The Megyn Kelly Show - Megyn Reveals Her Candace and Erika Backstory, and Disturbing New Rob Reiner Son Details, with Ruthless | Ep. 1214

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Megyn Kelly opens the show by discussing her behind-the-scenes role in the circumstances leading to Candace Owens and Erika Kirk meeting in person, reveals how she's been talking with Erika and Candace for weeks privately, addresses her critics who wanted her to weigh in earlier, and more. Then Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, the hosts of the Ruthless Podcast, join to discuss the new bombshell Vanity Fair profile of Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, what it reveals about the Trump administration, Wiles’ taking shots at Pam Bondi and JD Vance, the bias revealed from the reporter, the photos used in Vanity Fair’s profile that reveal the bias, the way people on the right are often unfairly portrayed in the corporate press, shocking new details about the murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner, their son Nick's behavior in the hours before the murder, the tragedy and struggles of drug addiction and fame, the darkness of Hollywood, lessons parents can take from the tragic Rob Reiner story, the Brown University killer still on the loose, the lack of police action in locating the suspect, and more. More from Ruthless: https://www.ruthlesspodcast.com/ Shen Yun: Visit https://ShenYun.com/Megyn to buy tickets and waive fees.Done with Debt: https://www.DoneWithDebt.com & tell them Megyn Kelly sent you!All Family Pharmacy: Order now at https://allfamilypharmacy.com/MEGYN and save 10% with code MEGYN10Riverbend Ranch: Visit https://riverbendranch.com/ | Use promo code MEGYN for $20 off your first order.  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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show. We have got so much to get to today. Nick Reiner is soon expected to be formally charged with the murder of his parents, legendary movie director Rob Reiner, and his photographer, mother, Michelle Reiner. A killer, meantime, is still on the loose after a gunman killed two and wounded nine at Brown University. That situation is going from bad to worse. I mean, I don't know what you're going to do out there with this mayor. Good luck to you, Providence. It's what a buffoon. We'll get to the latest on how he and now the Attorney General are contradicting each other. They're not inspiring any confidence whatsoever that this shooter will be caught anytime soon. And we are definitely going to get into this Vanity Fair profile.

look at this. There are my notes on it. It's a very thick document. It's a very long two-part article written by Vanity Fair with the cooperation of and with several interviews over the course of a year of President Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and the entire cabinet. Here's a little preview. It didn't go well at all, which is no surprise if you're going to sit down with Vanity Fair. Everyone's asking, why would she do this? You know, why would you say with Vanity Fair? It's the reporter. I guess the reporter has done all these profiles on chiefs of staff over the years. Okay, that shouldn't do it because Vanity Fair hates conservatives, right? So you kind of should know what you're going to get. I think Susie Wells is a very smart,

very savvy woman, but, you know, it's not a surprise that Vanity Fair did an incredibly unfair piece on Susie Wiles that does not make her or anyone in the cabinet look good. And she's already trying to like tamp down some of the admissions. It's not good. We're going to talk about it in just a second because Ruthless is back. The guys from the program are here. Love the fellas. They're coming on in just a couple of minutes. But I just want to start quickly with this. I've been telling you as this, I don't know if you want to call it a feud or what between Candice Owens and Erica Kirk has been heating up that I would have something to say on it in the coming days, and I do. It's been going on now for a while where Candice, I had that exchange with

Ben Shapiro out on the tour where he said she'd accused Erica of orchestrating Charlie's murder. And I was taken aback. I had not heard that. And then in the interim, between that day and the next, I had my staff go research exactly what she had said. And then somebody just happened to ask me a question about it. Truly, it was not, that was totally organic. I was not a plant by me at all, but somebody asked me about it the very next night, and I actually told them, because I'd been planning on saying something on the show since Ben had made the accusation, and if it was not true, I did not want to be having something that heavy hanging out there. Someone asked about it, and I said, that's actually not true. And at that time, it was not true. The Candace had not

accused Erica of orchestrating Charlie's murder. And I've gotten a lot of grief for saying that, but I was correct. We are relentlessly factual here in this program, and she had not done that at the time. As I pointed out at the time, she had impugned Turning Point. And I realize Erica is CEO, but she wasn't until after Charlie died. So, you know, saying the guys at Turning Point had done something prior to Charlie's death is not the same as saying Erica Kirk. Okay. I'm sorry. It may seemed to you like a distinction without a difference, but we really do care about facts being precise here on the program. We don't always get it right, but that's a big one to get wrong. Well, since then, Candice has been more focused on Erica Kirk. And I think that's because Erica Kirk went on a media

tour and started clearly speaking out about Candace. And so, you know, it was, it turned into a rather explosive situation last week, where Erica went on with Harris Faulkner on Fox News and said very clearly she wants these, quote, conspiracy theories to stop, especially about Turning Point USA, which she called her Turning Point family. And she was clearly upset. You know, we played the sound bite for you. She was clearly, you know, she's had it. And then she went on with Barry Weiss on CBS for a town hall. They had aired the preview, saw. and then the actual exchange aired on Saturday night with Barry, where Erica told Candice to just stop. Okay, she just said, I want you to stop. Actually, we'll play that. Let's play this

on by here. The podcaster Candace Owens, okay? At one time, a friend of Charlie's, at one time an employee of Turning Point, she has been one of the main peddlers of these conspiracies, and she is making a huge amount of money on it. is building her business off of these lies. What do you want to say to her and the other people that are putting these lies out into the world right now? Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop. And that was a clear play on words, if you will, because Candice, when she had started down the turning point narrative had said, only my husband or Erica Kirk can tell me to stop this. And, you know, like one word from Erica will stop this. And Erica didn't say anything

about this. She hasn't really been commenting on podcasts and so on. But she did, as you saw, in that clip, say stop. And it was not taken as the command to stop. I think Candice felt She was saying, stop lying, and Candace, her defense was she's not lying. She's actually trying to do an investigation into the true killer of Charlie Kirk. I've said before, and I will say again, I think they have the true killer of Charlie Kirk. His name is Tyler Robinson. He's in custody. And I have every reason to believe that he committed this murder.

