The Megyn Kelly Show - Fatal Flaws in Alex Murdaugh’s Cross Examination, Staying True to Your Convictions, with Mark Geragos, Ronnie Richter, and More | Ep. 500

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Mark Geragos and Ronnie Richter to take a deep dive into the latest updates in the Alex Murdaugh double-murder trial, including all the ways Murdaugh admitted to lying in his testimony, what went wrong in Murdaugh’s cross examination, and more. Tony Hinchcliffe, stand-up comedian and host of "Kill Tony,” joins to talk about his family and upbringing, how childhood bullying led Hinchcliffe to become a comedian, how comedy has changed over the years, and more. Plus, Megyn responds to listener emails from The MK Mail Bag and discusses staying true to your convictions, her girls trip to Vegas, commitment to friendships, and much more. Geragos:https://geragos.comRichter:http://www.blandrichter.com/Hinchcliffe:https://tonyhinchcliffe.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, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday. Oh my gosh, I'm really looking forward to this show. I mean, when I say there are new developments in the murder trial that's been captivating the nation of Alec Murdoch, I am understating the significance of what has happened over the past 24 hours. This is like if Scott Peterson took the stand. This is like if O.J. took the stand. Except, unlike those two guys, this guy Alec Murdo, is as slick as they come. He's a former prosecutor. He's a career lawyer.

And man, he's been slippery on the stand. It's actually been weirdly impressive to watch him dodge and weave as the prosecutor's thumb tries to pin him down. And it's getting very tense. They're in a break right now, but we've got all the latest developments for you. It's getting very tense now because this is where the rubber meets the road. They are zeroing in on the moments of the murders, the moments preceding the murders and right after the murders. And actually it's fascinating because his demeanor is changing. His loquaciousness is

changing. Suddenly he's very short winded instead of long. So we're going to get into all of this. This guy stands accused right now of murdering his own wife and his 22 year old son on June 7th, 2021. The prosecution's theory is that he was under enormous financial strain. He had been caught by his law firm embezzling from them and stealing from clients and had been confronted that very day. He claims he was on opioids. He was also facing a lawsuit in connection with the son, Paul, who was murdered. His boat crashed a couple of years earlier in which a young woman was killed.

So a lot of financial pressure and the theory of the prosecutors is essentially that he killed his wife and son to garner sympathy for himself and make the law firm and others get off his case. And there's been testimony in this case that that kind of happened. The law firm did take their foot off the pedal when they found out this happened to him. They were like, my God, backseat on all the financial misdeeds. Poor guy had a double murder in his family. Well, today on the stand, Murdoch was asked why it took this trial getting underway and five weeks of testimony before he finally admitted that he lied. He lied to investigators about his alibi. And just for the viewers who aren't up to speed, what he originally told the cops, because he did talk, talked to the cops that night.

I'm innocent. I'm helpful. I'm the grieving husband and father. What he originally told them was I went down to the kennels or sorry, I never went down to the kennels where my wife and son were. Instead, I was back at home taking a nap during the time the murders took place. And I only went to the kennels later. And that's when I found the bodies. Well, unbeknownst to him, his son, Paul had taken a Snapchat video six minutes before they believe the murders took place. And his voice is clearly on it. They had multiple witnesses say that's Alex voice. He knew he couldn't get out of it. He knew the jury

was believing it. It's so clearly his voice. So we decided to take the stand and the prosecutors pressed him. Okay. So you just finally decided to take a stand. Now you finally decided in direct testimony yesterday to say, I lied to the investigators. I was at the kennels. That is my voice. Finally decided to come clean about this. You didn't think like earlier in this case when the police investigated you and talked to you and interrogated you, that would have been a good time.

And Alex Murdoch claimed he never really had the opportunity to confess. He was dying to confess. He tried to call prosecution many times to confess, but they didn't get back to him. That's where we are right now. We've got another all-star Kelly's court panel to analyze it all. Mark Garagos is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Garagos and Garagos. I mentioned Scott Peterson. He represented Scott Peterson and would never have let him take the stand.

He represented Michael Jackson and a bunch of other very famous people in big, big cases. And Ronnie Richter is back with us today. He's an attorney in South Carolina where this case is taking place and the founding partner of the Bland Richter Law Firm. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks. So let me start with you, Mark, since I mentioned Scott Peterson and we haven't heard from you, had Ronnie on yesterday, but your reaction to the fact that the defense put Alec Murdoch on the stand at all and your thoughts on how it's going so far? Well, number one, I don't know that I would probably take issue with the defense put him up. This is one of the only decisions that the defendant absolutely controls, meaning Murdoch can be advised by his lawyers not to take the stand. I've been in a situation where I've actually, in a murder case on repeated times,

told a client it's over my dead body, and the client says, I don't care, and testifies anyway. So that's one issue. But number two, he really has nothing, absolutely nothing to lose. The financial crimes, if you believe what's been put out there and what's been developed in this case, he's facing essentially under South Carolina law the rest of his life in prison anyway. So is he going to go down for those anyway and get convicted of this? Or is he going to get up there and try to explain it? So I had always suspected he would take the stand and had said as much. I don't see any downside for him to take the stand. By the way, up until this morning, I would have told you he was winning on points. What I generally see in cases like this is if the prosecutor feels that way, he's going to run out the clock, regroup over the weekend and come back on Monday and keep cross examining him.

If the prosecutor sits down today, then the prosecutor thinks he's done his job. Are you guys feeling any frustration, Ronnie? Let me ask you at how let's put aside the last 15 minutes before they break at 1130 Eastern. OK, because that that got spicy and it seemed to be going well for the prosecution. But the it started at 930. So we had almost two hours of testimony before that last 15 minutes. I am feeling frustrated as a recovering lawyer who did try cases at the the way this cross is being handled. You know, it's not like we're always taught. And in actual practice, most skilled cross examiners only want yeses or no's from the person they're crossing. And then you went down to the kennels, didn't you? And you

saw Maggie and Paul, didn't you? And you spent the following amount of time there, didn't you? And yet you told this jury yesterday that for the first time, whatever, when you spoke to law enforcement days after the murders and the night of the murder, you claimed you never went to the kennels. Isn't that true? Yes or no, sir. This calls for a yes or you control the witness. It's not really about extracting info.

It's about having the jury hear your version of the events confirmed by the defendant. And that's not what's happening here, Ronnie. No, I agree. I mean, on cross-examination, it's always the question that's more important than the answer. And you're literally just using the opportunity to grab the microphone and say what you want to say through the witness. So he gives a skilled and evasive liar lots of rope and lots of microphone to get his speaking points in. And I would like to see him cut him off more effectively. It's very frustrating, Mark. It's like Alec Murdoch is smart and this ain't his first rodeo in a courtroom. And he's taking all these opportunities to try to ingratiate himself with the jury, go off on his meandering talking points about things that may or may not matter to the case, but trying to show them, I'm helpful.

I'm here, cat in hand, admitting to the financial crimes. I didn't do the murder. But let me speak to you, South Carolinian to South Carolinian. We can all bond together. And the DA is allowing him to get away with it. Well, there's one thing that we probably should talk about. We are watching this and not in the courtroom. If you believe what's happening or what's being reported in the courtroom. Yesterday, I heard at least two reporters say that at least two jurors were crying during his testimony. Another juror apparently pushed some Kleenex towards him. If the prosecutor

is seeing this, he may want to kind of run out the clock, which is what it seems like they're doing right now. To follow up on your point, the fact that they've spent so much time in what Dick Harpootlian said yesterday before they recessed is, I haven't heard murder, the word murder, for the last two hours. And the judge said, well, that's fine. It's credibility. I think that's precisely what the prosecutor's mindset is. He's going to try to destroy his credibility. I will come back to this, though. He I do not think that they're laying a glove on him, even in the last, as you said, 15 minutes. It appears to me that he has endeared himself to at least a number of these jurors. That's all he needs in this case. A hung jury for him is as good as a win. It's right.

