The Megyn Kelly Show - Maddow's Softball Fani Willis Interview, and "Deadly Force" at Mar-a-Lago, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 798

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by Charles C. W. Cooke and Rich Lowry of National Review to discuss the new details about the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, the inclusion of "deadly force" language and whether that was just standard operating procedure, whether the raid was necessary at all, the biased NYC judge's jury instructions that help the prosecution and hurt Trump's defense, the power of a judge over a jury during trials, the hypocritical coverage of the sham trial, the viral moment from the Bill Maher interview about Hillary Clinton, examples of Hillary's 2016 election denialism, how Democrats claim they're defending democracy by destroying democracy, Rachel Maddow’s softball interview with Fani Willis, Maddow claiming the mantle of defending journalism, how embarrassing MSNBC's coverage has been during the Trump legal cases, how Rep. Cori Bush is still spinning Michael Brown’s death into a false narrative about police and black Americans, the lies about the circumstances of what happened, and more. Cooke-https://twitter.com/charlescwcookeLowry-https://www.nationalreview.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 Wednesday, right? It's Wednesday. Starting to lose track now as we're getting almost at the end of the school year, right? Are you having that at all? It's like, what's happening? Who am I? I can't wait for school to be out. I don't know about you, but doesn't your life get a little easier when school is out because you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn and get the kids all over the hell and gone? It's like you can just kind of work on your stuff as your kids are asleep in their beds. It's so much easier. But then,

of course, comes the day. Anyway, in real news, new court documents revealing that FBI agents were authorized before they raided Trump's facility at Mar-a-Lago, you remember, a couple August ago, to use deadly force, to use deadly force if necessary, on the former president of the United States and those around him, his family. are you going to shoot Barron if he tries to stop you from getting a box? Was that the plan? The mainstream media just kind of shrugging, saying it's standard operating procedure for the agency. Well, that's true, but this was no standard operating raid. And they knew that. This is actually really outrageous that special procedures wouldn't put in place. They understood they already had another part of the government down there protecting the guy.

Armed agents from the Secret Service. What did they think they were going to do? They were like a shootout at the OK Corral to get Trump's thoughts on Kim Jong-un? It's amazing. We're going to talk to our panel about it in a minute. Plus, Rachel Maddow gets the first interview with the disgraced Fulton County D.A. Fannie Willis, and then she proceeded to disgrace herself. Maddow did. What a joke. What a joke of an interview that was. Not one tough question. Not one. Shame on you, Rachel Maddow, shame on you. Fannie Willis did win her primary. I know you're shocked. In Atlanta, Fulton County, last night, she's now going to go on to have a general election contest against a Republican. And guess who showed up to celebrate her big win?

Hello, Nathan Wade, ex-lover, they tell us. Do we believe it? We report, you decide. Joining me now, two of our favorites for NR Day. That's National Review Day here at the Megyn Kelly Show. Rich Lowry, who is editor-in-chief of National Review, and Charles C.W. Cook, who is a senior writer for National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. You can find all of their work by becoming an NR Plus subscriber. I am. I recommend it. You get rid of almost all of the annoying ads. And also, I get the actual magazine delivered to my house, which I like to leave around just so my kids could pick it up, just start to thumb through it. That's how we sort of start to counter program in other

ways against the left wing indoctrination of their schools. And you should do it as well. Rich Charles, welcome back. Great to see you. Hey, thanks for having us. Thanks for having me. I heard somebody on National Review, I must have been on the editors, saying that they used to thumb through the magazine when they were young and start to take in the musings of William F. Buckley. And I thought, oh, that's smart. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that exact same thing. Mom's already read it all by the time it gets here, but the kids haven't. All right. So let's kick it off with maybe we'll have to shoot Trump when we go to execute this warrant at Mar-a-Lago to get the documents that we believe he's withholding. And it turned out he was indeed withholding, but his defense is I was working with you. I was going to get to you eventually.

Okay. That'll play out in, in court and, the thing is, it is standard operating procedure for the cops to have that sort of shoot if necessary permission, just because they don't want the FBI agents to get in trouble. But this was not a standard procedure. As I point out, as a former president with Secret Service Protection at a very busy location, and they had authorized them to go door to door in Mar-a-Lago, banging on the doors to get documents. This seems really over the top. What do you think? Well, I'm generally a critic of all aspects of the lawfare campaign against Donald Trump, but I'd love to believe it'd be hilarious, among other things, that Joe Biden opposed the lethal raid on Osama bin Laden, but supported the lethal raid on Donald Trump or potential lethal raid.

But this is standard operating procedure. The FBI was not going to shoot down Donald Trump. But if something crazy happened, they need the authorization and they have it in all searches because you are coming in. Maybe you're knocking down a door. They weren't going to do that in this circumstance. Maybe someone freaks out and does something that represents a threat and you you need to be able to deal with it. But that clearly wasn't going to happen in this case. So I think this is this is Trump whipping up people with an all cap truth social post that was doesn't it's not a faithful representation of the reality of the situation, in my view. Well, it did. They were permitted to do it. That piece is real. Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary.

The FBI had a medic on the scene. They had identified a local trauma center for anyone injured during the raid and did have a plan to go room by room, including, you know, through the Mar-a-Lago residents and said that they will, the FBI, engage with the U.S. Secret Service per existing relationships. I mean, that's what's so nuts about this is this, I mean, what, like what could have happened here? This could have gone south and quickly. They knew they were going to a place with armed guards who also work for the same federal government. And you really want to say it's just standard? Like, OK, it's fine. There were no increased risks. Well, I imagine this was de-conflicted, right, with the Secret Service.

And, you know, what if Trump takes out a shotgun? I mean, we go down. I'm not sure, but you can come up with all sorts of crazy possible scenarios that weren't going to happen and didn't happen. So someone shoots the FBI. So are we supposed to say if someone shot the FBI, we wouldn't want the FBI to have the authority to shoot back? No, but when it comes to dealing with the former president of the United States, there would have to be a carve out. What's that? There would have to be a carve out in dealing with the actual former president.

I mean, just imagine what would happen. I don't know. Here's the thing, Rich, but here's the thing. I don't know that the Secret Service was consulted and given a heads up. In fact, my belief is that they probably weren't. No, my belief is they probably weren't because what was happening, you can see in the motion practice leading up to this, the judge was getting increasingly irritated with Donald Trump and mad that he wasn't turning over the documents. That's how the prosecutor, the FBI was feeling, the prosecution. And so they wouldn't have wanted to give anybody around him a heads up. And so there really could have been a situation

where the Secret Service was caught off guard on who was coming for the president. I mean, I just think this is all at a very high level. But still, are we supposed to believe, though, that say an FBI agent is shot, they shouldn't be able to shoot back? You don't need the authorization. You don't need a pre-authorization for that, Rich.