Many people disagree with me. Many people believe there's more to this story that we're being lied to by our FBI, that there are too many inconsistencies around the official story. and those people are more than entitled to that belief. I don't share it. That's fine. This is America. You can feel differently about these things. But with things ratcheting up between Erica and Candice last week, many people had been asking me,

why aren't you saying anything? Obviously, I love Erica Kirk. I do. I love her. And I feel, as I said on the tour, protective of her because she's in an extremely vulnerable state right now. yes, she's taken on the CEO position of turning point, and it's a fair question to ask whether that's a job she can do right now while she's at the height of her grieving. I take no position on that. I think she's doing fine. But I also think it's fair. You can ask that. So I don't like

to see her get attacked at all. And I wish that would stop. And to be honest, I wish Candice wouldn't be pursuing the turning point narrative at all. never mind Erica. Though again, she hasn't graduated to blaming Erica for Charlie's murder. She's criticizing her and the media tour. And that's, that is fair game. That piece of it is fair game. So in any event, Candace knows I disagree with her on this. Petty internet people want to turn that into a cat fight between Candace and yours truly, which will fail. She and I actually have only gotten closer over the past couple of months as people try to make me attack her. So, fuck off, okay? I have no obligation to you to hate the people you hate or try to bring down

the people you want brought down. I'm sorry, but if that's what you want from me, you do need to move on. It's not going to happen. And I've learned a lot behind the scenes from Candace about some of the things she's been put through from people I used to respect. I also, though, adore and love Erica. And I, so I want this to stop. I do, of course. None of this is a mystery to Erica or to Candice. And a couple of weeks ago, Erica called me, and it's relevant to the meeting they just had. Okay, so I'm going to get into this. Those two had a sit-down meeting yesterday for four and a half hours, Erica and Candice, alone. Well, I think they had two other people with him, but those were the two principles. And they met face-to-face in Nashville yesterday. No recording

devices, nothing, just the two of them. And again, each had a supporter, someone from their own respective teams. I'll let them disclose the specifics of that. But they made a lot of progress according to them. And this is what they tweeted out yesterday after the meeting. Candace said, Eric and I wrote, had an extremely productive four and a half hour meeting that I think we both feel should have taken place a lot earlier than it did. We agreed much more than I had anticipated. of course, we also disagreed on various points and people as well. Most importantly, we were able to share intel and clarify intent. I will, of course, have a full rundown for you all tomorrow as I am currently exhausted, but I wanted to quickly let you guys know that absolutely nothing

was held back, and the immediate result was that tensions were thawed. That's very good. Erica posted something 10 minutes later writing, had a very productive conversation with Candace Owens, more to come from both of us looking forward to Amfest this week. That's Turning Point's biggest event of the year. It happens this weekend, later this week into the weekend. Time to get back to work. So I will let Erica and the Turning Point crew and Candice Owens fill you in on what happened at that meeting and so on. I just wanted to know, because many of my viewers have been wondering why I haven't said anything given my previous statements about Erica. And the reason is that I have been

working behind the scenes to try to foster a detente between them. Erica called me weeks ago and asked me if I would be part of this sit-down with them, which originally they had contemplated might be for consumption by the public, my heir in some way, shape, or form, and asked if I would facilitate that meeting between the two of them. And I said, yes, immediately. Of course I would. I reached out to Candace. She said, absolutely, I'm thrilled it's you. I'm in. And the two of them took it from there, trying to negotiate the specifics of what they'd both be comfortable with, where, when, et cetera. And eventually, it changed after they hit some roadblocks. Again, that's for someone else to tell you about,

if they so choose, not having anything to do with yours truly, but it's some wrong. roadblocks in scheduling and the specifics that led them to just say, let's do this privately, not on camera, not in a live stream, just us. And I thought that was a great idea. And I fully support it. And I have been in touch with both of them repeatedly. Okay. So that's what I've been doing. And I understand my core audience knows who I am and would never have assumed the worst about me that I was just abandoning Erica or getting ready to pounce on Candace and, you know, insert myself into this on one side. I'm not getting ready to do that. And I don't want that. I don't think that's God's role for me here. I really fully believe God's role for me here

is to possibly play a role in getting this whole thing to a better place. I think I might be in a position to help construct that? Maybe, maybe not. But sitting here in my studio in Connecticut, just slinging mud at one side or the other or tearing people down or, you know, expressing my disgust, my outreach, that is pointless here. My goal and my job here, I think, is to try to understand, yes, where Candace is coming from on this. I know you're not supposed to say. It's supposed to just immediately condemn her. But I love the turning point, guys, and I don't believe for one second any of them

had anything to do with Charlie's murder. Not for one second, do I believe that? So people who care about Candace and love Erica have been in a tough position as this whole thing has escalated and care about turning point, which I deeply do, and I will make sure that their legacy is not destroyed, and I will do everything within my power

to help them thrive, including supporting my own kids. in forming a turning point chapter and going out to Amfest and helping headline that event and encouraging everyone I know within the conservative movement to go and support them and to donate. So that's where I am. But that doesn't mean I need to sling mud at somebody who sees it differently than I do. And it especially doesn't mean I should remove myself from a position that I think few hold where I might be able to actually help this thing go away. I can, or at least get to a better place. All right, just at least get to a better place,

not just for them. I don't think this is good for anybody's mental health, but for America, you know, for our country and definitely for the conservative movement. There are so many really important battles that we're going to have to fight together against the radical left. And if there's any way that strain of argument and contention can be dissipated, can be managed to a place where it's not quite as upsetting, awful, tough on a lot of people I love, then I would like to be that person if I can. This isn't about me. It's totally not about me. It's about those two, and I commend both of them. I mean, honestly, like, that took a lot of gut. for both of them. Erica is grieving. Erica was away all week on the road promoting Charlie's book. She just did. I know people have given her blowback on the press tour. She committed to the stops that Charlie committed to. She is truly trying to fulfill Charlie's legacy and promise

on his book. It's not easy for her. People say, oh, she's loving it. She's not loving it. She'd rather be home with her babies because she is now a single mother. She's got a three-year-old the one-year-old who need her back at home. Not to mention Turning Point. And it took guts for Candace to go, too. Let's face it. You know, she's been ripping on Turning Point, an organization that Charlie built that Eric is running mercilessly for weeks now. And she'd been coming under fire for not accepting the invite of the Turning Point guys to join their live stream, which was supposed to take place yesterday, responding to her claims. And then, you know, the big Kahuna, the CEO, Erica Kirk herself and Charlie's widow, she's got a couple of roles in this whole

story, reaches out to her and says, I will come sit with you directly. And so, you know, she could have run for that from that. She could have found 10,000 excuses not to do it. You know, I'm just happy to sit here on my set and hurl allegations without saying them to your face. She didn't. She, she, they sat for four plus hours yesterday. So I'll let them take it from here. But I wanted to tell you what my role in it has been. And I'll just say this final thing. To the hateful people whom I used to call friends who have been all over the internet trying to shame me and say that no one should ever listen to this program again because I haven't spoken out on the Erica Candace conflict, there's no, I don't have any pearls of wisdom other than go

fuck yourselves. Go fuck yourselves. You have no fucking clue. what's going on. You don't know what I do behind the scenes. And your world is so myopically online, you fail to understand there are real humans involved here. And actually being able to touch grass and have relationships with them, which is something I'm doing, could prove to actually benefit all involved. Maybe it won't. Maybe it won't at all. But it's at least got a shot. I'm not sure your Twitter shame game has gotten anything of value done. Okay, let's get to the news more on that tomorrow after both women, I think, will have spoken out about it in more detail or their teams. Joining me now, the fellas from Ruthless, one of the

greatest programs on Earth. Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and Comfortably Smug. I want to tell you about Shen Yun, now celebrating its 20th anniversary. For two decades, audiences have seen something truly unique. Chen Yun has played top venues like Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, London's Coliseum, and the Sydney Opera House, and each season tours to over 200 cities worldwide. What is it? It's classical Chinese dance, a live orchestra, and animated backdrops bringing to life 5,000 years of traditional Chinese civilization. A culture the communist regime in China has tried to erase. You will see amazing dancers bringing to life myths and legends,

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You're speaking our language. Makes you feel right at home. It does, right? You're back. We're back. We can pick up right where we left off. All right, but actually, where I want to pick up is the Susie Wiles thing. Have you guys read this thing yet?