You're exactly right. A hung jury is a huge win for Alec Murdoch. And so he just needs one. Ronnie, when you listen to this guy on the stand, to me, as somebody who very recently interviewed the human lie detector, Phil Houston, developed the CIA's deception detection program that they're still using to this day, was at the CIA for 25 years actually doing this. I'm not joking when I say he's a human lie detector, he actually is. And he talked to us at length about, um, a little bit actually about this case in the Alec Murdoch interrogation

interviews, but in general, and when you qualify all of your answers on the important details, it's a sign of deception. You know, if somebody says to me, Megan, did you cheat on your husband, Doug? I say, no, I didn't. I never have. Period. I don't say, well, if I cheated on him, it was definitely not at a time when, you know, we were married. And it's not, I don't remember a time where I ever would have cheated. No, I didn't. That's what a truth teller sounds like. And we pulled just a small soundbite, but I do think it was interesting that this, the story in, uh, that's changed. That's so critical is whether he was home taking a nap at the time of the murders or he was down at the kennels doing the murders. And he told the cops he was home taking

a nap during the time of the murders, then got caught that he was there on that Snapchat video at least six minutes before the murders, like around six minutes before the murders took place. So now he's changed the story to, okay, I did go by the kennels, which isn't what I said initially. I did go by the kennels. I didn't want to do it, but I went, I did. And I had a quick exchange with Maggie and Paul. Then I went back home and got home around 8.48. This is where the prosecutor has them. They think the murders took place at 8.50, 8.50 when the old version was, I was asleep that whole time. Okay, now he's home two minutes before the murders take place and home is just, you know, yards away. Didn't hear anything. And we've gone from, I napped for

an hour to I dozed. Maybe I dozed. I didn't. Well, and here's just a little bit of how he sounded on his alleged nap. All right, this is sound by three. Taking a nap if I took a nap, but when I got up from laying down, as I was getting ready to go to my mom's, there was a point in time where I thought Maggie and Paul had come back. All right. So just hold that because here's he goes on a little bit more in sound by six about his alleged nap. Before you said you'd been napping for an hour or so, we're napping that entire time. And now you you lay down on the couch? That's correct. All right.

And maybe dozed for a second? Maybe. According to your news story? How long did you doze? If I dozed, extremely short time. Extremely short time? Because you would agree with me that at 9.02, you're up and moving, according to the data.

I agree that according to that data, my phone's recording steps at whatever time it is, 9.02 something. How long did it take you, if you were at the house at 8.49, how long before you went and laid on the couch? I would have gone straight to the couch. Probably I may have gone by the sink or, you know, I may have gotten a spit cup, but it would have been basically straight to the couch. I if I did, I would have. I may have. It probably that's what a liar sounds like, Ronnie. Yeah, it's a ridiculous story, you know, and the danger of having to put on the stand at all.

I thought the defense was gaining great ground on a weak motive, on weak forensics and on a rush to judgment by the investigator. So they had all of that in their camp. I agree with Mark. It sounds like this is the witness who just had to testify, but by him testifying, they turned a very complex case into a single issue case, which is, do you believe Alex Murdoch? And to put a finer point on it is a single issue case on one lie in particular. Why did you lie to the police about having not been at the kennels? And the account he gives for that lie, I think is preposterous. So this is the hazard of having him testify or him insisting on testifying. Because if you recall back to the reason he gave for having lied, it's not that the drugs made him do it. It's that his addiction

made him paranoid and made him not trust the police. Although he's been a solicitor, he's a third generation solicitor. He is the law in Hampton County. So it's a ridiculous story. And now he's got to back into version two that puts him safely away from the murder at the time it actually takes place. So he's put himself in quite a corner by electing to testify the way he has. Mark, that just reacted that last soundbite. I may have napped. I probably would have.

I may have got a spit cup when I napped. If if I napped the old story on camera, two cops was I napped for one hour. Now, could you put more qualifiers in the onstand testimony? Well, so one of the things, you know, my father was a homicide prosecutor and he always used to say that it doesn't matter what happens in a trial once the defendant takes the stand, because then the jurors are going to go back into that jury room and all they're going to talk about is what did the defendant say? And here, that's what they're going to be focused on. I don't agree so far. And like I say, we I think it's premature to make a judgment until we see whether they go the rest of the afternoon, regroup and come back on Monday or whether they just sit down. I think it's premature because so far, if what people are telling me in the courtroom is true, I think he's acquitted himself, if you'll excuse the pun, extremely well. And he's obviously connected with some of these jurors. And the sip cup and the shit me up and the other colloquially expressions, colloquially expressions that he's been using.

I think he resonates with some of these jurors and obviously only time will tell. But I also think that the prosecutor understands that. And I think part of the because the prosecutors are taking enormous criticism on their approach. I think they understand that they've got to do something to erode or take back the narrative, if you will, because I think he's been effective so far. I know. Well, that's I'm actually troubled by that as somebody who thinks he did it by how I kind of charming he is. You've got a chorus of people who agree with you because you cannot believe the ransacking that the prosecutors are taking here. And I'm not one to usually jump in to defend the prosecutors, but I understand their conundrum. I've been there before on the other side. And if you've got jurors and you're watching those jurors in real time and

they are, your opponent is resonating, you have to be very careful as to what you do and how you do it. I mean, I've never tried cases like you have, and I have never tried a criminal case, but I'm much more in your old colleague, Nancy Grace's field of get up there and browbeat the hell out of him. Show the jury you can't stand this guy. This is an evil man who murdered his own child and his wife and has been lying about it ever since. I'd have no trouble showing them. I hate him and you should, too. But the problem with that approach, and I've gone round and round with

Nancy about this over the years, but the problem with that approach is you don't want to, if you are the person who's supposed to be guiding them to the ultimate truth, if you will, you don't want them to hate you or turn on you. And if you browbeat too much on somebody who they like or feel empathy for, they can turn on you. That's true. But there's been so much evidence in this case that I feel like makes them not like Alex Murdoch. Alex Murdoch, his best his best quality is what we're seeing on the stand or what we saw yesterday on direct, which is he's a good talker. He sounds like a, you know, sort of, I don't know, a guy you'd want to have a drink with or a dinner with like that, like the way he talks. And he's he's

sort of doing a good job of seeming helpful. But the prosecutor got got a good line in on that right before they went to break when, you know, Alec Murdoch is like, I've been so cooperative. And the prosecutor saw a moment and took it. This is soundbite four. Other than lying to them about going to the kennel, I was cooperative in every aspect of this investigation. Very cooperative, except for maybe the most important fact of all, that you were at the murder scene with the victims just minutes before they died. Right? I did not tell them that I went to the kennel. That was a good moment, Ronnie, for team prosecution. Well, it was. The missus,

not to be critical of the prosecution, I think they're doing a good job. He's a difficult witness. But the whole purpose of the financial crimes truly was to bolster a pretty weak motive case for the state. We all know that. That being said, if it's turning into a credibility case, the financial crimes are a goldmine. And yet the prosecution let Alec get away with this false narrative all day yesterday that he's candidly and openly admitting that he stole that money. I mean, I don't know how many times I need to say it to you, Mr. Waters. I took that money. It was wrong. He pled not guilty to all 90 of those offenses as he sits in the courtroom today. The official position is not guilty. So I think he should have snapped that off on him pretty good. And then with Russell Lafitte, there's another example.

He tried to come to the defense of Russell Lafitte. Remind us who that is. Yeah. And what he said about Russell Lafitte is Russell had nothing to do with this. I did all of that by myself. Well, is Russell Lafitte, the bank executive who was found guilty on like helping Alec with these crimes? Yes, yes. I'm sorry. He is the bank official from Palmetto State Bank, who was charged as a co-conspirator on many of Alex's

financial crimes. He was tried in Charleston just months ago. Alex didn't appear for his friend. He sat silently by why this guy got tried and convicted on all of those offenses. And yet, yet he tries to garner some sympathy, some credit for now saying openly, well, Russell had nothing to do with that. You know, there was a time to come forward and say that. And it wasn't yesterday. It was when your good friend, Russell Lafitte, was facing his own trial and was convicted. The problem is that arguably is what's called Griffin error. And the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on that. And that's commenting on the failure to of a defendant to comment can get you in big trouble as a prosecutor.

And they don't want to go down that road. They've had a couple of objections on that so far when the DA said, you never told anybody this story, did you? You never volunteered. And the defense is sort of trying to stand up and say, Fifth Amendment privilege, he had no obligation to, and the judge has been overruling that objection. But the financial crimes, it's not that Alec Murdoch has rehabilitated himself on them, but he has been saying, okay, I lied, feel terrible. I'm very sorry to everybody, but not for nothing. Um, like the one guy I stole from owed me a bunch of money. So I didn't really feel like I was that much of a crumb in stealing back from him. He

owed me the dough. Our, our joint investment fell apart. And then I was the one stuck with the bill. So yes, I did steal money when it came from him later or it should have gone to him. But he's no angel is kind of what Halak Murdoch said. Okay, point for him. Why the prosecutor is allowing him to go on like this, again, I do not know. And then he says, he made some points on,

the prosecution theory is on June 7th, 2021, he was confronted by the law firm. We know you stole, you've been embezzling. You stole from clients. You know, you're basically, if all this is true, you're not only fired, you're going to get disbarred. The water's creeping up on Alec Murdoch to the point where he goes home and kills his family to generate sympathy for himself instead of making himself into this horrible person in the newspapers the next day. And he has been rehabilitating himself on that too, Ronnie, saying it really wasn't much of a confrontation. When I talked to Jeannie

of the law firm, she was basically like, eh, I feel bad even raising this. We've noticed some irregularities, but he has way, way, way downplayed what happened between him and the law firm on June 7th. And that's that's hurtful to the prosecution. You know, it is hurtful to the prosecution when she testified. Jeannie was a terrific witness. And I think she gave a completely different account of what that that exchange was with Alex. It was far more confrontational. It was far more direct. And at the time she testified, I think it came across very impactfully.

