The Megyn Kelly Show - Fani Willis "Real Housewives" Drama, and Trump's SC Victory, with Emily Jashinsky, Eliana Johnson, and Phil Holloway | Ep. 731

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by Phil Holloway, founder of Holloway Law Group, to discuss Nathan Wade’s former divorce lawyer meeting with the judge in the Fani Willis case, the key element of the Terrance Bradley texts and what they could show, the relevance of attorney-client privilege, what will happen on Friday during the next hearing, Willis' attempts to counter the phone evidence related to the Nathan Wade affair allegations, how the Trump team is pushing on the issue, why DA Fani Willis’ emails could be important evidence in this case, and more. Then Emily Jashinsky, culture editor for The Federalist, and Eliana Johnson, editor of the Free Beacon, join to discuss Fani Willis and the “Real Housewives"-type drama in this case, how Trump's political enemies start acting like the person they hate, New York AG Letitia James’ “ghoulish” celebration of the Trump civil fraud verdict, Trump appealing the ruling, Trump's victory in South Carolina but Nikki Haley staying in the race, the female Georgia student murdered by an illegal migrant with a criminal record, the outrageous consequences of Biden's border policies, how the corporate media is burying this story, Biden’s sex life, the nuances to the Alabama IVF story, and more. Holloway- https://twitter.com/PhilHollowayEsqJashinsky- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/federalist-radio-hourJohnson- https://freebeacon.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. Happy Monday. Well, the South Carolina primary was Saturday night. Blink and you would have missed it. There wasn't a ton of coverage because the outcome was predicted and not that shocking. Former President Donald Trump won by 20 points over Nikki Haley in her home state. Not unexpected. Both sides claiming that they see some good news for their respective favored candidate in there, believe it or not. And we'll get to that and much more when the EJs join us in just a bit. But it's 2024 and a very unique presidential election year, which means the big news right now brings us back to Georgia

and Fannie Willis, where there were breaking developments over the past two days since we last left you on Friday. When we last spoke, I was in D.C. for CPAC and a stunning filing was submitted in this case. It was a filing by Team Trump alleging cell phone records show that Fulton County D.A., Fannie Willis and her lover, Nathan Wade, lied to the court when they claimed their affair didn't begin until 2022 after they started working together to prosecute Donald Trump. They did not have exactly a smoking gun, but it was about as close to that as you can get without having the actual thing. They had cell phone records showing him allegedly visiting her home 35 times in 2021, not 22, when they claimed they weren't lovers, 2,000 phone calls, 1,800 text messages over the course of 11 months, and at least two what appeared to be late night visits by Nathan

Wade to Fannie Willis's house or to some location very near it at a time when they claimed the two had not been sleeping together. That brings us to today. Since then, I should point out that Fannie Willis has responded to that motion. We'll get into it. And Team Trump has replied to her response. So they're fighting it out. And at this moment, we are getting ready for, or could be underway, Mr. Wade's one-time business partner, well, law partner, friend, and one-time divorce attorney, all the same man, Terrence Bradley, is expected to speak behind closed doors to Judge McAfee down in Georgia about whether he really does have a foundation to claim that all of his communications with Nathan Wade, really from the beginning of time, from the beginning of time of Nathan Wade's first

marital issues forward, should be considered attorney-client privileged. And if they're not, they're going to be in some trouble because we believe Terrence Bradley has some things to say that may put the lie to the story we've heard from Willis and Wade. We start on all of that today with Phil Holloway. He's the founder of the Holloway Law Group based in Cobb County, Georgia. Phil, welcome back to the show. So let's start with what is or is not happening behind closed doors, because we mentioned this on Friday. Nathan Wade is the holder of the attorney-client privilege that he had, at least for some time, with his one-time lawyer, Terrence

Bradley. And he has asserted the privilege and said it would be totally inappropriate for Judge McAfee to talk to his lawyer, even behind closed doors and chambers, about anything that was said between the two of them. So has the judge issued a ruling on that motion? And if he has, do we expect Bradley to actually appear in chambers and have the conversation or not? Yeah, great to be with you again, as always, Megan. Listen, what's going to happen, I think it's at 1.30 Eastern time this afternoon is when this in-camera review is supposed to occur. And all that means is, as you mentioned, it's just behind closed doors. It'll be the judge, Mr. Bradley, his attorney, and the judge. Okay. The judge, ironically, the law sometimes is quirky. The judge has to listen to the evidence and look at those text messages before he can

actually decide if he's allowed to look at them. And by that, I mean, if he's allowed to actually use them in making the decision in this case, because he can't evaluate whether or not they are covered by attorney-client privilege unless he knows what they are and how the information was gathered. We talked about this the other day. Lawyers sometimes, when they represent their friends, their business partners, they might know things that are outside the attorney-client relationship. If you pick up something when you're out having beers with your friends or at lunch or things like that, that's not necessarily covered by attorney-client relationship. If you pick up something when you're out having beers with your friends or at lunch or things like that, that's not necessarily covered by attorney-client privilege. So the judge has to look at this stuff and find out what is the source of this information

and then he can decide if it's covered by attorney-client privilege. But he's got to look at it before he can officially look at it, if that makes sense. So that's coming this afternoon. Of course. And if, let's say Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis went out to dinner or to drinks and they saw Terrence Bradley at the time, that's not privileged. Terrence Bradley can't assert privilege just because he happened to be the lawyer at the time. That would be information that he did obtain via his personal knowledge. Now, he testified he didn't get any info about their relationship from personal knowledge as opposed to via the attorney-client relationship. But this judge clearly, by the end of that last Friday hearing, had doubts about that

assertion. And that's what the judge is going to be looking to test in their private conversation today. Yeah. And this goes back, if you remember a couple of filings ago, it's hard to keep it at all straight, but Ashley Merchant, who is the attorney for Mr. Rowland, the co-defendant in this case, when she first named Terrence Bradley, she said, look, Terrence Bradley is going to come to court. He's got this information that's not privileged, that wasn't gathered in the scope of his representation of Mr. Wade. So she made those representations to the court. And we can infer from the testimony that we've seen that she has text messages. She has a conversation with Mr. Bradley. Mr. Bradley

has confirmed the existence of the text conversation. He has mentioned and talked in court about some of the text messages. So between what he has talked about and what has been listed in the pleadings, we can infer that Bradley has talked about Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis and their relationship and when it began and that it's not helpful to Willis and Wade. And so that's why we see the state fighting tooth and nail to keep this out. The judge actually ruled, I think it was Thursday or Friday, Nathan Wade had filed a motion asking the judge not to even question Mr. Bradley, but the judge said, no, he's going to have to get into that. And so the longer this goes on, the more the state fights to keep this information out, honestly, in my opinion, the worse it looks for them. Because if you remember, this is really about a conflict of interest and whether or not

Fannie Willis is making money off this, basically. So the longer it goes on, the more Nathan Wade is paid by the hour. And by the way more Nathan Wade is paid by the hour. And by the way, prosecutors never get paid by the hour. This is the first I've really ever seen of this with a couple of small exceptions here in Georgia that were for much, much less per hour. It's like $45 an hour. But the prosecutors don't get paid by the hour. The more they fight, the more they dig, the more the conflict of interest potentially becomes very real. And so that's why all of this matters. People are asking me, what about the guilt of the accused? What about those kind of things? Well, we're not there yet. This is about the fairness of the system. If you don't

have a fair-minded prosecutor, one who comes into the investigation or the trial of the case without a conflict of interest, If you don't have that kind of fairness, fundamental fairness, you don't have due process. And without due process, you don't have a system. You can't run right to the trial. I refer people back to the Duke fake rape case back in 2005 and 2006, where there was a corrupt DA who didn't much care whether he had a alleged victim making up lies about the three Duke lacrosse players. What Mike Nifong wanted was to win reelection in a minority majority community. And his pension would go up if he won a reelection one more time. And he decided he had a winner if

he pushed this woman's allegations, even though they turned out to be BS. He wound up getting disbarred. He wound up spending a day in jail. So what in that case, if we had followed the logic of the people coming to you now, we would just what about the guilt of the accused? Let's get right to the trial. These three accused guys know if there's a corrupt D.A. prosecuting the case, you have to stop and make sure that corruption is addressed. It's ferreted out. People understand how bad it is, if it exists at all. And that's what's happening right now to make sure there is not a corrupt DA pushing these charges against Trump and all the others. It's completely appropriate to do. And, you know, it would be nice if they would be a little bit more cooperative

about forking over information. Now that the thing you said about Terrence Bradley brought me to a question. Terrence Bradley brought me to a question. Terrence Bradley definitely texted with Ashley Merchant. There's no question. She showed him a couple of the texts when he was on the stand. He seemed very uncomfortable. He was caught. I mean, I don't know why he texted with Ashley Merchant if he didn't want it coming out. Right. But we saw the one where she forwarded him her whole motion to disqualify saying the affair began back in, you know, way before 2022. And he said, looks good. Who could testify to the affair? And he said, no, one's going to burn that bridge. And we appear to be looking at even more. Then he gets up on the stand against his objection, right? He tried to

avoid it and said, everything is attorney-client privileged. All my knowledge about their relationship is covered in the attorney-client privilege, and I have no personal knowledge. Now, Phil, that either means that he violated the attorney-client privilege when he spoke to Ashley Merchant, or it means he lied on the stand to the judge. It's one of those two things. There's no other alternative. Am I wrong? Well, I think you're pretty much right on that. And this is why he looks so uncomfortable, I think. And this is why he's really trying his hardest to not have to go down and answer questions, because he's really caught in a trap. OK, I mean, he's between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, you know, he's got to think about his his own reputation and all this. He's got to think about whether or not Nathan Wade is going to make a bar complaint for violating attorney client privilege if that's what he did. But remember, Ashley Merchant was very sure that the text messages and the things that he would testify to were not actually covered by attorney-client privilege. So, you know, he's kind of been rocking and rocking. He doesn't know if he needs to accept that. He put himself there. You and I both know as lawyers, if somebody texted you saying, Phil, you know, what about all that secret stuff your client told you? You would respond saying, I can't reveal that to you.