Yeah. O-M-G. So just for the listening audience, and we'll go through it and we'll talk about all the juicy details. it's extraordinary. It was so revealing on so many fronts. I texted my team today saying, is she quitting? Is Susie Wiles quitting? Like, this seems like the kind of thing you do knowing that your days were numbered and you're kind of going to burn some bridges on the way out and you don't really give an F. But she's not quitting. She tweeted an attack on the Vanity Fair article today saying we're mission focused, we're not going to pay attention to this. But like, she talked to this

guy for over a year, multiple times, double digits, I think. And like, there's so much, how many, Rob? 11, 11 times. To the point where, like, now people's jaws are slack online wondering, does she hate everyone in the administration, or does she just not understand Vanity Fair? Many people I've talked to within the conservative circles, think that she must have been saying these things thinking they were off the record. Now she's trying to tell the New York Times that she didn't say, at least some of them, which has forced the reporter, Chris Whipple, of Vanity Fair, to provide the tape recording pieces to the New York Times showing she did say the things.

So that's not the move. This guy is a respected reporter, though he works for a leftist publication. You know, she's producing the receipts, the recordings already. So don't play that game. If you said it, just stand by it. And I'll just give you what I think is the biggest, this is what I think is the biggest problem in it. All the rest is just insults, like saying J.D. Vance is a conspiracy theorist and has been for 10 years, saying his conversion to MAGA and being pro-Trump was sheerly political, which she contrasted with Marco Rubio's evolution, which she credits as being sincere, right? Like, it's not great. He's the vice president. He's almost certainly going to be the Republican nominee next time around. And you've got Susie Wiles saying he's a conspiracy theorist. But I'll tell you the one that's probably the most consequential in real terms. And that is on page 18 of the 35 page article, at least the way it printed for me. And when she

was talking about the Letitia James indictment, and he's pressing her on whether this is all retribution. She is saying, okay, you know, he's, he doesn't like some of these people, et cetera. And then she says, the question is, what about Letitia James and her mortgage fraud? Answer, well, that might be the one retribution, quoting Susie Wiles. That is utterly unhelpful. And if they ever managed to reindict Tish James with a grand jury that will actually do its job because she does deserve to be re-indicted, it will be promptly dismissed now with that quote because she speaks for the president,

and that is effectively the president on record saying, this is no more than political retribution, which as a practical matter, will now doom the Letitia James criminal case. Again, it's already on life support, given the fact that they can't get a grand jury to re-indict now that it's been thrown out because it didn't have a prosecutor on it,

who was a legitimate U.S. attorney, according to the courts. But that statement actually will have consequences and says the rest is political chaos, and that's where you guys come in. What's your favorite thought or admission or takeaway on this thing? Well, Megan, first of all, I think this took the political world by storm this morning in large part because Susie Wiles is known for the discipline, and this White House has been known for their incredible discipline, and their lack of interest in entertaining the sort of left-wing media

narrative and so anything that showed up in that space was going to be interesting to say the least but from my respect i always do this when i'm dealing with like a new york times or vanity fair or whatever i look at something that they pulled out for a poll quote and they try to throw it in a subhead and in this case there was a reference to donald trump having the personality of an alcoholic quote unquote and i looked at that and i'm like all right before i read this article i'm going to go down and i'm and try to find the context that is printed in this to see if this could make because that's not something just out of context that somebody like Susie Wiles would ever say. And then you go down and you find out that she was talking about her history of dealing with men, her father, people with

alcoholism functional of the NFL. Exactly. Functional alcoholism is she calls it where she says that basically their personalities, their personality, it's just much more embellished than your average person. And so Donald Trump has a much more embellished personality. And that was the context of it. It had nothing to do with alcoholism or personality. And then she actually goes on to say he operates with a view that there's nothing he can't do, nothing, zero, nothing, which also adds to it. So it's like trying to be a compliment. But yeah, the pull quote is not phrased as a compliment. So, but that, but right there then, you have the framework for the rest of the piece, which is anything you can say and do or quote.

is going to be framed in the worst possible way. I saw another thing about J.D. Vance making a joke with the photographer about, like, I'll pay you 100 bucks if I look better than everybody else in here, a thousand of it's Marco. That's J.D. That's funny. And like I leftists don't understand our sense of humor, apparently. No, and they reported that that's evidence of the tension, the tension amongst the cabinet. Like, what is an obvious joke? As is this piece. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, that's the framework that I'm working. and now it's 17 35 pages or whatever and there's a whole bunch of stuff and you can talk a lot about whether there is wisdom and sitting down 11 times with a reporter who's capable of doing something like this or not but i think that most of it in there if read through the eyes of the people who know them know the levity they know the context of the things that are being said johnny i don't know you work with these people all the time like this is this seems like it's sort of par for the course yeah and i also think that this is the most transparent administration that we have

have ever had in our lifetimes. And they're not afraid of saying what it is they're doing, what it is they're thinking because they're making such great progress. And I think that came through in the story. And there was a piece of news that they didn't push out on Twitter that caught my attention. It's when she was talking about his building of this great room off of the East Wing. And she said that that's not where it stops. And so much of the left is just losing their minds over the president, our president, who is a developer improving the White House in a way that every administration behind him will benefit from. And it's Michael Duncan points out it's the most magnanimous thing he's ever done because

he will never get the benefit of this great construction project. That's true. But like, just to interject Ashbrook, here's, here's the quote. She says, was while saying that Trump was planning more as yet undisclosed White House renovations, quote, I'm not telling, that's pretty much all that's in there, but that's got people going to melt down. I love it. I love it. It's fantastic because if you're going to have a developer who happens to be one of the best developers in the history of mankind in the White House, you might as well walk away with something even bigger and better than you had before. I mean, think if John McEnroe was the President of the United States, the tennis court would look awfully good when he was done. But I mean, like, if you're going to have a developer in the White House, I'd hope he would improve it. And there's that skill set. There's that quote that societies flourish when older men plant trees whose shade they will never sit under.

And that's the case with all of this that's being done at the White House. He'll never actually get to enjoy the benefits of having a secure area to hold White House events. Whoever succeeds him will. Yeah. Let me tell you, I was at an event at the vice president's residence over the weekend, a Christmas celebration. And it was, we had to go through a tent, and it was actually quite nice. But I think a ballroom would have been even better, would have been even better. And we'll just do a quick word on that because I wanted to tell you, we saw a lot of the administration figures.

Doug and I went and had a great night in D.C. Yeah. JD, my invite was lost in the mail. Thanks for it, though. Okay. It's a sore subject over here. Sorry, guys. But I will say this, there are a lot of people there, a lot of big names there, a lot of big don't.

owner's there too. And J.D. Vance is just in a class of one. I mean, he is just so at ease among the crowd. Like, glad-handed, but also has the Bill Clinton thing that to make you feel like you're the only one who matters to him when he sees you, like actually he's looking in your eyes and listening to what you're saying and not looking over your shoulder and like with a follow-up. So it's not like he's just going to make one comment and move on. I'm not even talking about myself. This is me watching him deal with others. He was also like that with my husband, Doug, and me.

