come across that way in the past three and a half years. And yeah, I would say that is existential. There's no nation that can survive if it doesn't protect its borders. So, you know, my bad. Okay, let's talk about an issue that's somewhat obscure, but I think our audience is going to remember this. So way back in, we just celebrated our 800th episode, but way back in episode 125 of this show, before we'd even added video, we had on a rancher. She was from Wyoming and she was objecting at the time to this bill, this law that President Biden had pushed through, which sought to give black farmers federal financial assistance based solely on their race, not on their financial condition, not on any suffering they may have had economically, based totally on their melanin. And the farmers didn't wind up getting the financial relief because several lawsuits were filed claiming that's race

discrimination, that's illegal under the Constitution. And so the program was frozen after an injunction. So I want to play you the soundbite of this rancher who we interviewed. Take a listen. It's basically a slap in the face saying, hey, just because you're white, you can't apply. And, you know, it's wrong. And you've been talking about the USDA's past discrimination. Well, a big part of it is women like me have been discriminated against, not me specifically, but women in the past, and they're completely overlooking that aspect of it. And so being a white woman who's recognized as being socially disadvantaged, it does humiliate me because I should be a part of that group. And then, you know, I look down at my neighbors who are struggling, who are barely

getting by, and I don't know if they're going to make it another year. And it's humiliating to them because they don't feel like they deserve it enough either. And, you know, it's just completely wrong. Okay. Now you were recently on a podcast with a black farmer and vowed to give black farmers this money. Now I've just outlaid for you why it's so controversial. Do you stand by that pledge? Yeah. And I think the woman that you talk to does not have the whole story. Here's what happened, Megan. There was a, you know, there's a, there's a program within the USDA and the Department of Agriculture that is designed to help small farmers across this country, which was the reason that the USDA was launched in the first place.

The USDA now does the opposite of that. It protects big agricultural, industrial agricultural production and basically enables a war against small farmers. But there is a program that still exists within USDA that's designed to give low-interest loans and grants to small farmers. As it turns out, the man who was running that program for decades was a man who was intensely racist. There is a racist history within the group conceded. But I want to get to present day because I will. I will. I will. I will. I've been letting you finish. But I just want to make sure that we were on point here, because

under our U.S. Constitution, it's unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race. You can't do it to whites, just like you can't do it to blacks. Yeah, and if you let me finish what I'm saying, and I agree with you that you can't have it, you know, particularly under the Harvard decision that the Supreme Court, Judge Roberts just issued, there is no, you know, affirmative action or race-based affirmative action legal in this country, but that's not what this is.

The Black Farmers Association, this individual within USDA, simply cut off all grants to black people because of their skin color. But he gave the money to whites and to white farmers. And I think most Americans would agree that that was wrong, that you can't, of course, you can't have race-based benefits, but you also shouldn't suffer race-based deprivations of grants to which you're entitled to. And this association, the Association of Black Farmers, sued the USDA and they won in court. And the court quantified exactly how much money that black farmers had been deprived of during that period since this guy started running the program. So it was a specific amount of money that a court and a jury had decided on, and they awarded it to the Black farmers. It was just a class action suit.

Well, because the suit is against the government, Congress has to appropriate that money. And although the money was put in the presidential budget congress refused to appropriate it so that's the issue would you you know should that money be paid out to people to whom it is owed or should it not be this is not a race-based benefit yes it is well that's what you say you know what I would say is we looked, we took a hard look at this bill at the time and you could get it irrespective of your financial condition. Meghan Markle could go out there and say, I just bought a ranch. Oprah, she has a ranch in California. She could say, I am black and I want the assistance and she could get it. It was irrespective of financial condition. Yeah, well, then you're talking about a different instance than I was talking about, because the instance I was talking about was specifically related to this case.

I know this case that happened 30 years ago. And typically the remedy would be, you know, you sue for damages and then you try to get your damages and then you don't take the money out of the taxpayers while it's 30 years later, who had nothing to do with what happened. Well, except it was litig, it was litigation that they won 30 years ago. And that simply was not,

I don't know if it was 30 years ago. I mean, there's a reason we have those caps on what the federal government can pay because it's the taxpayer who winds up having to pay these judgments. I'm not saying I don't have empathy for the black farmers. I'm just saying the program that was shut down was not remedy for a judgment. The government never paid. It was a giveaway to black farmers and ranchers.

