The Megyn Kelly Show - Cowardly Media, and Trump's 2024 Court Battles, with Bari Weiss, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Phil Houston | Ep. 687

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Bari Weiss, founder and CEO of the Free Press, to discuss former liberals becoming instantly "conservative" after October 7, what's behind so many Black Americans opposing Israel and Jews, James Bennet going public after being forced to resign as opinion editor from the New York Times in 2020, the cowardice of the New York Times and especially from the publisher, how the New York Times went from great journalism and curiosity to reflecting the elites’ views, the lack of courage in the press today, Oprah admitting her recent weight loss was from an Ozempic-type drug, the major problem of obesity in the U.S. and more. Then attorneys Arthur Aidala and Mark Eiglarsh join to discuss whether Jack Smith or former President Donald Trump has the best shot when the case comes before the Supreme Court, Jack Smith’s notable urgency in the D.C. trial of Trump, whether the young boy who was called racist by a sports writer has a case against Deadspin, the threshold for defamation, Mariah Carey sued for her famous Christmas song “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” and more. Then former CIA agent and deception expert Phil Houston joins to talk about how he noticed so many lies and "tells" in Hunter Biden's latest comments this week.Weiss - https://www.thefp.com/Aidala - https://omny.fm/shows/the-arthur-aidala-power-hourEiglarsh - https://www.eiglarshlaw.com/Houston - https://www.qverity.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 and happy Friday. This is our last live show of 2023. Next week, we've got a week of taped episodes that I am very excited about. We've been working around the clock on them and you're going to love them because I take these two weeks with my family for Christmas vacation, but I don't like to leave you guys with two weeks of old shows. I mean, you know, best ofs, but you know, not fresh. So you're going to have a fresh week of program next week. And I'm telling you, I think it's so good. I'm going to be listening to it myself on vacation. So that's as high of an endorsement as I can give to the team that came up with a really great program. And I love it. Okay. But for now,

as Hanukkah comes to an end tonight, the rise of antisemitism in America has never been more glaring. My gosh, it really does feel like that. I mean, it's around every corner. It's lurking everywhere you go on Twitter or X, go on Facebook, walk down the street. It's everywhere. Today, a menorah destroyed in Oakland, California, and one on the Harvard campus, which has had to go into hiding each night. I've appreciated my friend Barry Weiss's work on this topic since the October 7th terror attack in Israel, and I'm happy to welcome her back to the show today. She's the founder, CEO, and editor of The Free Press. She is also host of Honestly with Barry Weiss. Barry, so good to see you. How are you doing?

So happy to see you too, Megan. Thanks for everything you've been covering in this show, especially since 10-7. Oh, of course. I mean, you and I've talked about this for a long time. I remember one of our first episodes, you came on and we talked about anti-Semitism and you, and I've quoted it many times, you talked about how well the thing is Jews, they don't count. They don't rate on the DEI scale. And we're, you know, noting it. It's not like you were an activist. Everybody must, we have to join the DEI crowd. You know, we belong. You were even back then going a different way, which is DEI is pernicious. This ideology must be combated. And here we are in the wake of this massacre. Now, even the more liberal Jewish community starting to see it. So let me start there as Michelle Goldberg has a piece today

writing about this very thing about how, gee, there are a lot of former liberals who are becoming more conservative. I wonder why. What is it? Do they not realize how awful their ideas are? Because like this seems to be a thing. So is this a thing now more than ever? And if so, why? Well, I'll give you a little anecdote, but it really typifies so many conversations that I've had over the past. It's felt like one day, but I guess it's been more than two months. I met a young woman, probably 28 years old, educated at all of the elite schools that are currently in the news. And she said to me, Barry, I went to bed on October 6th as a progressive liberal. And I went

to bed on October 7th as a 70 year old Republican. What happened to me? And, you know, and so I think that the shift that's been happening in major parts of American life for a long time sort of has happened in a very, very rapid way inside large parts of the American Jewish community, which it should be noted is a pretty small community. It seems bigger than it is, I think, to many people, especially these days. But I think what she meant by that is that a lot of the assumptions that she had about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but maybe also in terms of who she believed her allies were. You know, she was talking to me about going and marching alongside so many different movements, so many different

groups that are oppressed or that have had terrible experiences historically in this country and thinking, well, of course, those people are going to stand up with me. And all of a sudden, a lot of progressive Jews looked around on October 8th, because it was, remember, as soon as October 8th, that people were marching, so-called progressives, in favor of a death cult, Hamas. And they were saying, wait, these are my friends? These aren't my friends. These are people who are marching on behalf of a group, maybe in certain cloaked language, but fundamentally marching on behalf of a group that wants me and my family dead. So maybe it's time for me to reassess my own

politics. And I think that that experience is just what's happening sort of began on October 8th. And as people are watching, you know, the lie that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism fall apart as basic Jewish symbols like the menorah in Oakland, like the menorah in Berkeley, like at Yale, where a group of students, you know, climbed a giant menorah and hung a Palestinian flag there. Sorry, like, convince me that that isn't anti-Semitism. You know, the burden is sort of on the people who are still trying to claim that there's a bright line between those two things when obviously and very clearly there isn't. Barry, why do you think 64% of the Black community

is against Israel in this conflict, according to the latest Gallup poll? Look, that's a much deeper, longer conversation that's hard to contain to a short answer. But I'll say one thing, which is that one thing that DEI has very successfully done is to create these extraordinarily crude racial categories, as all of us know, right? It's taken basic ideas of right and wrong and replaced them with a new power matrix. If you're powerful, you are necessarily bad. And if you're powerless, you are necessarily good. And everything that you do needs to be judged, not by the merits or demerits, whatever that word would be, of your deed, but really just based on the identity of the

person carrying them out. And so what this has done is several things. One, Jews do not fit in to a crude racial category of right and wrong, nor do we fit into a crude power category, because in certain ways, our community, at least in America, is very successful if you look at all of the statistics. And yet, why is it that so many people that we know are scared to put their menorah in the window this Hanukkah, including so many progressives and liberals that I know? Why is it that to go into any Jewish place in this country, I don't think most ordinary Americans, most Christians realize this. To go into a Jewish synagogue, you have to go through metal detectors and there are armed guards.

And that has been the case not just for 10-7, that's been the case for a decade. Why is it that at the Jewish preschool, where my daughter will begin in a few months from now, it is more hardened than LAX? And that is because the Jewish community is both powerful and unbelievably vulnerable. And yet you have this ideology that says, nope, none of that matters. All of your history is washed away. You are now white people, because the vast majority of American Jews, not the vast, but a large number of American Jews are Ashkenazi. They're of Eastern European descent. They look like me. They look white. They're white passing. Therefore, they benefit from white privilege. Therefore, they are white. Therefore, they are part of the oppressed,

excuse me, the oppressor category, despite 3,000 years of history that would indicate otherwise. This connects to your question, because if Jews are understood to not just be in the oppressor side of the spectrum, but indeed something like uber white people, then it stands to reason that a lot of people who have bought into this ideology will come to see them as nefarious. There's another part of the ideology that I think is really important to point out, which is that it judges justice, not based on equality of opportunity, but based on equality of outcome. And if you look at Jewish success, let's say in America, and you look at the inordinate number of Jews in, you know, who have won Nobel prizes or have succeeded economically or whatever, choose the category you want to choose. Well, that's a little bit suspicious, right? Because any disparity of outcome has to be the result of systemic

discrimination. Any disparity of outcome has to be some kind of conspiracy is what this ideology suggests, which is why, of course, it's not just Jews that have been singled out, but Asian Americans who have had an unbelievable amount of success, at least when it comes to academic life. And so an ideology that suggests that any differences in outcome is somehow suspicious will inevitably lead to a politics that is suspicious and indeed hostile to the Jews. The last thing that I'll say is that this ideology looks at foreign conflicts that are enormously complicated. And indeed, the question of the Israeli-Arab conflict or the Jewish-Muslim conflict, there's many ways that we could describe that conflict, is very, very deep. And it takes a crude American racial lens and dumps it on something that's

happening 10,000 miles away. And it says, and this is what it stipulates, and it's really crazy to even say this out loud, but this is genuinely what it stipulates. Palestinians are like Black Americans before the civil rights movement. They are the oppressed. And the Jews, the Israelis, never mind the fact that the majority of them are people of color. They're of North East. They're of North African and Middle Eastern descent. None of that matters. They are like white Americans in the Jim Crow South. And that is what a large number of people who cannot locate Israel on a map that have no idea what sea they're referring to when they chant or they post from the river to the sea believe. in this country like Louis Farrakhan, who for a long time have been legitimated and have more massive followings than I think a lot of people are comfortable to acknowledge. And that is also

a reality. Yeah, Farrakhan. I remember Chelsea Handler retweeting Farrakhan videos. This is a guy who's referred to Jews as cockroaches. Retweet. He's got a lot of thoughts one might want to think about, one might want to follow. Not to mention Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the intellectual mentor of our two-term president, Barack Obama, who was an obvious anti-Semite. And there are plenty of quotes to back that up. In this whole conflict, you've seen Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, all, you know, BLM, Chicago, not to mention the national, all either explicitly supporting Hamas or with a wink and a nod, making clear that's the side that they're on. It's been really stunning. And to your last point about how any outcome, any inequality and outcome has to be attributed to the oppressor oppressed narrative. I'm sure you saw today the news that the mayor of Chicago, who happens to be black, who ran

very open about how left he was. They had a chance to elect somebody who was more in the middle and they didn't. I mean, so you get what you vote for. Good luck to you, Chicago. Used to be a great city. This guy said, though, that he wasn't going to get rid of the elevated schools, the, um, they call them the high achieving select enrollment schools, the high schools, but he's doing it. He just announced his name is Brandon Johnson. Uh, he's going to ax the high achieving select enrollment high schools in an effort to quote boost equity, boost equity, boost equity, because you cannot have the kids taking the AP classes over here while all students, no matter where they live in Chicago, might not be taking those exams. It doesn't matter if there are two standard deviations in terms of IQ, testing ability.