But like he is just so easy with other people. So affable, so clever, naturally clever and funny. He's got it. He's got the it factor. It's one of the many reasons why we call him 48. And I just think, you know, even in this piece, they have a quote from Marco saying if, hold on, I've got it. it, quote, this guy, Chris Whipple, writes, will Rubio challenge Vance for the top spot on the 28 GOP presidential ticket?

His answer, Rubios, if J.D. Vance runs for president, he's going to be our nominee, and I will be one of the first people to support him. I think Marco's incredibly talented, too, but he sees what I saw. Yeah. Yeah, also, that's like the news. You know what I mean? Right, right. That's a breaking story.

And then everyone else is just talking about this random nonsense and you have it right there the question that everyone has been discussing for years and we'll be discussing for years and you actually have a definitive answer to it right there. And then further about J.D., every time we have spent time with him every time I have seen him, there is something to be said about an individual because for the longest time Americans thought that when we elect a politician, you want someone who went to Harvard and their fourth generation Harvard and they're all credentialed. There's something we said about an individual who has survived conditions that so many Americans have struggled and continue to struggle through. And there's a level of realism that they bring, an understanding that they bring, where it's not like, oh, you know, I sat through a sociology class which described the conditions that you may have seen in the rest. This is someone who understands it because it's their life story. But I thought when you were talking about suffering under the conditions you were talking about Yale. I thought that's where you were going. that's no no it's the poverty sorry i want to get to a couple of the other admissions though

before we like really move on from it because um there is a lot that's going to come back first of all a couple of words on this reporter he says he writes charlie crook's assassination in september turbocharged trump's campaign of revenge and retribution it did what do you mean well what evidence trump was doing the lawfare prior to that critics have compared this moment to a Reichstag fire, a modern version of Hitler's exploitation of the torching of Berlin's parliament that Trump is using Charlie's assassination in the way Hitler used the Reichstag fire. This is unbelievable. This guy's really showing us his cards, right? So I'll give you a couple more. We talked about how he quotes her saying Trump's got sort of an alcoholic's personality.

He also includes the detail that back in 2016, Trump berated her in front of a gaggle of cronies. Wiles told him, quote, it was a horrific hour plus at midnight, and I don't think I've seen him that angry since. He was ranting and raving, and I didn't know whether to argue back or whether to be stoic. What I really wanted to do was cry, and then she kind of stood him down. Like, okay, again, I'm sure these aren't like her favorite details to read in print. It is in here that she worked for DeSantis and got him elected governor in 2018, and then he turned on her, denouncing Wiles publicly and bad-mouthing her privately to this day. Whilst doesn't know what triggered the governor's vendetta, quote, I think he thought I was getting too much attention, which is ironic. I don't ever seek attention, which is true of her, but, I mean, 11 interviews with Vanity Fair, you know, kind of cuts against the narrative.

By the way, I do know she can't stand, Ron DeSantis, cannot stand. Whatever he did to her burned a serious bridge, and he royally effed that up. She would be a much better friend than foe to have. Okay, keep keeping going. Okay, here's more evidence of Chris Whipple's bias, and I'm sorry, but like, failure to commit to facts. He's talking about the January 6th riot. The January 6th, 2021 assault on the Capitol, in which nine people ultimately died. ultimately is doing a lot of work in that sentence so much work john what what is that that is so

misleading yeah yeah no easy there there's definitely a lot of work being done in that word and plenty of other descriptions and like the one that you read about the rites dog fire me get out of here i mean just weave in nazi propaganda in there right i mean why not yeah a trans loving furry murder's charlie kirk and that is the rike stag fire you kidding me It's amazing the way that their head warps, you know. And here's a couple more. Let's keep going. I got more for you.

She's writing about Elon. Wiles described Musk as something akin to a jacked-up nosferatu, which is like a vampire, right? Like a Dracula. The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him, she told me. He's an avowed ketamine user, and he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the executive office building in the daytime, and he's an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it's not helpful, but he is his own person. Then she goes on to say that she was shocked when he eviscerated USAID. There's a long section on this. Not the way I would do it, she says. While says she called

Musk on the carpet. You can't just lock people out of their offices. She recalls telling him, we called up Marco and said, you've got to be in charge of USAID. And then she says, but no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody. Now that she's, now she's denying to the New York Times that she said he's an avowed ketamine user. That's the line in response to which the reporter played the audio for the New York Times. So she's ripping on Elon and then kind of denying it. Okay, then I told you what she said about, um, about Tish James. But here's a couple of like other more consequential pieces. Okay. She rips on Pam Bondi. And I'm just going to be honest, she speaks for us all. She writes, she says, I think she completely whiffed on appreciating

that that was the very targeted group that cared about this. She's talking about the social media influencers who she invited to the White House, only to embarrass them with those binders full of nothing. She completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this. First, she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell was not on her desk. Then she goes on about Epstein to correct Trump. Trump has claimed, writes the author, without evidence that Bill Clinton visited Epstein's infamous private Island little St. James, supposedly 28 times. Quote, Susie Wiles, being quoted. There is no

evidence those visits happened. Quote, the president was wrong about that. And then here's the part about J.D. Vance. The people that really appreciated what a big deal this is are Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, she said, because they lived in that world. And the vice president, who's been a conspiracy theorist for a decade. And we go from there. Okay, I mean, like, so she's called J.D. Vance, a conspiracy there is. She's called Pam Bondi. She already like J.D. She doesn't need to convince me, man. I don't know. So I, what is, what is happening here? Do you think Susie Wells, who's, sorry, she's Wiley. She's very clever. She has universally good reviews of what a smart, savvy person she is that she just got, like, had by the author of this, or what? Yeah, you know, I mean, what's interesting. is there's never been a chief of staff for President Trump in either his first term or anywhere around him, really, who can get into this situation where immediately the entirety of the

organization circles the wagons around. And that's what you saw all morning this morning, which was everybody from John Jr. to the vice president and Mark, everybody's sort of saying, like, she's the best and shut this down. What gave rise to all of it? I don't know entirely why, you know, do 11 sit downs with Vanity Fair when they have a pretty private, you know, internal dialogue about an awful lot of this stuff. But if you remove, at least from my perspective, if you remove like the left-wing fanaticism in terms of the framing and you remove, you know, just the kind of hyperbolic soap opera-like working that Vanity Fair is doing, there's some really interesting stuff in there. Like the USAID thing is fascinating. We talked about it a lot, Megan, on your show

and on ours about like, is everybody on the same page with some of this stuff? Because it feels like everybody is sort of in a different place and Elon was sort of marching forward and, you know, we, I think had broad agreement about the goals, but like to see that there was some internal discussion about that. Like, that's valuable news information, right? That's the kind of thing you lead an article about, you know? And so, you know, there's a couple of different pieces of this, and you mentioned the ballroom, but that are newsworthy and interesting and probably good for the public to,