It's covered by attorney client privilege. Much as I'd love to share with you, go knock on somebody else's door. This guy gave it up. He clearly gave it up to Ashley Merchant. And I'm going to give this man who I don't know the benefit of the doubt and say he did that because he did have personal knowledge. I mean, most attorneys absolutely know you do not violate attorney client privilege, period. I mean, it's just grilled in you from the first day of law school. So I believe that this guy would know not to do that. He probably gave it up because he did have personal knowledge. And then when he got by the time he got on the scared, he was on the stand. He was scared. Yeah, this is a big case, obviously. And this is the kind of thing where sometimes people may say things, they may do things, they may text

things and not really think about how this may come out later. But we all tell our clients, you know, you know, first thing you do is is don't talk. OK, keep your mouth shut. Don't say anything. And the reverse is also true. As lawyers, the less we talk about our clients' cases, the better off we're going to be. And so he is between that rock and a hard place. I hate to repeat myself, but I really don't know any other way to put it. I think that he wants to get in that room and get out as fast as he can. He's probably hoping that the judge asks him as little as possible. Nevertheless, he's going to have to answer questions from the judge, and the judge is going to use whatever he learns today. The judge is going to use that, Megan, as a basis for determining what comes next,

because as of right now, they're scheduled for closing arguments on this hearing on Friday. But the Trump team, of course, is asking for the evidence to be reopened. I've got sources who are telling me that other defendants may be weighing in on that because I think they're sharing the cell data. So we may see other filings, but we don't know if Friday is going to be closing argument or if it's going to be more evidence. But in any event, the judge can't make that decision until after he hears from Bradley. And if he decides that these text messages are not covered by attorney-client privilege, and by the way, there's a good argument that Nathan Wade has waived any attorney-client privilege because his prosecution team said Ashley Merchant was a liar.

They said she had no good faith basis for even going here with these things. And so she's, I think, entitled to rebut that. And so if the judge says, no, this is something she can get into, we've got to reopen the evidence so that this can come out in open court and on the record. So there's so much riding on today. On that point, because there was this officer of the court, Ashley Merchant, had her integrity impugned.

We all saw it by Fannie Willis, by Nathan Wade, who said, you lied. You lied about getting Terrence Bradley communications. And you claim that was the whole basis for this hearing that he had this information he was going to share about us being liars. Well, you're the liar. You're the liar, Fannie Willis said. So because of that, is this judge entitled to look at all the text messages? We heard Ashley Merchant say, I'll give you my phone. You can put it in evidence. I would even take the stand, which is extraordinary to have the lawyer become the witness. But she said, I would do it. So do we think that this judge, you and I haven't seen all the text messages, but do we think that Judge McAfee has seen them all or is about to in an hour and 15 minutes?

Yeah, I think he's about to. If they've been submitted by Ms. Merchant or anybody else, I'm not aware of it. That's not been made public. But he's got to look at it. He can't consider what they mean unless he sees them and he learns about the entire context of all of this. And that's what this is about today. And I think my prediction is that he's going to allow these text messages into evidence. Now, they might be subject to some kind of protective order so that they're not made public. But that's the other wrinkle here.

We may not actually see them in this court case. We might see them some other way. Let me ask you a question, though, Phil. Why would he seal them? Why can't I see them? Terrence Bradley sent them to Ashley Merchant. That's not privileged. Ashley Merchant can put them, she could leak them to any publication, including the Megyn Kelly show

today. There's, is there some sort of protective order already in place that would prevent that? Because I heard her read from a couple aloud in court. Why can't she read from them all? Why can't we know? Well, you remember the filing that blew this up with the cell data. If you remember, it's like 450 pages long, but only like 12 pages are in the public record. The rest of it is covered by this. It's a standing protective order that shields confidential or sensitive information. So I don't know. I'm just predicting the judge could say that this is something that's covered by his protective order. It's a standing order. Or he could say, no, it's all fair game. Ashley Merchant, she's not Nathan Wade's lawyer. She's not bound by any privilege,

and she can do whatever she wants with it. So he could do that. And I personally think that one way or another, they're going to become part of the record in this case. I do think the judge is going to consider them. I hope they're made public in this hearing because the public has a right to see what's going on in this. This is so important to our national collective interest in having a public discussion about this election. Yeah. So we've got to know what's going on. Because here's the thing. Think about this. The judge is meeting with Terrence Bradley today. Terrence Bradley. OK, let's say he shows him all the texts. Ashley Merchant shows all the texts. And let's say the texts are much worse than we know. You know, he's going on. They're lying. They've been having the affair since 2019. I witnessed it. He asked me to lie for him. I'm

going worst case scenario for Nathan Wade here. It's imaginary. We'll see. Now the judge sees this, but the judge says, okay, you know what? I can't consider it because it was covered by the attorney client privilege. So I'm not able to technically and officially consider these. Then what do you do if you're Ashley Merchant or one of these defense lawyers, all of whom have seen it by now? They leak it. Someone's going to leak it. If he rules against them, someone's going to leak it. Trust me, I've been in the news business long enough to know that's what's that's what will happen. And then the judge looks terrible if the judge rules, you know, in favor of keeping Fannie and Nathan on this case. And then a report hits in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution or wherever that there's extensive text messaging from Terrence Bradley

saying they're liars. The affair began long ago. Right. It's the judge can't put himself in that position. Laws of reality should prevent it. Yeah, all true and remember he can rule in favor of ashley merchant and her client mr roman based on the testimony of miss yurdy right we have people already who have come out on the record uh not just you know tell about this is worldwide attention we're getting here they've publicly said this affair started much earlier, 2019 is what you already said. The cell data is, as you mentioned, not a smoking gun, but it's strong circumstantial evidence that there's a fraud being perpetrated on the court. And honestly, I think the judge has to do something.

If I'm the judge, I want to preserve the dignity and the sanctity of the process. I'm going to refer this out, if it were me, to some independent third party to investigate, were they telling the truth or were they not telling the truth? I wouldn't necessarily leave it up to the litigation, the criminal litigation taking place in my courtroom. Somebody or some entity needs to get to the bottom of this and prove one way or another, are they lying or are they not lying? Because right now, there's a pretty strong circumstantial and even direct evidence that they were lying. So, Phil, in that scenario, what you're saying is the judge could say,

I don't need to have a mini trial about this alleged affair and the alleged lies they've probably told here. I've seen enough to believe Yurte, Robin, your tea, and to disbelieve these two. And I'm bouncing them from this case, but there's a matter of ethics as an officer of the court. There's a matter of potential perjury. If they lied under oath that I leave for someone else to look into is that that's an option for him. Yes, it is. I think that, uh, you know, judges like to split the baby, so to speak. And if they have an easier way to rule on something than taking the hard way, they're going to take the easy way. And I'm just trying to put myself in his shoes. I might not want to get into this whole can of worms.

I might want to take the simple way out and say, I disbelieve the testimony of Willis and Wade. I accept the testimony of the surety. The defense has made their thresholds showing here and demonstrated that there's been some fraud being perpetrated on the court, which, by the way, I think is, in addition to any conflict of interest, this is enough for him to bounce Willis off this case and then everybody who works for her is off the case. So yes, he's got an easy way he can get out of this. And it's going to be interesting to see what he does. But if he wants to get out that way and not have to make the very difficult ruling, he certainly could do that. Which they never want to make the very difficult ruling. So we'll see

whether he's any different. Okay. So that leads us, you mentioned the cell phones. That's also what we talked about on Friday. And there now have been responses to the bombshell motion that team Trump dropped on Friday with the cell phone records of prosecutor Nathan Wade. I mean, an extraordinary thing. One of the questions I asked you was how do they get their hands on the prosecutor's cell phone records? And you said they issued a subpoena and you're allowed to do that. And sure enough, we now have Fannie Willis's response to the Trump motion saying a bunch of stuff. She says, it's too late. You know, we already kind of closed the hearing. You're too late. And by the way, you can't submit opinion testimony or expert testimony like this without meeting a couple of

foundational things like qualifying the guy as an expert. And you didn't do any of that. And they also say this doesn't really prove what you think it proves. And they say kind of what I was saying, which was you may have gotten these illegally. You didn't. How'd you get how'd you get these? They seemed surprised that the defense had managed to get this too. And now we also have Trump's reply trying to address each of those points. So I'm, I know you've read the briefs. What do you make of where we are on these arguments? Yeah.

Well, I think that the, the response that the state filed, I guess, late on Friday was a lot of it was ridiculous. Setting aside, they tried to present Willis as having some kind of an alibi for the sleepover dates that were claimed in September and November, and they attached screenshots or PDFs of her calendar for dates in April and May that had nothing to do with the dates in question. So putting that issue to the side, one of the most ridiculous claims that they made was that the defense had no legal way of getting this. Well, I said it, and I think you said it, others have said it, compulsory process means that lawyers get to subpoena witnesses and evidence in

their favor. And this is one of the biggest tools defense lawyers have to defend their clients and to get information. The cops in the investigative stage, they need a warrant. It's got to be supported by probable cause. That's Fourth Amendment. But we are now dealing with the Sixth Amendment. Now that you've brought criminal charges, the defense gets to investigate the case and they get to present evidence that's favorable to them. Trump, in his footnote on page two, his lawyer says the records were obtained by a valid subpoena issued to AT&T, and they say that the state's claim in that response that it was somehow illegal is patently frivolous. They said that it's, and I agree, it was kind of a frivolous argument to make. And it's not the kind of thing I would be expecting from professional prosecutors.

But the Trump motion, the most recent response points out that this is not opinion testimony. This is direct evidence. It's what we call impeachment evidence. And in the legal sense, what that means is that you're basically attacking the credibility or the substance of what somebody has said in court. In this case, Wade and Willis had said that, you know, these overnight visits didn't happen. Well, this is this is meant to contradict their their testimony. And this is something that is also allowed by the rules of evidence. It's not that Charles Middlestat, the investigator, is coming to offer his opinion on things. He's coming to

present the data. What is it that was collected? And he can offer a summary of it. So Trump is, I think, right on that point. He's right that the information was obtained legally. He's right on the point that it means that there's strong circumstantial evidence that these meetings, overnight meetings, we talked about on Friday, the kitchen cabinet or whatever that means, you know, these things did occur. And this is not conclusive evidence that they were necessarily having sex or anything like that. But what it is, it's circumstantial evidence that corroborates Yerdy and it contradicts their direct testimony in court. So it goes to prove two things. It goes to prove that they possibly might be lying to the judge in this case. And it goes to show

that the conflict of interest is real and that it began much earlier than Willis and Wade have said that it did. So honestly, if I had to be keeping score right now, I would say the Trump team is clearly winning, at least in the battle of the competing briefs here. But the arguments that were raised by the state in objection to these records, I thought was really not that great. And honestly, I agree with the characterization that some of the claims are frivolous and just outright ridiculous. It was thin, to put it mildly. There were the two overnights, September 11th, 2021, which last I checked is earlier than 2022. And then November 29th, 2021, those are the two nights submitted by Team Trump showing that his cell phone appeared to have left his address and arrived near or at her address.