You've got to put an upper limit on the kids who have this academic ability and drive and willingness to work hard because it's not fair in his view. They're going to have a better outcome than the kids who aren't. that the way to fix disparity, the way to elevate poor and minority students who are not performing is simply to get rid of any measure of performance at all. The latest thing, the story, I saw it on Twitter, Megan, like you did. At this point, I'm not surprised because it's part of a much broader movement that has been gaining traction for a while. At most elite universities in this country, you no longer have to share your SAT score, right? Think about what happened in cities like San Francisco, where Lowell, right, one of these amazing public high schools where you had to test into it, or Stuyvesant in New York. Progressives have been trying to sort of make war against Stuyvesant and other schools like that for a while, claiming that they themselves are emblematic of injustice when when instead what of them Asian, many of them the children of immigrants to work their way up a generation or two ago.

They were places where, you know, many Jewish immigrants to this country who didn't have two pennies to rub together would send their kids. The idea that we would sort of try and unravel those things that have actually been the greatest engines of opportunity for the poor is mind blowing to me. I don't understand how there isn't a mass progressive movement to oppose it. I really don't. Yeah, I think about the schools that my kids are in. We're in private schools in Connecticut. We were in private schools in New York. These are wonderful schools. The elite of the elite would send their kids here. And you know what they'd be doing if they got rid of the AP or advanced courses at these schools? They'd be hurting a lot of black and brown kids.

I mean, you can't just with a magic wand say it's all whites who I will now disadvantage by getting rid of the advanced challenging classes. I mean, that in itself is racist. What he's going to do is deprive the hardest working, brightest and best kids of color, too, of any opportunity to improve their lives beyond what maybe their parents had. It's his own racism. And there's an obvious implicit understanding that he's going to hurt the whites to equal them out to the blacks. And that's just not how life works, especially in today's day and age. But, you know, Barry, you look at our country right now, 2023 America, almost 24. And more and more, we're looking more like 1950, right? Where we just have this Boston mayor. You saw this Boston mayor sent out a Christmas invitation for a holiday party. All no whites need apply.

No whites. Thanks. Just quote the coloreds. That's her word. I'm just going to take the colors. I saw it. And then I was just I got drawn into other work. Did she defend it?

Yeah. The only thing she was sorry for is that her secretary, when she sent out the email invite, it mistakenly sent it to everyone, whites too. So whites got the invitation saying, you're not invited. So she was sorry that she called attention to the whites that they couldn't come, but she's not sorry about having a no whites party. I guess I'm watching all of this and I'm thinking, don't people understand where this goes? Like this goes nowhere good. The idea of retribalizing Americans, not to be aware of differences, not to be sensitive to historic wrongs or historic, and it was systemic racism in this country, but to be obsessively fixated on our race, to retribalize us, to make

us suspicious of people who look different from us because of that. I mean, it's just it leads to like what history shows is this leads to just the darkest places imaginable. And I don't think I think most ordinary Americans are absolutely horrified by it. Unfortunately, as you know, Megan, and as I know, this ideology has had just incredible power inside some of the most crucial sensemaking institutions in American life. And all this ideology knows how to do is to pull us back into the mean of history by tearing things down, tearing things down that have made this country so unbelievably exceptional, so tolerant. So when you look at other countries,

not racist, and somehow they want to they're making a choice in their positions of power to to undo all of that. And, you know, it's not good. I don't, I mean, I don't have any, it really is the, it really is the Kendi philosophy coming to life of like the answer to past discrimination is more discrimination except right against the, against the other group. I mean, he, he won't be happy until we see like whites only water fountains. That's, that's where his vision of America takes us. Sure. He's applauding the Boston mayor and the Chicago mayor. By the way, we have the Boston mayor defending her actions. She's an Asian woman married to a white guy. So I don't know, is she considered colored? Can she go because she's people of color and the husband, he gets the boot on the forehead. No, it's sorry to

to light. Here she is. There is there is no universal truth. There's no principle. There's just power. There's just power. And, you know, and they believe that that, as you just said, as Ibram Kendi, thankfully, he says it very explicitly, that the answer to past discrimination is present discrimination. And I just never believe that. That's why, you know, in of sort of the DEI victim, you know, the good side, the victim side of the DEI matrix? She's using air quotes for the listening audience. Keep going. Put us in a better position. That is the wrong answer. That is always the wrong answer. And that is because the answer to pass discrimination

is not more discrimination. It's to get rid of discrimination. It's to get rid of an ideology and a bureaucracy that goes by the name DEI, that uses these virtuous words like diversity, equity and inclusion, robs them of their actual meaning and uses them as a way to to create, frankly, what we're seeing right now, which is illiberalism and anti-Semitism run amok. And, you know, I've had many, many, many hundreds of conversations over the past while inside the Jewish community with people who are saying, you know, who are who are really trying to come to terms with the fact that the solution is not for our community to beg for a better position in a poisonous, ruinous ideology. It is to fight to uproot that ideology root and branch, because guess what? It's not just dangerous for Jews. It is fundamentally dangerous for every single idea that has made this country exceptional, yes, for Jews, but for every single one of us. You know, I feel somewhat hopeful that our coalition that you and I have been part of for a long time fighting back against this nonsense

is growing. I don't feel good about the means that led to this growth, but I'm glad to see it growing through a couple of things. Obviously, the rise in anti-Semitism in America after 10-7 is the number one thing driving formerly woke or just more left-leaning liberal Jews to reevaluate their thoughts on DEI. But let's not forget the affirmative action case that an Asian student brought, and many other Asians were affected by it because of the discrimination going on against them at these Ivy Leagues. These groups who culturally have been raised to work hard to prize academic achievement and then have attained it now get classified as white, no matter whether, as you point out, they're really not Jewish or Asian,

but they get classified. Don't forget, Megan, Asians are white adjacent, according to this ideology. That's right. They're white adjacent, just like George Zimmerman was white adjacent as a Hispanic American. If you do anything bad, you're white adjacent, if you have any color. Anyway, it's good because as I see it, our little coalition is growing. And I know there are a lot of conservatives who have been anti woke, who are kind of irritated. Like, where were you when we needed you? A lot of us have been fighting these battles for a long time. I get that.

But I also feel like we're on the battlefield. It's Braveheart. Our army's been divided. It's coming back together. Don't say no to the additional troops. Do you Braveheart. Our army's been divided. It's coming back together. Don't say no to the additional troops. Do you want to? Don't you? Right. I have to say, well, there's two things that that reaction relies on. One is the myth, frankly. It's true that this ideology has been is obviously racist. That has been true. But there haven't been, as some have claimed, massive numbers of students on

American college campuses calling for white genocide or calling for the genocide of Asian Americans. So it was you can give people somewhat the benefit of the doubt for not being fully awakened to it. The second thing is that, you know, the response to people saying, I'm sorry, I was wrong or I'm sorry, I was wrong and I'm pulling my money even better or I'm sorry I was wrong. I'm pulling my money and I'm using it to build new things. Shouldn't the response to that be excellent? We're so happy to have you. The sort of like rejection of people changing their minds because they didn't wake up earlier enough.

It's just, it's an impulse that I don't really understand, to be honest. No, I mean that you could say that to me on the trans thing. You know, I've documented publicly that I was very much pro nothing but empathy for anyone who declared themselves trans six years ago, 10 years ago. And for me, it's been an evolution. It's not that I don't have empathy for people who say they're trans. It's that I see their activists as truly a dangerous, dark force. And I see what's happening to children in a very different light than I used to. It would be as if, you know, people who are way ahead of me on this, like the Helen Joyce's of the world said, no, get out. You were on the wrong side. No, we need as many helpers on these things

as we can get. Right. It's like Abigail Schreier could spend every single day of her life saying, I told you so. But instead, what she chooses to do is to say, you know, I'm glad I'm glad you're seeing reality. I'm you know, I'm glad you're here. Everyone has a choice to sort of be gracious. And it is interesting to me to notice sort of who has who has not extended that kind of graciousness. But I agree. I mean, if there's there's a silver lining to the reallyth. It's the fact that people are waking up to the reality of what this ideology is really about and the ultimate end of where it can go, which is a very, very dangerous and dark place. And I think the other thing is that those insults that many of us have withstood for many years now, they have really lost their poisonous power. I'm noticing people just call me whatever you want. I'm not going to be I'm not going to stand

here and and justify or apologize for terrorism and evil. And if you want to call me an ism or a phobe or whatever insult you can come up with, because I am willing to stand up with a straight spine and say there is a difference between good and evil and I will condemn evil. Go ahead. And that is a huge change that has happened in the past few months. Well, so one word on Abigail Schreier, who I know does work for the free press, too, and I absolutely love her and her book, Irreversible Damage, was a game changer for me, too. She was also one of our first guests. And I've read that thing forward and back a couple of times, and she's just so smart. It really opened my eyes to what was happening.

She has been brilliant and write about a lot before others were. But so have you, Barry. You know, you you're of the left and you are fighting back against this stuff early on. has been brilliant and write about a lot before others were, but so have you, Barry. You're of the left and you were fighting back against this stuff early on. And while your politics may not align with a lot of these anti-woke warriors on the right, your anti-work work is, I'd put it up against anybody's. I mean, you're leading the charge on that stuff and have been. But you also, let's not forget, as I put it to you when you came on the show so many years ago, walked out of the New York Times like Daenerys Targaryen with the fires around you, setting the place ablaze. Like, you people

are disgusting. You're biased. And one thing in particular you really don't like is Israel. You said that. And here we are. I mean, the proof is all around us daily. And I know you know that James Bennett, the guy who okayed the Tom Cotton editorial, has now dropped an enormous 17,000 word piece, just excoriating the Times for he was on the other side originally. So he was in the Times as a defender. Then he got the boot after he allowed Tom Cotton to say we need troops to contain the BLM George Floyd fallout. Now he's laying it all bare and he's backing up everything, everything you said. Yeah, it's a very, very long piece. It's on the cover of The Economist, just came out yesterday. It's really worth picking up the magazine or printing

it out and reading it. It's not something that's a quick, it's not, it cannot be contained in a quick tweet. But really what he shows, and it's such a tragic story because this was a person and this was my old boss, I should add, and a friend hired me and Brett Stevens from The Wall Street Journal to The Times was genuinely committed to bringing some measure of of political and ideological diversity into the pages. It's a really a story of of ideological capture it's a story of how trust can be destroyed in so short a time and it's really in the end a story about cowardice and in this case the cowardice of the publisher of the new york times and people who saw the way that the institution was being transformed, who disagreed with it in private, and yet who never had the courage to condemn it, to root it out.