sort of understand and get underneath the hood, but it's completely masked by this effort to make her look bad, the administration look bad, Republicans look bad, and in chaos, which, you know, according to the Trump administration, they're not having it today. Let me give you a couple more pieces of bias that are obvious on the pages of this profile. They're talking about RFKJ, and he writes that in Wiles' view, RFK Jr. shock treatment of HHS. is warranted. Great. He pushes the envelope. Some would say too far, but I say in order to get back to the middle, you have to push it too far. Okay, we like that. But then here's what the author adds. In December, Kennedy's federal vaccine panel voted to end the decades-long recommendation

for newborn vaccinations against hepatitis B, which is highly infectious and causes liver failure. Period. So, nothing, none of the reasons why they said you don't have to get that for your baby if you don't want and the mother isn't Hep B positive or has an unknown status of Hep B. None of that, none of like, well, there's aluminum in the vaccines. Well, there are too many. Well, maybe we're giving these kids a sexually transmitted disease vaccination a little early in life. Some parents where the mother doesn't have the disease might wait until we give like the HPV vaccine, which is like 12, assuming that kids might become sexually active sometime in they're teens and you want to get ahead of it. None of that's in there just, it's a highly

infectious disease and it causes liver failure. Yeah, so that's, that particular thing is very infuriating for me. I've talked to a lot of folks about this one specifically, especially those who work in health care. The hepatitis B vaccine for expected mothers and for newborns was specifically for mothers who are prostitutes and are at high risk for STDs and babies who may be exposed to those STDs because their mothers are prostitutes or intravenous drug use right and yeah and so they figured why not give this to every American instead of the small group of people who are doing heroin and our prostitutes that seems like yes it HHS has absolutely gone way too far that specific vaccine you talk to the number of mothers who are outraged

that they were not told that information that this is specifically has been designed for mothers who are at risk because they're prostitutes or they're taking heroin. It's unbelievable and kudos to RFK Jr.

For getting on top of that. Because two things can be true. Like you could say, I believe in the efficacy of the Hepby vaccine, and you can also say maybe it's not necessary my newborn gets it immediately. Totally unnecessary.

But like in the nuance of that, you lose it, right? because no left-wing reporter wants to talk about that, because that's way too complicated. You're either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. And you know what they were basically trying to do with the Hep-B vaccine? They were trying to do what they were doing with all of us on the COVID vaccine, which is try to get some sort of herd immunity so that nobody would have Hep-B, and they wanted to use your baby to make sure that that was the case.

But then some of the studies showed that that Hep-B vaccine that you, you've given to your baby actually doesn't last. It's not a lifetime vaccine. So by the time, you know, I mean, we're saying like with the HPV, they give it to 12 year olds because let's face it in some countries, you know, whatever. Sadly, some kids get active very early. But the thing with the Hep B vaccine is over the course of decades, it doesn't last. So by the time the average person get sexually active, which is probably more like college age, it might not even be working. So there's really no reason to be giving it to a baby who wasn't born to an happy positive mother, none whatsoever. And yet, RFKJ still says, if you want to get it for your baby, you can.

We just want you to know. You don't have to. It shouldn't be on like the, we really recommend you do this for people who are perfectly healthy. Yeah, and I think, Megan, what you were just talking about what these fellows were just talking about, and the lack of critical context and stories like this, over the last few decades, has led to an inflection point in media that you're living through, that we're living through, that will continue. In that, the media used to write the first draft of history, and today it's written by those who are making it. And that's why this story doesn't bother me at all. Because I know what Susie Wiles has done for this last year. She has brought order to a second term that did not

exist in the first term. And that's what everybody has watched with their own eyes. They don't need to read 35 pages from a guy in Vanity Fair. And you know what? He's a good writer. He's talked to a chiefs of staff in the past. She's a chief of staff. She's a history maker. What does she have to be afraid of talking to the guy? So he lies about her in some story that's 35 pages long. Okay, she knows what the truth is. And so does everybody else. And this guy is as talented as he is and as widespread as Vanity Fair is, he doesn't write the truth about Susie Wiles because she is making something very special happen in the White House, and nothing can change that. I agree with everything you said, and I admire her, but I don't see what the upside of this was.

Like, the photography alone evidences the hatred that this magazine has for all of the Trump administration. I'm going to show you a couple of the up-closed photos. You pose for a photo for Vanity Fair, you know, a headshot, I think the common understanding would be that you're going to get a three-quarter, like a top third of your body, you know, portrait, like from the chest up. Look at Susie Wiles.

Can you see this on your monitor? It is, it's worse than a mugshot. It's, even in the mugshot, they give you a little bit of collarbone. For the listening audience, it's literally from her chin up to her forehead, in a facial expression that where she looks like, shocked.

It does look mugshoty. It's not flattering. And she actually is a beautiful woman. You can easily get a great shot of Susie Wiles. Look at Caroline Levitt. Stand by. Yeah. I mean, come on.

That is Caroline Levitt. I'm sorry, but it's such an extreme close-up. It doesn't even look like her. You can't even tell us her, but it is. No. Yeah. It's her, but you can see the little needles from where she clearly had her lip done, which is something a lot of women do. But that is 100% by design. They wanted to

embarrass her. Like, fuck you. So she, you know what? I don't get my lips done, but I do get a bunch of needles in my face so they can inject a bunch of botulism in there and poison my forehead muscles. I don't think I'd appreciate it if that were close up on camera in Vanity Fair. Megan, my kids would call that a 0.5. And everybody is doing a 0.5 picture of their friends and everybody sees each other's friends in it like a less than favorable light. Yeah, it is.

It's a setting on your phone. He's up with that now, Megan? Like he's trying to teach you all over here. What I'm telling you is that Vanity Fair can throw their absolute worst at Caroline Levitt and at Susie Wiles and they are going to go to work today and impress everybody in the country.

The 77 million people who voted for President Trump are well served by people like them. Yeah, I just kind of think it doesn't matter anymore. I don't think it says either. I mean, a story like this, like it's the little numbers to show up. Yeah, you got her on her phone now. Like, I'll FaceTime my daughter. Aspect? Is that it?

Careful with that. You don't want to take a lot of direction from Ashbrook about using your phone. Nothing's happening. I'm just getting the reverse, like, the normal selfie. But I have seen that little number on there where you can just hide, you know. It's called a. It's just going to end a regrettable place, I'm afraid.

I don't get it. Sorry. I tried, but I am listening to you. But the point five is not flattery. Look at J.D. Vance. Look at him. I mean, J.D. Vance is pretty much by anybody's measure, a handsome man. Look at this.

Looks like a serial killer. Like, what is it? Like, for our brows and no smile. He's always smiling. But no, this whole thing reminds me. No, it's not a good shot. I mean, honestly, I've seen him in so many means at this point. Like, I just see his face everywhere.

Usually they add a hundred pounds, you know? True. But look, this reminds you of what they did to Anne Coulter on the cover of Time magazine, which we pulled to, where they made her look absurd. And Anne Coulter, too, is a beautiful woman. And yet, look what they did to her. And by the way, she's statuesque. Like, she's very tall, very lean, something most people would like to be.