You or I wouldn't need a pre-authorization for that, neither does the FBI. What's the outrage? So what's the outrage then? Why? If anything, there should have been a special procedure. Go ahead. If they could have shot back anyway, why is it so terrible if they had an authorization to shoot back? Because it's a it's a pre green light. I mean, it's a it's a pre green light for to go onto the property of the former president United States with armed weapons and the ability to go into all the private spaces of Mar-a-Lago, the guests, the private residents, the children's homes where, you know, there are armed guards whose job it is to protect the former leader of the free world. I mean, the stakes are already going to be high. The tensions are going to be higher than your average raid. They knew all of this. And I think if they weren't coordinating with the Secret Service, then this is absolutely

egregious. They endangered everybody down there. Well, that's the criticism of the raid itself, right? Rather than the raid being carried out under standard procedure, you're saying the raid itself was a danger. Well, I've maintained that position. I think you're both right. Go ahead, Charles. Well, I think you're both right in that this is what government is. If you're going to use government, you're ultimately going to use force. Every government action is ultimately backed by force, which is why we should use it sparingly and why we should want limited government and rules that define and determine what the government can do. And I think ultimately the criticism here then has to be, why did they raid Mar-a-Lago?

And I've wondered that myself. I think this is the strongest case against Trump. I've never been persuaded that this raid was necessary. I can't see it. And as you say, when you do this, whether you have pre-authorization or not, and Rich is absolutely right, that if you're going to go in, you of course have to have that as an option.

But if you're going to go in, you're going to create that enormous risk. And even before this, there was a risk to this raid that was not necessarily to life, but to our norms. This was a departure. And when those departures are made, as sometimes they have to be, I want careful consideration in the buildup. And I've just never been convinced that there was that consideration. And this is another knock-on effect of that.

So I think you're both right. Yeah. Well, I do think it's a stretch to say, not a stretch, it's an outright lie to say, as Marjorie Taylor Greene did, that they went down there to assassinate President Trump. That's not, that is not true. But there's no question that this decision endangered. Yeah, that's right. This endangered him, I think, unnecessarily, and those around him and those at Mar-a-Lago. And the government's, of course, been criticized for doing something we've never seen done before there, too. But the breaking of norms, hold on

to that thought, which you just said, because we're going to get back to something that happened last night on Rachel Maddow with Fannie Willis, the breaking of norms. And who did it first, really, is kind of where we're going to go with it. Before I get to Fannie Willis, the breaking of norms. And who did it first really is kind of where we're going to go with it. Before I get to Fannie Willis, though, and there's a lot to discuss there, let's talk about the wrap up of Trump's first trial. We haven't had closing arguments yet, but we're about to. Court's off today, but we're going to have them. And then we think the jury will get the case next week. So having watched everything, and I know you read everything, and I do too, that Andy writes at National Review, and I love your podcast with him, Rich. I listen to that

every week, as you know. How do you think the prosecution did, and how do you think it's going to come out? Well, for whatever it's worth, my odds of a hung jury are higher than they were going in. I was maybe 20, 30% chance of a hung jury now. Maybe I think it's a 50-50 kind of a hung jury are higher than they were going in. There's maybe 20%, 30% chance of a hung jury now. Maybe I think it's a 50-50 coin flip because this is such a stretch legally. Michael Cohen is obviously a liar and he stole from the Trump organization. Yeah, he didn't lose his cool on the stand and freak out. But that doesn't reduce the fact or get around the fact that he's he's not a credible person. And, you know, I don't need to tell you just the legalities here. When you say falsified business records, maybe he did. Right.

But there's a culpable case that this was a legal feat. Right. Cohen was acting as a lawyer when he forged this agreement with Stormy Daniels' representative. It's the kind of thing a lawyer does. He was continuing to be a lawyer for Trump, and it was booked as a legal fee rather than reimbursement. Obviously, it didn't harm anyone. He was plushed up so he could pay taxes on this reimbursement. And then there needs to be an intent to defraud. But no one was defrauded, right? The tax man wasn't defrauded. Nothing was stolen from anyone. So that underlying offense, there's nothing there. And that would obviously just be a misdemeanor that statute of limitations had expired on, unless there are some other offense, which is supposedly stealing the election

and violating campaign finance laws. But there's no reason to think that this was a campaign expense. If Trump sincerely thought it was a campaign expense, he would have paid the expense from his campaign, right? He's a penny pincher. He wouldn't have shelled out personally if he thought it was a campaign expense. Prior precedent suggests it's not a campaign expense. The FEC didn't pursue this. And then the larger theory that he somehow stole the election by booking this reimbursement falsely is obviously preposterous because that happened in 2017 after

the 2016 election. So there's no way that the way you account for this after the fact affects how people voted in 2016. And the hush payment itself was not not illegal. So this is ridiculous. It's completely preposterous. And I have enough faith, maybe naively, in a Manhattan jury to think that there's at least one or two people that are going to see through it. You know, if they don't, it's a travesty. It'll eventually be overturned on appeal, but it doesn't help Trump to win eventually in 2025 or 2026 when he's had to expend all the time and resources fighting this now, when he's had to expend all the time and resources fighting this now, when he's going to have potentially a convicted felon label around his neck. Maybe that doesn't make a difference. I don't think it's going to make a big difference, but it could. That's the

whole point of it. And it doesn't help if you reverse it a year or two after the election. Charles, did we know that Rich was an optimist? This is news to me. I mean, I know we know MBD. No, not. But so sunny. So, so up on the prospect of a fair jurist on that 12-person jury in Manhattan. What do you think? Well, I agree with everything Rich said about the trial. I just am a little more pessimistic when it comes to the prospects for the jury. This topic, in a sense, is related to our last one in that that raid in Mar-a-Lago was primarily cont was staged because its architects wanted the site of

Donald Trump in a courtroom. They wanted these facts to be known, and they bent the law every which way to achieve it. If the jury agrees with the prosecution, that will be a bonus. I think the chance of that's relatively high because I just think there are an awful lot of people in Manhattan who share the aim here, which is to put that big neon sign behind Donald Trump that says convicted felon, whether or not there is much scaffolding underneath it.

Now, I will say, I do generally take an optimistic view. I wrote a piece recently, actually, in which I pointed out that one of the things that is working in America at the moment, despite all of the problems that we have, is the jury system. The vast majority of highly publicized trials that we have seen over the last five years have come out well, and the best part of them has been the conduct of the jury, which seems to have behaved really seriously. But last time I was on your show, Megan, we were talking about this jury and the indications, at least of those who got kicked off the jury or were not put on it, was that there are a sad number of people who do not take their role seriously. And I'm a little more worried than

Rich that that number will be 12. And I also share Andy's concern that the judge is the father figure in the courthouse, in the courtroom. And if the judge wants a conviction, it's pretty easy for him to steer the jury toward a conviction, not necessarily just through his rulings on what's hearsay, what's in, what's out during the course of the trial. As we saw when Stormy took the stand, when Costello was on the stand, you know, he's very biased against the defense both times, nevermind Cohen, but in the jury instructions, which are already going the prosecution's way, they're not coming out the final jury instructions, which will determine how this case breaks. Absolutely.