And now I think the piece would suggest it's sort of too late, because once you lose trust with the public and trust with the reader, once you've made the fact that, you know, the paper is no longer about all the news that's fit to print, but all the news that fits the narrative old at the time editor, an extraordinary talent named Adam Rubenstein, who was one of several editors on that piece who had a hand in it, was hung out to dry by the New York Times and how profoundly wrong that was and the way that it ultimately drove him out as well. So it's I mean, it's it's an astonishing piece. There's there's two things that I think will shock especially your viewers. One is a conversation that James relays in which another colleague suggests not glibly, sincerely that trigger warnings should be put in front of op ed pieces of conservatives and heterodox thinkers as if trigger warnings would solve their problem. And the other thing is where he has a conversation with the publisher of the New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, in which James is relaying the complaints of one of the few conservatives on staff claiming what was so obviously true and the thing that sort of really, really wore you down.

And I say this again as someone who was conservative with air quotes in the context of The New York Times. But, you know, you guys I mean, you have a sense of where I stand in general. I'd say I've sort of always been like a pretty down the line liberal centrist, I guess you could say. I don't even know what I am now, given how far things have moved. But James is relaying this to the publisher, this sort of like grind of the fact that if you have the right views, your piece sails into the paper. But if you don't have the right views, everything is caveated, edited, triple, quadruple the amount of times. And it makes you ultimately shy away from publishing anything that doesn't

comport because it's just such a grinding process. And the publisher of The New York Times says to James, you have to tell him that that's just the way it is here, that the double standard is the norm here and he has to get used to it. And James talks about, you know, how of all the things that happened to him, especially in the three days before he was pushed out of the paper after publishing Tom Cotton. That's the only moment that he was actually felt shame about. Yeah. For obvious reasons. It's an extraordinarily powerful piece. I am so thrilled that that is now part of what I hope will be the historic record about in sort of the history of the most important newspaper in the country and how it was lost. Yeah, it was lost. And he lays it bare. I mean, he goes on about, here's just one example.

He talks about how a year into Trump's presidency, he published a slate of letters from Trump voters reflecting on the presidency. And his colleagues at the New York Times were so outraged, he got grilled by them at an internal town hall in which they demanded to know when he intended on publishing a page of full letters written by supporters of former President Barack Obama. of the Trump presidency and how the Trump voters are experiencing it, why then do we need a full slate of letters about someone who's no longer president? I mean, there are just so many powerful examples in here. But what that one speaks to is how The New York Times went from being a place that claimed to want to reflect the world as it actually is, right? Great journalism gives its readers information, even if that information is uncomfortable, about the world that they live in so that they can make informed choices

for their families, for their businesses, for their communities and for their lives. And instead, and this was like the core part of the change, it came to be that actually showing the views of half of the country came to be seen as somehow endorsing them, platforming them. And if you want to know how it is that the New York Times sort of increasingly reflects the micro bubble of an elite group of Americans speaking to each other rather than being the paper of record, that is how. And James Bennett's piece really, really will leave anyone who reads it walking away understanding how that happened. And, you know the preconditions for allowing that, right? He talks about, A.G. Salzberger recently wrote, the publisher, a very long piece in the Columbia Journalism Review sort of about the importance of journalism, et cetera, et cetera. And he talks about all of these virtues that are important

for journalists in America today. And James points out in his piece in The Economist that the virtue that is missing is maybe the most important virtue of all. And that is the virtue of courage. That's the virtue of courage. And, you know, that is not just true of The New York Times. It's true of everywhere we're looking in American life. It's like this epidemic of cowardice. And, you know, what it requires, especially of journalists in a moment where to write about a topic makes you can make you suspicious. What's required in that is not total fearlessness because that's impossible, but courage in the face of fear. And that's what The New York Times and so many other institutions right now are missing. And you just shrink your organization. You know, when Roger was running Fox News,

I was back then more, you know, I would say center. I had some center left positions. I had some center right positions. And, you know, I've said openly I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans in my eight presidential elections alive. And so I would come at some issues from the left, especially back then. He never, never said, don't do that. He said, it's good. Keep going. Like surprise people. It's I'm fine with that. He he understood it would it was to Fox's benefit to have these ideas fleshed out, to have challenges come from the left and the right, to not just go with Republican talking points all the time. And the Times, they're just too ideologically committed to those ideas, to have them challenged in any way. The Republicans'

ideas in and of themselves are considered harmful. And this is what Bennett writes. The Times' problem has metastasized from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favor one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether. That really is a worse sin than just ganging up on Republican ideas. To not allow them to be spoken or printed is a bigger sin. Yes. And the biggest thing of all is we're heading into 2024. And like, doesn't the New York Times want to avoid the thing that so shamed the newspaper in 2016? You know, like, do they want to their readers if Trump wins that election to wake up and say,

we're absolutely shocked. We thought it was going to be Biden with 100 percent certainty. Like it's actually in an ultimate way, very bad. You would think bad for business. But unfortunately, we're living in this moment in which the economic incentives are such that every paper, every station, everything largely other than independent podcasting and newsletter writing, although we can fall prey to it too, is captured by the audience and wants to feed it the brand of sort of partisan heroin that they seek. But ultimately, I guess I'm an optimist. My bet is that, you know, integrity and trust and telling the truth and being honest in Hamas were arrested preparing to attack Jews in Europe. My God, it's chilling. So, Barry, this thing is not over. As you know, the conflict continues, of course, in Gaza,

but it's spreading. And, you know, we're seeing sort of piecemeal attacks here in the United States and now over in Europe, which is especially sensitive for obvious reasons, given the history there. A news breaking this morning that four senior members of Hamas were arrested in Germany Thursday, preparing to attack Jews, Jewish institutions in Europe. They were ordered by Hamas leaders in Lebanon to bring weapons into Berlin where they could be used to attack Jews in Europe. The authorities say these men were tracked in October as they searched for weapons that Hamas operatives had stored in an underground cache in Europe some time ago. Not immediately clear if the men ever found that underground stash of weapons. So, I mean, this this is exactly the kind of thing that

could be potentially devastating. It's like the after, you know, shock to the original earthquake, not to be completely cynical, but I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened already on a larger scale. I have to say that this Telegraph story, I don't know why it's not the biggest story of the morning. I was looking sort of all over. I saw it there. I was reading the details. And it's really horrifying. I mean, it seems like it was a pretty developed plot. And I guess the first thought that came to mind, Megan, was like, this is what globalize the Intifada is. Like when people are sort of mindlessly shouting that slogan, what do they what do they think it means? This is what it means. It means not just war on the Jews and the non-Jews of Israel, but global war against the Jews.

And there was an incredible appearance by Douglas Murray, who's just been so superlative in every way the past few months. I know we both love him. He was on peers with a guy who was just dissembling and trying to convince people, trying to convince viewers that intifada actually means a sort of spiritual struggle. Like, sure, maybe that's the textbook definition of it. But when people are out there screaming for intifada, they are talking about an armed uprising against the Jewish people. And when you see people, civilized people, progressive, so-called progressive people posting about globalizing the Intifada or shouting it in cities and campuses around the world.

Like this story from this morning is what they're talking about. That's exactly what Hamas wants to do. They have said again and again, they want to do 10-7 over and over and over and over again. It's not about just making war against Israel. It's not just about making life in Israel untenable. It is about what is in their original charter, genociding the Jewish people. There was another story that kind of took my breath away. It's not a good thing to look at Twitter first thing in the morning. I don't know if this one's not very bad thing because many great things about uncensored Twitter, but also many, many disturbing things. And there was a story that took place. There was

a nursery director targeted in a suburb of Paris in which someone came in with a knife, a man armed with a knife, broke into the nursery and said to her, you're Jewish, you're a Zionist, five of us will come to rape you, cut you up like they do in Gaza. That's in Europe this week. And that's to say nothing of the kind of quiet erasure that's been happening during Hanukkah, in which I'm sure you saw there was a story, a London council said they don't want to light the menorah in public for fears of, quote, inflaming local tensions. It's unbelievable. Since when does lighting a menorah, bringing light in a dark time, how does that inflame local tensions? Shouldn't the normal response of a government or a police force be we will punish the people

who see that as a sign of hate? Instead, do something about it. Right. And do something about it. Instead, the response is, you know, Jewish community quietly, you know, do this in private. I'm sure you saw there was about it. I mean, like if Christians were targeted or if Christians found themselves in this kind of a battle and the response was, we're not going to allow the lighting of Christmas trees, the rock center tree, it's not

going up. And we strongly advise you against putting a lit Christmas tree in your window. There would be outrage. That's effectively what's happening here. Yes, exactly. I mean, at Harvard University, one of the rabbis at Harvard University, there was a video that went viral, at least in the Jewish community. And he talked about how, you know, Harvard has to put away the menorah at night because it can be, you know, because it's a I don't you know, because because I assume it's some kind of provocative symbol at Harvard rather than saying, no, we're going to protect that symbol as a major symbol of religious liberty to say this is what

we at Harvard stand for. Instead, it's we need to make this private. We need to make it quieter. We need to make it go away. And we actually have that. We have that soundbite from Wednesday night. Fantastic. I never spoke about this publicly, but this bothers me till this very day. You know what happens to the menorah after everyone leaves the yard? We're going to pack it up. We have to hide it somewhere. The university, since the first Hanukkah, would not allow us to keep this menorah here overnight. Because there's fear that it'll be vandalized. Think about that. We in the Jewish community are instructed.