But that was a long, long time ago. So I don't think the jury recalls much of Jeannie. I think they're going to take away Alex's recall of it, that it was really kind of a non-event. I do think he gave very good answers to dispel the idea that his financial world was collapsing on him. Yeah, I know. And that's motive.

That's that's motive, which, of course, is not required. But nice to have more with Mark and Ronnie after this quick break. Ronnie Richter remains. He's a South Carolina lawyer. Mark just got called into court because he's a busy, busy man. So we'll see. We'll check back in with Mark and his thoughts. Let me go back to Ronnie. So, Ronnie, one of the things that's been bothering

me about the Alec Murdoch testimony is and the prosecutor is trying to point this out like you got this great memory for all sorts of details unless they relate to the moments before the murder or right before you claim you left Paul and Maggie. And here was just an example that just stuck out to me as, you know, like this, this makes no sense where he, he allegedly can't remember what would be the final conversation he had with his own wife. This would be, think about it. If you, if you have a loved one, a spouse who gets brutally murdered, you don't remember the last words you spoke to that person. Everyone remembers the last words they spoke to a dying loved one, whether it's by murder

or another cause. But I would imagine, especially if it were a murder. Here's Sot5. Did I say goodbye? Yeah. Did you talk to them at all or did you just get the chicken, put it on there, jump on there and just take off? I wouldn't have just gone off. I mean, I would have said I'm leaving. Okay. Did I say goodbye or bye? And again, go ahead. I mean, there would have been some, you know, there would have been some exchange. I'm not staying here. Well, what was that exchange? I mean, you have, you've had such a photographic memory about these new stories. What happened here? No, it's not. I can't tell you the exact words. You don't remember your conversation after you put that chicken up.

Did y'all talk about the chicken? No, I don't think we did. Did you talk with Paul about Cash's tail? After the chicken? Yeah. No, I know I didn't do that. Did you tell Maggie I'm going to go check on him at that point? No, I don't. I don't think I'll go back.

I certainly would have said something to that effect. All right. I mean, Ronnie. Really? No, no, it bothers you for the same reason it bothers me. And that is that is not truthful testimony. But the bigger question is, what is the jury hearing? Has he connected with one, two, or more like Mark seemed to believe? When you see the techniques that he's using in answering questions, he recasts questions all the time, right? So I don't know, what do you mean by wealthy? I mean, I don't know. What do you mean by, you know, just constantly creating room for himself to maneuver by recasting the question? Even here in this most important of all conversations ever, he's creating time and space for himself to think about it.

You don't have to think about the last words that you said to your to your wife who's brutally murdered. And it's not believable. So if the jury believes he's lying about the most important fact in the case, and that's the fact that he was there minutes before the murders, then he has to be guilty. And even just like he's he's sort of lost the thread on when to cry. He knows he should cry when he's talking about the condition of the bodies when he allegedly stumbled upon them innocently, not knowing what he was walking into. But an actual grieving relative would 100% be choked up in talking about the last moments they laid eyes upon their son and their wife, literally four minutes before they were brutally murdered, when you could have been there, maybe you could have stopped it. You could like, that's what a normal dad or spouse would be saying, like, my God.

It would be emblazoned in your brain, wouldn't it? Wouldn't you play this over in your head over and over again? Every movement, every glance, you know, every word that was spoken. I mean, if there are facts that should be cemented in this man's mind, it's that last interaction with the people who meant the most to him in the world. And that he's fuzzy on this facts really doesn't play well at all. Yes, honestly, I the audience knows I lost my sister who's 58 years old just this past October. And I mean, I remember every word I said to her when I got to that hospital. She couldn't, you know, necessarily hear me. But it doesn't matter. I remember every word I uttered in that hospital room where we were for hours. That kind

of memory doesn't go away. It's seared in one's memory. You know you're losing somebody who's hugely important to you. And even if he didn't know he was about to lose Maggie and Paul, you go back and relive it. Most people beat themselves up after they lose somebody suddenly due to murder, due to a car crash, and say like, why didn't I say I love them? I wish I had given him a hug. You know, like none of that, none of that. He's just weaselly all over the board. No. And I, I am in the past have lost a loved one to an act of violence. And I, I can tell you, I think mentally you're prepared to hear the news that maybe someone got sick or there was a terrible accident, but you're not prepared to hear the news that someone died violently. And it embosses on you. I mean, where you are,

who you spoke to, what those words were, it imprints immediately and indelibly. So I don't buy at all that he's looking for the words that should be so imprinted in his mind. Especially if you were there moments before the act took place. Any normal family member would be saying the number of hours I have beaten myself up for going back to the house. Why did I go back to the house? What if I had stayed there? Maybe I could have saved them. Maybe I would have seen the killer. You know, none of that. He's not he's not emotionally in tune enough to realize this is a whole thread that actual grieving family members would be mired in. was the only moment I've seen him on the stand, Ronnie, where he didn't seem to get that he was

giving them a good admission. He he's been two steps ahead of them for most of the cross. But in this one moment, he didn't seem to realize what he was admitting when the prosecutor was asking him about whether the dogs at the kennels were acting strangely as if potentially a stranger was there. Because of course, what he's setting up is under your new story, sir, you left. And like two minutes later, after you left, they were murdered. And so somebody didn't just pop up at the kennels or on the Mizzell property within those two minutes. Like that person would have had to be there. And this is how Alec Murdoch handled the questions about the dogs it sought to. Were the dogs barking and carrying on

or going out into the woods or acting like they sensed somebody was around that they didn't know? Were the dogs acting like there was somebody around that they didn't know? Were the dogs acting like there was somebody around that they didn't know? Yeah, like dogs do. No. No, they weren't. There was nobody around that the dogs didn't

know. Okay. Dogs didn't, to your indication, sense anything out of the ordinary? They were just chasing after the guinea? There was nobody else around for them to sense. What did you make of that? Yeah, you know, I'm from here, and I don't know for the broader audience that they can appreciate just how remote this place is.

I mean, this is as rural South Carolina as you can make it. There's some backwaters, there's some farms. I mean, there is nothing out there. And people do have dogs or kennels. I mean, they're out there for a reason. If anything moves, I mean, they're they're raising hell out there. And it's an experience that the jurors here would understand. Also, this family in that community, you know, if the squirrel farts in Hampton, I night, undetected, and been there coincidentally just minutes after Alex leaves the area and shoots and kills Maggie and Paul with weapons that were from the residence is so outlandishly, it's hitting the lottery while getting struck by lightning. And to me, I hope that's what the prosecution ultimately

conveys to the jury, how unlikely it could be that it's anybody other than Alex. He, yeah, when they, I hope they are better at closing than they are at crossing. That's my one big hope, like when you've got your cross, because the best way to do a cross examination, and I was watching it thinking they should have, they needed to pull an all nighter and they didn't because you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. And you say, Mr. Murdoch, you previously told law enforcement that you took a nap. We've gone back and checked. We can't find him saying an hour, which as the prosecutor said, I'm trusting the guy

that that's what Alex said at some point. We do. We have it. Hold on. Listen to my team. Here, let's play what we do have. Here's what we heard Alex saying, 25 minutes. It's definitely longer than may or may be not napped. It can't be sure. I might've napped a short dose, whatever. He used to say 25 minutes. Here's what we have. I was up at the house, laid down, took a nap on the couch, probably, I don't know, 25, 30 minutes. I got up. I called Maggie. OK, so you and I both know a skilled prosecutor has that at the ready. And they say yesterday you told this jury that you may or may not have napped. Your new story is you don't know if you napped. Isn't it true you told law enforcement

moments after the alleged murder, you napped for 25 to 30 minutes? Yes, it is. In fact, here you are telling law enforcement, let the jury see it and then let him lie right on the back end of it. Like at every turn, you should be doing that to underscore what a liar he is and on big details and small. You have to wonder, certainly they anticipated he would testify, but maybe not. Maybe you would want those first 10, 15, 20 questions to be just hit, stick, move, no room for wiggle from Alex Murdoch. Hit with your best punches first and to your point there should be nothing more than room to say yes or no and if he says anything else he's going to look like the liar that he is but that's not the way the prosecution came out of the box now it's

it's more of a grind um but i think you got to capture that jury immediately and hit with your best punch fast. You tell me, is it a Southern thing, like a polite manners thing? Because I know they're a lot more polite in the South than they are in New York, where I'm from. But I'll give the audience an example that they remember recently. And that was the cross-examination of Amber Heard in the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp case. The lawyer, Camille Vasquez, she did not offer her any quarter. It was answer my question, please. That's not what I asked you, your honor. Could you please instruct the witness to answer the question? If you can't control the witness yourself, you get the judge to step in

because the judge understands. And so does the lawyer for the person on the stand. This is cross-examination. This is cross. I'm allowed to be aggressive. I'm allowed to treat the witnesses hostile. I'm allowed to elicit only the answers that I'm asking for. Yeses or noes, if that's what I want. And if you try to wiggle, I will control you. I will prove to you in this jury who is in control. It is me. It is not you. And so like she did a masterful job with Amber Heard and scored a lot of points. So is it a, is it a cultural difference? A little bit. I mean, there are rules of engagement here that I think don't apply everywhere else. I mean, and he did lose his wife and his son, okay? So that's a fact that we know. So you have to tread lightly a little bit, okay? But when he starts becoming evasive, it's at that point you're allowed to take the gloves off and go hard.