Are not yet done. He's going to approve them as of Wednesday. But the rulings so far are not good. He the judge right now or the defense right now is trying to get the word willfully added to two places in the instructions, which is a part of the legal requirements. They have to show willfulness on the part of Donald Trump that he did these things knowingly, willfully. That's an element of criminal law. And it's not a gimme. The judge has reserved judgment on whether he's going to put that in there.

That's the central argument of the case that, you know, was Trump willingly doing something unlawful? And now he's basically siphoned it down to what the prosecution needs to prove is that Trump falsified business records to hide an underlying crime. But crime may be too strong, Rich, because the prosecution is now arguing, presumably in the wake of the weaknesses being exposed on this campaign finance allegation, that it doesn't really have to be a crime. When they say an unlawful act was trying to be hidden, it could be a tortious act. It could be a breach of contract. It could be defamation. They're arguing right now it's crime or just generic unlawful conduct that, you know, who knows? This is what Andy's been saying. Could be like a violation of what, like Russian law, you know,

Sharia law. What are they talking about? Yeah. I mean, our whole system is based right on you set out the crime really specifically. Right. So everyone knows what it is and the defendant knows what it is. And this was an outrage from the beginning. The indictment didn't tell us what the supposed second offense was. And you kind of figured maybe, you know, by the time there was a trial or during the course of the trial, we'd know what the second offense is or is alleged to be. And we don't. They don't. You know, it's just it's out in the ether there. It's something. So this, you know, whatever happens in this case, I do think this is one of the things maybe again here I'm being overly optimistic. Over time, everyone's going to realize this is a travesty. And I'm not saying like tomorrow, but, you know, 10 years from now when the histories are written. And just to be clear, I'm not giving,

for Rangers fans out there, a Mark Messier type 1994 guarantee that Trump's going to get off. I just think that the chances of him getting a hung jury are higher than I would have thought going in. But the judge is a big problem. You guys have been, you ran a piece by Brad Smith not long ago, this whole case, we've had him on the show, former FEC commissioner appointed by Bill Clinton. And he's been jumping up and down on this case. And thus, the Trump team tried to call him as an expert. And the judge so limited what he could say that it was pointless to do. But he had a great threat on X yesterday, trying to point out what an absurd position this judge has left the defense in. I'm just going to read you part of it. He writes, Judge Merchan is so restricted my testimony that the defense decided not to call me. It's, of course, elementary that the judge instructs the jury on the law, but federal election campaign law is very complex to the point where even Antonin Scalia said, it's

so intricate. I can't figure it out. Keeping going here with what Brad posted. He says, someone has to bring this specific knowledge of this act and what it requires and what it doesn't to the jury. Part of the state's case is that they wrongly reported, the Trump team did, what they knew to be a campaign expenditure in order to hide the payment until after the election. And then he says, but an expenditure

made on October 27th, when the money was sent to Stormy Daniels' lawyer, would not under law be reported until December 8th, a full 30 days after the election, to Rich's point a moment ago. Even the payment, never mind the documentation of it, none of it would have been happening until after the election. And he goes on to say, the judge allowed Michael Cohen to go on at length about whether and how his activity violated the Federal Election Campaign Act. He let Michael Cohen essentially testify as a legal witness, as an expert legal witness. So effectively, the jury got its instructions on this law from Michael Cohen with an exclamation

point added by Brad Smith, concluding that this judge's bias is very evident. And now this jury is going to be going in there with nothing better than Michael Cohen's assertions when it comes to whether there was an underlying unlawful act in Trump somehow violating campaign finance laws. Yeah, well, this is an example of what David French used to call Trump law, where at no point in the process does someone stand up and say, you know, this isn't really how we do it.

And at all stages in these cases, this one being another good example, I keep waiting for someone to intervene and say no. But they don't. So you have this men's rare requirement, which needs fleshing out, and the details of what is a federal law, not a state law, that needs fleshing out. And you have a judge who is capable of insisting on a more classically liberal approach to the defendant, but hasn't. And I just don't know how to square that with the way that those who have brought this case and are cheerleading this case tend to see criminal justice matters. And if you were to describe what you just described to your average left of center Trump critic, but not mention that the case had to do with Donald Trump or anyone who'd been president for that matter, or anyone in public life, they would be outraged by it. The expert witness would be deemed mandatory.

They might even argue that the Constitution required the provision of expert witnesses. There'd be some penumbra in the Fifth Amendment that required it. But because it's Trump, once again, we just gloss over it. I think this is the big legal story of the last eight years,

that so many people who call themselves liberals have abandoned everything they ever believed about the presumption of innocence, about the degree to which it's incumbent upon the prosecution to prove their case and provide juries with necessary information, the value of the right to remain silent, and so on and so forth. All of these things have just gone out of the window whenever it is Trump. And you read these sort of Archie Bunker-style screeds in our elite opinion outlets from people who just would not adopt that worldview otherwise. And this is another example of it. And you said the judge is biased, perhaps biased, certainly inconsistent. I mean,

it is an inconsistency that is glaring and that galls me as somebody who has a real pronounced soft spot for the defense. That's what's so different about, I think, you guys and the left. National Review are not big fans of Trump, you know, the editorials and the writers. And there's some who I think, I think probably most of you will vote for him, but definitely not your first choice and been openly critical about him. But you're sane. And you can see objectively through your opinion, what's right and what's wrong when it comes to the treatment of Trump. I can't say the same for the left that hates Trump. There really is something called Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, you see it, Rich, like they do get deranged when it comes to him, where they don't care about the things Charlie was just talking about.

They the ends justify the means and the end of stopping Trump is the ultimate end above all ends. Yeah. So this this case is so bad. There have been some folks left of center who have said, this is not a good idea. This doesn't stand up. This isn't the way to go. But it's not most, right? The majority are just willing to go along because they assume it will hurt Trump. And as we've seen Trump sort of tiptoeing through the raindrops and probably getting

most of these cases delayed, except for this one, you've had people on the left, frankly writing, openly writing, well, it was really bad idea to rely on the criminal justice system to stop them, which just shows that they're using it for political means, right? That was the whole purpose, the whole purpose of all this, the whole rush to do it before the election. And with the Brad case, it has to be a 2024 thing, right? If he did it in 2023, it'd be old news by now. If he does it in 2025, he either can't do it because he elected president or it doesn't really matter much because Trump will presumably, if he loses, be mostly politically defanged. Who knows? I've said that before and it hasn't been true, but probably would be the case now. So he has to do it now. It's an election event. Right. It's not a trial. It's an election event. And if nothing else happens, again, the time spent in

a courtroom, four days a week, a presidential candidate during a presidential campaign, the cliche is a campaign's most precious resource is the candidate's time. And he's trying to make the most of it being there, right? He has press availabilities before and afterwards. But often they're about the trial themselves. It doesn't look great, you know, behind steel barriers. And he has some Republicans sort of backing them up. But it must better out there doing rallies where you can take down names and organize and energize people. So if nothing else, for a month or more, Bragg has kept a presidential candidate from doing what a presidential candidate should be free to do in a free country. That itself is an outrage. But again, you'll,

you know, there's almost no one on the other side who will say, I don't like Trump. I don't want him to win. I don't think he should have done this hush money payment. I think he's dishonest, but don't do it this way. That's where they're never willing to go. They're never willing to say, but the process is too important. The legalities are too important. The technicalities matter. Never. Cause the, the overriding goal is all they care about which is stopping something which they're failing at and when they do do it most of the people you mentioned rich are arguing on a utilitarian basis that it's not working not not that they're devastated by the sight of it in a country where we're supposed to prosecute crimes, not people.