We'll let you have the menorah. You made your point. Okay. Pack it up. Don't leave it out overnight. Because there will be criminal activity, we fear. And it won't look good. You know when change is going to happen on this campus?

When we don't have to pack up the menorah. We in the Jewish community are longing for a day that we can refer to the president and all of Harvard as ours too. Harvard has indeed not only has our back. And not only allows us to finally put up a menorah. But doesn't force us to hide it at night. That's unbelievable. They have $50 billion endowment. They can't get a guard to stand up there. But even more fundamental than that, it's like, don't people understand that religious liberty and religious freedom is one of the most radical and transformative ideas that this country was built on.

Like, it's just such a betrayal, not just, yeah, of course, of the Jewish community and yes, of Harvard's values. And of course, they have a $50 billion endowment. They can get a guard. But it's just the most fundamental level. It is a betrayal of one of the most core ideas that makes America so different from so many other places in the world. And there seems to be just a total, like, unmooring from those foundational values. And, you know, if one thing that I hope does come

from this horrible moment is just a reattachment to what those values are. That comes from looking at how far we have strayed from them and how far so many of the people that are supposed to be our moral and intellectual betters have utterly, utterly turned their backs on that. So well said. Now, one of the other things that's unique to America, for better or worse, is the huge population of obese people. And we're going to end this on a lighter note, kind of, it's a pun. It's not really a lighter note. Well, it kind of actually is a lighter note. Oprah, Oprah is admitting she's on Ozempic. And I know this is our team asked you what was interesting to you today. This was on your list and mine. Um, because of course you've done a lot of shows on Ozempic. I've listened to some of them. We've talked about this or any, there's a bunch of drugs. That's just one of

the name brands. And now she said she originally wouldn't go on it because she thought it would be quote cheating. But now she's admitted that her recent weight loss is due to Ozempic. So what do you make of it? Or she hasn't named the brand, but that this kind of drug. Good for Oprah. I've talked about it on my podcast with Peter Atiyah. I talk about it to anyone who will listen. I used Ozempic. I lost 15 pounds on it. I was on the lowest dose and it was incredibly effective. And, you know, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. No one should follow my medical advice. But there are horribly, horribly deleterious effects from being massively overweight. And now the fact that people who have struggled for an extremely long time, as Oprah's talked about struggling, I mean, that's been a huge part of her public persona, can take a drug that is so unbelievably effective. Good for her. And I don't know if you agree or not, but I and like anyone that had an extra 20 pounds, including me, it's it's it's

immediately gone. It's like, OK, like, let's be at least she finally admitted it. There's like all these housewives who deny that they're on it or like, we know you're on it. Just admit it. They're the ones who are attaching the shame to it. Oprah didn't help by sort of saying it's cheating. What do you mean it's cheating?

It's a drug that helps people control their appetite. How is that cheating? So she was probably on the wrong side of things when she was saying that. And now I think she was sort of forced to admit, because as you say, it's obvious somebody like Oprah, who's constantly up and down with the weight and hasn't been on the skinnier side for a long time. And then suddenly after this miracle drug comes like, we know, but she's still a spokesperson for Weight Watchers. And I guess she's going to still tell us that the point system is really what's behind the weight loss. Well, first of all, as, as a person who has done Weight Watchers many times before the point system does work.

It's just so way easier. The other thing is that Weight Watchers now, I think I don't want to be misspeaking, but I'm pretty sure that they have some kind of partnership with somebody because they're so unbelievably effective. Now, you know, are we all going to wake up a little while from now and have grown like some strange additional appendage because of the semi-glutides? I don't know, but I fit back into my skinny pants. So I'm happy. I'm guessing it's free too. All right. So a rare win for Oprah Winfrey here on the MK show. I'm an Oprah head. I mean, I used to be, but I'm, I'm against her now for all sorts of reasons, but I w but I'm also against obesity because I've told

my audience before, my doctor, my primary care doctor is a fattest. He is very against gaining weight. And there's a whole chart in his office showing you all the terrible things that will happen to you if you become obese. It doesn't take that much to cross over into obese. And so I'm sure he'd be in favor of this or most of these other weight loss methods that could get you back in normal range because all the diseases that kill you come from obesity, and then some. Dementia can be leaked. It's bad.

Try not to become obese, and if you are, you can look into one of these medications or the points or intermittent fasting or whatever works for you. Barry Weiss, it's a pleasure to see you, my friend. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. I'm so glad we ended on the note of Ozempic. May this be a

skinny and healthy year for all. Amen. That's a good resolution. Bye. See you soon. Don't forget to check out the free press. It's thefp.com. Up next, Kelly's Court with two of the OGs, Arthur and Mark, coming up. And boy, do we have the gamut for you. Don't go away. And now we turn to Kelly's Court with two of my favorite legal eagles. Can I tell you something? Kelly's Court is appreciated worldwide. If I could tell you how many people, not just from the United States, but from other countries, has told me that this is the segment they live for on the MK show. I'm not kidding. And these two guys are two of the OGs who made it possible back when I was still Megan Kendall, married to a different man and with different hair. Arthur Idalla, who's trial attorney and managing partner at Idalla, Bertuna and Kamens PC and criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsch. We got the latest on Trump, satanic statues, Mariah Carey and much, much more. Guys, great to have you back. You're our last live guest of 2023.

Yeah, well, you know, Megan, back in the good old days, you used to have these wild Christmas parties. I was jumping on stage and singing Mr. Brightside of the Killer. Like, what happened to all that, Megan Kelly? I know, you're right. What happened to the parties? Right. I'm promising we're going to renew that next year.

It's done. It's happening. Just because I need to see that again. By the way, not for nothing, but Arthur is going to be jumping on a different kind of stage on February 14th of this year. Do you want to tell everybody what you're doing? It's like one of the biggest legal things to happen in America. Yeah, I got the I got the letter.

I think I got the letter last Monday. It's weird. You know, you get a letter from the Court of Appeals, which in New York State, that's our highest court. And on February 14th at 2 p.m., I told my wife, honey, we're not going to be going out for a fancy lunch with a dozen roses because I'm going to be before the seven judges of the Court of Appeals arguing the case of the people of the state of New York versus Harvey Weinstein. And there are definitely some legal issues there. You know,

sometimes as Mark knows, you know, you kind of go into something and you do the best you can, but you know, the likelihood of success is not great. Here, I mean, there are real legal issues. You don't automatically get to go to the Court of Appeals. A judge has to read a letter that you submit and decide that the issues are so grave and would affect a lot of citizens of the state of New York. Therefore, it should be heard. And this is going to be that case. They're going to do great. Does it matter? What'd you say, Mark? He'll kill it. No, I'm being serious. I think it's going to do great.

I'm already a nervous wreck. But it's not about Harvey Weinstein. It's about the other defendants who have the same legal issue and let them argue it. Let's see what happens. Yeah. But here's my question for you. Does it matter? I mean, one of the issues you're raising is this parade of other gals who came forward in the trial against him, not just the ones who were the actual accusers, but really, can you allow that? You know, we used to not allow that, you know, sort of prior bad act evidence wouldn't be allowed. It was against him. New York's got this law in any event. That's one of the things. But once he got convicted in L.A.,

I wondered whether this New York state appeal matters other than like in principle. Well, you know, what Mark just said, there's two real main issues here that would affect defendants throughout the whole state. One is what you just said, Megan, prior bad acts. They're only supposed to be allowed in for very specific purposes. And one of them is like to prove identification, like, is this the guy who did it? And the silly example I use is in the movie Home Alone, when the two burglars used to burglarize a house, they used to leave the water running and they wanted to be called as the wet bandits. Well, that's how you could, that's something you could utilize in a trial if there was an

identification was an issue here in the harvey weinstein case um he was accused of assaulting two women but the judge basically allowed five six seven other witnesses to talk about similar circumstances and that's just so much more than any other judge has ever allowed. So it doesn't just apply to sex crime cases. It can apply to any case, a robbery case, a burglary case. And the other issue is this was a he said, she said case. And there's a ruling in New York called the Sandoval ruling, which is before the trial starts, the judge makes a ruling is the defendant testifies. What is the prosecution allowed to cross-examine them on about their acts? The most a judge has ever done is three or four, and they're usually arrests or convictions. Here, the judge was going to allow in 28 prior bad acts.

Like he had a fight with his brother. He had a fight with his general manager. He got mad at a cocktail party and flipped over a table. But you know, Megan, when you go into a courtroom and you put your client on the stand, and you have to spend the whole day going through 28 acts before you talk about the ones that he's on trial on, it's a tremendous prejudice. So these are issues that affect every defendant in the state of New York. And that one, who has a prior, because it wasn't just crimes.

It was prior bad acts. So they can say, oh, I was with Mark Eichlosch, and he got mad and he broke a mug. And the judge goes, okay, if he testifies, we can bring that up. It's not a crime. It's not an arrest. So these are two major New York state issues. And I think that's why the court wants to hear it, not because it's Harvey Weinstein.