Now, if you have a bad witness, a bad person on the stand, yes, you go hard immediately. But this is kind of an unknown quantity. You know, is the jury perceiving him as the murderer or as the victim? We're not sure. But Alex gave the prosecution the opportunity to go hard when he started becoming evasive. Yes, with all those qualifying words. Once the door is open, then you go in. All those qualifying words, as Phil Houston, human lie detector, explains, are basically off-roots.

He's giving himself off-roots, like maybe, might have, could be, possibly, because he doesn't know what the prosecutor has. He doesn't know whether the prosecutor's got something in his pocket that he's going to hammer him over the head with if he's too definitive, if Alec is too definitive. So he puts all these off routes in their qualifiers like, well, I didn't say I said maybe I said probably I didn't really commit to that, but that's what a skilled liar does. And that and now, Ronnie, this story about, I was prepared to tell you this story all along. You blew off all my many phone calls. To you, the prosecutors, there I was sitting in jail saying, I want to tell you something really important. And nobody returned my call. Here's a little bit of that on the StanSot one. Did you ever reach out to anyone in law enforcement or the prosecution and tell that story that you told this jury yesterday about the kennels before yesterday?

Did I ever reach out to law enforcement to say I want to tell you about the kennels? No, sir, I did not. Before yesterday, did you ever bring up what you told this jury about that, Kennels, to anybody in the prosecution or anybody in law enforcement? No, I didn't have the opportunity to, Mr. Waters, because you would not respond to my invitations to reach out and tell you about all the things that I'd done wrong. And to talk about bringing this to a head, to talk about bringing this to a conclusion. I understand how many people I hurt. I understand how angry my partners are and how hurt. Unbelievable. Like literally unbelievable. Well, I mean, it's, it starts with a terrible question, right? Did you instead of isn't it true that you never is the way that you would want that question to be phrased.

But you give him the microphone and the guy's a chameleon on the stand. And yes, you hear him recast the question first to give him the room to think and then go back on the offensive with the answer. So he's very skilled up there. What the lawyer did for the prosecution instead was he switched to, well, you never told your friends that. You never told the witnesses who have spoken to you between then and now this story, which was less effective. I mean, now the jury's wondering, did he reach out to the prosecution and offer to come clean on all of this? Like, sadly, the prosecutors left that as a question in the air. Yeah, and they invited that pain through a poorly phrased question.

You should never give room to even expand on the answer to that question. Isn't it true that you never said that before today? I mean, you don't give him room to wax poetic about what he could have done. Well, and here's the other thing. Then he tried, the prosecutor was floundering, right? Because he's like, oh God, I wasn't prepared for that left turn. So then he goes to, isn't it true your lawyer, because the defense lawyer, Jim Griffith, appeared on this good HBO documentary called Low Country. There's one out right now on Netflix. The two are not to be confused. They're different filmmakers. But the Low Country one has been out for a while. And Jim Griffith appeared in it and offered some of Alec Murdoch's defense. And he says, isn't it true that your lawyer appeared in a film as recently as November

2020, in which he wasn't telling this story of you not napping and actually down at the kennels within moments of the murders. And Alec Murdoch's response is basically, oh, he gave that interview before November 2020, or whatever the date was. He's like, he actually sat for the, I mean, why the prosecutor is unprepared. You have the clip, you know, cause you've done your homework. When did Jim Griffith sit for that interview? You say, isn't it true? Your lawyer said this play the jury hears it. Why did he say that? That he's speaking for you. Right. And the judge actually, the defense got up there and said, attorney-client privilege, right? Like, what did you tell your lawyer? Because he got into like, what hadn't you told your lawyer?

And they said, attorney-client privilege. And the judge overruled the objection. He was going to let Murdoch testify what he had told the lawyers. And the prosecutor backed away. He was like, nevermind. I think we've gotten the point. No, no, we haven't gotten the point.

You did not stick the dagger in. You did not twist the dagger. You kind of teased him with the dagger and then you walked away. Yeah. And it's just asking that question that you don't really know the answer to, or to your point that you're not prepared to follow up on. So if you really thought Alex was ever going to take the stand, I mean, you don't want to work off of the script because you want to be a little more natural than that, but there should be in your queue, you know, these highlights, these points that you must make without affording any opportunity to Alex or his team to offer any explanation. You know, the changing of the answer from I went back and took a nap for 25 minutes to maybe I dozed off for a second, maybe I didn't. He should have been able to nail him

right there with the video at the moment to drive the point home. And the point is that Alex's story changes as he learns more about what the prosecution has in its queue. That's exactly right. Now, they are having said that through, you know, a series of admissions and statements they have gotten out of him. And of course, now we know thanks to the Snapchat video, he was at the murder scene six minutes before we believe, well, now it's shortened to four minutes before we believe the murders took place. Cause he says he left. Um, he, I guess he was there. We know at 44, 844, he says he was there for probably two minutes. So that puts it 846 that he's at the kennels, possibly 847. If you add

on the seconds that they've got the timing on, let's say 847. And we believe the murders happened three minutes after that. So they've gotten that. And they also have, they can tell from his cell phone when he got up and started walking around and they know he took a bunch of steps at 902. So at most, even if you give him two minutes driving back home, you've got, he's back home at 8.50. You got 10 minutes inside that house, which is why he had to change to, maybe I dozed. Maybe I closed my eyes for one minute from, I took the nap for 25 minutes. Like they have him, the prosecution, notwithstanding the kind of lackluster job on Cross, Ronnie, the forensic evidence is pretty strong. Yeah, I think it is as well. And what they've proven more than anything else,

I apologize. What they've proven more than anything else with the financial crimes is that Alex is a monster. And what we know about monsters is that we don't trust them and that they're capable of doing anything. So if he's a monster and he's lied about being at the scene, you know, is he guilty of the crime ultimately? looking at a client in the eye and lying to him. That too did not go very well. That was also an exercise in frustration, but we queued up just a bit of it in SOT 11. Every single one of these, you had to sit down and look somebody in the eye and convince them that you were on their side

when you were not, correct? That's what you did in every single one of these. I mean, every time... Answer my question, yes or no, and then you can explain. I'll let you explain all day long. Well, I mean, no, sir, that may or may not be true. And, Mr. Waters, just to try to get through this quicker, I admit... I know you want to get through it quicker, but we're not.

So answer the question, please. What I admit is that I misled them, I did wrong, and that I stole their money. For me to sit here and tell you specifically that I remember sitting down and talking with Natasha Thomas, I can't tell you that. But what I can tell you, and I can tell you that I didn't do right by Natasha Thomas. I took money from Natasha Thomas that didn't belong to me, and I was wrong for doing that. What did you make of that one, Ronnie? Yeah, you know, he's, again, his official position, there is an indictment for him on that crime, and he is pled not guilty. He maintains

not guilty today. Was that his guilty plea? Now that you're in front of the jury, now that you're trying to garner some favor? I mean, I think ultimately that is devastating to him that if we can, you know, catalog him to be, characterize him to be a skilled liar, how do we trust that in the most important lie of his life, the lie about not being at the kennels that he was telling us the truth? Honestly, there was no reason for the, do you remember the moment of looking him in the eyes and lying? Save that for your closing. You can argue that on closing. You don't have to keep throwing out all these lines and pulling in zero fish. It's just ineffective. It's kind of

frustrating. Ronnie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. To be continued. And the cross examination is to be continued this afternoon, too. We'll have full coverage for you on Monday. We're going to take some letters from the MK mailbag. If you want to mail me, you can at Megan. Just go email it at M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com. M-E-G-Y-N at M-E-G-Y-N-K-E-L-L-Y.com. That's how you reach me. You can also sign up for our American News Minute, which only comes out on Fridays and is always worth your time.