And they shot her sitting down in this chair with her legs crossed where they look totally. disproportionate to her body, trying to humiliate her. Like, I'm, not to mention, this happened to Sarah Palin when she was running as McCain's running mate. Like, it's very dicey for a conservative to sit for a photo shoot with a magazine that hates them. You really are taking a risk. And I feel bad for the administration, because I think they probably trusted Susie that

we're going to cooperate with Vanity Fair. We're going to be happy with how this turns out. And there is no way anybody is happy with how this article turned out. Hey, Megan, I have a question for you because I agree. 100% that, like, the left and the journales on the left, they save their most visceral hatred for conservative women. Yeah. And I'm wondering if, like, you've ever felt that way in something that's covered you.

Oh, I mean, many times, many times. I mean, just any day of the week, pick up the Daily Beast, and you'll see yet another hit piece on me saying, like, I should be canceled, my career should be over. How'd that work out for you, Daily Beast? Anyway, it's like you just get used to it. So I am of the mind that if you willingly go into the belly of the beast, like I sat with The New York Times six months ago, whenever that was, you got to be ready.

You've got to, like, fight. You know, you've got to make sure when they're on, when they're bringing you to the thin ice, you know you're there and you don't just sink. Like, make sure you get your points in. And ideally record it yourself so that you can fight back of the piece drops and think about what the point of doing it is. You know, like, I sat with the New York Times because I actually thought

it would be valuable for their, listeners, their readers, to hear what I had to say about the Times and the state of media. Like, I actually thought they should listen to me. I can explain a few things to them about why they're so clueless on things like Joe Biden's mental acuity. But you have to do it eyes open and not thinking, this is going to be a nice piece. Here's one more, this biased writer. He writes about how the deportations, many who have been, who they've grabbed in these, you know, raids have been U.S. citizens or were entitled to be here. Not long after the El Salvador deportation fiasco in Louisiana, ICE agents arrested and deported two to mothers, along with

their children, ages seven, four, and two to Honduras. The children were U.S. citizens and the four-year-old was being treated for cancer. Wiles couldn't explain it. Well, I can. The mothers were illegal. And they said to the mothers, you got to go. Do you want your kids to say here with a relative, or do you want them to go with you? And the mother said, with me. That's what happened. I'm sorry that the mothers were illegal, but they were. You don't get to stay just because you took advantage of birthright citizenship here, and you happen to have an American baby. That's not how it works. So anyway, there's not a fair author, not a fair piece. I got to take a quick break, and there's a lot more coming up on the other side with the fellas after this.

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yesterday, bail had been set at $4 million, and we criticized that on this show, saying that's not going to do it. And sure enough, bail was revoked. There is no bail set for him. He needs to remain in custody, where now they are reporting TMZ that he is, he is. And sure enough, bail is, you on suicide watch and in an administrative segregation, they call it, at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in L.A. The night before his parents were murdered, Saturday night this past, Nick got into a very loud argument with his father at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party. The shouting match was loud enough that many others could hear it, that Rob and his wife, Nick's mother, Michelle, then left the party. We do not know if Nick left with them, reports TMZ. A source

at the party told us Nick looked out of place at the party, mostly keeping to himself. And that was, there was more on that in today's reporting. Then, this just broke, hold on, before I move on to this. And there's so much to tell you. Stand by. Let's see. Fox News Digital reporting, Nick Reiner was, quote, not medically cleared to appear in court today, which she was supposed to do.

his lawyer, Alan Jackson, that's the guy who represented Karen Reed and got an acquittal for her. He's got a much tougher battle on this one, right? I'm saying, quote, he is not medically clear to be transported to the court. That's an obvious reference to his mental health. Nick 32 did not appear before a judge on Tuesday. The first time he was scheduled to appear since the bodies of Rob and Michelle were discovered. Tuesday's hearing was postponed for another date. Now there's reporting about what happened at his hotel room, how those who checked him in said they didn't see blood all over him or cuts on him. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. But when the police made their way over to his hotel, they found a lot of blood on early Sunday morning in Santa Monica. He was staying at a place called the pier side. And he checked in around 4 a.m. Sunday. So the murder apparently was already done using his credit card. His check-in came hours after. the heated argument at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party, eyewitnesses said he did seem tweaked out when he checked in, but no visible signs he'd been in a violent confrontation, no blood stains or cuts on his body. The reservation was made for just one day, but he never formally checked out. When the staff came into his room later Sunday morning, they found the shower

full of blood, blood on the bed, the window in the room was covered by bed sheets, and the cops eventually went and gathered evidence there. The report on the argument at Conan's party, Many people noticed he was behaving strangely. He was, quote, freaking everyone out, acting crazy. He kept asking people if they were famous, a source told people magazine. Per TMZ, after Rob Reiner and Nick got into a, quote, very loud argument, the director and Michelle left that his behavior at Conan's house alarmed the guests because it was so bizarre. One of the guests recalled Rob Reiner telling his son his behavior was inappropriate.

Nick Reiner's behavior looked, he looked anxious, he looked uncomfortable in a way that deeply unsettled one guest and another attendee. So then you have this from Billy Bush, who of course is a great entertainment reporter in particular, weighing in on the fact that Romy Reiner, who is, I think only 19 or 20, she's the one who found her parents.

Oh. Their throats slit and bodies stabbed multiple times. and there's new information in this soundbite. Listen here from Billy Bush. I got this from a friend who lives in the community. I heard that the son, Nick, went into his parents' house, stabbed both mom and dad, and that the daughter, I guess, lives on the property

or at the house or in the back house, and that she found them, and that the mom was still alive. And apparently she called the ambulance and went in the ambulance with her mother Michelle died in the ambulance but had enough time to tell her daughter that it was Nick, their son, who stabbed them

and that's why they figured it out so quickly and he's in custody. My God. Romy's 28, FYI, but that's a critical piece of the prosecution's case right there, you guys. If it's called a dying declaration, it comes into court even though it's hearsay

because it's an out-of-court statement by someone. but a dying declaration comes in over here say objections so if romey reiner is actually going to take the stand and repeat that her mother told her as she lay dying that it was romey's brother nick oh my god he's toast and what a tragedy all around thoughts on these latest developments guys totally horrific tragedy obviously um and another good reminder that nobody is immune to the terrors of drug abuse. And, you know, anybody who's followed this story has known the troubles that Nick, his son had had for decades. They made a movie about it back in 2015 where the whole Reiner family was sort of involved in trying to get Nick

to tell his story. And there's a vignette. I think it was like a Hollywood reporter or something and today wrote about how this reporter who was then at the L.A. Times was basically begged by Reiner to cover this story because he was trying to show that his son has got a better life here and they're doing this together and what was a troubled relationship and now moving forward and he had his own, as a reporter, his own hesitations about all of that. This is the piece in the Hollywood reporter by Stephen Zichick. Is that the one? That's it.