The first one was from 1045 p.m. leaving at 328 a.m. and then at 420 a.m. he texted Fannie Willis. I mean, my God, as you said, it's the got home safely text seems clear. And then November 21, 29 of 21, he again left his area, his near his residence at 1132 p.m. and arrived and then returned back home after visiting her area at 455 a.m. On neither of those two nights is any contradictory record testimony, location information provided by Fannie Willis in her opposition. She submits some emails, all of which are redacted, heavily redacted to show the cell phone records Team Trump submitted are wrong. They're not reliable since they're almost entirely redacted. I can't really tell for sure,

but what they seem to be to me, Phil, tell me what you think is a bunch of emails of Fannie Willis potentially saying here, I'm at work, come meet me or meet me at the office at X time. And it appears to be a time at which Nathan Wade is shown at her home residence. I'm taking a guess. I don't understand how her emails on various dates having nothing to do with the two overnights can disprove Trump's case, other than to perhaps, if they prove positively that she was at the office when she sent them.

And I do not believe they've submitted any such evidence. They've submitted emails from her work account. I can send that right now from Devil May Care Media. It doesn't mean I'm at corporate headquarters, right? Like, I'm not sure what she's trying to prove. But they don't address the two overnights at all. They don't. They simply attach those emails and the dates on the emails, at least the ones that I saw

and that I remember seeing, were not on the dates in question. One of them was in November, but it was a different day. Then the calendars we talked about were from April and May. I think there was something from August, but there was nothing that responded directly to the claim that the cell data was strong circumstantial proof that he was at the Yerdy Condo in Hapeville, Georgia overnight on those two nights in September and November. Remember, Nathan Wade talked about in the hearing, well, you got the Porsche experience down there, which is actually a great place,

but it is down in Hapeville near the Atlanta airport. But nobody ever claimed that he was actually at the Porsche experience at midnight or one o'clock in the morning. There was some suggestion in the state's filing that this is a generalized data location, which happens to put him also near bars and restaurants. There was no allegation. Nobody ever said he was actually at any bar or restaurant or that any bar or restaurant was even open. I was going to say, Phil, you're a local. Are the bars open at 5 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. in this area? Well, I can't.

I'm too old to know. That was maybe an earlier time in my life I would know. Even in the Yankee States, the bars close at 2. Most bars close at 2. Down in the South, there's no way they're open at 5 a.m. So here's the big thing about this, these text messages, though. Do you know if you noticed that when the cell phone stopped moving, right, and it was down there near the Yerdy condo and calling other people at three, four or five o'clock in the morning, that might might weigh in favor of the Willis and Wade team. But the calling and the texting apparently stopped until he left and resumed his travels back to his home in Cobb County, according to the motions that we've seen.

OK, here's a here's a little color from the state's response to Team Trump. They say these records do not prove in any way the content of the communications between Wade and Willis. They don't prove that Wade was ever at any particular location or address. I think Team Trump would concede that. It's circumstantial that they believe he was at her house. They do not prove that Wade and Willis were ever in the same place during any of the times listed. And in fact, multiple

relevant dates and times on on multiple relevant dates and times, evidence clearly demonstrates that Willis was elsewhere, including at work. That's the blacked out emails. Okay. Now team Trump responds by saying, all right, the prosecution will surely point out. Nobody knows what was happening in the house between midnight and 3 28 AM on September 12th or between midnight and 5 AM on November 30th. Middle stat that's their phone analyst. The guy who's doing the cell phone tower data does not claim to know neither does president Trump or any other defendant in this case. Only two people know. They are certainly the ones who should testify and say exactly what was happening on those occasions. So nobody will complain about improper speculation or improper efforts to distort the truth or nefarious context with the

media. All we have heard from Wade and D. and DA Willis so far has been that they did not have a romantic relationship until 2022. Yet it is highly significant that the state's response did not even attempt to challenge this phone evidence regarding those two dates. So they're, they're raising the same thing we're raising, Phil, which is in all those attached emails and even the response, and they didn't submit a new affidavit, there's been zero attempt to explain why his cell phone would be what appears to be at her house or right near it for two overnights, contrary to what they represented in the court. And you tell me whether there's any chance of this court reopening the evidentiary window for them

to get into this more like because fannie willis is trying to say you're too late in submitting this motion altogether this this you didn't raise it you had the records when we had our big hearing and you didn't submit it so you can't do it now and the other side saying we're trying to impeach lies you told at that on that last day so do you think there's a chance that this judge will exclude the cell phone evidence? And if he allows it in, could we then have testimony from Fannie and Nathan on what happened those nights? Yes, I think he's going to allow it in one way or another. He might allow it in as is and consider it based on the summary, if you will, the affidavit that's been presented. But typically affidavits are not admissible. So my sense is he's going to reopen the evidence.

He's going to allow some testimony. The fallback position is he's going to allow the data sort of to be presented through the briefs. But I do think the judge is going to consider the cell phone data one way or the other. And so I doubt, Megan, that he's going to have Fannie Willis testifying again. I don't think he's going to quite go that far, but I do think there's a good chance at least that he might allow Middlestat to testify, be cross-examined by the state's attorneys in the city where it goes from there. But to the point that you were just making, this is not, I think, difficult to basically counter what the state's filing here. The Trump response yesterday is, I would like to think that you and I are really, really smart lawyers and that we are the ones,

but this is not, it doesn't take a smart lawyer. Anybody can figure this out. They didn't even contradict the allegations on those two dates that these two were in the same place. They simply raised the ridiculous, in my view, idea that this is some kind of unreliable evidence. This is the kind of evidence, Megan, that prosecutors rely on to arrest people, to charge them, and to convict them of serious crimes. Yeah, she does it. This is common use these days in criminal prosecutions. For them to come out and say that this is unreliable, it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't mean they were actually in the same residence. Every person who's charged with a crime in Fulton County right now, where they're trying to use cell location data against them, needs to quote Fonny Willis's response to that when they get to court to try to have their case

thrown out, because it's disingenuous at best for prosecutors who use this all the time to say that it's not reliable and that it doesn't mean anything. This is not, you know, it's not rocket science to pick apart the state's response from Friday, which I think was just really, really far-fetched. And it was quite something to behold, to be honest with you. It's not the kind of thing that I would expect to have come out from a major city professional prosecutor's kind of office in America. But this is where we are. Same. I couldn't help shake the feeling, Phil, when I was reading it that they had had a first

year associate draft this brief and in the interest of time just didn't review it. It was really it was pretty bargain basement lawyering in that brief. I would like to imagine they could do better because they're in charge of putting really bad guys in jail, not in this particular case, but in other cases. So you want top-notch lawyers working at the DA's office. I'm not sure they have it down in Fulton County. Okay. More to follow as we get more information about what happens between the judge and Terrence Bradley today and all the other developments. They seem to come by the day down there. Phil, thank you. Always happy to be here. Talk to you soon. All right, Phil Holloway, everybody. Up next, the EJs and plenty of news to dissect with them.

Joining us now to break down the biggest political and cultural headlines today, the EJs. Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist and host of The Federalist Radio Hour and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief at the Washington Free Beacon and co-host of the Ink Stained Wretches podcast. Ladies, welcome back. Great to see you. All right. So just because we just left off on it, can you believe what's happening in the Fannie Willis case down in Georgia? I mean, can you believe that case may be imploding because of an affair between the top two prosecutors who may or may not have lied under oath to a judge, potentially in more than one setting in the case of Nathan Wade, and that Trump could potentially be saved by all of this nonsense and shenanigans that have been going on?

Emily, I'll start with you on that because you have the most bemused look on your face. I really, I honest to goodness cannot believe it. We were talking to the producer before going on air and it was like, this is real housewives level drama. The audacity that has been on display down in Fulton County is incredible. And what is even less believable is that Fannie Willis, as you've discussed, is like on tape talking about how she was going to crack down on corruption and nobody would be sleeping with other people in the DA's office.

It's like completely insane. And on top of that, the left has been going after Trump on the basis of like very real character accusations for a long time. You know, this guy, he was bragging in the tabloids about his affairs and he's just not fit for office. And then this woman that they championed in the press, I mean, really went out of their way to cast as a hero to Trump's villain is winding up in exactly the same situation after sort of months of sanctimonious and smug coverage of her effort to take down Trump. Which is basically having an affair and lying about it. And then the lie is being told to protect yourself politically. That's what Trump is accused of doing in the Stormy Daniels case. That's what she's accused of doing here. By the way, I mean, you tell me what reason would a man

have to go over to a woman's house from 12 a.m. and then leave at 5 a.m. if the affair could otherwise be open and notorious? He was still married. That's like I realize that, you know, ultimately he filed for divorce and he testified that the marriage was kind of emotionally over before whatever. He was still married. And to me, it's pretty obvious that this was during 2021 before he had filed for divorce in at least one of the cases. And it looks like a man sneaking back into his house. Maybe the wife was in another room. I don't know. But there's no other reason that I can think of for a man to be sneaking out of the alleged affair partner's house at three in the morning or five in the morning. Any thoughts on that, Eliana? A couple of thoughts on the whole thing. The first

is all of this has been absolutely gripping to follow. Watching Fannie Willis's testimony was totally gripping. Watching Wade's testimony was totally gripping. So just as a news consumer, it's been so interesting. But beyond that, there really is something to the fact that Donald Trump has extraordinary luck. And I think part of his political ability is the fact that the people who pursue him so doggedly tend to take on his characteristics. And you mentioned that before, you know, he's being accused of having an affair, paying people off, lying about it and so on. And we're seeing now that his pursuers are engaged in the same behavior, although there are more unethical strands in Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade. But what really struck me in watching Willis's testimony was that this is just not she doesn't not come across as as a super competent person.

She's I don't think that formidable of an opponent. And and Trump is lucky in this case in his in his opponent. Yeah, you're I completely agree. And I also think there's some risk if you hire a broke DDA. There's risk. Yeah, they hired a broke DDA down there in Fulton County by her own testimony. She had sunk fifty thousand dollars of her own money and she didn't have it to give. She she borrowed it out of her.