It's all the news of the week in one minute or less, plus some really fun clips and things you might've missed on the show. Everybody really enjoys it. So I think you will too. It doesn't cost you a thing. Um, and it keeps you up on the news in a very low cost kind of way. Okay. So, so much mail. I think we broke the mailbag record, uh, on the Yonmi Park interview, which aired last Friday. If you didn't hear it, please go listen to it. I promise you it will change your life. I promise. How many people can say that? I promise you it'll change your life. It'll change your dinner conversation that night. You'll want to tell everybody you want to share it. I'm telling you, that's how much confidence I have in the

Yonmi Park interview. I'll just give you a couple of examples. Ellen writes in, the interview with Ms. Park left me speechless. Her story should be taught in schools. Listening to her really made me understand how sick our higher education system is. I have to work much harder and stay true to my convictions. Bill, with a similar sentiment, saying everyone in the U.S. should hear

what it's like to live under an oppressed society. She was from North Korea. She escaped and have to endure with this young woman and her mother experienced. Her appreciation and understanding for our country is amazing. For someone who's relatively

new to the United States, she can clearly see that we are headed in the wrong direction. Here's just one other. Lori in Calgary writes in. Wow, wow, wow. What a moving interview.

I felt a flood of mixed emotions throughout it. God has his hand on that young lady. North America's got to wake up. My gosh, so true. So many people wrote in that they were fighting tears or that they did cry. You own me too is more emotional than she's been in a lot of her interviews. You know, I mean, you find a way of sort of packing that trauma up when you've been through so much of it, but we had such a beautiful exchange. She was moved. I was moved. The audience was moved. Worth your time. Okay. Last week, I was in Vegas for a couple of days. I was doing an event out there and I decided to parlay it into a girls

trip. So there's this group of friends. In all, we are seven. And we met in New York when we were raising our young kids. All of our daughters in particular were in the same preschool together. And we call ourselves Joe Palooza because the first girls trip we took was to celebrate our friend Joelle and her 40th birthday. So Joe Palooza went to Vegas, had a super great time. And two members of Joe Palooza came on with me and you met them. Yael Denbo and Joelle Cosentino. So got some fun feedback on them. Here's some examples. Valerie writes in, no group of people have more vacation fun than a group of women friends. The best part of the show was your message to women on how important it is to have kind, smart, and emotionally supportive women in your lives. This is the message we must pass on to our girls.

Valerie, word. Can I tell you, as the audience may know, cause I talk about this sometimes I'm not great at this. Like I'm, I'm not great at pursuing my friends and I'm actually not even that great at being pursued. Like I don't, I'm so busy with my show and my family that my friendships fall down first because of me and my therapist who I love, love, love. He recently told me, okay, he said, you've got to make a commitment to do at least three social things a week. It doesn't have to be like three dinners out. That's a lot, right? We can't do that. But like, maybe it's just like a walk with somebody, or maybe it's a phone conversation even,

or like last night I was in the city for the Ben Shapiro interview yesterday. And I'm in the city where I used to live. And so I called my friend. I'm like, hey, do you want to meet for a drink? I hadn't made the plan in advance. Sometimes that's risky. You can easily be rejected. She's like, sure.

She was going out to dinner later with her husband. She said, I'll meet you. We had such a nice time. It was like an hour, hour 15. Caught up. I felt the connection. I felt better. So my, my therapist is right. And you guys should give it a try to, um, hear a couple of questions.

Kyla in Tennessee writes in about motherhood. She writes, I am currently pregnant with our first child. Congrats, Kyla, a long time listener. And I wonder if my son will find your voice more recognizable than my own. Ha ha. In all seriousness, any advice for a first time mom? You know what, Kyla? I can tell you that Abby's children have had the same problem. And the little one, Lillian, is just like me. It's a blessing and a curse.

So good luck with your son. The only piece of advice I have for you as a first time mom is don't be too hard on yourself. Many of us struggled with that first year or two and didn't particularly love it. And it doesn't mean you're a bad mom. It just means you're a regular mom struggling with the regular challenges that come with a new baby. Do not believe 70s reference the Breck commercial. That is not what it looks like. It's hard and they spit up on you and they vomit on you and they crap on you. But it's amazing. It's amazing. And when they get a little older, it's easier and they're so fun and they're so fulfilling. Don't listen to Chelsea Handler. Having a child was a great idea and it only gets better. We have covered one dysfunctional family today with the Murdochs down in South Carolina.

So we're going to keep that theme rolling. Stand-up comedian and host of the very popular weekly podcast Kill Tony, Tony Hinchcliffe, joins us now. He is one of America's top rising young comedians, as he likes to point out. And he is here to discuss his crazy, crazy upbringing, political correctness, and how we have lost our ever-loving minds as a society. He knows firsthand. Tony, welcome to the show. Hello, Megan. How are you? Hey, I'm good. It's great to have you. Thank you for being here and thank you for allowing such an offensive introduction to you.

No, I like it. You pretty much nailed it. I love it. Dysfunctional family. The vast majority of people have them. If all you need to do is get talking with somebody and you realize even if you think you came from a healthy family, you didn't. Oh, yeah, especially in my world, the comedians that that end up hanging out with us and with me are just I mean, it's just wild. And the musicians out here in Austin, Texas, that's another thing. You find that the best rock stars, the ones that can make a guitar appear to float in front of them when having a solo all have these crazy, crazy backgrounds. No, nothing is normal. None of them that I know ever had dinner with their entire family after they all went to their nine to five jobs. There's nothing normal

about any of the most creative people that I know. You know, when you think exactly, I was just going to say people who go into the entertainment field in general, whether it's acting, the theater, whether it's music, comedy, art. Yeah, they do tend to have a fair amount of like maybe more than their fair share of family damage. And maybe this was just the release they needed or what got the creative juices flowing. Like you kind of need that. I had a relatively normal upbringing. So I became a lawyer. That's what happens when you have a relatively normal mind of a lawyer, sadly. Yeah, that's a lot of reading books right there. It's not that easy to calm your brain and read books when you're used to whatever we all came from.

I mean, it's wild. But what's weird in your situation is, and correct me if I'm wrong, you know, you had like a loving mom, you had loving siblings. It's not like you were beaten. There's a very weird situation with your dad who, I mean, maybe bigamous is too strong for what he was doing, but it was kind of in the bigamy lane. Yeah, it was, uh, well, bigamy, what exactly does that mean? I'm not sure. I didn't go to law school. Bigamy would mean he's married to two different women and has like two different families. That's not exactly right. Right, right. Well, it was old school Italian in what was mostly like a Catholic city.

And it was an all black neighborhood. So like we were the last of the Italians to be even in our little part of Youngstown, Ohio, which by the way is, I believe 20 minutes from East Palestine. And I've been talking with my mom about everything that's going on. I told her if it starts raining, get the hell out of there, get under something and have bagged ice and don't stay away from your tap water. But anyway, um, yeah, it was a very, very, very interesting situation to where, you know, my back then you didn't get divorced.

So my dad and my mom were hooking up with each other forever for years. And yeah, he was right around the corner. It turns out the entire time. Married to someone else. Yes. Yes. And he never got married. Was your mom married to someone else too yeah they were both married so

neither one of them got divorced they just started hanging out all the time uh and uh you know they were all sleeping in different beds than their partners it was just i guess it was a thing back in 1984 to uh to rather than separate from someone completely to just live in the same house, sleep separately, hate each other basically. And, uh, yeah, they were doing whatever they wanted. Was it disclosed to the spouse or the person, you know, their partner who was in their home? Did those, did their current like in-home romantic partners know that there was somebody else? Well, what's interesting is that I think my dad's wife at the time always suspected something. And then she heard rumors that he had a kid. And it was just rumors that there was some kid that went to a sane ed school that was

saying that, you know, so-and-so was his dad. And then one day I was bartending after I went to LA and went broke the first time at the age of 18, I had to go back to save money again. So I got this job bartending temporarily in Youngstown, Ohio, uh, at a place called Anthony's on the river. Anyway, it's like their 30th high school reunion, 30th or 40th or something of a high school. And I'm just slinging drinks. It's just, it's an open bar for this high school reunion. And this lady comes up and looks at me like she's seen a ghost.