It's not working. People feel sorry for him. The polls aren't shifting. This case might not come to fruition. It's not from the gut. That's what I find so difficult. That's what's driving me nuts because I understand and share in people's repulsion to what happened on January 6th. I completely understand that. We had Charlie on, I think, the day after Biden won. And Trump was not spared at all, or the day after January 6th, was not spared at all for the behavior that he engaged in and that some of the worst people on Capitol Hill that day engaged in. But I also see how horrific what they're doing with our courts

and our justice system is with respect to a presidential candidate. And they are, as you point out, they're open about it. It's on the nose. And so where's where is their horror in response to that? And also, where was their horror in response to Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton? And, you know, I got into this yesterday when Bill Maher was on the program. And I'll tell you, you know, he sat down. I appreciated him coming on the show. But as soon as he asked, he asked me explicitly whether I was going to vote for Trump. It's not normally something I announce who I'm voting for as a journalist. But I did the day that Biden with his pen redid Title IX,

which is going to affect my daughter and yours, you know, all three of us, all of our kids. The boys are, they lost their due process on college campuses. The girls lost their rights in their private spaces and well beyond that. I mean, there's so many problems with him, but I said, I'm going to vote. I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. And it's not that I love Trump. I don't love Trump. He's fine. I'm not like a fan of Trump's, but I can see that he does good things and he does some bad things, whatever. But as soon as I said it, you could see the shift, right? He, he looked angry and he actually stopped looking me in the eye. Watch Hillary Clinton, of course, is the original election denier. I'm sure

you voted for her in 16. Well, she's not an election denier. She absolutely was the OG election denier. First of all, she came out before the sun had risen to concede the election to Trump. And then spent the next four years saying he was illegitimate. He was an illegitimate president. Okay. First of all, she didn't say he was an illegitimate. Tell me exactly what she said. She said those exact words repeatedly. Okay. I mean, she conceded the election. Whether you're interpreting her disappointment at losing it as the same thing as Trump not conceding it. I don't know if that's where you're getting it from. But again, it's a tremendous false equivalency. You could ask

Hillary Clinton right now who won that election. She will tell you Donald Trump won the election. Now she knows she has to because of what Trump has done. She came out that night in her dark purple suit and conceded the election. Correct. And then spent the next four years trying to convince us it was not legitimate. All right. So just for the record, and our audience knows this and you guys, but just for the record, let's play Sot 10. I do think that he knows that he's an illegitimate president.

I believe he knows he's an illegitimate president. He knows he's an illegitimate president. He knows. He knows that there were a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did. As I've been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you. Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose.

Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can't sneak or steal his way to victory. Okay. So why? Why can't a smart guy like Maher know that? I mean, he genuinely seemed surprised to hear this from me. He doesn't.

I think it's just his true hatred for Trump, Rich. Now, he is better than most. And I think he's actually been fascinating and inspiring at times to watch, like the Harrison Butker thing. He's more reasonable on that. He's great on the culture stuff. He's great on culture. Yeah. But one, they might not know this, right? They haven't focused on it the same way. I think the distinction between conceding and not conceding is meaningful. But they did not

accept the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Right. And this caused the whole Russia collusion hoax and all the rest of it. And Hillary's still saying things like that today. Right. And if it's bad for one side to do it, it's bad for the other side to do it. And it totally deranged our politics for years that that investigation, again, the root of which is the reason we had Russiagate. She's the reason she sabotaged his entire first term with these allegations that he stole it with the help of the Russians. She hired Fusion GPS. She had her lawyers down there pretending that there were some magic computers at Trump Tower that were communicating with the Russians. That's all tied to Hillary. But yeah, she's it's fine because she said the words he won.

It's no, she is the OG denier. Right. And this is going to be much worse if Trump wins in November, which I think is more likely than not. The reaction will be much worse than it was in 2016. Wouldn't surprise me if you see a BLM-style violence in the street that people make excuses for or say is mostly peaceful. They are going to be out of their minds. They already were, but it's going to be several magnitudes worse in the end of this year and beginning of 25 if he wins. What do you think, Charlie? I think I'm fairly well placed to say this as someone who's not going to vote for Trump and who has said that he should have been impeached and still believe that and is still

appalled more by what he did than what the rioters did on January 6th, which was to try to use the Constitution and federal law to stay in office. The left has a massive liability and its total incapacity to see itself as guilty of many of the same crimes. The very fact that I've said this, by the way, will probably get picked up and someone will write and say, ah, false equivalents. They just can't see it. There is a reason why when you poll people on which party represents the greatest threat to democracy or which party is a better guarantor of democracy, it's about even. 49, 48, every poll seems to show.

And this absolutely infuriates people on the left because they point to Trump and they say, look at all the things he did. And he did. I agree. I have written it over and over again. I say it again right here. I started this segment by saying all of that is true, but they just cannot grasp that just because they won't acknowledge it,

as you saw in the segment with Bill Maher, doesn't mean that the public hasn't seen it happen. The public heard Hillary Clinton say that over and over again. Jimmy Carter said it. The public heard the Russiagate allegations over and over again and knows that they came to absolutely nothing. And although it is not identical, I accept it, it is not identical. The public knows that Joe Biden tried, Joe Biden's party, gets upset at gridlock in Washington, it starts talking about abolishing the Senate. These are not identical. I can reiterate, if you like, all of the things Trump did wrong is why I'm not voting for him. But what has happened here is that the Democratic Party has decided that because Trump is a threat to democracy as it sees it,

our democracy as it sees it, it's always a telling phrase, that whatever it does to try to get rid of Trump is therefore legitimate. It isn't the same thing in different clothing. It is a defense of democracy. So while we sit and we talk about these absurd trials that I think are a stain on the country, they see that too as being a legitimate exercise of power to defend America from Trump. But not everyone in America does. And so they get confused because they think, well, hang on a minute, we're doing the right thing.

Whatever mechanism we need to use to get rid of him. Another one I didn't mention was trying to kick him off the ballot on the most absurd reading of the 14th Amendment that was shot down 9-0 in the Supreme Court. They think, well, that's not the same because Trump is bad. Therefore, whatever it takes to get rid of him is legitimate. But you know who doesn't think that?