I think they would prefer to dodge it. But let me just add one more thing, the la piece of it because yes um if they overruled the new york case harvey weinstein's not going anywhere and megan i'd like to think take some pressure off of these judges from the personal point of view to really just examine you know you always hope they're just going to look at the law but hopefully that'll take the pressure off like look if we overturn this it's not like the guy's going anywhere he's still going to be in jail and he just has to do a retrial on the flip side his la appeals lawyers are very optimistic with the issue that he's facing out there it is complicated and i will be spending christmas break reading our appeals to the lower court and then to this court and going over the

transcript. You know, it's a nerve wracking process. So I'm excited, but terrified. The amount of prep that a lawyer has to do before an argument like this is all consuming. This is one of the reasons why I left the law. But I can only imagine, you're not kidding when you say you're going to be spending the holidays reading over everything because you never know what you're going to get asked. It's somebody's life on the line, really. And as you point out, really not just Harvey Weinstein's. A lot of defendants and in some cases, guys who are wrongly convicted. I don't believe Harvey was, but OK, a lot of guys who were their future is kind of depending on you. So it's this is serious pressure. It's not like

like I just had a presidential debate. That's a lot of work. And there's some pressure there. No one's going to die or lose their freedom if I don't perform well. They are like you not to raise the stakes on you, Arthur. But I was going to say, is she trying to help me out or just give me more like pressure on my shoulder or anxiety? But you perform well under those. The part though megan as you talk about the prep time usually in your cases they only give you like the maximum it's 30 minutes to like and then it's not really an argument as you know you go up there you say hello my name is author i dollar represent harvey weinstein let me just tell you this oh the judges just start asking you questions but if they let me go 25 minutes that'll'll be a lot. I'll probably study 100 plus

hours to be prepared for 25 minutes. That's kind of crazy. Because you don't know the questions in advance. They could go anywhere and they could choose one of those questions and burrow down on it for the entire 30 minutes. So you have to be 30 minutes prepared on every possible issue in the case. It's incredible to me, in my experience, how well prepared these judges are when you go in there, because not only have they read all the briefs and their clerks have read the briefs and prep them, but they have a lifetime of experience in the law and on the bench and all these other cases that you and I aren't necessarily sitting there for every day. So the wealth of knowledge they bring to it, again, I'm scaring

him, Mark. This is not right, but I'm just saying it's a big deal. He's a big deal. Arthur has been to the Super Bowl, metaphorically. He knows how to handle himself. But let me just tell you, Megan, just since you brought that up, it's a little inside baseball because I remember discussing this with Justice Scalia. A lot of what the judges are doing up there is they're trying to make the points to their colleagues and they're using the advocates to make those points points whether it's a point in their favor or a point to uh you know push down one of the their fellow judges opinions so it is like a whole show that's going on there and i kind of already know there's seven judges i kind of know like three are with us and two are definitely against us and there's going to be that

little undecided vote in there that, and what you said also is they try to maybe railroad you down one issue. So let's just say that Molyneux issue, like can other people testify to similar things, but I definitely need to get out the other issue about all the prior bad acts the judge was going to allow in. So it's, yeah, it's going to be, I'm going to have a good night's sleep the night before. And I know Megyn Kelly will be rooting for me. So that'll I'll be watching it, too. We have plans.

We're going to tape the whole thing. We're going to put it on the air in part like we'll pull the highlights. No low lights. Don't worry. There won't be any. And maybe we'll have Mark back on because Arthur will be drunk undoubtedly after this is over and we'll deconstruct the whole thing. I'm excited for you.

This is a big deal. And it's going to make a lot of news. So God bless. You know, we're all rooting for you. All right. So another person who's got a very big appellate argument coming up are the Trump lawyers. This let's start with him and his push to get the J6 charges against him entirely dropped because he says that federal case in D.C. It can't be brought. All those charges have to be dropped because you're saying that I committed crimes while the sitting president of the United States. That's not allowed.

The courts already ruled that in many cases, civil lawsuits can't be filed against a sitting president. And that should be expanded to criminal cases. So your whole case fails, Jack Smith, as a matter of law, the D.C. judge, Tanya Chutkin, who doesn't like Trump, she ruled against him, saying wrong. Just because there's that prohibition on some civil lawsuits doesn't mean if you commit a crime, you have immunity as president. And instead of then Trump appealing this to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is above Judge Chutkin, the prosecutor, Jack Smith, skipped that court, went right up to SCOTUS, the Supreme Court, and said, please take an expedited briefing on whether you'll take this case because I need you to take it. I need you to take it right away. And then please, if you take it, hear it on an expedited basis. Like, do it all. Do it quick because I really need Trump to get tried and this to get settled well in advance of the election, which is, in my view, very close to

partisan hackery. I mean, that's the closest he's done to actually just showing his cards like he wants this guy out and a convicted felon before Election Day. But in any event, how do you like his chances, Mark, when he goes up to the Supreme Court? How do you like Jack Smith versus Trump on the question of immunity? Well, I don't know what the Supremes are going to do on this. I do think it's a major issue of public importance, and I think that they should deal with it. But if they don't listen, he's a prosecutor, whether he's leaning to the right or left. Yes, of course, he wants Trump convicted. That's his job. Right. But so that's the fact that he wants it before Election Day is what makes him a hack.

Well, that's your opinion. I mean, you know, prosecutors cases don't get better with age like wine. Any prosecutor would want a case brought as soon as possible and will use. And why did he file this earlier? He had three years. I mean, January 6, 2001 was what, two and a half years ago. He could have filed it long before now. I make the same argument, too. But a lot of prosecutors have to get all their ducks in a row. They're investigating the case that long. You'll argue, well, it was politically motivated. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But prosecutors do take a long time before they indict people. And that could easily be his argument. I don't know. He knows what's in his heart and his mind, why he did it. But hold on a minute. I believe one of the Supremes is his way to get this case to trial as fast as possible,

and the defense clearly wants to delay it. I agree with all that, but I think it's hackery that he's peddled to the metal. And I also really wanna know what you guys think about this immunity claim, because it's, as I understand it, as yet undecided. Go ahead, Arthur. Okay, so there's three things about getting, skipping over the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which is the most prestigious circuit, just jumping, leapfrogging over them and going to the Supreme Court. Number one, it's got to be a matter of grave issue to the public,

which this definitely is. Number two, it would wind up be a matter of grave issue to the public, which this definitely is. Number two, it would wind up there regardless, which this would. So Trump is appealing there. But if he won or whoever we're going to lose, either way, it would go to the Supreme Court. And the third one is the timeliness issue. And that's where you and Mark are battling it out. Is there really a rush from a legal point of view? Is there such a rush? Now, if you look at Bush v. Gore, which skipped over the circuit court, there was a rush. We

needed to know who's the next president of the United States who's going to lead the free world. So that was clearly a rush. Here, it really is a matter of opinion whether there is a rush and that the special prosecutor should be able to jump over the Court of Appeals. Megan, to your point, though, he could not have brought this earlier because it wasn't ripe. You have to have a ripe issue to go to the court. You can't ask them for an advisory decision. No, no, I'm not talking about the Supreme Court appeal.

I'm talking about the charges in chief against Trump. They could have been filed any day after January 6th, 2021. You're talking about the whole case. The case. Yes, I'm saying because Mark's like, you know, why he needs time is of the essence. I'm like, well, why didn't he bring the case sooner then? So you're suggesting not suggesting you are saying to America and internationally, your big audience, that this prosecutor could have brought these charges earlier, but he sat back, he waited and then timed it out for political reasons. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. It seems pretty clear. He watched the criminal landscape unfold around Trump and he he's got the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

And then when that started to get gummed up and everybody knew it would be dogged down by document review and who's going to have access to classified documents and who's not magically under pressure from the left that really this is their this is like the golden cow. The J6 told him responsible. They couldn't do it via impeachment conviction. So they want to do it via criminal conviction. He did it. He folded. He brought this bullshit case. Is that what you're saying? Are you saying it's meritless that there's absolutely no evidence to support any criminal wrongdoing? Yes, I believe this case is made up and bullshit. Is that a legal term? Yes, it is. You should use that on February 14th. So nobody's going to take me on. I don't I don't think that Trump is going to win on the immunity argument.

But I don't know, because this this high court, they I'm not sure they're going to love criminal prosecution against a president for acts he did while in office. You know, there's a good argument. What about the Nixon? What about the solution for that? What about the Nixon president? But it's not directly on point. It's not directly on point. Like this is a I know this is a case of first impression. And the court is very conservative, you know, right now. So I look, he's got a chance, but I still think he's going to lose. I think he's going to lose. Yeah, go ahead. Trump aside a second, just like again, let, let's be intellectually honest here. So if we say that he gets immunity, that means any future president, Republican, Democrat, or whatever, can do whatever they want in the office if it involves some criminal activity. And I'm not saying that Trump did

anything. I'm saying that the legal opinion in Trump's favor would be that any future president can do any act that is criminal in nature, but avoid any type of prosecution and conviction. I don't think so. I don't think so. But this one he's going to argue was so closely tied to the issue of the presidency and official duties, overseeing free and fair elections and so on, that it should fall within a scope of protected behavior. That's not the same as saying I can literally shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and this right court should say that I could never be held accountable. But I think in general, there's a preference to let the political process hold politicians for their account to account for

their bad behavior and not Jack Smith, not a jury. That's part of why this whole thing is an abusive process. Let me switch over because we got a lot to get to. That's part of why this whole thing is an abusive process. Let me switch over because we got a lot to get to. Now, we talked about this yesterday with the guys from Ruthless. Separately, there are a few J6 defendants who have been charged with the same crime Trump is charged with, with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, namely the certification of the electors' votes when it came to the presidency. And the rioting and so on was considered this alleged corrupt obstruction of that certification. That's why the J6 defendants

got charged with it. That's why Trump got charged with it, too. Well, helpful to Trump is this appeal that is going up to SCOTUS. They've accepted the case, deciding whether that is even a crime that can be prosecuted under circumstances like this. Apparently, this crime, Arthur, originally was meant to deal more with like Enron type stuff, like document fraud, you know, misrepresentations in papers or in testimony, that kind of thing, not necessarily rioting out in front of a Capitol. That would be a distraction. Right.