And I almost knew immediately. I feel like I knew immediately who it was and what was happening. And she said to me, she goes, you know, is your dad Joe blank and blank, right? My dad's name. And I go, yep, sure is. And she goes, wow, you look exactly like him. And I married him 30 years ago or whatever it was. So it was like, she was seeing

a ghost, this, you know, 18 or 19 year old bartender. And she's looking at like the man that she married before. And she had just heard rumors. But the crazy thing is that she was super, super cool about it. She insisted that, you know, uh, she actually had a lot of power. It was interesting. She got me to the whole side of my dad's family to meet me and bring, bring me in. We had a nice big, uh, Italian like party, kind of a, a welcome to the family party when I was 18 or 19. So you had never known your biological dad's side of the family. You only knew your biological mom. Correct. A hundred percent.

So it was all very, very interesting. But I mean, again, this is how comedians are made. You got to have some weird stuff. And, you know, I think that like this is next level weird, though, because I know I heard you tell Dr. Drew something to the effect of you. You really you knew your dad. He would come by like a couple times a week when you were really young. And then it started to Peter down to like a couple times a year. And your mom had a story prepared for you on why you saw your dad. So little was your, was your,

I don't, is it, are we calling the other guy, your stepdad, like the person who was in home? Well, where would he be when your dad would come by for the visits? Well, once I was born, that other guy was out once she got pregnant and they weren't, uh, hooking up. He knew that that was, that was it pretty much figured that one out. Okay. So he, and so he was out of the house at that time. Um, but yeah, it was, it was tricky. So like when he would come and visit, you know, I would try to impress him because I, I wanted him to hang out more. So it's the ultimate, like I can see how I became the way that I became. It's just a kid that, because once I figured out that he was, you know, again, I might as well just tell the quickest version of this story for the listeners that don't know it, which is, yeah, she told me that he worked a lot on the road.

And then when I was, you know, I can't remember, maybe geez, 10, 11, 12, I always get it confused, but I was very, very young. And, um, I noticed that across when I was taking the school bus to school, that across the street from my one friend's house, there was a white SUV that looked exactly like my dad's car. So the next day when we drove by that car, I took note of the license plate. And then the next time my dad visited, I matched up the license plate with the car that's always in the driveway across from my one friend's house that I matched up the license plate with the car. That's always in the driveway

across from my one friend's house that I saw on the school bus. My dad visited, but I didn't want to bring it up then. Uh, so he left and then I brought it up to my mom. I go, look, I, I have matched up the license plate to, you know, a house where right across the street from Jeff Lewis's house. And she just broke it down to me. She told me everything at a very, very young age. Again, 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there. And she told me, yep, your dad lives a few blocks away. He has a different family.

He has two older kids than you. You were supposed to keep this a secret. He's a little bit connected to some, you know, it was Youngstown at the time and mafia. I mean, everything was just, it's just a land of illegal crime activity, um, extreme gambling, everything that you sort of see. I used to watch Goodfellas and A Bronx Tale and Sopranos just to sort of feel that was the closest thing to my Italian family that I had is taking a sick day from school and watching Goodfellas and eating spaghetti. Like it was like in my DNA. And, uh, so yeah, she broke everything down to me, which I think created this kind of like, you know, I don't know, kind of like a little monster inside of me. That's like, I'm going to

show him I'm cooler than the kids that he likes, you know, that he has over there. I'm going to, you know, I have to figure out a way to impress my father, just simple psychology 101. And, uh, you know, everything evolved to, you know, it was cool. And then I went to LA and then at this point, it's just been amazing. You know, we don't communicate that often, but when we do, it's hilarious and cool. And he got to come see me perform in an arena in Pittsburgh a few months ago and hang out with Joe Rogan in the green room afterwards. We watched a really cool boxing match that was going on and you know, those green rooms and arenas are amazing. So he's drinking coffee and he's just having a blast

chain, smoking cigarettes, watching boxing with a crew of guys that he just watched have a blast in the middle of an arena. So I think I finally accomplished the goal of trying to impress my father for 38 years. It's amazing to hear you still talking about it like that, because I would feel like by this point, usually the anger kicks in, you know, the resentment, like, where were you? Why didn't you pay more attention to me? You don't sound resentful. It's so interesting. I think about that sometimes. I never felt that way.

He's a cool guy. He's a cool Italian guy. You know, the wife beater and the gold chain and the nice, you know what I mean? Like he's always well presented, you know, black dress shirt, fresh press. I mean, he's a cool guy. He's likable. He's very funny. He talks cool. He talks like a real old school Italian, you know, and I never really felt resentment towards him. It was just always a, it was just always simply, I want him to think I'm cool. I want to make him laugh when he's around. I want him to, you know, know that I'm okay.

I've always told him that and my mom that is that I wouldn't change a thing about my chaotic upbringing in Youngstown and it being a dangerous neighborhood and my family being completely, you know, a chaotic, different thing. But I wouldn't change a thing about it. I love how. Well, one of the things that I know you dealt with there was, you know, as you point out, it's a tough neighborhood. And, um, now I did not grow up in a tough neighborhood in that way, but I had vicious like tween and teen bullies who I would put up against the worst neighborhoods in

America any day of the week. I mean, you think, you know, mean you don't know mean until you've lived life as a 12 or 13 year old girl, then come back to me. But I do think, you know, back to the discussion we just kicked off with, there's, it's part of the reasons that I became a lawyer. Like I, I'd been bullied so badly. I wanted to stand up for people. Like I wanted to confront bullies. It's sort of, and actually it's been a true line in my journalism career too. You experienced this too, not with bullies per se, but just tough, tough guys everywhere around you. And you were never like the big, meaty, muscly dude. You had to find another way of protecting yourself. And it's directly related to what you do today. So talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. The neighborhood that I grew up in was the most dangerous part of Youngstown. So there's houses being arson, people being shot. There was I thought every city in America,

there was always a police siren that you could hear from wherever you were. That's just what was normal to me. Uh, and so it was very dangerous and it was all very real. And I mean, bullying isn't even the word that was going on in my neighborhood. It was just straight up like thuggery, I guess we could call it. Like it was just, you couldn't, you shouldn't make eye contact with anybody. That's not a lot of fear, a lot of danger. And my whole way of handling that is if anybody ever tried anything with me, I would just make fun of them from the youngest, from as far back as I can remember. You know, one of the famous little stories that I always tell is that I got beat up on my first bus ride to my first day of school. Um, I made fun of my, who ended up being, and still is one of my good friends. I made fun of him because his grandma walked him out

to, uh, to the bus stop. And like, he's standing there with his grandma as the bus pulls up. And I go, I can't remember exactly what I said, but basically something like, Oh, you had to have your grandma stand out there with you. And, uh, he punched me right in the face. So my, when I arrived to school, the first thing I had to do was rinse blood out of my mouth and a little tiny water fountain. Anyway, uh, it's just both on his side in this story. So far I'm on his side. Yeah, no. Yeah. I deserve it. I didn't know at the time that, you know, that's what could happen. I hadn't really gotten punched in the face that much at that point. Street justice. They had something against me. They could bully me more because I didn't have like a dad to complain or to go to the parent teacher meetings. So I felt like they were my bullies, the teachers and the teachers were telling me making fun of story is just wild to think that I use that as fuel to literally make my entire life exactly that.

My show, Kill Tony, I make fun of people. I've written for the last, whatever, 10 Comedy Central roasts. I've been on a bunch of roasts, just did more roasts recently. The roast of Bert Kreischer. And yeah, I literally make fun of people for a living. So how does it come to you? And maybe that's a weird question, but I would always love to be more clever in my takedowns of people. And, you know, if you're not, if you don't have it, you don't have it. You know, just the way I talk about somebody privately, I'm not talking about

on the air, just like when you dislike somebody, I don't, I feel like it's a gift that you either have or you don't have, but am I wrong? Were you, was it something you developed from that moment on the school bus forward? And is there a force of skill any of us can have? I think it's a little bit of both, you know, you find out, I mean, yeah, there's a natural skill for it, but I definitely had it, uh, evolved and tailored. You know, I was lucky enough to have a great mentorship under Jeff Ross, the Roastmaster General, a decade and a half ago. I went on the road with him and I told him,

you know, if you ever need help writing jokes or anything, I specialize in making fun of people. He's like, what's your email? Let's go. And the rest is history. And he taught me how to do it a little bit sweeter. You know what I mean? Instead of just going straight in on something, the first thing that you see, you can, you know, hit them in the ribs a little bit and, or make fun of

something that they don't see coming. Uh, he, he taught me how to craft it a little bit more into like a martial art rather than just being very blunt about the first thing that you notice about somebody. It's definitely an art form, but just like anything, you know, you find out like, yeah, Tiger Woods was a great golfer when he was 10, but he also practices all the time. So I do that all the time. Even when I don't say what I'm thinking about somebody, like making fun of somebody. If I don't say it out loud, I'm still thinking it and I can use it at a later time on somebody else. You must be terrifying to spend time with at a party. This is like I'm having the same feeling as I had when I interviewed the radical honesty guy who came up with this whole program where you have to say whatever you're thinking and you can't have any filter.