It was her. Was it her 401k to fund a previous campaign that failed where she was trying to run for judge? And right after that, she ran for D.A. and she got it. And this is part of Trump's story in this case, that she didn't have any money, that she was sleeping with Nathan Wade and that she brought him on to paid him much more than the other two prosecutors she brought on. And then they went all over the world together on these lavish vacations, which she swears she paid half for in cash, all cash that she had sitting in big piles in her apartment, notwithstanding the $5,000 lien that was against her for not for

unpaid bills. I mean, Emily, it's farcical. It's obvious to anybody with fresh eyes that this is a lie by somebody who's in a panic now after having made some very bad choices. Yeah, they're not doing a particularly good job of covering up for the lie either. And I mean, at one point there was testimony that not under having suspicions about these stacks of cash that just must have had to have been sitting around Fannie Willis's house in order to pay these obscene bills all in cash to split it. That's just a difference between, you know, people in the white community and people in the black community. I mean, these are things that are actually being testified to in court. So it's just, it's a circus. It's a

complete circus. And it sounds like when you didn't do your book report in fifth grade and you said, I absolutely turned that in. I know I put it on your desk to the teacher. And then you start building these like layers of falsehoods around it. And you're stretching and just engage in these mental gymnastics to stand by your story to the point where even you start to believe that you did put that book report on your teacher's desk. That's what Nathan Wade and Fannie Willis sound like in court. It's an embarrassment. And it's also, again, to And it's also, again, to Eliana's point, tend to take on the characteristics, like Trump's opponents tend to take on his characteristics. Well, it's that. And I think it's also that it proves his point

about rampant corruption in the political system in America. And Willis is really getting a lot of, she's gotten some tough media coverage, but she's also gotten a disproportionate level, I think, of good faith from the media. She had a lot of positive coverage going into all of this. And so it just they continue to prove his point about the political system, too. They needed somebody like my big sister, God rest her, who back when I was a kid in high school and getting in all sorts of trouble with my best friend, Kelly McGinnis. It was Megan Kelly and Kelly McGinnis. We were so fun and a hot mess together. And we had a party at my parents' house when they weren't there. There may or may not have been a couple of Bartles and James wine coolers. We took pictures. We had them developed. This was back in the day

for our young listeners when you actually did that at Kodak. And then we left the pictures on the kitchen counter and went to visit my sister at college with all the evidence of our bad doings on the kitchen counter for my parents' return. Well, they found the pictures. They called my sister, you know, who we were visiting at college. And I said to my sister, what did mom say? What'd she say? And she said, she said, you know, who we were visiting at college. And I said to my sister, what did mom say? What'd she say? And she said, she said, you have no life left. Whereupon Kelly and I went into a panic because our social life was about to be ruined. And Kelly said, do you think we could tell them that we were just posing for some funny pictures with the barrel and

funny pictures? And I was like, maybe we, and my sister of course, looked at us and said, you two are a couple of dumb asses. They will never believe that nonsense. They needed someone like Suzanne Kelly to say, no, one's going to believe your cash lie or that you weren't having an affair when there's thousands of texts and phone calls, when there are overnight visits, everything gets found out. You just can't lie anymore in 2024 America. It'll be found out, Eliana. Well, I think the cell phone, the cell phone pings and the cell phone records really are bearing that out. You can't be somewhere without people being able to find out the proximity of where you were. You can't text somebody without being able to pull the records. We just live in too online a society now to be able to hide the way you once might have been able to. And it's

dangerous to try to lie your way out of something for exactly that reason. But you can't. I mean, Joy Reid is still employed by NBC News and lied in the exact same way with the same level. We all know the truth, Emily. We all know the truth. We do. But she kept her job and continues to be treated as a serious journalist in elite circles. So, I mean, you can't, but you also can in certain circumstances, if you, if you happen to fit into, uh, the, the, you know, right side of any given issue. Donna Brazil got hired by Fox and then she's, she back at CNN now after cheating where MSNBC ABC cause Steve Krakowski. Yeah. ABC. So she got hired by Fox and ABC after she was caught,

denied, and ultimately was forced to admit cheating on a presidential debate, taking the questions she had because of her access to CNN and giving them to Hillary Clinton. I mean, Emily, is there a better? So you've got her, you got Fannie, you got Joy. Like, there's just a different set of rules here. They did exactly what you thought got her, you got Fannie, you got Joy. Like, there's just a different set of rules here. They did exactly what you thought about doing, Megan. First, Donna Brazile was like, I could have been Russia. And Joy Reid was like, I was hacked. They really tried.

She was like, I don't know where this came from. Like, this must have been a hacker who went into my website all the way back then, made changes that nobody saw. I mean, again, this is coming from a journalist, somebody whose priority is supposed to be truth. And Donna Brazile genuinely went and said, could have been Russia. We don't know. There could have been tampering and had other people saying the same thing.

It was incredible. And yeah, they got away with it. And then when I confronted Donna Brazile right before that presidential debate at the time, she said, you're persecuting me. As a Christian woman, I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted. So we'll see. I don't think Fannie Willis, one of my joys in watching this case. And I know a lot of people believe the judge is going to keep them on the case and that that could happen. I have to tell you so far, I trust this judge. I do. He is he was a member of the Federalist

Society when he was in law school. He is, I think, a registered Republican. He is not some far left guy. Now, he did work for a time for Fannie Willis and he made a small donation to her campaign. But so did everyone. I think even Phil Holloway said he did. Like it's one of those things where you can see she's about to win. Everybody's like, oh, here's fifty dollars for me. So you're on, you know, you have a good relation. That happens all the time. Trump testified to that when he was running for office the first time. But so far I trust the judge. But one of the things I'm loving about watching the case is liars have a difficult time when they're in the legal system and they're under oath and there are real consequences to lying and there are real consequences to lying

and there are real tools to prove a lie. There's something very satisfying about it, Eliana, just to watch the evidence come out. We found your phone records. We have your friend under oath. Only one of you has a major motive to lie. I don't know. Are you having the feeling? Watching her wriggle, even answering questions about why she had stacks of cash in her house. And then, oh, but you didn't use them to pay off your $4,600 tax lien. You use them to fly to Barbados or wherever the, you know, wherever she was going, you went to Napa, you paid cash for that. She didn't pay off your tax lien. I mean, there, there is a real, uh, genuine pleasure in, in watching them wriggle. And the response to that was, oh, now you're going to tell me how to pay my bills, right? Whereas a truth teller would have said, I know it wasn't the most responsible thing,

but you know, that's what I did. A lot of people can relate. That's what a truth teller sounds like. When you attack the question or the questioner, odds are you're lying. Those are the odds. I'm telling you, go back to Phil Houston, the human lie detector. He will walk you through it by his books, by the lie. All right. The EJs stay with us for the rest of the show. There's a lot more to get to. We haven't even touched on South Carolina, the results there, both sides finding some good news. And by that, I mean, Trump's team and Nikki Haley, who's saying she's staying in it. Um, and yet a major donor just abandoned her. Stay tuned for that update. And don't forget to follow us at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. If you want to get the video of the show, we'd love to see you over there. Stand by.

Okay. Before we get to South Carolina, this just breaking Trump has filed his notice of appeal, not the actual appellate brief, but his notice of appeal in the $355 million judgment against him in that judge anger on civil corporate fraud case brought against the Trump organization. That's the smiling judge who was loving his moment in the spotlight. And this case is getting very weird, even weirder than it was, because as soon as they entered the $355 million, they slapped on interest, prejudgment interest, and it went up to like $450 million that Trump owes this court. Well, you know, the state, the state of New York and Letitia James, the attorney general of New York state, who ran for office on a promise to get Trump. I mean, we've played the butted soundbites of her

saying it over and over and over again, has been tweeting out on X the number that he owes each day. Like we had one the other day, 460, no, it's hard to get my arms around the number. These are millions, 464,576,230.62. Let's just round it and call it 465 million. And she tweets out plus 114,000 because each day, in addition to the a hundred million, 110 million, he had to pay him pre judgment interest. It continues to accrue interest on it that he owes for every day until he pays it or gets it reversed by an appellate court. And this woman who actually, I guess, wants us to believe she's a nonpartisan law enforcement official. She is the top law enforcement official in New York state. Every day, not only tweets out plus 114,000, she tweets it on her attorney general account, and then she retweets herself on her

personal account. She's so in love with her tweets. She's really proud of herself that she's come up with this clever way to show us what the running tally is. She's retweeting it everywhere. She's doing it every day. And I will say you have guys like Tom Elliott, who I follow on X, responding as follows. You're doing well turning Trump critics like me into Trump defenders. Like this feels pretty ghoulish as he's trying to appeal this outrageous judgment against him that even his critics can see is made up. No one was hurt. And look at her swagger in celebrating it. Emily, your reaction? Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty gross, especially because that money is set to go

basically into the New York Treasury. It's not going to victims. So because, of course, there were no victims. In fact, the people who were supposed to be victims testified that they were really glad to have Donald Trump as a client during this trial. So it would be one thing if she was celebrating the money going to people who really, truly deserved it. But in fact, what she's celebrating is this hyper-partisan takedown of a main presidential candidate in a way that even the Associated Press, their excellent analysis of how this law has been prosecuted, that Trump is accused of having was found to have broken, how it has been applied in the past and found, you know, Associated Press, no friend of Donald Trump found that this was an unprecedented application of it.

So this is what's being celebrated by Letitia James. It's not especially surprising on someone who basically ran on a Get Trump platform. But it is really gross because I think to a lot of people, it just puts the sinking feeling in their stomach about our lurch towards banana republic status. And it's not just Letitia James. Obviously, I think Judge Chutkan has problems. Judge Engeron has problems in making the whole effort to take down Donald Trump look partisan and look like it'd be more fit for a trial in a banana republic. She's not doing the country any favors by celebrating this. Again, it's not money that's going to victims because she chose to prosecute a case where they're actually by their own admission were no victims.

And it's just ghoulish is a great word for it. Megan. Prosecutors are supposed to be committed to justice, Eliana. That's not getting a conviction, not sticking it to the man, certainly not sticking it to a political opponent, but to justice. And they're certainly not supposed to be licking their lips as the hundred and fourteen thousand gets added to the judgment every day with just a little bit of Trump blood dripping from the mouth. I mean, that's what she's trying to show us here. Meanwhile, look what he's facing. This is just a couple of, these are a couple of points via CNBC of the position he's in right now.