Americans. They don't believe that. They think what Trump did was appalling, as I do. They also think that trying to bend the system to get rid of him is appalling. And the Democrats can't internalize it. So I don't know what Bill Maher thinks. I last went on his show, you know, eight years ago. But I think you see some of that in the astonished reaction that you get, because they've never got past the first position, which is, well, we're on the side of the angels. And then when people don't agree with that proposition, they sort of look quizzical at you. By the way, I got to follow up. What are you thinking? Because

I know how you feel about RFKJ, like Jill Stein, Cornell West. Who are you? You're going to write in rich? What are you going to do, Charlie? Well, I'm going to go and I'm going to vote for every other elected office. I mean, every state representative and senators up in Florida. We have a Senate election. Rick Scott will be running again in 2024. I'm just going to not vote in the presidential election. Look, I totally accept people have different views on this. I just can't vote for someone who tried to do what Trump did in 2020 and I won.

I get it. Honestly, I get it. I mean, I'm not going to pretend I didn't wrestle with it. I mean, I voted for him last time, too. It wasn't easy. I know people people made fun of me like, what do you mean it wasn't easy? Trump, Biden. But it's just I knew I was going to vote for Biden. But there are just certain issues that are so important to me. I want someone in there who's going to do the right thing on them. And, you know, it does basically boil down to a binary choice. We, you know, really are my vote doesn't count in Connecticut. Neither does yours in Florida. You kind of know how it's going to go at this point. Rich, you're in Virginia. Oh, no. Are you in Connecticut, too? We're both out of luck. So, Rich, who are you voting for? Have you said? I haven't said, you know, unless unless I have a

change of heart, probably not for Trump. My out is I don't live in a swing state, so I don't said, you know, unless I have a change of heart, probably not for Trump. My out is I don't live in a swing state, so I don't need to do it. There are many things I just can't accept about him and I find intolerable. But there are 100 things he's going to be better on policy. You know, Title IX is among them. So I prefer him to Biden. It's just I've never myself could be a Trump guy. Yeah. Yeah. And that's fine. Right. That's what I say when people say, where should I go for real

news? I've said I said like people like you have gotten me through the past four to six years because I like to go to places who are not Trump sycophants, but who can report the news fairly. Right. And that that's a very narrow window window there, like where you don't love him and you can get past your hatred of him to actually report the real news. I don't hate him. Yeah, I find him enjoyable in many ways. They're just aspects of them that are deeply problematic. Yeah, no, I know. And January 6th is chief among them. I mean, I realize it's not what the Democrats say. It wasn't an insurrection, but he behaved terribly and he did his level best to corrupt the system such that he could 6th is chief among them. I mean, I realize it's not what the Democrats say. It wasn't an insurrection, but he behaved terribly and he did his level best to corrupt the system such that he could remain in power and to not concede his loss. But ultimately he did. He got out, which is something

the left is missing. He did go. They're predicting he never will this time around. All right. Okay. Stand by. Quick break. Back with more. This just in this this just in James Comey has a message for you guys and he wants you to hear it loud and clear. Take a listen. Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cook. Watch this. When you think about a second Trump administration, what do you think the implications would be for the FBI? Oh, serious. For the Justice Department and the FBI, because Trump is coming for those institutions. He knows their power, and I think he has regrets that he didn't work hard enough to corrupt them last time. So he's coming for them, and that's a danger for all Americans. He's going to put people in positions in those organizations. He didn't have all-stars

the last time. He'll have the bottom of the barrel this time. But people who will want to do his will, and that should worry every American. This election matters because of a reason like that. People have to participate. You cannot sit on the sideline. I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden. You must vote for him. You got it. He's talking to you, Rich and Charles, and me too, I guess. But you guys are not even filling in the bubble. So you're going to have some answering to do to James Comey, Rich. Yeah. I mean, the law enforcement system might be distorted if Joe Biden doesn't win a second term. It would be shocking. Look, I don't like when Trump talks about retaliation and all that. I don't like it. I don't think it's very likely to happen, but there could be a no kidding investigation of Joe Biden. I mean, I think it's going to be very tempting just to take the Robert Herr report

and just scratch out the justifications for not charging him, you know, that he's a good natured old man who can't remember things and just say, here's evidence of crimes. Let's look into this. And as we've learned repeatedly in the Trump years, just being investigated itself is a punishment, right? It causes you worry, sucks away resources. So I think there can be real temptation to do that. But the fact is when it comes down to like frank illegalities, people aren't going to do it. Even if Trump orders it, they're not going to do it because they've seen what can happen to you. So I think it's unnecessarily a dire, unsurprisingly take there from James Comey. Has there been a man I'm curious for both

of you, has there been a man who your opinion of has changed more dramatically in the past, you know, six, seven years from the beginning of the Trump presidency to now than James Comey? I mean, for me, I think he might be like the number one who I either always had wrong, you know, or just changed dramatically. What do you think, Charles? Yeah. I mean, it's partly him and it's partly the FBI. Right. him and it's partly the FBI. As you know, I think we should abolish the FBI. I'm just not convinced it can be fixed. It is so politicized. And then you have James Comey speaking as if it is this great paragon

of virtue. And anyone who suggests otherwise is somehow a crazy right-wing Trump lover. Well, I don't think that's me. So I've sort of seen the two of them decline in the same way. I assumed that Comey was on the level and his descriptions of the institution that he used to be in charge of were correct. But over time, I found his approach to be farcical. And with it, the FBI, I just I.

I think it's one of those great examples of an institution that actually, I mean, in that case, didn't have a particularly great history. But perhaps had a period in which it was trustworthy and traded on that for a long time, long after its role had changed. So it's not just James Comey, although he's symptomatic. I think the whole thing is a problem. And I think we've sort of forgot, it's one of the great tragedies, one of the many great tragedies of January 6, was that in one instant, the Republican Party of crazy subversion and election denialism from the left. And in fact, prior to the 2020 election, it was the left that was shouting about the prospect of the election being stolen. Remember that great conspiracy theory

in the summer of 2020? The postmaster general was going to steal the election. Oh, yeah. That's right. That was a great one. In one moment. And I don't pretend that this didn't happen. It did. It was a choice made by Trump and his acolytes. But in one moment, the conservatives said, no, that's our reputation. Now we will take that on, which was immensely stupid. Hold my beer. Yeah, it was immensely stupid.

But we shouldn't forget, just because the Republicans did that and they did do that, the FBI absolutely disgraced itself for two or three years, and James Comey did as well. If I had been James Comey, and I'll say this and then I'll shut up. If I had been James Comey, after that press conference where I had to come out, announce that the allegations that I'd been investigated weren't true, try and create a new standard in American law that was essentially guilty, but we can't prove it. I would have slunk away somewhere warm and sunny for the rest of my life. I wouldn't dare to show my face in public.

But he is now sitting trying to bully people into vote for Joe Biden on MSNBC. I assume that was MSNBC. It's something else. It's Comey's vanity. He can't stop himself. Something, again, I didn't know about him. But I will give you a little look at his favorite candidate. And you tell me whether this is somebody we should keep in the office for the next, well, I guess all told, four plus years.