So they do have quite a decision to make. And if they throw this out, not only will it help a bunch of J6 defendants who have already pleaded guilty to this under pressure from the prosecutors, but it will be extremely helpful to Donald Trump. Well, it'll be helpful to him because that's one of, I want to say four, but it could be wrong. Four. Two of the four are this charge and then conspiracy to commit this charge. So if the court finds for these J6 defendants, two of the Trump charges go away and the last two are not compelling, but go ahead. So there's a lot of legal chess playing going on with this particular issue, because this is not going to be on a fast track because this

is not Donald Trump centric. So this case would not be decided until June. So if the special prosecutor wants to keep this going, if he wants to short circuit and make sure there's no delays, he can dismiss those charges. But it really depends on what the district court judge says, what the trial judge says. She may say, no, as of now, that's the law of the land. There's nothing dismissing it. We're going to go forward with that. Or she has the option of saying, I'm not going to waste the government's money doing this big, crazy trial with this extraordinary costs because you got secret service involved with Trump. I mean, it's going to cost millions and millions of our money. And the economic right thing to do is to say, we're not going to have a trial where the main

charges are going to get dismissed in June. We're not going to do that but if she does say we're going to go forward with it then they're going to go forward with it he gets found guilty the court reverses it in june and they get those charges thrown out so i don't think a lot remains to be seen i don't think a federal judge is going to sit by and wait for an appellate court to interpret it i think they're going to go forward. And it's not uncommon for criminal statutes that had a specific, you know, target crime area to be used by prosecutors a little bit past that. RICO statutes, what they started as and what they are being used for today, completely different ballpark. And, you know, it doesn't make it unlawful you know it's withheld you know scrutiny um and challenges so what mark is saying what just makes me smile about the rico

thing megan is you know my firm is representing rudy giuliani in the case in georgia where they're being charged under the rico statue and the guy who really brought Rico into our vocabulary was prosecutor Rudy Giuliani against organized crime. And I just watched some documentary called Get Gotti, which I normally wouldn't, but a lot of people in there who I knew. And the organized crime guys are saying in the documentary that Rudy and Rico really, you know, just watered them down to almost nothing at this point. And now here's Rudy Giuliani almost 40 years later being prosecuted under that statute to Mark's point. It really got turned on its head from being an organized crime statute to now they're going after politicians for it. That reminds me of Ernesto Miranda, you know, Miranda rights after he was let go because they

violated his Miranda rights and went up to the Supreme court. He was later stabbed in a bar and that guy got off because he invoked his Miranda rights. Oh my gosh. No way. All right. So you don't like the chances of the court throwing out the January 6th charge. Do you think that this corrupt instruction or corruptly obstructing an

official proceeding is likely to survive the Supreme Court review? I don't know. I don't know, Megan. I think it's going to be very fact-based. In other words, if someone ran, because there are different individuals here, if someone ran into the chambers and grabbed, hypothetically, grabbed Pelosi's gavel and stopped her from actually doing her job, yeah, that person is guilty of that crime. And some other schmuck just like wandered in, like in the heat of the whole battle and like looking around. Excuse me? That is mostly what happened. Somebody grabbed Pelosi's gavel from her office, not from the middle of the proceeding. But for the jury to decide as whether it meets the

elements of the statute, question is whether the appellate court is going to say this could never apply to this type of fact scenario, no matter what you have. And I think they're going to let it go and let jurors decide. But the judge, the trial judge at this point, has frozen everything. The trial judge right now, the district court trial judge, has said the only thing that's in place is the gag order, where you can't rag on the prosecutor or his witnesses. You can rag on me, the judge, but you can't rag on the prosecutor or his witnesses you can rag on me the judge but you can't rank on jack or his witnesses but everything else because the special prosecutor asked can we continue with our motion practice can we continue with the eliminate motions can we continue to prepare for the trial in march and the judge said no we're going to wait to see what scotus says but i believe she's referring to the first one about

the presidential. Yeah, well, that I mean, look, I was saying this yesterday. Delay works to Trump's favor. Delay is a OK by Donald Trump. If he can get this whole thing pushed to, you know, as close to the election as possible, that's good because there's a lowered likelihood of any judge, even this one throwing him in jail. I mean, if it's what, two weeks before the election, even this judge is not going to throw Donald Trump in jail pending appeal. I mean, she's just, she's not a lunatic. Um, so it's a benefit, much less pushing it to the trial to after November when he's, if he wins in charge of the DOJ and he takes the attack dog right off of the case. And that's the end of that. So that's really what he's hoping to do. I think the real issue would be if the trial got delayed to like July.

And this is when this guy is supposed to be out there, you know, shaking hands and kissing babies and all of that. Does this district court judge say, no, I'm not going to allow you to campaign for president. You're a criminal defendant. You need to sit here for this three week, one month, six week trial. And I'm going to take you off the campaign trail. That's going to be a very huge decision if it played out that way. It really could happen. This is actually interesting. The way it's supposed to work is hold on. I'll give you the form one second. But the way it's supposed to work is the party that is out of power gets to go first with its convention gets to, I mean, it's an advantage to go second because you can, you know, you have the final word and you can do cleanup. So, so the Republicans

would go in July and then the Dems would go in August. And this case was supposed to take place in March. The speculation was it shouldn't be that long a case. You could have a jury verdict by May if it's a conviction, which, you know, I'm flippantly saying he's going to be convicted because of the jury pool, but one never knows. Okay. But let's just assume for purposes of right now, he gets convicted under the best case scenario for Jack Smith that happens in, let's say May. And my criminal lawyer friends were saying that means you won't have a sentencing until like August in a, in a federal case. I don't know. Do you agree with that? You guys are trying these.

It's usually 120 days. It's usually 120 days, Megan, give or take. Okay. So it goes into 12, four times. Okay. See it's four months. Four months. Yeah. So May, June, July, August, September, somewhere in there. So that's, I mean, that's a nightmare for the country. Donald Trump has now officially been chosen as a Republican nominee, potentially. Now we are two months from election day. Those last 60 days are always crazed. And this judge may be sentencing him to jail because he's got to come up with a sentence from the conviction and having to decide whether he gets his freedom while he while he pursues an appeal. And there's a there's a chance she won't. There's a chance she'll say you're going to she's she is going to say you're going to jail if he's convicted. Is she not? I mean, these charges against him that he's going to jail if he gets

convicted on these and it doesn't get reversed. He would go to jail like any other defendant. That's the big issue here. You know, do do we want a judge to treat Donald Trump differently than almost every other defendant? These federal judges don't play. I put in for continuances constantly. They say, no, we're going to trial. I say I've got a gigabyte of evidence I haven't even looked at yet. Well, we're going. We're going. So the question is, should Donald Trump be treated differently than other defendants in federal court? And many say yes. And I would say generally, that just doesn't happen. People people are brought to trial. You get maybe a delay once, but you're going. So extraordinary. He's running for president, which is why many people believe he's been charged in the first place, though. Judge Shutkin's not going to accept that or factor

that in when deciding this. Go ahead, Arthur. So just because you brought up a very logistical, valid point is even when you get convicted and you get sentenced, there is something called bail pending appeal. And so whether that judge or the circuit judge, the court of appeals can say, okay, there are legitimate legal issues here. And I think no matter how you slice it, there will be legitimate legal issues here where the defendant has a likelihood of success. So therefore, as opposed to having him sit and wait in jail, we're going to let him stay at liberty. And usually the fear is they're going to flee. Well, you've got a guy who's surrounded with the Secret Service 24-7. He I'm going to fly my big Trump plane, and they're not going to be able to find me as I try to flee to another country. There he is. I see the big Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. He's got a good point. So wait, so that's interesting to me. So you like his chances of staying free, pending appeal, even if he gets convicted. And let's go down that lane for a

second, because you guys try these cases. I didn't say that. Hold on. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I said it. And you disagree. And I'm saying that he's not necessarily a risk of flight. And if the judge does think that there's legitimate appellate issues, she could grant one. But then the question again, I go back to, would a judge take another person similarly situated? What's the answer to that, Mark? Do they normally let them stay free pending appeal after a conviction?

Oh, you're in custody. That's it. No, no, but that's, Megan's correct. They don't normally do it, but it happens. It happens regularly. It's not like so rare. It's not like so rare. It's not like Haley's Comet. No, I agree. When I watched the practice, it was often the case. So you're saying, like, give me a percentage in the cases that you've tried in federal court with

criminal defendants. What percentage go right to jail pending appeal? I'd go at 90 percent, Arthur. I would say 80, 80, 85. So right. So it really depends on the legal issue. How strong is the legal issue that the Court of Appeals is going to hear? How many former presidents have ever been in that predicament? Like that's the X factor. And the question is, does that matter? Should the judge treat him differently when every other defendant you're going right in with the same legal issues that Trump has? But what, Mark, does it factor in as on a human level or any other level? If this judge has got a conviction of Trump in her hands, they've chosen the jury. The jury's done its job. The jury finds him guilty.

That. If he. guilty that if he gets elected in November, the whole case goes away. It all gets flushed down the toilet because now Trump's in charge of the DOJ. I think our friend Mike Davis is going to be the next attorney general, and there's zero chance he would challenge a Trump appeal. He would stand down on the conviction. Yes. I're asking. I don't know if this works post conviction. You're asking me whether a federal judge who has a lifetime appointment who tries to uphold the law is somehow going to think down the road that Trump is going to do something about his conviction, you know, politically based and will not take action right away. I mean, anything's possible. I would bet my kid's college fund that that will not happen. What about Mark? And this is not a yes,

no question. What about a judge taking the totality of the circumstances into the situation? So Donald Trump has now been elected president of the United States. And the sentencing, hypothetically, is right thereafter. Do you think it's in the best interest of the country to say, I am directing you right now on November 12th to go to prison and be in prison until January 20th when he gets sworn in? No, that can't happen. But for your mark, right, it can happen. It can. It can happen. It can happen. I'm not going to tell this judge what to do.

It's one judge in one black polyester robe who gets to make his or her own decision about what happens to him. And it is in that judge's thorough discretion to do so. Okay, but then it goes to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and they get to overrule that judge. They could. But how is that an abuse of discretion discretion to take someone into custody after conviction? Well, because they could say there are legal issues here that that this court, this D.C. Circuit thinks are really ripe and the defendant has a likelihood of success and we don't see any risk of flight. They could. But tell Megan the odds on that now. Again, how often does the appellate court reverse a lower court's decision on the discretionary decision as to whether somebody should remain free or whether they should be stripped of their liberties?

That happens very often. Let's talk to reality. Do you think they really want to cause a civil war? Because in my opinion, that's what would happen. If Donald Trump was elected president and they were going to put him in jail, I think it would start a civil war in the United States of America. This is terrifying.

Like this shit could happen. It is terrifying. That's the reality. We're not in fantasy land. This actually could happen less than a year from right now. Correct. It can.