He files this notice of appeal. So we will be appealing, which we knew he's appealing the money judgment and also the substance of the decision saying the judge committed errors of law and or fact abused its discretion and or acted in excess of its jurisdiction. Um, the notice does not indicate that Trump has secured the bond needed to appeal this massive judgment. And that normally, if you get a big judgment like this against you, you do have to show the court, I have a bond that will allow me to pay it. So I'm not appealing just to delay paying the money I owe you. And that's why the courts in all cases would require a defendant like this in a case like this to post a bond showing I've got

the money, but I have legal rights to play out. He has not secured the appeal appellate bond from the sound of it yet, or at least he didn't notice that. Appeal bonds typically up to 120% of the judgment plus the current interest. At that rate, reports CNBC, Trump's original ruling with interest would indicate he will need to secure a bond worth more than 540 million. I'm like, I actually just like had to swallow just saying that number, like 540 million. I think he testified at trial. He's got about 400 million cash available to him. He's got assets. He's got Trump Tower. He's got other buildings. But I mean, this is this is massive. This truly is a bet your business situation for Donald Trump. And it's this is before we've had one criminal trial even begin, Eliana.

You know, Megan, you said that if you're Tish James, you wouldn't want people to think that you're a partisan hack just going after Donald Trump. But I think we see in Tish James and Alvin Bragg is that their incentives are sort of different. They're responding to the folks that elected them in New York state. And it seems that they want precisely the opposite. They want to be seen as attack dogs against Donald Trump, pulling any new lever, however novel, in the legal system to get Donald Trump. They know that their mission has been clearly identified. And while it's bad for the country,

they clearly think it's good for their political careers. And it's true. This was an unprecedented application of the law. You are seeing Trump critics turn Trump defenders because this sets a precedent that's dangerous for companies in New York. There are plenty of businessmen in New York who oppose Donald Trump, who are now fearful of the legal repercussions of a political enemy coming after them using this law. There may not have been any victims, but they're on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for inflating a value here. Somebody argues they inflated a value here, inflated a value there. It's dangerous and bad for the country that they're demonstrating that the legal system

can be used to go after a political enemy like this. And I think Trump is rightfully appealing this novel verdict. The Trump campaign legally is not allowed to use campaign money to fund this verdict. Or I think his legal fees either. I think the super PAC can pay the legal fees. I got to go back and look at this, to be honest with you, but I know they can't use it to pay this verdict. Private donors could pay it for

him. There was a GoFundMe begun by our friend, Eliana Cardone, Elena, I should say, I'm looking at you, Elena, Elena Cardone, wife of Grant Cardone. And it's got like a, I don't know, 1.4 million. I mean, these good people have donated their own money to try to help the guy. It's sweet, but it's, it's a drop in the bucket. I mean, you know, it's going to be 550 hundred. Fifty million, you know, that's just I just don't know. I don't know what he's going to do. I mean, Trump has the ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat like no one else. But this one, it disturbs me and I'm sure it's really disturbing them. This is, again, before he's got one real dollar in legal fees of actual trials in the criminal lane. OK, notwithstanding that, I would just add to that,

Megan, when he's raising money for his campaign, he can't quite say it out loud. But what he's essentially saying is, please fund my legal defense, because that's where really where his big campaign dollars through the super PAC are going to. The RNC has been paying his legal bills. But reporting this weekend suggested that there's a movement afoot in the RNC to say, we don't want to pay his legal bills anymore. We don't want the money to go there. And so it's possible he could have trouble on this horizon going forward. I don't know. You know, Republican donors are certainly going to want him to win the election, so

they may keep the money flowing. But it's not quite as compelling a pitch as, hey, we want to put 20 million dollars behind this ad buy to attack Joe Biden. It's just it's it's not as easy a sell for them, which is why he's fomenting a takeover. And that's why. Right. So, you know, he's got his folks going into the RNC to take it over. And he's lagging Joe Biden in fundraising hugely, hugely right now. And I think this is a major reason why. I mean, he was he was lagging Hillary Clinton, too, and he beat her. So, you know, all hope is not lost for Republicans who want Donald Trump. But you'd rather have the other situation where you didn't have four criminal trials and this huge.

So totally. And the donations could be used for ads and rallies and get out the vote efforts. Right. The money is not dispositive at all, but but you'd rather have the money on your side than not. I hate when Eliana uses words like dispositive. She's a super smart lady. OK, but did not start a GoFundMe for Donald Trump. That was somebody else. Yeah. OK. Donald Trump electorally is having very good news, though it depends on who you ask. I'm actually genuinely interested to hear your take on this. So he won South Carolina, as expected, but he won it by 20 points. Call it 60-40. He got 59.8. Haley got 39.5. Donald Trump came out and said, I've never seen the Republican Party so unified. That's, of course, you know, that's an intentional word because he wants to forget. It's basically like, Haley, you're failing. You know, we unified

despite you. But it's not totally unified, right? You still got 40% of South Carolinians, Republicans, that is, voting for someone other than Trump. So I can see why the non-Trump Republicans are feeling okay. They're feeling kind of good about that, even though they lost, even though Haley lost and changed her messaging from I'm staying in it to the end to I'm definitely staying in it through like Super Tuesday I'm definitely staying in it through like Super Tuesday, I think she said, which is a little different. The Koch brothers pulled their money. That's bad for her. That was a big, deep pocket that was making it possible for her to stay in this race. And really, as you know, Emily, they don't ever get out because they want to get out.

They get out because they run out of money and without the Coke money and, you know, they won't be the only donors to start pulling. She really isn't going to have much of a runway left. But what does it tell us, do you think, that still at this late stage in a state in which roughly eight in 10 voters in this GOP primary describe themselves as conservatives, Trump only got 60%. Yeah, I do think that's interesting. Another thing I think is interesting is the spending discrepancies. And this is partially because Trump, frankly, doesn't have a lot of money right now, but she is wildly outspending him. Actually, Nikki Haley in Iowa spent more than Trump and

DeSantis. She spent way more than anyone else in New Hampshire. And now to come at 40% in second place, she dramatically outspent Donald Trump, especially since New Hampshire, where she sort of put this benchmark that I have to do better here. So I think it's interesting that in her home state, with a huge spending advantage, she came at 40%. But she also then came out on stage and said 40% is not a tiny number. And there is truth to that, that where a lot of money pours in, you're still getting some 40% of people being like, eh. And her most powerful argument is that when you look at some national polls, people are not happy about the Trump-Biden matchup. But primary voters, on the other hand, are continuing to push on us

the Trump-Biden matchup because primary voters tend to be more hyper-partisan than a lot of the sort of independents and people who are not super politically active, but are interested in who the president is. Maybe not enough to vote. Maybe they don't want to vote because they don't like either of their options. It's a huge lane for RFK Jr., obviously. And we're going to see more of that in the months to come. I think that's probably the least discussed major story of this election cycle right now. And that's a big Nikki Haley argument. She made that argument over and over, put a lot of money behind it. She's doing the whole, she's using the grumpy old men line a lot now that, you know, Americans don't want this. And she's right. The problem really is, though, you know, in the Republican primary nationally, she's actually pulling at 17 percent. Trump has huge numbers in the real clear politics

average nationally. So she can pour a lot of money. South Carolina is her home state. Right. Right. Right. So she hasn't been getting a bigger number there. Right. And she did really well in New Hampshire. If you look at the numbers that sort of behind the numbers, Eliana, Trump had more than 80 percent of the voters who described themselves as very conservative. He had a majority, but a smaller one of those who who called themselves somewhat conservative. Haley went over the small contingent of moderates. This is per CNN voters who are college grads. Normally you expect Haley to run away with those. That's

how it's been so far. They were divided. They were closely divided between Trump and Haley, but three quarters of those without a college degree, and that's the majority of the South Carolina electorate, GOP electorate, supported Trump. If you look nationwide, I don't know, we just saw the latest data on college grads. It was like high thirties, like 37, 35% are college grads and the rest aren't. So you'd rather have the non-college grads on your side than the college grads on your side. That's, that bodes well for Republicans coming in the general electorate either way, because the Democrats have become the party of the so-called elites and the college grads and the postgraduate degrees and all that. But it is just sort of interesting to hear,

you know, how it's split. Only four in 10 in South Carolina described themselves as affiliated with the MAGA movement. Four in 10, 45% said yes. 49% in South Carolina said no. And last but not least, about 36 percent of South Carolina GOP primary voters said they would consider Trump unfit if he were convicted of a crime. So what's your takeaway from all those results? They do mirror more or less what we've been seeing in the rest of the country, which is that Trump does extremely well with those who define themselves as very conservative. And there's a reason in presidential primaries that people have coined the term pivoting to the general, where you lock down the conservative or the left wing base, and then you sort of

moderate when you get into the general election to try to win over moderates. Haley is kind of taking the opposite tack where she's locked down the moderates, but she's not really pivoted to try to get these conservative voters that she's unable to get. So Trump, he does really well with the very conservative voters, the non-college educated. And he struggles more with the college educated and moderate voters. That's fine. So far as the primary goes, he's got no problem. He'll have no problem getting through this primary. He's a clear choice of Republican voters. But it is going to matter in the general election where he doesn't need to win these people, but he needs to lose them by less than than Republicans have been losing them

in the past three election cycles where they've lost them by wide margins. And he's got to close that gap and make sure that his rhetoric isn't alienating college grads more than it needs to, particularly female college graduates. There's real gender divide there. And the other thing I would say is, you know, people have been asking, why is Nikki Haley in this? Why does she keep running? She really wants to drive home the point that 40 percent of the party is not with Donald Trump, 30 percent in some states, 40 percent in other states, and that despite what he says, that he's united the party, he actually has not. And the Republican Party very much remains a party divided, which you can see it on Capitol Hill every single day of the week. The party is very much divided and this primary is exposing it.

Haley, I mean, she'll be in this until she runs out of money. And of course, the Kochs pulling their money suggests that maybe sooner rather than later. But but she is running to make this point. We went back just to take a peek of where Trump was in February of 2016 with the party. And three polls from mid-February 2016, he had between 35 and 49 percent of the GOP. Now, he had not yet been president. You would expect a former president to perhaps have more support. But Trump's a divisive figure. January 6th didn't help with anybody who's not hardcore MAGA. Right. There's still a lot of bitterness and anger over that, even amongst Republicans. And so here he sits now with 60 percent of the party in South Carolina and, you know, not, he hasn't completely unified it,

but in 16 and probably this time, the party came home in the end, just given a binary choice. And I realize you're going to have RFKJ and possibly even Nikki Haley on a, on a ticket with no labels, given a binary choice, they, they came home for the Republican. They held their noses, even the ones who didn't like them. And they voted for Donald Trump because it's, you know, it's him or Biden and they hate Biden more than they hate Trump. And I think there's probably every reason to believe they'll do that again. Now in what numbers, what kind of enthusiasm that remains to be seen. All right, let me flip the page and get to this big story out of Atlanta, which is just horrifying, horrifying. Um, it's not Atlanta. It's, hold on.