Take a look at Joe Biden addressing, let's see, where was he when he made all of these errors? My God, the NAACP. Yeah, here it is in New Hampshire. Watch. Or the NAAC, as he says. Oh, hold on. You'll see it. Stop by. And when I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic. And what happened was Barack said to me, go to Detroit and help fix it. He wasn't vice president in the pandemic. I just came from Atlanta where I delivered a commencement at Morehouse College. You're truly inspiring. Our protection expanded the Affordable Care Act, saving millions of families, $800,000 in premium, $8,000 a year in premium. He calls the erectionists who stormed Capitol Hill patriots.

Erectionists. And we could have kept going. He misquoted Trump. There were at least nine corrections they had to make. I got doubts about their chosen candidate, Rich, and I actually really have doubts that he can even make it to November. Yeah, I mean, so do I. I think there's there's some significant chance he doesn't. And look, misspeaking is one thing. We all do it. Misspeaking at the level he does is another thing. But the most disturbing of those gaffes that he just went through is not knowing when he was vice president. Right. It's as disturbing as her transcript.

Yeah. Not not knowing when Bo died, not not knowing the date and not knowing what was going on in his own life. So that's that's confusion. And that's disturbing in someone his age. And it's just absurd to think that he's going to be president of the United States until January 20, 29. Right. I mean, please, who are you trying to fool? So if you, I'll tell you, one person who's definitely not voting for Joe Biden is the white house transcription guy.

He's he can't do it. He's got a good job. He's got a good job. He's got forever employment or at least four year standby. We'll get fit to Fannie Willis and Rachel Maddow right after this. Don't go away. I'm Megan Kelly, host of theyn 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 Sirius XM 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, Megan Kelly.

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Alright guys, three months free. Offer details apply. All right, guys. So Fannie Willis was running in a primary. She won with 83 percent of the vote in. She was considered the favorite in the race. She crushed the person challenging her. And now she's going to face Atlanta-based lawyer Courtney Kramer in the general, who is a Republican. First Republican to seek the office in more than two decades, inspired, no doubt, by Fannie's ethical lapses. Then, by the way, Judge Scott McAfee won, too, the judge who ruled on this case and who is trying the case ultimately against Trump down in Fulton County. He won with 83% of the votes in. Okay. So that's that. So Fannie Willis, I guess, fresh off her big win, decides to give her first interview post her ethics scandal to Rachel Maddow. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC,

which night after night lectures us on the importance of journalism. Journalism. That's why Trump is so bad. Trump is so bad because he attacks the press and journalists matter. What they do matters and asked zero, zero difficult questions of Fannie Willis. Here's a montage of the questions she did ask. You tell me whether we're going for Edward R. Murrow awards here or not. Let me start by asking you about what your life has been like and how things have changed over the course of this past year. I wondered what effect the sort of constant threat of violence that you've been living with has had on you and on your ability to do your work. Do you feel like you've changed over the course of this term in office

in terms of having to develop new skills, new resources, develop a thicker skin than you might not have expected when you took this? Oh, my God. Nothing. Nothing about the odor of mendacity that the judge found lingered in the courtroom after her testimony and that of those supporting her. Nothing. Not a one. Tough question. I'll just give you one more, Rich, and I'll give it to you. Setting Fannie Willis up as really the unheard victim here because no one is defending this poor, poor woman. Watch. They opened the floodgates on her. In a way that is underappreciated in this country, they have created a maelstrom of political harassment and pressure, bringing it down to bear on this one prosecutor like a laser.

She is out there defending herself so ably. This story for all of us, this is not a profile in courage. This is a profile in cowardice. She's standing alone against all of this. These are human beings. They are not magic. They are not bulletproof. They are not superhuman.

And right now, they have no one defending them as they are being asked to bear superhuman pressure and threat. And it is working. And there has been no significant countervailing pressure defending them. And the history that we are making is that there's no one defending Fannie Willis but herself. Oh, my God. Who will defend them? The prosecutors with all of the power? Remind me again, Rich, why was it that Fannie Willis was so evilly targeted by so many? Was that what happened there? Yeah. Where did that come from? I don't know whether it was this interview or a press conference, but Fannie Willis was saying all of a sudden there's this oversight committee, you know, that's looking into me and other prosecutors.

It must be because they're now, you know, black DAs in Georgia. It's because she was frankly corrupt and unethical and hiring her boyfriend to be her special prosecutor. And this interview is ridiculous. Oprah would have done a tougher interview with Bonnie Willis. And we were talking about Bill Maher earlier. Bill Maher is interesting. He's sort of changing as you as we go along. You know, he's a thinking person. Rachel Maddow is the worst, right? She's utterly predictable, total conspiracy theorist during the whole Russia hoax. But the mainstream media treats her like she's,

you know, the gold standard, right? I think only Eric Wimple, the lonely media writer at the Washington Post, ever called Rachel Maddow on any of her conspiracy theories during Russiagate. So this is I mean, this is what you get. This is what you expect. MSNBC is a network entirely devoted to boosting these prosecutions. I mean, Lawrence O'Donnell, the way he describes Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen as these outstanding, inspiring people. It's ridiculous.

I hate to see what his Saturday night looks like. So Charles, this brings me to the promised moment that we mentioned an hour ago, holding onto the left's obsession with the norms and just their complete blindness to what they are doing, how we got to this place. Like here, you know, like, what? What has Fannie Willis ever done to anyone? Why would they investigate her? This is so wrong. By the way, we're told that that committee, which is at the state Senate in Georgia investigating Fannie

Willis's behavior here now, originally was the Democrats' idea that they wanted to push after Ahmaud Arbery was killed. And they weren't satisfied with the prosecutor's response. So this actually wasn't originally about black prosecutors. It was about white prosecutors. At that point, only now have they taken a look at her, who she happens to be black because of her ethical lapses, which have the odor of mendacity, according to the judge trying the case. But here is just a little taste, Charles, of Maddow and her indignation from this same monologue, different soundbites than you just heard about what these evil Republicans are doing. Watch this. Republicans in the state legislature decided that for the first time in

the history of that state, they needed to give themselves a new power. They needed to give themselves a new power. They needed to give themselves the power to remove prosecutors. They have created a maelstrom of political harassment and pressure, bringing it down to bear on this one prosecutor like a laser. Because she brought this case against someone of their party, this is Republicans using their political power to try to shut off the legal system, to try to shut off the rule of law here so it cannot be used against their guy against Trump. They are taking apart the judicial system. They are fundamentally changing the judiciary in the state, in the entire state,

all to protect this one powerful defendant and their own party. It sound familiar? Does that sound like anybody you know over the past year and a half? I mean, it's a great glimpse into the Maddow extended universe. Chris Hayes is also a narrator of this great fiction.