Now, I think, you know, they talk about the deep state. I don't know about the deep state, but I think because I've been down in D.C. and I go to that bit to those lunchrooms. Mark, if that was the case, if this scenario actually played out where he's the president elect and there's a jail sentence hanging over his head, because I don't think the Supreme Court has power to look at the bail pending appeal, but the circuit court does. I'm thinking Donald Trump never sees a second in prison and they let him stay out till January 20th. And then he's got to win. That's what this boils down to. Donald Trump, in order to avoid jail, unless he gets a favorable

ruling on the law from an appellate court, that could be a way out of bad jury verdicts. He's got to win. He's must become the president next time around or a Republican who will pardon him on the federal charges, at least must win. As an aside, I keep having daydreams like, OK, if he is sitting in jail, he's got to be protected. So what his his his Secret Service guys are sitting there with him in the pokey? Yeah, yes. They would probably sit right outside. Yes. That's why we sit right outside the jail cell and make sure nobody stabs him. No one attacks him. No one chokes him. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I mean, he would be I maybe I'm crazy. I feel like he would be like a folk hero in there. They would nobody would try to stab him. They'd be celebrating him like he couldn't be in the general population. So he's completely isolated. Like, I don't even know how fun. I don't know. That's not maybe a house arrest. Maybe it would have to be a house arrest. I don't know. And they would have to be extraordinary circumstances because it's an extraordinary prosecution. Extraordinary man. All this is so deeply wrong. It's so wrong. Just let the electorate decide. The judges, the court system should not be involved in this case. It's it's so alarming. All right. Let's move on. Wait, let me just make it. Let me throw a crazy curveball in it because it's the case I'm

dealing with in Georgia. If somehow or another, by all of these circumstances, that case goes to trial before Election day or whatever. Even if he wins, he does not have the power to commute his sentence or pardon himself. He could only handle federal cases. This is a state case. And unlike the federal case, Rico charged in the Georgia case against him and Rudy Giuliani, there is a mandatory minimum jail sentence. What people need to know is if the judge was his father,

by the law, he cannot sentence him to anything less than five years in jail. And once again, the president of the United States can't help you. Only the governor of the state can help you. This is nuts. This is insane. This is insane.

Well, right now, I mean, there is a Republican governor, but they don't like each other. But boy, he'd be under pressure to help him out anyway, clemency or whatever. This is so insane, you guys. All right. Enough of Trump. We got to get on to the kid accused of blackface who didn't really do it. That's next as his parents are threatening a lawsuit against the deadspin writer who slimed their kid. Arthur and Mark, stay with us. Don't go away. figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, I'm back, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelly. You can stream the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM 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 MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. All right, we got a good lot to get to. Arthur Idol is here along with Mark Eiglars. There's the kid who's nine years old who attended a Kansas City Chiefs game wearing a Native American headdress. Half his face was painted black. Half his face was painted red to honor the team's colors. And some loser over at Deadspin.com who has spent his

entire career writing about he sees racism everywhere. This is one of those guys everywhere, everywhere. The kid's racist. The NFL is racist. Look back on all of his other articles. Everyone's racist. He may be in a lot of trouble, this writer, because he called this kid racist. He posted, among other disparaging comments, his name is Karen Phillips. He posted, it takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan, he means the nine-year-old, found a way to hate black people and the Native Americans at the same time. He posted a picture of the boy, only the black side of his face, suggesting wrongly that the kid was wearing blackface and wearing, here's the picture, a Native American

headdress. And then users posted the real photo that shows he was wearing team colors. He was not in full blackface, blah, blah, blah. He wronged this kid. And now, interestingly, the parents, Mark, are threatening to sue Deadspin. They've hired this big law firm for defamation, saying, you defamed our kid. You called our nine-year-old a racist. And when it was called to your attention, you didn't file a retraction. You didn't issue an apology. You just quietly scrubbed the website. Yeah, I think it was very irresponsible. I put my kids in that position and I say, how dare you powerful media do that to my precious offspring?

It was misleading. It was dishonest. It wasn't right. Now that said, I don't know if they're going to prevail in a lawsuit. I think it's better to pound the chest and threaten and try to get retractions and apologies. I don't know. I'm analyzing it. And it sounds more like an opinion. You know, his opinion is you shouldn't paint your face black at all. And yes, this kid is of Native American descent. So that would be his defense. But the guy didn't know that. And apparently, you know, you're not supposed to wear that kind of garb even at a game. So he has a right to criticize the NFL. I just I think it takes a lot. I'm a tremendous advocate for free speech, even if it's offensive and outrageous. I don't know that this crosses

the line to something that would be actionable. I think it's reprehensible. Unfortunately, I agree with you. What do you think, Arthur? Let's put it in front of a jury. Put Markeglash in front of those jurors in a civil case and talk about the irreparable harm done to this nine-year-old kid and the the uh negligence and irresponsibility of the guy who wrote the article not to look at the full picture not to see how old the kid was to do any kind of background check whatsoever about this kid before you put him a nine-year-old we're not even talking about like 14 15 16 a little boy it's a little boy my son is seven he's a little boy nine years old so even though you guys may legally be right i'll take this case any day of

the week the thing the reason why i would settle is i don't think deadspin is fox news and they're going to give up about 787 million, they probably don't have that much money. So I would rather have the bird in the hand and get something out of them. But this family should get something for putting this kid through that. Absolutely. I know. I mean, listen, I want him to win, but I just don't think he will because I think Mark is

right. It's going to come down to it was this guy's opinion as awful as that opinion was. How many nine-year-olds are really reading Deadspin? No, but his name is out there, Mark. In other words, this kid's name is out there, holding whatever his name is. So when he goes in and applies for a job anywhere, at Home Depot, at college, they're going to go and this is going to come up. If somehow he can prove those damages, then you got the damages. I still go back to the liability as reprehensible as it is. What specific opinion is not actionable?

People should just generally know that as a matter of defamation law, opinion is not suable. False statements of fact that are made knowingly in particular can be problematic legally. I'll take the case. I'll take the case Just the guy sitting there saying, I think that kids are racist. It's disgusting, but it's, it would be legal. Now, if, if the court finds that this was written away where it was presented as fact, it may be more trouble. Okay, let's keep going.

Mariah Carey's sued. She's been sued for many people's favorite Christmas song. All I want for Christmas is you. All these years after the song came out, a guy named Andy Stone, a country singer of the New Orleans-based band Vince Vance and the Valiants, has filed a copyright lawsuit in California federal court claiming she and her co-writer on the smash hit Walter Afonsoff ripped off the song from them saying they wrote it. This guy Stone in 1988 with Troy Powers.

It actually hit the Billboard top 10. So she knew she presumably knew about the song. And then she came out with her own version within a matter of months without paying him, without giving him credit. And now she reportedly makes $3 million a year in royalties off that song alone. Think of how much dough this woman has. That's not her only song. Okay. So we put the two songs together, his version and hers. So the audience can have a listen on just how similar the versions are. Let's go. But don't let my wish come true All I want for Christmas is you

Don't want a Christmas that's blue Take back the tinsel, stockings and bows Cause all I want for Christmas is you All right. A little bit there at the end. Right. No, you lost me at first. And then at the end, wait a second. Those words, were there any other similar words throughout or it's just the general theme of I am downtrodden. Like I have things I could complain about in my my life but the material stuff doesn't make me feel better you like being with another person that's what makes it that is the same but no but that's not what i got but megan we have one of these cases right now it's a guy a musician from ghana who and we're suing a very well-known household name, R&B star.

And it doesn't have to be, it's not about the words or the ideas, but if there are certain notes that are precise and clearly just lifted, like right there, it's kind of the chorus. All I want for Christmas is you. Not the words, but the melody and the words together. There could be liability. Put it this way. We did not lose on someone judging. I didn't hear the melody either.

I just heard the words. Well, if you play it again, you know, I have a musical ear. I'm in a band. I sang at Megyn Kelly's Christmas party. I know these things. That's true. Yeah. You're an expert.

This is what we're relying on. They're in a lot of trouble. Okay. Let's move on because there's no better time to discuss the satanic temple than Christmas and Hanukkah. So the satanic temple was founded by this guy, Lucian Greaves. He's been on my show before when I was at Fox. He envisioned it as a poison pill in the church state debate. He says the temple's aim is not to insult religious people, but it's more of a commentary of personal independence from, quote, superstition.

He doesn't actually worship Satan nor the followers of the satanic temple, but they focus on personal sovereignty and independence. So he, okay, in Iowa, what happened was the satanic temple was allowed to put up a display at the state Capitol building. They kind of have to do it because they had a Christian nativity scene up. And since it's a public venue, they believe they couldn't say yes to one religious group, Christians, and no to another, quote, religious group. That's how they got in. This happens all the time. And now there is a legal question about whether this actually does

belong there. Did Iowa have to allow it there? There are all sorts of objections. Last night, somebody got arrested for beheading the satanic statue. I don't know if we can say beheading when it's a statue, but in any event, does Iowa have to allow this, Arthur? You know, it seems so. It seems so. You know, the tax trick here, at least in New York, is these guys, they say they're priests or whatever. There's like the same type of a religion and they buy a building and they become tax-free. And they're dodging hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes because of it. It's kind of a scam. So I don't think that they could just say, well, you can do Jesus and you can do a menorah, but you can't do this guy's religion. Ron DeSantis, Mark, says this is not a genuine religious expression and therefore it should be removed.

They removed. They originally wanted to use an actual goat head on it. At least they managed to say no to that. Yeah. Ron DeSantis is not the expert on what qualifies as a religion. Somewhere there's an objective test. And if they meet it, even if we find them outrageous and we don't want to see their images because they're disturbing, they have that constitutional right. Yeah. And once again, I unfortunately I agree with you. I mean, it's one of the things that makes America great is that, you know, we don't favor one religion over another and weird as it may be. The only way we get our Christmas trees is by allowing this weirdness. So you walk past it, you make fun of it with your kids. You move on. It's a teachable moment. Uh, hopefully that's where it goes.