Yeah, I got it. And we'll go through it a little bit of detail. Keep going. Yeah, I just, I found it fascinating, but I, you know, I also think like, look, Reiner, he's an icon. You don't have to agree or disagree with his politics to understand the impact that he had on movies, on films that we all grew up with, both comedy and drama and all these kind of things. And so it is sort of shocking as a, you know, person in the public. You see something like this happened to. But, again, I think it is a reminder that we've got to take these kind of things seriously.

And a reminder, I think, of, like, you can be born into every privilege in the world, and drug addiction can still bring you down. Yep. You know, and that's the scary thing, because there are so many Americans who struggle with this that don't have all of the resources of a Ryan or family, which only really does. He doesn't have, like, 20 times. Right. Which only really does emphasize how destructive this is to life of a family. I mean, I have to say, I read out of report on page six of the New York Post. today that brought up a quote from Nick Reiner from a few years back where he admits that he

lost his virginity at age 14 to a prostitute only now you're supposed to call him sex workers whatever he called the report is that he called a sex worker to come over for $200 and lost his virginity to her and that he got the idea reports the post from someone he met who was also in some like post rehab like they met in rehab like they met in rehab and and now they were both post-rehab. I thought he only went to rehab for the first time when he was 15. This would put it even earlier at age 14.

And I'm sorry, like, I do have to ask, how does a 14-year-old get so addicted to drugs that at least at 14 or 15, they already have to go into rehab and they're calling sex workers to come to the house in the middle of the night? He said he borrowed the money from his parents without telling them what it was for.

I just have to ask because I'd like to believe that if any of these behaviors were happening in my home, I would know because I am also a very busy professional, but I have a very close eye on my children. I'm not blaming Michelle and Rob, but I do think we have to be honest about the fact that this level of drug addiction at this young and age may involve parents who were focused on the wrong thing like careers instead of their kid. And while it looks like Michelle and Rob did everything within their power once they realized their kid was an addict to try to help him, that's not good enough. You have to head it off at the past. You have to be totally attuned to your child's

behaviors before that demon gets a hold of him. Yeah. Yeah, no question. I mean, look, he's deeply troubled young man, obviously, and drug addiction probably did the past. battling on that, but, you know, there's probably some psychological issues there, too. I also think, like, you don't know what the lifestyle is like. You know, I mean, you can watch the Charlie Sheen documentary to find out what it's like to be young and rich in Hollywood and find out. And the Hollywood component of this is what I would say is, like, don't raise your kids around Hollywood.

I think this is a degenerate place that's full of drugs and prostitution and manipulating young people. And I just can't imagine. having to raise a young family in that environment, even if you are involved in movies and film and that sort of thing. Yeah. I just, I feel like that is, that is the main factor in this, is just that town in how how terrible it is.

Make me sound like a provincial bumpkin or something, but like under no circumstance would I ever raise a family in Los Angeles. Like, hell no. You never hear any story of like, you know, my kids started a lemonade stand when they were kids and they're completely normal now. We live in Brentwood. Like, you never have that story. It's true.

Right. But it's also interesting in that, at least in recent years since 2015, or they did an enormous amount of things as a family. And I think it was, you know, it seems from the outside looking in, I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but it looks to me like they were trying the four of them with, was it Romney, was the daughter's name? Yeah. To basically just try to.

Yeah, we'll just try to will their way through this whole. whole thing. And like, look, this is a good example. He's at Conan O'Brien's Christmas part. I can't imagine that Conan O'Brien was like, hey, I definitely want Nick there. Totally. They brought him. They brought him, right? And so if you see all of this over the last few years where he's just a part of every picture, like they were at a spinal tap two September premiere that he was at. Now, did he have anything to do with it? No. But he's a part of the family. They were trying to will their way through it. I think to your point, Megan, maybe he's too far gone, obviously, at this point. But it is, it's about the lifestyle and it's about,

I can't blame them. But this is a horrible tragedy. But it's not, it's not about blame. I'm not blaming them either. I have nothing but empathy for Rob and Michelle. God rest them. But I do think we all, as parents, we have to take an honest look at where did this thing go sideways? Because yesterday we talked a lot about the yoga instructor who Michelle and Rob brought in to teach young Nick, yoga, when I think he was as young as 10, because his behavior was so strange. I don't think he was on drugs at age 10. There's something off about it. I think this kid had a mental health issue from a very young age, according to the yoga instructor who said he would like scream at that age when he wasn't getting the attention he needed. So I think drugs were

sort of a way of addressing what was probably a previous mental health issue. But I also really think, especially if you've got a kid who you know is going to be special needs like that, yeah, I would get out of a place like Hollywood. I keep thinking of Matthew McConaughey, who came on this show. He's from Texas. He was making it big in Hollywood.

And he and his wife, who's a successful model, I can't remember if she's also an actress, but model for sure. They were like, we're out of here. And they went back to Texas. And they have raised good kids. And his son is actually getting into acting now, but seems very together by all the rights.

but as an adult, as like an 18 or 19 year old. But they raised their kids in Texas because they did not want anything like this to happen to them. And he also put limits on his career, like how much he'd be away from his family. He brought his family. He brought his wife with him. You know, like even, oh, God, who is I just reading about it? It was, I think it's Ed Burns and Christy Turlington, who have a rule that they won't be away from each other for more than two weeks. and their marriage has lasted.

Like, there are, like, the people who make sure, like, the kids are protected, notwithstanding the huge trappings of wealth, success, and the fast lane that is Hollywood, tend to do a lot better. So it's not a question of blame. It's just a question of how do we not raise a kid like Nick Reiner? That's, frankly, what I'm looking at. Yeah, in a series of choices, some which may be very difficult from a career perspective,

but choices that and understanding that the most precious commodity you have in your family are your kids and the rest of it doesn't matter

if it all ended tomorrow that's the only thing that you focus on and I think moms and dads healthy moms and dads understand that innately but I think as a culture we need to embrace that a lot more

the article you mentioned Holmes is like chilling so I want to go through it because it's worth it As mentioned, it's in the Hollywood Reporter. It's by Stephen Zichick, and it is subtitled, well, it's titled, I Sat Down to Dinner with Rob, Michelle, and Nick Reiner. It was heartwarming and jarring.

So he writes about a dinner he had in Toronto with them at a restaurant 10 years ago. And I'm just going to pull out a couple of highlights here. We sat in a corner table. We talked about what it meant to be part of a family with a serious addict, to be a parent, to be a sibling, to be the addict themselves. The meal was a decade ago. but alive in front of me. Directed by Rob and co-written by Nick,

being Charlie, they were there to promote their movie that they did together, which we discussed yesterday. Focuses on David, an accomplished actor now running for governor, clearly a Rob Reiner stand-in, and his drug-addicted son, who feels like he's being pushed hard to get clean so as not to be an embarrassment to his famous father, clearly a stand-in for Nick.

Nick was sober now, the Reiner said, and after some 18 trips to rehab since his teenage years, some of which he spent on the streets. This movie was going to provide the happy ending to all that sadness. Can you believe this boy? Rob said as we sat down, beaming. Nick smiled uncomfortably saying nothing. From the start, a kind of fatherly pushing was evident.