It's Augusta, Augusta University College of Nursing. I'm sure many in the audience have heard this story. I'm sure you gals have heard this story too. A young woman, 22 years old, named Laken Riley was at the university, the nursing school down there in Augusta. And she was killed by an illegal immigrant this weekend on Thursday. She was found dead after going out for a jog in a wooded area of the University of Georgia campus in Athens,

Georgia, this was. They began searching for her around 12.07 PM after they received a call from a concerned friend who said she hadn't come home from her run. Within 30 minutes, they found her body, visible injuries, no pulse. And it's, you know, they classified it now as a homicide. There's no doubt about what happened to her. The perpetrator is alleged to be 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, who has got a long history with ICE.

Look at this guy. The latest statement issued by ICE on Sunday describes him as follows. A 26-year-old citizen of Venezuela arrested by Custom and Border Protection on September 8th, this is a couple of years ago, 2022, after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso. He was paroled and released for further processing, which we all know never happens. Further processing doesn't happen. They have a free ticket to roam the United States. On September 14th, 2023, Ibarra was arrested by the NYPD and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17. We now know that that was allegedly him putting his wife's son on the back of a gas powered moped without any helmet or restraint. That's via the Daily Mail and New York Post. And with some motor vehicle license violations.

He was released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued by ICE. Not that it would have mattered because New York is a sanctuary city and they would not have complied with any ICE detainer. So whatever. Flash forward to February 23rd, this past Thursday, Atlanta encountered Ibera pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia police. He's been charged with murder and other crimes. And the question is, what was he doing here? How many more Americans need to die before someone will take the border situation seriously? Emily? More Americans will die, sadly. Just last year, tens of thousands of migrants with criminal records were deported. And that's just a number. I think it's 35,000 around there. That's just a number of people who were deported. And now we know this suspect was

not among them because he had a criminal record and he was here. So if you're looking at the numbers of people who actually go through the deportation process, first of all, a lot of them come back. But second of all, there are plenty of people that are not caught. And it's outrageous. And no other country would tolerate the amount of people who are not vetted, who are admitted to the interior of the country through our process. A lot of these people are not illegally crossing. coming legally because they make appointments through CBP1 or because they go to a sector that is, you know, they wait on a border town and then they wait for the quota to be one of the people in the quotas. I mean, I've watched people at migrant shelters scroll through their phones, their messages on WhatsApp from CBP, just of the totally arbitrary numbers of people that are allowed to come in on any given day. It's incredible that this is the most powerful, wealthiest country in the world, allowing the lack of security. No other country, again,

would tolerate it. But we have these luxury debates in elite media about whether Biden's border is technically open or not, when if you're in Georgia or California, you could go back to Katie Steinle, you can go back to other of these instances. This is happening in the interior of the country. It doesn't matter. By the way, murdered in San Francisco by an illegal who had been deported at least five times, at least sanctuary. Keep going. Yep. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, it's just you sometimes hear people in Beltway circles say, well, why do people in North Dakota care about the border? Why do people in Missouri care about the border? It it's like, what do you mean? People are going everywhere. They're spreading out throughout the United States. And we don't have a serious asylum system. And people who have legitimate asylum claims, this is another tragedy of this, people who have legitimate asylum claims are getting mixed up in all of this. And, you know,

America as a beacon of opportunity and freedom for people who are being legitimately persecuted in places like Venezuela persecuted in places like Venezuela, in places like Cuba. There are just so many people coming through now that the entire system is completely broken and Americans are suffering, let alone the migrants, who every single one of them is a trafficking victim, paying the cartels, making the cartels more powerful with every single person that is coming up through the Darien Gap into Central America, into Mexico, and then across our border. Every single migrant is making them richer and more powerful. So there's just suffering to go around. And the people who are engaged in these

luxury debates and beltway circles about whether the Biden border is open or not, it's outrageous. They should go talk to the families of people who are being affected by this. People are being murdered. They don't have time for these debates. You know, Eliana, it feels scary. It feels like who's next? Who's going to be the next to go? Because we've got, what, 8.5 millions of these illegals in the country over the past couple of years.

We have no idea where they are. We don't keep track of them. And this guy, while he had a bad history, they're, they're far worse. There are illegals out there right now have committed felonies who are still allowed to stay and haven't been turned over to ice. We've seen it time and time again. This guy, they were probably saying, oh, you know, he came here illegally. And then there was this moped violation with a kid, but it wasn't enough for them to actually take interest in him. And then the next thing, you know, a 22 year old American girl who was about to devote her life to

taking care of others, the sick, the vulnerable is dead for no reason in the middle of the day, just trying to work on her physical fitness and health for no reason. And what American parents are going to get the next notification that their child, who did nothing wrong and was only intent on having a helpful, loving life here in the United States, is dead because we wouldn't pay attention to this. This crisis, you know, from traveling and covering political candidates, political races in the West, in the East, North, South, I can tell you people say immigration is not a border issue. This is a 50-state issue now. And the thing that's maddening about this tragedy is

that this is a policy choice. Joe Biden came into office and on his first day, set about reversing the hawkish Trump immigration policies. Illegal border encounters and crossings began to skyrocket. Only now, three years into his tenure, is he reverting to some of the Trump era policies that he decried as inhuman. Speaking of inhuman, it's, you know, the murder of an innocent American by an illegal immigrant. And then the way this is covered in the press is the danger of being a female athlete going out for a run by yourself and nary a mention of the fact that this murderer wasn't even supposed to be in the country. But I do hope everyone remembers

that these are policy choices and we're seeing the impact of those choices. They actually are life and death choices for these victims. Right. I mean, I think about these parents over and over. I'm sure that they've been watching at some level, the immigration debate,

and you just never think it's going to be your child. You just never think it's going to be your kid. And it always is somebody's. And this poor girl, I just can't get over her beautiful smiling face, just trying to work on herself so she could help others at the hands of this loser, this absolute derelict. And now what? Great. So he's going to go to prison for the rest of his life, potentially. Maybe now we'll deport. I couldn't give a shit. I don't care. I don't care about him anymore. I care about all the others who are out there wanting to do harm to others. And by the way, I don't know whether there was a sexual assault. They haven't released that information, but so far it sounds like it was just a crime of opportunity. That's how the police described it. A crime of opportunity.

He saw this beautiful girl and he decided to hurt her. It's sick. It's sick. These people come, they don't have our shared values. It's not that we don't have sickos here who are Americans too, Emily, but we have no idea what this guy's background was, what kind of damage he had. Why did we let him into our country? Why didn't we do more to stop him once we knew he was here illegally? We have zero clue of what we're letting in here next to our young girls and boys. And it's one thing, I mean, in years past, we used to have at least somewhat of a system, you know, go back more than 10 years ago. But now not only are we letting people in, but once we know who they are, and once we have them on record, we're not deporting them, sometimes because of sanctuary jurisdictions,

other times because the system is such a joke. Again, any other country is looking at this and just completely laughing at us. And another thing that's worth mentioning is so many of these migrants now are coming across in debt to cartels. That is a fairly new thing within the last five or so years in mass at the level that it's happening now. They have to pay cartels to get across the border. Sometimes they can't afford. And so they go in debt. And to get out of that debt, they traffic drugs. So for a lot of parents, the fentanyl issue is so close and personal. In the same way that this young woman was murdered, there are so many parents of children who took a fentanyl pill that was precursor chemicals come over from China, mixed by cartels in Mexico, trafficked across the border, sometimes by

migrants in debt, other times just by the cartels themselves and mules. And it is wreaking so much tragedy around the country because of political cowardice on behalf of centrist Republicans and the entire Democratic Party, basically, which is too cowardly to do anything serious. And you saw that with the Biden, the border bill that was being debated that would not have done anything serious to crack down on this. It did some small things. It did not do anything serious that would actually stanch the flow of people coming across the border. And if you talk to people coming across the border, you will know that. I mean, it's so obvious right now. And so we have a lot of desperate people, people who have been kidnapped and have to get Western Union wires to be released from cartel custody and then come over across the country

and are still in debt. I mean, this is happening every single day to the tune of tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people a year, millions of people a year in the last couple of years. There's so much desperation. It is going to lead to more crime and it's going to lead to, as you said, Megan, we have plenty of our own problems here. We're not saying that immigrants are all criminals. That's not the case at all. But if any of them are criminals and we know that it's outrageous that they're they're in the country. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. No other country would tolerate it. So you've got Eliana, you touched on this.

You've got the ideological commitment to an open border on the left. I mean, I would love to say it's it's just like the far left. I don't think that's true in this case. I think the left is pretty committed to an open border. They're starting to feel the penalties of those policies. But as a whole, they have this belief that that's what's humane. That's what's right. And Eliana, you mentioned the headline. So they have a compliant news media that shares the same sympathies. You pointed out the AP News headline, which was literally, as you said, the killing of a nursing student out for a run

highlights the fears of solo female athletes. Talk about burying the lead. That is not what this story is about. And secondly, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets, breaking, a 26-year-old Athens man has been charged with murder and the death of a nursing student. Athens man. Which, I mean, everybody on X just went nuts over.

And I just want to say this other thing. As all this happens with the left, the policies, the compliant media, we get news, President Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, local law enforcement and leaders, according to a White House official. OK, sure, that'll that'll do it. That's going to appease people in blue cities and red cities across America who understand perfectly how we got into this situation. The AP article refers to the murderer as Athens resident. And the Atlanta Journal Constitution is Athens man. And nowhere reading this article would you know that this guy was an illegal immigrant. It's all about female runners. They interview a store associate from the Athens Running Company and the head of

women's running clubs. And how do women protect themselves? And really, if there's any question, it would be, well, how do we protect ourselves from violent predators or violent illegal immigrants who are not supposed to be in this country in this case. But but really, the headline on this story is. The dangers of illegal immigration, of illegal immigration come home to small college town. Yes. And instead, the headline is the fears of solo female athletes without a mention of it. It is just astonishing, astonishing. And for for those of us in the news industry, I think it does highlight the importance of having center right news outlets that are going to frame this in a different way. Jeffrey Beacon and The Federalist got the headline right. It is comical.

Super quickly, The Federalist, we went to Brownsville two years ago. Biden's going there now. We went to Brownsville two years ago and talked to a pastor. Actually, he's from Brownsville, but works across the river in Matamoros in Mexico. And we were in the shelter in Matamoros, which he was saying it was absolutely because migrants know that Joe Biden is going to be more lenient on immigration than Donald Trump. That's exactly what's happening. And he said that he was begging.