Guys, Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. Love you both. Happy everything. To you and Doug and the family. Yeah, to you guys too. Okay, don't go away because up next, we're bringing on Phil Houston for a jiffy quick session. We're going to do seven minutes together and he is going to tell you why every line of Hunter Biden's press conference the other day was a lie. Remember Phil Houston, the human lie detector, CIA, 25 years. Every word he said was dishonest in Phil's expert opinion. You're not going to want to miss this. When Hunter Biden gave his news conference on Capitol Hill this week, my next guest noticed some deceptive phrases. He is literally a human lie detector.

And I wanted to bring you his analysis. Phil Houston is a nationally recognized authority on deception. His program that he developed, Deception Detection, which they use to this day inside the CIA, has spread, it was there for 25 years, to several other agencies, the Secret Service, the FBI. I mean, basically all of our federal investigators are using Phil Houston's methods for detecting deception. During Phil's 25 years at the CIA, he performed thousands of interviews and interrogations, both as an investigator and as a polygraph examiner. He is author of the hit book, Spy the Lie, where he teaches you some of these techniques and is a founding partner of Q Verity. And he's got some thoughts on Mr. Biden younger. Phil, welcome back to the show. All right, let's get right to it

because we got a lot we're going to go through. I'm going to play the first statement because we got a bunch. Let's listen. Number one. I'm here today to answer at a public hearing. Any legitimate questions Chairman Comer and the House Oversight Committee may have for me. Already there was a lie. Right off the bat, Megan, there was deception. And the deception actually reveals what his goal is. And his goal is to give the impression that he is legitimately appearing before the body that's going to address these questions. In other words, he's immediately attacking or implying an attack on the body that's going to pose these allegations and questions to him. And he doesn't want to answer them because the facts are not his ally. He clearly has information regarding the allegations that he doesn't wish to disclose. And that's why he's saying, I'll answer the legitimate questions, whereas a truth teller would have said, I'll go in there and answer whatever they want me to answer.

Yeah. When he uses the word legitimate, he's teeing up a situation where he can pick and choose which questions he wants to answer. And he gets to determine in his mind which ones are legitimate and which ones are not. See, the audience needs to remember, Phil has a lifetime of seeing these qualifiers being used on sentences by liars. So they're like red flags to him. He can see them glaring in red lights where you and I are just like, okay, whatever.

All right, let's listen to Sot number two. I'm here today to make sure that the House committee's illegitimate investigations of my family do not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence and lies. Speaking of lies. Yes, indeed. What he's doing here is he's using aggression behavior in the form of attacks to tee up that he's the good guy in this scenario and they're the bad guy. And he's using, you know, the attacks that he's using specifically are the illegitimate investigations. In other words, he's saying that he's not giving you any data or any real denials that he didn't do anything. He's just attacking them because if he can't rehabilitate his own image, he has to bring their image down. Right. It's not a denial of the underlying conduct. It's just an attack of the investigation into it. Good distinction. Let's keep going. Number three.

And I'm here today to acknowledge that I've made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities and privileges I was afforded. For that, I'm responsible. For that, I'm accountable. And for that, I'm making amends. All right, so he wants us to believe he's taking responsibility there. This is the new grown-up hunter, not it? Yep, no, not at all. What he is doing here, these are non-specific allegations. Okay. And they're used by people who are afraid to, you know, wasted opportunities and privileges and so forth. These are things that apply to all of us. So if to the untrained

eyes and ears, a person who hears that they're saying to themselves, geez, that that's really what he's saying is he's just a normal guy. And in reality, what they're asking for is answers to questions, or they want him to appear before the body to answer questions. And he's not prepared to do that. Right. So you're saying, if I'm saying, you stole my wallet, I'm angry that you stole my wallet. And you say, I've made mistakes. I'm not perfect. I've taken advantage of my privileges.

And for that, I hold myself accountable. It's a non-answer. Exactly. He's, he's, he is saying, I've done a lot of things in my life, but I, but I, you know, but what he falls short is he doesn't say, I didn't do this, or I didn't do the things they're accusing me of. And, and you'll see in a minute, there's another example of that, that non-denial, non-answer. All right, let's do next, the next one, number four. But I'm also here today to correct how the MAGA right has portrayed me for their political purposes.

Well, that's in virtually every answer ever given by a Biden. So what was wrong with that one? Yeah, he's tiptoeing around the allegations here by saying he wants to correct things. And so what does correct mean? It's a very ambiguous statement and a broad statement. Again, he's trying to tee up this idea that these people are bad because they've got it all wrong. And in his case, he's good. And all he's done is made a mistake. He didn't break the law, so to speak. That's the implication he's trying to get across. So if you're innocent and

a truth teller, you're out there saying, look, I didn't do this, period. There's no reason to drag your accusers through the mud or try to diminish or discredit them. That's exactly correct, Megan. It is. When we see people in an act of wrongdoing fail to make the direct denial, that is a very significant deceptive behavior. Because in reality, for the truthful person, the way you just described it, that's their most important fact. That's what they're eager to get out on the table. We don't see that at all in here throughout the entire press conference. And that really is our attention when we when we look at it. Right. Right. Because a truth teller would want you to know that first and foremost.

All right. Another one here. This one, he went on and he waxed poetic here about I'm a son. I thought here I'll let him say it. I am first and foremost, a son, a father, a brother, and a husband from a loving and supportive family. I'm proud to have earned degrees from Georgetown University and Yale Law School. I'm proud of my legal career and business career. I'm proud of my time serving on a dozen different boards of directors. And I'm proud of my efforts to forge global business relationships. Global business relationships. What's wrong with this one?

This is classic deceptive behavior. This is a string of what we term convincing statements. When an individual where the facts are not their ally, and they're afraid to say, I didn't do it, so what can they say? How can he defend himself, so to speak? They go into the persuasion mode. It's a string of statements that in many cases here are technically true statements, but they have no little or no relevance to the allegations at hand. And what they're doing is is trying to simply buy the the allegiance of the listener and say, wait a minute, you know, Hunter Biden is a great guy. He may be a great guy, but that doesn't mean he didn't do or isn't culpable with respect to any of the allegations that are and our questions that are going to be posed to him. All right. This is the most important one and the one that made the

news. He had been saying that there had been Joe Biden never discussed business with his son. That was the original message. Then they changed it ever so slightly, like he was never in business with his son. And now the latest iteration comes out from Hunter Biden himself saying, my father was not financially involved in my business. And so, you know, as they keep saying, the goalposts are getting moved. Here was that moment, which appears to be where Team Biden has landed, not financially involved in my business. Watch it. Let me state as clearly as I can.

My father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist. What do you make of it? Megan, this is, he's relying on the phrase, I'm not involved, or my father was not involved in any financial aspect of the business. And in reality, there's a whole lot more to the business than just the financials. And the issue at hand is, did his father profit in any way from this business?

And he's really not addressing that. He's addressing the segments of the business, the financials. Well, what are the other segments? There's operations, there's strategy, there's personnel, there's all kinds of different things. And what he's doing is he's trying to give the impression that he's addressing the entirety of the business when in fact he's carving out most of it. And it would be interesting if you were to go down and ask him, you know, on the segment by segment, you know, especially maybe the strategy, whose idea was this and so forth.

And then the profit question itself, it's a way of trying to avoid that one. It's so funny because we all kind of know this instinctively, but to hear you put the meat on the bones really brings it home. This is why we know. And we may not have been trained like Phil is, but in the back of your head, you know, things are going off and you know what a truth teller sounds like versus these minuscule admissions that kind of obscure the larger picture. You're trained to see that. Let me finish with SOT 8, which is the very next one, which is also interesting.

During my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me. They literally saved my life. They helped me in ways that I will never be able to repay. And of course they would never expect me to. And in the depths of my addiction, I was extremely irresponsible with my finances. But to suggest that as grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. It's shameless. All right. So there's a denial. It did not happen. It's what we it's, again, what we call a nonspecific denial.

What does he mean by it in the sense that there's a number of allegations and so forth and he's not addressing them specifically? And that that's one problem. Also, up to this point, he has been mostly trying to bolster his own image in those instances when he hasn't been attacking the political opposition. However, in this instance, he's also now trying to bolster the president's image and his parents and feels that it's showing the quality of that relationship that he alleges to have with him and they have that they have with him and he has with them is is a good way of trying to curry favor with those who are on the fence here. All right. So bottom line, as you looked at that presser, it seems to me clear he wrote this himself. Your takeaway was what about Hunter Biden? It's a ruse. The real thing he seems to be trying to do is to go to

Capitol Hill and make an appearance, a public appearance, and use that as his response to the subpoena. But in reality, to address the subpoena, he's got to go inside. But he's trying to get them to come out by saying, I want to address these in the public eye. And I can't do that if I'm inside with you folks. I think it's a delaying tactic in terms of the Congress's, you know, working, the committee's work, you know, efforts. What's your level of certainty that we were watching dishonesty there? I think it's extraordinarily high, Megan. There's a ton of deceptive behavior from you can see from the first, you know, phrase in the first sentence all the

way to the very end. He lied top to bottom, in your opinion. He is he is being in my opinion, he is being very deceptive. It's what we see, what we see a lot when people are in trouble, and the facts are not their ally. I want to tell the audience, Phil and I have known each other a long time. He'll offer me this analysis, sometimes solicited, sometimes not, on Democrats and Republicans. It's never a partisan. He's torn Republicans to shreds with me privately and publicly as well. It's not about politics for him. He's just assessing the speech, the words and the indicators of deception. And here, Hunter Biden, you failed. You failed the Phil Houston test. Sorry, you are not the running toward becoming America's next top honest man. Phil Houston, thank you, sir. Thank you, Megan.

So fun. I love the Phil Houston takes, by the way, just, you know, not for nothing, but you know who else he said was lying? Tom Brady about deflate gate. That was another one. Shocked a lot of people, but I trust Phil. All right, before we go quickly, I want to tell you, subscribe to our American News Minute by emailing, by email. You can sign up at megankelly.com and today's will have my top makeup tip for you. And I want to tell you about our shows next week, a special edition of the show, taking you deep inside the disturbing and fascinating story of the Idaho murders and the suspect Brian, Brian Kohlberger. Have a great weekend and we'll talk again soon.

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