I love her analogies, but I think you played it twice or she said it twice, but she kept using as her analogy of great heavy pressure a laser, which is not heavy, it's light. She also seems to think that the prosecutor is the judiciary. This is why I don't watch MSNBC, Megan, because it is a parallel universe. It is an amusement park of nonsense. nonsense and that segment was extremely heavy on dudgeon and indignation and extremely light on anything that comports with reality and if she and chris hayes and others presented themselves as entertainment or as a sort of partisan feel-good provider,

that would be fine. This country has a long history of partisan journalism, much of which, 100 years ago especially, was awful. But when you combine that with, as you referred to at the beginning of the segment, this saccharine, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory pretense that Rachel Maddow and her confrères are speaking up for the sanctity of journalism and American law, it becomes truly revolting. And again, I don't know what Bill Maher thinks or doesn't think. He is interesting and smart. I've always got on well with him. But you see in that segment why so many people on the left who consume MSNBC every day don't know anything about America. I'm not blind to the fact this exists on the right as well. We can list the locations that provide the same service. But I have been amazed in my work at the sheer number of otherwise intelligent people who just don't know what's

happening in the United States, who are shocked, as you showed in that Bill Marklip, when you tell them that Hillary Clinton used the word illegitimate, who are amazed when this case or that case doesn't go the way they want it. It's not a political trial necessarily, but the Rittenhouse trial was a good example of this. The parallel set of facts that I kept reading in the New York Times that had nothing to do with what that case acted, which was televised, by the way. Anyone could watch it. It was actually about-

By the way, Charles, Bill also told me that cops died, that a number of cops died on January 6th. Oh, yeah. Cops died. 10,000 AfricanAmericans are shot by cops every year. Is that is the median is the media that there was a it was a poll done that that showed that the registered Democrats who watched MSNBC's conception of how deadly covid was, was like off by a factor of 400. And just quickly, Rich, he also told me, he also told me that Michael Cohen went to jail for three years for campaign finance violations. We know that's not true, which I corrected.

He also said that Trump's immigration numbers have been about the same as Joe Biden's. I mean, truly, he said all those things. Yeah, one of the most disturbing things to go back about to the Alvin Bragg case, there's some significant chance that Judge Merchan is a Rachel Maddow viewer, right? Oh, 100 percent. Unlike Charlie, he is watching and he's watching religiously. Can I just say so just to highlight what was in that clip? I mean, it's amazing if you look at it. This is the first time in history that the legal system has been used this way. A maelstrom of political harassment. Oh, the horror, Rachel. Can one imagine that they're

using political power to shut down the rule of law? Yes, we've seen that, madam. They're fundamentally taking apart the judiciary all because of one person and their hatred for them. Yes, it is terrible. And you are the one doing it. It's your side. Republicans are taking new acts in response to your breach into brand new, uncharted territory that in almost 250 years we've never entered before. Charles, that's why we're here. Yeah. And I just want to flesh something out on this because it's irritated me over the last three or four years in other contexts. One of the reasons that I think progressivism is so damaging to America is that its core goal is to separate out a certain group of people and make them untouchable and untouched by the democratic

branches of government. And so you see this, and we saw it during the Russiagate hoax as well, you see this in Washington where there is this conception that the Department of Justice and the FBI are somehow independent of the president, the one guy who's elected and in whom all of the powers of the executive are vested by Article 2. But what Rachel Maddow is saying there is another example of that.

It is true that the state is looking into Fannie Willis, but Fannie Willis is a prosecutor who works for the state and has power only at the pleasure of the state, who is able to execute laws only insofar as those laws are ratified by the state. Here in Florida, DeSantis, a few years ago, removed a prosecutor who said he was not willing to enforce state law. And there was this great outcry about this on the left. Oh, my goodness, but this guy was elected. Yeah, he was elected. But he also said out loud, I'm not going to enforce the law of the state from the power of which grants me my position. And so DeSantis, who has the power under Florida law to remove prosecutors who don't do their jobs, did so.

If Fannie Willis gets kicked out from her role, despite being elected, it will be because she's corrupt. It will be because she's violating the trust that the state has put in. That's not a problem. It's not intruding. It's not the government intruding in an area. It's not the government coming into someone's private house and telling them what to do. It is the government upholding its own standards. So what Rachel Maddow is essentially saying there is the opposite of what she's pretending she's saying. She wants Fannie Willis to operate with impunity. She wants Fannie Willis to operate independently of the government of the state she's representing. That just cannot fly. Yeah. And as you point out earlier, Rich, then Fannie Willis tried to blame it on a race. Oh, it's just now that we have 14 minority

prosecutors. That's why the state's getting involved in overseeing. No, it's because of your corruption. It's because of what you did. Take responsibility for your own actions. Those other 13, I'm sure they didn't have affairs with their special prosecutor and pay them a higher rate than the other prosecutors were paid and then take the stand. And in my strong, well-informed opinion, lie about it. We know he lied. We know Nathan Wade lied under oath. And the judge knows it, too. That's why he said odor of mendacity. And that's why his decision to allow her to stay on the case is being appealed. I want to give you one other thing, Rich. Here she is. Of course, you saw those loving, you know, smoochy Rachel Maddow questions to Fannie. And Fannie had the following reaction to one of them asking how she is.

That reminded me of another person who loves to play the victim. Watch these two soundbites. Thank you for asking. Not many people ask about what is the personal journey. Yeah, well, I guess. And also, thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I'm OK. It's so fun to be a victim, to be a queen princess queen of fulton county come on who do you think you're kidding what do you make of it rich yeah look i mean this is this is the progressives always go to this they always go to race and and victimhood and look i mean they're there there must be some upstanding crusader against donald trump that they can make a hero of right none immediately comes to mind but there must be one outstanding crusader against Donald Trump that they can make a hero of, right?

None immediately comes to mind, but there must be one out there. But here they're taking this woman who lied and was unethical and making her into a heroine and a victim solely because, and this goes back to what we were talking about a while ago, because she's pursuing the right target, right? Donald Trump. So that's the gateway. Once you're through that and you're anti-Trump, it doesn't matter what your ethics are. It doesn't matter what your motives are. It doesn't matter what your procedures are. It doesn't matter what the legalities are. All that has to be blessed and held up. And it's because they consider Trump basically Hitler. So most of us would have considered any means legitimate to stop Hitler anywhere along the way. And that's the way they

think about Donald Trump. And he's just not. And it ends up distorting their worldview and how they operate and making them the baddies, you know, the villains in a lot of these scenarios, but they can't they can't see it. So, Charles, that's a perfect segue into Cori Bush, who is just a left wing loon who is out there now. And she does this on the anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson. And Michael Brown's would have been birthday in Ferguson over and over and over. She keeps pushing this bill that she wants passed, which would, I'll give you a couple of highlights, recruit, hire, train, and dispatch mental health professionals and community health workers to provide comprehensive mental health services to individuals who have suffered traumatic experiences or are in grief, in bereavement,

or at risk of suicide or violence as a result of witnessing or experiencing law enforcement personnel violence, the death of a family member due to law enforcement personnel violence, the death of a colleague or a neighbor due to law enforcement personnel violence. And this is how the bill defines law enforcement personnel violence. Law enforcement personnel violence means a situation where a law enforcement agent uses force. So now the taxpayers under this Cori Bush bill would have to pay for the mental health services for anyone, anyone who is on the other side of a law enforcement agent using force justified or not. And here she is announcing this bill once again, which has gotten no traction just the other day. Watch SOT 23. Michael Brown should have turned 28 years old just 81 days after his 18th birthday.