The whole time I was like, oh, my God, he's going to lay it on me any second. You must be a terrifying party guest. No, I'm pretty, I'm pretty cool. It's pretty, it's pretty, I'm pretty mellow. If I'm around strangers, I know how to, you know, how to, how to hide it a little bit. But if I'm around my crew here in Austin, like last night, we were out at a bar with a big round table and it was just all my friends that know me so well, then I can really amp it up and just be direct. Wow. You look like crap today. I mean, just no humor to it whatsoever. And everybody laughs, you know what I mean? Just being blunt and ridiculously, uh, do you know my mom? I've been through this before. It sounds familiar. Um, so Austin, Texas now now, which is I don't know that like what brought you so from Youngstown to L.A., you mentioned that now down to Austin. So why Austin? there, the comedy store, I did dream story worked there, worked my way up, worked my way up the

lineup. So much fun. You know, it's a dark place that's known for a bunch of misfits that literally are, you know, little troublemakers. And, uh, so I developed there over 16 years. And then when the pandemic happened, uh, and California completely mishandled the situation in every single way possible, I realized that, yikes, I am not in the place that I want to be in. I mean, they had everything so closed. There were so many weird rules. And especially where I was in West Hollywood and the comedy store is, I mean, it was chaos. And when the riots happened, they happened right next to where I lived. My lovely little neighborhood, six minutes from the comedy store.

And I saw how they handled that. I saw how they handled that. I saw how everybody was. I saw the, it was just, there was a police car on fire on both ends of my street. Um, when the, when the George Floyd riots happened or the black lives matter movement, whatever it was, you know, June of 2020 is when it was. And, uh, between that and the complete shutdown of everything, I just, I was so miserable and I came to visit Austin, uh, and I went golfing with Ron White. I was amazed at how open everything was and Ron White and Joe Rogan really laid out the red carpet for me, showed me all the coolest, you know, places and how open the culture is.

You know, instead of not doing shows indoors in California, we were doing shoulder to shoulder shows and there's no sick people. There was no, there was, the hospitalizations weren't higher. It was just an open, fun, mentally healthy place where everything at the time in LA, people, everybody was so depressed. Everybody just wanted to get back to doing shows. And all you could do there were these weird outdoor shows where people are 12 feet apart from one another. So you have like 20 people scattered around a giant patio wearing masks. Nothing made any sense. And, uh, I remember

on my way back to LA, I got, I read a news report that California was going to close golf. You had to live in the same household with whoever you were going to go golfing with. Ridiculous. And they were going to check IDs at the main place to make sure that you live with the person, the people that you're golfing outdoors in California with. And the timing couldn't have been better because again, I was at a country club with Ron White the day before in Texas, having the time of our lives, cracking up, smoking, driving golf carts, beautiful day, waterfalls, everything's great, doing shows at night. And then I'm flying back to Cali and I'm realizing I can't golf outside with my friends and there's no shows at one point.

Here's an interesting one. At one point we were doing a thing where we were filming my live podcast at the comedy store, but you weren't allowed to have an audience indoors. So we streamed it outside to the parking lot on a screen and we just let people in for free just to just to just to if for anybody that wanted to come by that needed it to just to laugh and uh the city of west hollywood came by and saw that there was a screen playing something that was happening live and they go that that's a live show. You guys are breaking the rules. So they wrote a ticket to the comedy store. It's just crazy for me to have these memories. I kind of repressed them for a little while when I first got here.

And like, I think about these things, they just pop back into my head. And it's like, wait, I asked my buddy the other day, I go, they wrote a ticket that day. Didn't they? Am I crazy? Am I remembering this wrong? He's like, no, they, they wrote a ticket. It was happening at the same time. I go, if there was a 10 second delay or something, would they have like, what, what are we talking about? A live show and, um, gathering of humans was offensive. So you got out, so you got to Texas, you got the most liberal part of Texas, but you got to a sane state. So I'm sure you've felt the difference. Yes, no doubt. And it's funny. The most liberal part of Texas is kind of a, uh, I hear that a lot and it's, yeah, it is the most liberal part of Texas, but I,

I think it's important for people to realize that, uh, the most liberal part of Texas, but I think it's important for people to realize that the most liberal part of Texas is like saying the the coldest part of Antarctica. That makes sense. No, wait, actually, that's a bad analogy. The warmest part. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I got it. Still cold. And that's your point. Yeah, it's certainly any any place in Texas would be better than West Hollywood, LA. I mean, there's a reason there's been such a mass exodus there. But can I ask you about this? So you find yourself in Texas. And I think if my timeline's correct, it was after that move that you found yourself.

I don't know. I don't think you were canceled. But I think there was an attempted cancellation. There was an attempted takedown because of a bit you did in an Austin, Texas comedy club. for work. And at the time, uh, canceling was all the rage. And, um, he knew that I was going to make fun of him. And he had a friend film, the transitionary part of his set, and he edited it and clipped it to make me look as bad as he possibly could he picked the exact moment of starting and ending this clip exactly how he could possibly make me look the worst and he played uh he played victim with it and it was a very very very uh very big surprise um and one of, situations where you, of course the news runs with the headline. Okay. So Tony used

this, this racial slur against an Asian man. Oh my God, he's terrible. Who would do that? Who would in being so, uh, kindly passed the mic was such a nice intro respond with a racial slur. Only a complete douchebag would do so. But then you read more and there were some honest brokers who wrote the full story about what really happened like you he did know you were going to make fun of him it was like sort of not a pre-ordained bit but it was there was like some of it was known and apparently his whole routine was about how you like don't say anything mean about asian people like it'd be nicer to us it's not cool to make fun of us. And it wasn't particularly funny, but that was whole. So you were, you were basically, it was baked into like, Oh, this is how I'm responding to your be sweet, be sweet. No,

I'm not sweet. It's right on brand for you. If you know your line of humor, but that wasn't highlighted. Right. Exactly. And you know, it's one of those things to where you talk about, you hear fake news and boy, when you're part of it, when you actually are in it and you realize, oh my God, all of these people that are reporting on this thing, like at the time, if you Googled me or went to the first line of my Wikipedia page, literally, I think it's changed now for some reason. I don't know who writes these things or how it even works. But at the time I remember specifically the first line of my Wikipedia pages, Tony Hinchcliffe is an American insult comedian. And I think to myself, like, how do you continue the article? How do you call yourself a journalist or a reporter?

If, and God help you, if you make it to the second paragraph, you see that I've written on all the comedy central roasts that my specialty is not even making fun of people. It's really making fun of comedians. And meanwhile, they, you know, everybody wanted to blow this thing up. It was Asian heritage month, which was, I mean, I asked Asian people at the time when that started and they're like, I have no idea. This is a brand new thing. You know what I mean? Like a ton of Asian friends. I had a, I had a half Chinese girlfriend for four or five years at one point in my life to say that anybody doing anything on stage is a cancelable offense to me is absolutely insane. I mean, it's one thing if it's Twitter or Instagram, I could see how those

things could be taken out of context, but no professional comedian is just going to all of a sudden lose his mind and go on a racial. Diatribe. No, I got it. Yeah. One of the things that bothered me the most about your story was your agents cut and ran. Oh, the agents are absolutely disgusting. I mean, I've had enough of them in my career to know that is the last person you want in your life.

Don't get an agent. Find a way of making it without one if you can, because truly they're disgusting. And there's a there's always an exception here or there, you know, but in general, agents are absolutely disgusting. A hundred percent. They were literally they ended up doing just as much damage, basically, as he did, because on day two, when the news cycle should have been over, they wanted to virtue signal, you know, and and they and drop me for no reason, literally so that they can just nobody knew I was even repped by WME at the time. It wasn't even a thing.

It's literally calling them saying, are you going to dump Tony? Right, right. And it's just a corporation virtue signaling. It was disgusting. And it's just wild to think that that's the world we live in where it's like, oh, this is going to make us look good. Let's throw this guy who we know, who we've had dinner with, who we've, you know, had great meetings with, who's made us laugh, who's gotten us into great shows, all these things. Let's bury them right now. We can do it and we'll blame it up on the higher up. So it wasn't up to me, you know, I wish I could have, I wish we could have

continued working together. But a fun fact about that is that I see those people a lot because they rep other friends of mine and they, and I'll see them after Madison square garden performing in the middle of an arena with Rogan or after the MGM garden arena. And they're watching me literally because that, that, that assassination attempt on my career really woke up a whole nother level of my comedy, of my perspective of just who I am now Now I'm this like, you know, and Texas too also did it. We're doing some real rock and roll comedy out here. The phones are locked up all the time. It's nothing like what we're seeing on Netflix and HBO putting out there.