He and a group of other people in Mexico were begging the Biden administration and the United States government to tell people seriously not to come, not just to say it, but to mean it and to tell people across all these countries not to come. So Joe Biden, if he's going to go to Brownsville now, he sure as hell should have done it two years ago, but he didn't. His administration didn't take any of the symbolism serious back then, even because this is purely symbolic. What is he actually going to learn at the border? I don't know if it's going to be like when he went to El Paso, they cleaned the whole place up before he actually even got there. So it's going to be the same thing as that. It's a, yeah, it's a photo op. Yeah, it's a photo op. Exactly right. He doesn't mean it. And, and even if he tries to slap a bandaid on these policies over the next 10 months or nine months, whatever it is now, no one's going to believe it. They know on an inherent level who

is pro closing the border and who is pro opening it. And he's stuck with that. He is stuck with that. I'm sorry, but this administration has this young woman's blood on their hands. They've done nothing, nothing to help prevent this from happening or more deaths from happening. Emily, you look like you have something you want to add. It's just because they refuse to detain people. They will not do it because, again, Donald Trump got hit for kids in cages, even though Obama had done it. But Biden will not do that because his base will call it inhumane.

They don't ideologically have the will to do it. They don't politically have the will to do it. And it's by the law. You have to detain people. We've run out of space. So the bill said, OK, well, the bill from last month said, OK, we can have some people, some extra detention centers, et cetera. But if you're still letting them into the country, then that does not work. If you are not actually processing their asylum claims and the Democratic Party does not have the will to do that. They only have the will to let people into the country and go through these two, three year, four year asylum periods while they disappear into sanctuary jurisdictions. They do not have the will to detain and process asylum claims and to turn people back to do remain in Mexico,

the Trump policy that actually changed what was happening at the border. They do not have the will to do it. They will not do it. So it will not stop until the leadership changes. Just as we go to break this, Bill Malujian of Fox News reporting this statement that just hit from the Border Patrol Union. Unfortunately, a visit by President Biden three years into his term and after repeatedly stating there's no crisis is too little too late. Whether stating it himself or through White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden has said he's done everything he can to secure the border. If that was the truth, and it wasn't, there would be no point in visiting the border now. But even if he were to put the proper policies in place at this late hour, he would be doing it only

to try to save his presidency. And self-serving actions when time is winding down should always give Americans pause. Common sense dictates that as a lame duck, he would revert back to his open border policies if reelected. Biden is going to the border now solely to try to save himself. Border security should never be about politics. It should always be about the safety and security of this great nation and the American people. Signed the head of the Border Patrol Union, President Brandon Judd. Well said, sir. Stand by. We'll be right back. More with the EJs after this quick break. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,

honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the 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. Okay. We've got to talk about Joe Biden's sex life. I'm sorry, but we've got to do it. I don't think we do. We're doing it, EJ. Okay. It's in the news. I'm here for it. For no other reason, we have to do it for the responses on X when this hit over the weekend.

There's a new book coming out called American Woman, the Transformation of the Modern First Lady from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden by New York Times columnist Katie Rogers. And apparently there's a bunch in here about Joe Biden's feelings about his sex life. According to the book, this is quoting here from the Post, President Biden's poll numbers may be cold, but his libido sure is hot. He's fond of telling AIDS in the West Wing that the key to a successful marriage is good sex. I just threw up a little in my mouth. He apparently told a group of supporters in 2006, I'd rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep. Since he won the 2020 election, he has tamped down on his public bedroom declarations,

but he continues to tell his staff the importance of good sex to a happy marriage, much to his wife's chagrin. They also say that he gushed about the sexual and emotional connection he and his first wife shared. This is to a Washingtonian magazine, the Washingtonian magazine in 70, 1974, talking about how the first wife had the best body of any woman I ever saw. She looks better than a playboy bunny. Doesn't she? I can't even believe it goes on and on. And then, Oh, he goes on to say, um, at first, okay. Hey, first, is this about the first wife or the second wife? I think this is about the first wife still. Yeah.

At first, she stayed home with the kids while I campaigned, but that didn't work out because I'd come back too tired to talk to her. I might satisfy her in bed, but I didn't have much time for anything else. Oh, my God. As I think, was it Dave Marcus tweeted out, out they're gonna release a sex tape aren't they and if you don't like it you're you're the problem it's actually gonna be beautiful and yeah is this is this rehab like is what's happening here? Why? Again, I hold, I'm really feeling like every time Biden has a verbal flub or falls down on the stage, and then all the aides come out to tell us like, Are you serious? This guy has way more energy than I do. I can't keep up with him.

He's the youngest 81 year old I've ever seen. I just really feel like this is part of that where it's like, What do you mean? He has more sex than I do. He's so young. I mean, he's like, you know, he's hornier than my 19 year old. Yes. Like it feels very well. Next, next thing you know, he's going to be, they're going to be like Larsa Pippen. You say you had five times, five times a night sex with Scotty Pippen and now your new boyfriend. Same, same. We can barely get any legislating done. This is so disgusting. You guys should both be ashamed of yourselves. It's not me.

It's Joe Biden. I'm just reporting the facts. Joe Biden, healthy enough for sex. That's his campaign slogan. Okay. Speaking of sex, you don't technically need to have it to conceive a baby via IVF,

though the man does have to engage in some self-pleasure. All right. This, for those of you who haven't been through it, certain things do have to happen. And that leads me to what's happening in Alabama and this court ruling that is now has like completely upended IVF in Alabama. So we go from something very funny to very serious where, um, this court, basically what happened was somebody went into an IVF clinic in Alabama. I don't know how the person got in, but they were in the room where they keep the stored frozen embryos stuck his or her hands into the area where they have the frozen embryos and the test tubes. It's cryogenically preserved. So the person burned their hands on the freezing cold test tube, dropped one, at least three families lost embryos,

sued the clinic claiming wrongful death, which is unusual. Normally it would be a negligence suit. We've seen that in the past, but never wrongful death. One, with the Alabama Supreme Court saying, you took the life of a minor and that's against the law. And all the IVF clinics now are in a total panic in Alabama. Many shutting down entirely saying we cannot guarantee,

like suddenly we're murderers if we don't take care of these embryos, which was not what we thought we were doing, the business we were in. And now real life women and men are suffering the consequences of this. I give you Megan Cole, who spoke to the New York Times' The Daily Podcast about her situation when she was about to have her embryo implanted in a surrogate. She has a blood disorder and therefore cannot carry a baby. It was supposed to happen this past Friday. Take a listen. Our doctor said, I'm so sorry, but it has to be canceled. I instantly broke down in tears.

I don't think I've ever cried that hard in my life. I called our surrogate and had to break the news to her. The person who'd been taking hormone medications for the last three weeks. I mean, the only option would be for me to go through an IVF cycle out of state, my third IVF cycle, get those embryos frozen, genetically tested again. The whole process. I mean, redo the whole process, which would cost us another $30,000. One thing that my sister said, you know, is she's been angry as well. And she said it feels like a death in the family. Like we were all excited to have the possibility that a child would be coming into our family. And she said, you know, it feels like a death.

Do you feel that way? I do in the sense of, it feels like a death of our dream to become parents. This poor woman. I have to tell you, if those were my embryos, there is zero chance I would be allowing the clinic to just keep them and tell me we're no longer in the business of doing IVF. Those are your future children. I conceived, and I've told this story before, all three of my children via IVF. I am very pro-IVF. I understand the legal rationale behind the court ruling,

but the legislature in Alabama needs to act immediately to rectify this gross miscarriage because you cannot be endangering IVF clinics this way. It is not a pro-life position to tell parents desperate to start families who have conceived embryos sitting right there that they can't have them, that they can't bring them into a uterus so they can actually be born. This is insane. And I think the Alabama legislature and governor actually are poised to do something about it. President Trump has weighed

in saying they should. Even Matt Gaetz is out there saying this should be reversed. But some hard, hardcore pro-lifers, and I understand their position, I respect their views, but I completely disagree with them, think this is a win. This is a huge win for the pro-life movement because they don't like IVF because it creates embryos, not all of which get used. Eliana, what do you think? I'm with you on this, Megan. I think this is, first of all, the stories of the families caught in the gears of this are just heart-wrenching. And secondly, the verdict, it is hard, while I understand the views, it's hard to see it as purely pro-life versus pro-choice for me, because, of course, the people in these IVF clinics, you couldn't find people who are more pro-life and pro-family and who are really yearning to start families. So one has to feel for them and not consider them or label them as opposed to the pro-life cause. So it's complicated. And I'm with you in being supportive

of the use of this technology for people who aren't able to have kids without some help from the technology that's available to us. Can I ask you a question? We're going to, the series show wraps in a minute 40, but we have to continue. Can you just stay for like another 10 minutes just so we can finish this conversation, gals? Sure. Yeah. Okay. They're saying yes, because it's just too important. Like this is a big one. And there was, we had to talk about Biden's sex life, so I didn't get to it. I didn't get to it early enough. But it's really deeply disturbing what's happening here, Emily. And I like I'm I'm worried that this is going to start a trend where other women are going to actually lose their babies. That's what's going to happen. Like if this woman can't get access to her embryos, she's going to lose those

babies. What are they going to do? Hit the defrost? So I'm somewhere in the middle on this because I think legally there is a lot that needs to be worked out with IVF. And actually, I wonder, I mean, I'm actually very curious as to the woman who was on The Daily, the clip that you just played. I actually wonder what legal ramifications she has. And I'm eager to see her potentially and people in her position potentially pursue those legal ramifications, because I think there actually is a very important framework to be worked out here. Let me tell you something. If I had been her or advising her as a friend, as soon as she found out on Wednesday, I think that's when the ruling came down, things might be in jeopardy. She was supposed to implant the embryo in the surrogate that Friday,

who, you know, when you go through to be a surrogate, you do. She's right. You have to do like all the progesterone. You have to get the uterus ready because it's the woman's not actually pregnant. So you got to get the uterus ready for the implantation of the embryo so she can carry it. And, um, I would have gone right into court that day with a lawyer saying, I need a, uh, I need a temporary restraining order on this clinic from embargoing my embryos away from me. I demand that my embryos be released to me. I waive all claims against the facility for the, you know, negligent transfer or for any wrongful death claims, I guess, just waive what you've been, what you've lost thanks to the ruling, not all claims, but I waive any wrongful death