A Ferguson police officer killed him. In a just world, Mike Brown would be with his loved ones right now, dreaming of his future as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake. They were all left to live through the trauma police violence leaves in its wake to deal with the mental health effects of it on their own. Police killings of unarmed Black people are responsible for more than 50 million additional days of poor mental health days per year almost a decade has passed since we lost mike brown but we're still on the front lines of the movement to save black lives happy birthday mike brown oh my lord

mike michael brown is dead because he attacked a police officer. That's why he's dead. Sad. He has only himself to blame, as Eric Holder's DOJ found. Eric Holder's DOJ. I'll just show you this one thing, Charles. As you know, Shelby and Eli Steele made a documentary called What Killed Michael Brown. You can still get it on Amazon, which tried to ban it for a time. And they, in the documentary, take a deep dive on what killed Michael Brown, and it was not cop racism. And they had actors read actual testimonials that were given to the DOJ by the actual witnesses to the moment that Officer Darren Wilson did shoot Michael Brown when he was charging the officer. Take a listen. Immediately after he did his body gesture, he came force, you know, full charge of the officer.

His hands were balled up. He had he has his arms bent towards his chest and he's running like, you know, almost like a tackle running. I heard him say get down about two or three times. I probably would have would have shot him instantly if you charge at me like that. But when he was running back, he was screaming, stop, stop. And the officer was backing up as he kept coming closer to him. And he didn't stop. But he's her poster boy. What do you think?

Well, I actually think there's something profoundly wrong with her. And I don't say that facetiously, but she is somebody who has spent a long time trying to defund the police abolish the police at one point. Now she's trying to pass this law, which is not a federal concern. Police are and ought to be local. While spending quite a lot of money, up to $600,000 a year on private security, and then when called on it saying, Well, of course, I need private security, otherwise, I'd be in danger, which is fair. I don't begrudge her private security. But it's incredible to argue indignantly that you need private security, because without them, you might be in danger while trying for a period to defund and abolish the police. And she doesn't seem to be able to see it so her logical reasoning skills are perhaps not what we would want in a federal representative i mean this is

really a an offshoot of defund the police in the sense that it is a softer attempt to imply that the entire and i won't force, because there are hundreds of them around the country, thousands of them, but the entire police apparatus of the United States is irretrievably racist, which I don't think is true. The presumption of the bill is every day police go out there and they harass and batter African Americans. And it's so bad and so frequent that we need a federal law that deals with the consequences of it. And the irony of that is that while of course there are some bad police officers in America, and while there are presumably some racist police officers in America, and while we have occasionally, as is inevitable in a country of 330 million people, seen some incidents that were regrettable in America, if she, as she said, wants to save black lives, the way you do that is to train the police properly and fund them. This seems irrefutable.

I've never read a single statistical analysis here that shows otherwise. The way that you improve the outcomes for disproportionately poor African-Americans in America is to make sure that they have good, well-trained, well-funded police. If Ibram X. Kendi had any integrity about him at all, he would define defund the police as a racist policy. His definition being that anything that disproportionately affects or hurts African-Americans or minorities is racism. Well, Cori Bush's approach to policing is by his definition, racist. And yet once again, we see her on the screen, insisting otherwise she's a menace. Rich some data um you know we always look at the

washington post which now tracks the number of black men who are shot unarmed black men who are shot by cops each year the cops they they pull over or have interactions with tens of millions of americans every year they want to check your license. They didn't signal when you were taking a red, whatever it is, a turn. On average, they make between 7 and 10 million arrests a year in this country, between 7 and 10 million. And according to the Washington Post, the number of unarmed black men who on average get shot by cops each year is between 12 and 19. For the past 10 years, I just pulled up the past nine, past nine years, it's 174 in the past nine years out of some 7 to 10 million each year who get pulled over of Americans. And by the way, just to give you a feel for what's in those 12 to 19 per year who they consider unarmed men. One of the cases we

just pulled two Louisiana state prisoners, two Louisiana state prison transport officers shot and killed a prisoner trying to escape. All right. So it's a prisoner trying to get away from them. The second one is a four year old boy was killed by cops. Why did they do that? Because the cops showed up at a home where a woman had been stabbed multiple times in a domestic dispute. And the suspect, who was the stabber, grabbed the little boy, pointed a knife to his throat. And one officer, obviously fearing that the worst was about to happen, fired his weapon to try to save the child, but struck them both and killed them. That's counted in the 12 to 19. And yet this moron is out there wasting my time and yours pretending that there's a massive problem with racist cops traumatizing the black community. And her exhibit A is Michael Brown, the poster child in the hands up, don't

shoot lie. Yeah, it was a total lie. It's a lie that hasn't completely died yet. There was never an epidemic of police shooting of unarmed black men. That was a lie. You know, those 12 to 19 a year, whatever they are, they run the gamut from some that are true outrages and cops should be punished for and do get punished for to ambiguous cases to just totally justified uses of force, even though the person, the target was unarmed. And Megan, a month or two ago, they tried to make a big deal of this. I think it was in Chicago. They tried to make an outrage of a case where a young man was pulled over, had a gun, defied the orders of the police to keep his windows rolled down. Yeah. And shot at the police first. And they were trying to make him, you know, one of these victims whose

names we supposedly remember forever. So look, Michael Brown's life was a tragedy, but the tragedy was everything that happened before that interaction with the cop that led to him being so undisciplined, led him to being such a bully, led him to having such poor impulse control and judgment such that he tried to take that cop's gun and probably shoot him dead. So it was a totally justified use of force. It took a long time to bat down the counter case. People were respectable people on TV were holding up their hands, right?

Because they thought that that's what happened. It was a complete a complete lie. And of course, she's going to do everything she can do to continue to perpetuate this lie for all time. You know, it's amazing is that piece by Shelby and Eli. You know, they call it not who killed Michael Brown, what killed Michael Brown, because if you look at it, it's so worth your two hours. So worth it. They they go into the history behind that moment in Ferguson, Missouri, and Democrat policies that ruined the community. They document the uprising in socioeconomic uprising of the Black family and how well Black Americans were doing in this area

before the Great Society, before these ridiculous welfare policies that Lyndon Johnson put in place, and before the state decided to start, quote, helping the black community there and the housing projects that replaced their single family homes that they'd been living in and working in. And just the whole history behind this is told. And those policies happened because of people like Cori Bush, because of people like her. And as she still wants to get out of any responsibility for these left wing ruinous policies by pointing the finger at innocent cops who, in this case, did not do anything wrong and in the vast majority of cases have done nothing but try to protect all communities, including the black community. It's just it needs to be called out when it happens. You guys are great. Love you both. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you. Okay, talk soon. Thank you. To be continued. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.