I mean, even YouTube, I don't think could air exactly the type of stuff, word for word, what I'm talking about and what a lot of my great peers here in Texas are talking about. And so they're seeing this leveled up comedy. They're seeing me even stronger than I was. And that's a true story. watch me. My old agents had to watch me have the time of my life in a, you know, a custom suit in the middle of these arenas because they rep other people. And it's just so funny to me to think like, God, you must feel like such a tool, just such a moron. What a dork that you would drop somebody that now literally my career is like, I don't know, a hundred times better than it was before that cancellation attempt. Cause real comedy fans see right through that. And the thing was weird too.

What comedy fan would ever cut and run from a comedian who gets kissed? The absurdity of that, right? Like they don't. So it's what exactly, what is the consequence? They're trying to make you so toxic. You can't get on SNL or an HBO special. Like, what do you think is the goal in comedy of these very excitable cancelers? I don't know. I can't quite understand. But yeah, I think that they are such not comedy fans that they probably think, oh, well, the goal is an HBO special or the goal is a SNL. They think that it just goes to show their ignorance in the first place, because those things are just dead old pirate ships that once had a thriving life. And it's again, it's just the opposite. Is there any comic who's dying to get on SNL in today's day and age? I mean, anybody?

No. I know more people dying to get off of SNL than I know dying to get on it right now. That makes more sense. So now you're out there. You basically didn't get canceled because you didn't allow yourself to be canceled. And that's like a secret of cancellation. You just refuse to be canceled. You can lose one thing. You could lose your agent. You could lose one deal, whatever. You could lose one role. But if you just keep doing your thing and in today's day and age, there's so many ways of just doing your thing. You're not canceled. And so that's how you manage to stay alive and upright and doing better than ever. I will say, I predict your agent will come back to you. This only happened in 2021. So I'm going to guess I will say, I predict your agent will come back to you.

This only happened in 2021. So I'm going to guess within the next, I'm going to put in 12 months, in the next 12 months, WAME will come back to you because they have zero principle. All they care about is money. So they cut you when they thought, oh, maybe somebody is going to be offended and we have to look like, you know, like one of our richer clients is going to be mad. So we got to like, look like we're mad too, but now they're going to come back. They're going to beg. And I already know what your answer will be, but I mean, that'll be a satisfying moment. I have been there too. Megan, you are so correct that it actually already happened. And instead I signed with the only bigger agency. I ended up signing with UTA who they literally hate.

They're arch rivals. And I'm at the tippity top and they are the absolute best and everything is better coordinated, bigger shows. And they're going to have to watch me announce this massive tour for the back end of 2023

with venues twice as big as they were ever, ever able to put me in and, um, huge, huge stuff happening with my podcast, kill Tony to where, you know, I, I can't talk about it now, but let's, I will say that the venue size that we are going to end up having some shows that is hundreds of times the size of our current setup. I didn't like, first of all, I will say this. I don't believe in you either. You're, you're also on shaky ground. Love no one, trust no one. Okay. Just a word to the wise. However,

um, I like sticking it to the ones who screwed you. Um, I, I'm just listening to you. Like it actually is hard in comedy without an agent, you know, in my business, it's not that hard without an agent, but in your business, like all that stuff you really, that's a, that's a massive undertaking to book all that stuff and manage all those venues and like, keep it all straight. You definitely need some sort of a help. And I'm having a newfound respect for the comedians who are up and coming, who don't have it, who are trying to make it in your industry. Right. Well, it's a little tricky. The agents can only help those who can sell tickets. So, you know, when you're starting out having an agent's almost pointless because they can't do anything for you. If you don't sell tickets, they're not going to put you in a venue. They're

not going to take that risk and damage their relationships with whoever runs the venues in those cities. So, you know, the trick is being able to sell tickets. And again, you know, it's interesting. I find that, and we see it here in Austin a lot, the people that, um, uh, are maybe have a new special out on the newly more woke Netflix and things like that. It's funny how tickets are still available that day for their shows in those venues. And meanwhile, you see, you know, me, Joe Rogan, and a bunch of other people, my homie, Shane Gillis, who they tried to cancel for something that he said on a podcast, my good friend, Ari Shafir, who they tried to cancel for something that he said on a podcast. My good friend, Ari Shafir, who they said was too aggressive with a joke once on Instagram.

I just had Roseanne Barr on my show on Monday. And these people have no problem selling tickets. These people that got in trouble for jokes. And not only that, but they are absolutely thriving. You know, my buddy Ari Shafir, again, people thought he was down and out a few years ago, just has literally has the best special of the year on YouTube right now. Shane Gillis, who they canceled for an Asian joke, he was supposed to be on SNL and they, they virtue signaled and fired him before he ever got to do anything has the best

special of the year before that. Um, it creates a little bit of a, I think it creates a monster when some, when a comedian is truly wronged for other people's virtue signaling bad intentions. I think that's how monsters are kind of created. And I, again, I had Roseanne on my show on Monday and she was so cognitive and so hilarious and so powerful. And she mentioned at one point, she goes, they stole everything from me. They stole my show. They stole my thing, but she's having the time of her life. She literally said, being canceled is the shit. I'm so glad I'm doing this. Like, this is so much fun. I wouldn't have been able to do this

if I was, if I still had the show on ABC or whatever. And she, we had the time of our lives. Roseanne was dancing. It's so sad too, because her show was so good. And it was one of the few shows that spoke to middle America and wasn't woke. Just that phrase you said about cancel for a joke. It's like back in my day and I grew up in the 70s. That was the whole point of jokes was to offend, you know, jokes, Halloween costumes, all this stuff like you're meant to push boundaries. You're meant to shock, scare, make people feel uncomfortable. That's the pleasure in it.

It's not all like rainbows and unicorns, little giggles. That's a lane, but the dominant lane is usually to kind of offend somebody. That's usually what makes people laugh. We've become so soft. Yeah, it is the most exciting part of everything. Literally last night, Thursday nights tend to be the night in Austin where I can try new stuff a little bit more than other nights. There's a couple different shows where I can bounce around where I'm not on, I'm not announced. It's not my show. So I don't have to,

um, you know, bring your egg perform, perform a stellar set. I can try new stuff. Phones are locked up. And literally yesterday, last night, I'm like, before this, before my first set, I got, I told my buddies in the green room, I go, Oh, I'm about to try this new joke about the porn that George Floyd made. And I don't know what's going to happen. This is crazy. And they're like, what is it? I'm like, nah, I'm not going to tell it here.

If you end up hearing it, you'll hear it, but I'm not going to tell you here because you guys might tell me not to do it. And I don't want to hear that. And so I went on stage and I did some material to sort of, you know, get my footing and establish with the audience, a connection. And then I go into it and I nail the landing and the, it is the biggest pop of my entire set. This new thing where I'm like, I don't know, this is right on the line. Here we go. I don't know. Maybe only I think this is as funny as I think it is. And boom, this massive pop. And then I have a second set after that. So I walked down sixth street to another venue. And now at this point I have confidence in it. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm pretty sure this is

my best joke right now, even though I just did it for the first time 15 minutes ago. And so I do it for the second set and now there's more around it. And now I'm delivering it with confidence. And anyway, after that, it goes even better and I add more to it. And then there's a call back to it because I did another joke and I realized, Oh my God, I can now reference that. The point is, is like this thing where I'm like, I don't know, which I'm not really ever liked that. But this one is so weirdly offensive, uh, in a special way that I'm like, I just don't know. And by the end of the night, here I am again. I was drinking with my friends celebrating because nothing is nothing brings me more joy than having a new joke that I was kind of concerned about.

It's like birthing a weird little baby or something like that in my world. You need to make that the tagline of your show, weirdly offensive in a special way. Tony Hinchcliffe, you should totally do it. Listen, Tony, thank you. Please come back and we'll talk about the news and we'll talk about your shows. And if I'm ever in Austin, I'm going to swing by and I'm going to watch you test out those materials. I'll try to make it on a Thursday so I can get the new stuff myself. I love it. Absolutely. Anytime. Love to have you. All right. And you guys can all find Tony's latest tour dates and more about his live podcast, Kill Tony at Tony Hinchcliffe. That's spelled H-I-N-C-H-C-L-I-F-F-E.com.

All right, you guys, thank you all so much for listening this week. I hope you have a great weekend. Next week on the show, Adam Car dr drew the guys from ruthless and much much more plus we'll have the latest in the alec murdoch trial maybe we will get a verdict we'll have it all for you thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no bs no agenda and no fear you