claims against you. Give me my damn embryos right now. Like they cannot hold the embryos from their rightful parents, which is that woman, Megan Cole. So I like, she probably wasn't advised as she doesn't sound like a rich person. She talks about the financial pressure that this put on her family, but that's what you should do. They can't just hold onto your embryos. That's sorry. That's one of the things that's very annoying about the story. Keep going. No, no, no. I mean, I think that's what you should do. They can't just hold on to your embryos. That's sorry. That's one of the things that's very annoying about the story. Keep going. No, no, no. I mean, I think that's a hugely important point because the wrongful death suit in and of itself that is on the other side of the coin is coming from basically the same position, which is that this is, you know, a form of life that was created with my unique DNA and my husband or my partner's unique DNA, it cannot be in a position where it is dropped on the floor. And, you know, the term wrongful death implies that a life was

snuffed out because something was dropped on the floor. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's why, you know, IVF has rapidly increased. Like the technology has gone really quickly, really far, really quickly. And it's wonderful. I mean, it's such a blessing for so many families. I think there's probably a better way to do it than some places do it. And I think the laws just need to be worked out on this. And, you know, I think the judge was kind of in a tough position because the wrongful death law and what IVF is, which is, you know, embryonic development. Christopher Hitchens back in 2003, were really interesting piece on this for Vanity Fair, where he and he had some like heterodox thoughts on, you know, embryonic development and abortion and all of that. But when you have something that is a

fertilized embryo, you do have unique DNA that was created. And so if it goes away, what does that mean? Does that mean death? Does that mean the end of potential life? So legally, I do think, you know, hopefully the silver lining here, you know, it's a tragedy that people are being caught up in this, but hopefully the silver lining is that we will work towards a more ethical and just a more helpful legal framework that doesn't lead to people losing fertilized embryos in this way that, as she described, it felt like a death in the family. I don't begrudge my deeply pro-life friends who feel like the IVF clinics are bad because

invariably what happens is the woman produces X number of eggs, gets put in a Petri dish, it gets fertilized with sperm. All of them, all the eggs get fertilized, which is not normal. That's not how a normal pregnancy would take place inside of a body where you only release one egg. I mean, sometimes two or three in extraordinary cases with triplets or twins. You know, you could release whatever, 10 eggs and potentially they could all get fertilized. And then you have the leftovers. And I understand why the pro-life, you know, like true, true hardcore believers, many of them are like, this is not okay. But I guess I'm just,

this is where I draw the line. I, I don't, I don't think a fertilized embryo outside of the uterus that's never been in its mother is the same to me as one that's in the mother and growing and has a real shot at viability in life. I just, I don't see it the same. And I will tell you, I mean, Eliana, I've told you this privately and I've told my audience this Dave Rubin came on and he's of course in a gay marriage. And therefore there's no, there's no wife in the relationship. And I know people have problems with that too. I I'm not one of them. We talked about surrogacy. They had to use a surrogate. I was able to have my own babies, but I have, and this is a lot of information, but I'll tell you, I have what's called a T-shaped uterus. And what that means is instead of like a big uterus, mine is kind of small. And it was leading to problems in getting

pregnant. So we went, you have to have the history of salpingogram, I think is how you pronounce it. And you have to like get tested. And I didn't think anything was going to be wrong with me. And there was something wrong, but not conducive to pregnancy or getting pregnant. I went to a fertility specialist and he said, don't worry, you can carry a baby. It's just going to be very hard to conceive one. And that's why we did IVF and we did it for all three of our children. And I thank God every day for that technology. I would not have my three amazing children if it hadn't been for IVF. And I mean, I can't think of a world in which any sane person would look at me and my family and say, nope, they shouldn't be here. The world would be better if your children were not here. That would be a win for society.

Bullshit. Bullshit. It's a very easy argument to win when you're zeroed in on the embryos that are in the Petri dish that may or may not. But then you look at the live children who have made it, you know, the millions of children now who have made it because of this technology. And how, how is it pro-life to argue with that, with their existence in this world? I just, I don't, it's very frustrating to me, Eliana, because if this continues, if they don't reverse this, then Megan Cole might not get her embryos. And who knows how many other women who would love to use the same technology I used will wind up in the same position. One footnote to what I just said, we were lucky. We were lucky in that we did not produce extra embryos. And so I didn't have to make the decision about what to do with potential children of mine

that I, you know, I mean, look, if it had been one or two more, I probably would have tried to have them. But if it had been 10 more, what do you do in that circumstance? So I'm not blind to the ethical considerations here. And I do consider myself fortunate not to have had that end result. I wish I had a ton to add, Megan, but I sort of share your views exactly. As you mentioned, we had talked about this and I also have a hard time. I'm more, I feel much stronger opposition to to abortions and to ending the life of a baby in the mother's womb than to the frozen embryo. That's I just don't have as strong a reaction. But I will say I am not I've never been a fervent pro-lifer. I'm not a Catholic. And so I think it is just harder for somebody maybe of my background to relate to those views.

So I just I really do feel for for everybody caught up in the gears of this situation. And and well, let me ask you this. There's one thing you do know a lot about. One thing you do know a lot about is politics. And as you know, the Republicans have been struggling ever since Dobbs with these more moderate voters. And you know, I mean, even that New York times daily podcast was talking about how, well, in the wake of Dobbs, you know, it's just, everything's different. Every state can do it what it wants. And this is going to be pinned on Republicans now, right?

Like Republicans don't want IVF, even though Trump was quick to come out and say, this is insane. I'm against this with IVF should be allowed. Matt Gates, who's no, he's not some light footed liberal, you know, like, yeah, it's not going to matter. This is going to be hung around the Republicans in an election year. It's not going to matter. And I think it's even more troubling when women like us who are well to the right of center are seeing things happen where we're like, ah, that's we can't defend that can't can't get behind that. And so that that's what alarms me. But this is,

you know, if I were Democrats, I'd be making political ads all over the country around this. If I were if I were Republicans, I'd be making ads all about this, this murder in Georgia with that young woman's face on it everywhere. You turn all of this stuff into politics. But, you know, right after these things happen, it is important to remember that these are. But, you know, right after these things happen, it is important to remember that these are real people, you know, on on the other end of it. And that policy decisions do affect these, you know, very they affect real individuals in these cases. But politically, look, even the six week and 12 week abortion bans were bad for Republicans. Just the the cadence of the the environment created post-Obs. Republicans have not been able to talk about well, to grapple with well.

And whatever Biden's foibles abortion as an issue, Democrats were able to make sure that outweighed whatever was hanging around Biden's neck. And so this is certainly not going to help in that regard. No, I mean, I realize it's Alabama, Emily, but they got to fix it. The latest I heard was, you know, the governor, the Republican governor said she's inclined to fix it and that the legislature appears to have the numbers to fix it, but it's not a lock. And if they don't fix it, then what? It's a huge problem for the pro-life movement going forward. And it's one that I'm not sure those of us in the pro-life movement, I mean, I consider myself pretty hardcore pro-life. I consider myself pretty hardcore, honestly, on IVF, even though I think it's a wonderful blessing. There is a way to do it that is perfectly ethical and wonderful. But I don't think people are prepared to have these

conversations about technologies that have advanced to the point where everybody kind of gotten used to them. They're normalized. They've produced incredible results. And this is going forward like this after Dobbs. And now after this ruling, this is going to be a question that is posed to every single pro-life Republican. And there has to be a message that leads with agreement about how wonderful these technologies are. We can have the serious sort of ethical discussions, as you were just mentioning, Megan. There are some areas that really bring up debate and that really bring up room for having those conversations. But man, if Republican politicians don't understand the gravity of how they have to lead with the complete support for and gratitude for what these technologies have brought into people's lives and are just going to lead with some type of. And I don't know. I mean, this is the pro-life movement has to figure out how to talk about this because it's not just going to lead with some type of, and I don't know, I mean,

the pro-life movement has to figure out how to talk about this because it's not just going to be IVF. It's going to be other things down the road. But this is going to be a huge, huge thing because it's affected so many people's lives because this decision is going to have so many ramifications in Alabama and potentially elsewhere. Again, the silver lining is that we develop a better legal framework for this that has more clarity so that people don't get caught up in the mix. But if Republican politicians, if pro-lifers are going to talk about this just in terms of

saying things that are very alienating to other people, if that's what they're going to lead with, this will not just be a political loser. It'll be a moral loser. It'll set the cause back instead of coming to the table on some points of consensus and agreement. There is a huge difference between looking at a woman and saying, you do not have the right to kill your own child and saying to her, you do not have the right to have your own child. That is just a complete, completely different message, politically, morally, religiously, take your pick. And the ladder's not going to fly. It's not going to fly with Republicans. I'm not going to fly with the very group that Trump is trying to win over,

as we discussed earlier, in particular, young, moderate women, right? That's who he needs to win. So he took the right position on this. Can, go, can you expand on what you're saying, Emily? Because it's been a long while. My youngest child is now 10, so I haven't really been following the latest IVF developments. But what is the more moral, humane way of doing it that you're referring to? So targeted. Yeah. Like what you were saying about to minimize situations where people have 10 extra embryos that they have to make decisions on. Just put the number of eggs in the Petri dish that you're willing to have. Like it's really the eggs that will control the number of children. Right, right, right, right. And then figuring out what these clinics do with extra eggs, too.

I think that's a big, big, big, big legal question as well, because now we have people like the woman on the daily caught in the lurch when a court decision comes down. So as this stuff sort of flip-flops or ping-pongs through the legal system, you're going to have people's lives sort of caught in the balance and there should be some way that there's clarity. So people aren't in those situations. Yeah. And obviously, I think we'd all agree, like no medical testing on, quote, discarded embryos, all of that. Just maybe we we'd all agree, like no medical testing on quote, discarded embryos, all of that, just maybe we won't all agree, but I, I certainly wouldn't ever have agreed to that kind of thing. And I don't know. I just, I, my heart goes out to her. I predict she will get

her embryos. And honestly, if, if I were one of those moms or dads down there, I'd be sitting outside of that clinic every day with a photo, treating them as hostages. Release my hostage child. That's my baby. You will not tell me I cannot have him or her. I'd be ready to storm that IVF clinic the same way the bad person did in the first instance to try to go grab it. Though it's harder to identify when it's an embryo form in the little test tube. But I would just look for the loud mouth one, the little brash one swearing from the desk. That's mine. It'd be so obvious.

Ladies. Thank you so much for sticking around. Thanks. See you soon. Thanks to all of you for listening. Would love your thoughts. You can write me with your thoughts on this debate or any other you've listened to today.

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