And when whites wanted to apply, they were told no. And Megan, then you're talking about a different issue than I was talking about when I said that I would make sure that that money was paid. The money I was talking about was the money that was owed to black farmers. And a court had said it was owed to black farmers. And there is no cap on federal recoveries. There was just a refusal because Congress has to approve any appropriation, including an appropriation for lawsuits that the federal government lost from engaging in negligent or reckless or malicious behavior. Congress still has to appropriate it. And the person who bought that lawsuit at the outset, who was a farmer who was continually denied grants and loans, that other farmer, he was sitting in the office sometimes for

days at a time, and white farmers were walking past him, picking up their loans and leaving after six or eight minutes. No one's defending that. I understand. No one's defending what you're talking about. You seem to be defending it. I'm not defending it at all. OK, I'm objecting to race based relief for farmers and ranchers in 2024. It's illegal, period. OK, I got to take a break. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

I know I got it. You're suggesting I am defending no relief to any farmers who have been aggrieved by the U.S. government. The way you handle that is you file a lawsuit the way they did. I understand they didn't get the relief they wanted. It's unfortunate. But that doesn't necessarily mean 30 years later, you create an unfair program to remedy these past wrongs to that in which white economically disadvantaged ranchers get screwed. We've gone through it. We've spent far too much time on it. I've got to take a break. I'll be right back. Stand by. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,

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and get three months free. Offer details apply. On the topic of Trump and Biden and where you fit in, because, you know, you got to take votes from both of those guys in order to make this happen. You're starting to get the attention of the Trump campaign, which is probably a good sign for you. And the Trump spokesperson, Steve Chung, came out and said the voter should not be deceived by you, suggesting that this is a, quote, vanity project for you, for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family's name. Now, it is true, according to you, that you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and you voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and you voted for President Biden in 2020. So why shouldn't Republican voters have some doubts about you?

Well, you know, I mean, I would say, first of all, that, you know, my promise when I announced this was that I was going to try to persuade Americans that they weren't Republicans or Democrats anymore, and'm not going to characterize myself as a conservative or liberal. I'm neither a Democrat or Republican. Listen to the issues. And if you don't agree with my issues, then you should vote for somebody else. The way that I handle the issues. If you have a candidate who agrees with you more, who thinks it's okay to be at war in the Ukraine, who is okay with the $34 trillion debt, who's okay with having 60% of American kids have chronic disease um and who's okay with uh of the the the regulatory agencies in our country being run by the by the industries they're supposed to regulate

uh and this this corrupt merger of state corporate power that president biden president trump have presided over, then if you're okay with all that, then you should vote for one of them. If you're tired of those things and want to do something different, if you want to change, if I get elected president, all that's going to change. The government's going to stop lying to you. Why? Because on my first day in office, I'm going to issue an executive order saying that any federal employee who lies to the American public in conjunction with his job will be fired. I'm going to stop the CIA from propagandizing Americans and from censoring Americans. I'm going to fire any federal employee who participates with the mainstream media or the social media

in censorship. I'm going to stop the chronic disease epidemic and save this country $4.3 trillion. We're now spending on chronic disease. When my uncle was president, 6% of Americans had chronic disease. Today it's 60%. Diabetes in this country. When I was a kid, a typical pediatrician would see one diabetes case in his lifetime. Today, one out of every three kids who walks through his office door is either pre-diabetic or diabetic, and it's causing us more than the defense budget to deal with diabetes. President Trump, I've never mentioned that issue. They're never going to. They're never going to fix the budget deficit. Why? Because they ran it up. President Trump in

four short years ran up $8 trillion in debt, more than all the presidents combined from George Washington to George W. Bush. And President Biden is trying to beat them on that. And neither of them are going to deal with the existential issues that are actually threatening our country. So if you want to label me as a conservative or as a liberal, I don't think it's accurate. I think I'm trying to have a common sense solution to what's happening in this country. I promise to listen to people, to change my mind when I'm wrong on the facts, to not demonize and marginalize and vilify other Americans, but to try to find the common ground that we all share in common, rather than, you know, focusing on the trials and the culture war issue and the race issues that, you know, Republicans and Democrats

are all trying to get us to focus on. And it's like jangling the keys. Even the issues that you focus on today, Megan, are all culture war issues. It's like these are important. These are important. I have a huge audience, Bobby, as you know, I have a huge audience and these. But listen, no, no, no, this is not fair. Don't go there. I know the issues that interest my audience. And there's a reason this is one of the top shows in the nation. So don't disparage what matters to them. Okay.

The issue about young women and young girls and our rights and due process on college campuses and the right of the unborn and the issue, and race baiting by our highest officials, those matter. Those matter. Your issues matter, too. I love what you just said. It was the best answer you gave the whole interview. But don't diminish what matters to my audience, because that's also important. I'll give you the last word. I blew my last commercial break for you. I'll give you the last 40 seconds. Yeah, I say, you know, focusing on, there's certain issues that are allowed in the political dialogue. And I didn't mean to disparage your issues. I'm just saying, those are the issues that everybody talks about. And then you look around and you say, but,

you know, there's all these other issues, like the continualual wars and nobody's talking about. No, you're right. Those are the ones that I'm trying to focus on. I got to cut you off because the computer is going to end us in 10 seconds. Those are important. And we've discussed those in some of your earlier appearances. And I hope there'll be another one. You know, I admire you.

Thank you so much for being here. Bobby Kennedy, back tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.