Rob wanted this story told, wanted, not surprisingly, for a man steeped in show business, for the movie to succeed where therapy had failed. But he also genuinely felt pride. Notches, as he said, using the Yiddish word for parental joy. Nick seemed less game, a little almost like he didn't want to fully be there. He goes on to say, it was tough at first to think, am I actually going to do this? Nick said after I prodded a little, quote, I really wasn't sure if I wanted to do this. Am I really going to get it out there?

Rob jumped in. That's part of being a creative person. You express it. You get it out there. The director looked lovingly at his wife. Everybody's so open, and it's because of Michelle. Everybody is, she said, looking back. at her husband, but we didn't set out to do a public good. We had to do it for each other.

We ordered and Nick explained the ineffectiveness of rehab for him. I just couldn't get by in these programs. I had resistance every time they tried to reach me. The elder Reiner's described their own misgivings. The program works for some people, but it can't for everyone, said Rob. When Nick would tell us it wasn't working for him, we wouldn't listen. We were desperate. And because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son. I looked at Romy, who was also there, the Reiner's daughter. How did she feel?

This is my best friend, and I was there for all of it, she said, gesturing to her brother two years older. It's weird but good to see it unscreamed, she said. She struck me as someone deeply admiring of her brother, but also perhaps a little tired of explaining his behavior to her parents, to everyone.

Rob, who'd been eating, put down his fork, what got us through is two books, tweaked and beautiful boy, citing addiction memoirs, something pointed, even sad abided, unable to access the mind of his own son, he turned to the words of strangers to let him in. And then just a couple more. For all the talk about catharsis and success, something felt unsuccessful. I later checked in with their publicist. She thought everything was fine, but it didn't feel fine. It felt like things were better, but far from resolved, like the last pile of

living room mess before company arrives. The family at dinner turned its attention to a line Rob insisted make it into the film. Quote, I'd rather have you alive and hating me than dead on the streets. Rob really, really wanted it in. It explained his actions, justified them, even though he was now apologizing for thinking that way, for being so hard on his son. I looked at Nick.

He didn't seem so happy to have that line in the film. It was perhaps too excusing of the kind of parental pushing he didn't want to excuse. The proposition was also based on a flawed assumption. Hate did not automatically mean recovery. I asked Nick what he thought, what could his father have done? But Nick had no answer, not at a dinner, maybe not ever. Maybe there was nothing Rob could do.

Maybe the whole movie, I thought, was Rob coming to terms with that inescapable fact. And all the cheer and the pride well-earned as it was could simply not illuminate that darker, more severe reality. Man, this is it. He had done everything he could do to help his son. He had even set in motion the Hollywood machine to help his son and yet there was nothing he could do to fully help his son

some things are beyond our greatest effort that's heartbreaking that's tough yeah it's tough because as a parent well as a parent you you know everybody runs into this at some point

with a child where you want to will things to be true right that you think you can command things to happen and you can't and the most insecure you'll feel the most vulnerable you'll feel as a parent is knowing there are some things that are outside of your your control totally you know which is terrifying yeah and and this is yeah go ahead obviously just a a confluence of events right that started a young age but you know Rob Reiner didn't give up. I mean, he kept going. It ended in absolute tragedy. But, I mean, the effort was clearly that you can see it. And that piece, by the way, beautifully written, and I think just got

to the absolute heart of the issue, is that they were willing something to happen that was not going to happen. And they knew it at some level. Rob Reiner knew it. And so did Nick. And probably Michelle and Romy and Jake, the other brother, too. But even when you see these clips of them promoting that movie, some of which we played yesterday, they don't seem close. There does seem to be a lot of damage between them. They do seem almost like he writes to trying to will this into existence. Like, this is our happy ending. And the bit about using the Hollywood machine, like, which is, that's a tool that Rob Reiner was very familiar with, that he used all his life to bring stories to us, to bring healing to other people in some instances, like stand by me. And try to use it

on his own family. You know, like the power of putting something cathartic on the big screen. He would help his son do that with his own story. But he knew, I think he knew. Here's more that I wanted to get to. He writes, he writes, um, okay. Hold on. Okay. Speaking of Rob, he turned back to the table. It was very hard. The number one job of any parent, is to keep their child safe. And I hadn't done that. He was almost tearing up. And now here, I have done that.

I kept him safe. He came out alive. And the writer adds, here in 2025, the words kept ricocheting through my brain. Yes, Nick had come out alive. It was Rob that hadn't. Oh, my God. Tough.

Tough. The final bit writes as follows, reads as follows. was all about sorting through the complexity of parents and offspring and coming out okay on the other side. He's the one who taught us how hard it was, but that we could get through it just as he did with his own famous father, with whom he had bonded over baseball. He just couldn't enact the lesson with his own son. At the dinner, we pushed back our chairs and stood up. Rob looked at me. He took my hand and clasped it. Thank you, Steve. Perhaps I imagined it, but in his eyes I saw a pleading

and ask. Not to conceal anything, more the opposite. He wanted this story written in a way that willed the best outcome into being. I clasped his hand back as he held my gaze an extra twinkly plaintiff second. It was the last interaction we had. I still feel my palm squeezed. That business about, he wanted the story written in a way that willed the best outcome into being. That's what I'm talking about you guys. You know, that movie, like, that's what he was trying to do to use the best and most familiar tool he had, movie making, to will that outcome into being. And one does wonder, like, now as the son is clearly on suicide watch and now facing a massive legal trial, will he, will he be able to use?

Rob Reiner's fortune to defend himself with this very fancy lawyer against charges that he killed his own dad. Did Rob and Michelle keep him in their will? So many parents who have a drug adult child will remove the child from the will and tell the child that for their own preservation. And also the thought of poor Rob and Michelle in the moments right before they died knowing it had come to this. They didn't die with a bullet to the back of the head. They knew.

Clearly, if the Billy Bush reporting is right, Michelle knew and told. And then you would both know. And you get stabbed to death. You know exactly who's doing it. Well, and imagine being his sister at a time like this and having to live through this trial

that's going to happen. Talk about the actual victim here. You know, talk, I mean, And it's the most horrific, unthinkable thing you'd have to deal with in life. Yeah. It's almost Shakespearean in some way. I mean, this is a bizarre drama. I mean, look, I think if there's a piece, a silver lining, a productivity of a conversation

that you can have publicly about any of this, we don't know the circumstances of any of their relationships with each other, or what led him to drug abuse, or, you know. you know, if he was relapsing and back onto it. But you spent time with your kids, you know? I mean, this is a perfect example. Yeah. Like early. Do it early.

Yeah. Like now, now, like our kids are 16, 14, and 12. And we've been doing this their whole lives. But like, have dinner with your children, ideally seven nights a week. No, I'm not kidding. Don't, don't commit them to a sport that makes that impossible. Like, at least five nights a week. Sit with them.

drive them to school, like spend the time when they're my kid's ages, it gets harder and harder because their commitments get bigger and bigger and just their studying gets to the point where it's going to remove them from you for several hours. The dinners are a must. The breakfasts are a must. The weekend time is a must. You are more important than anything. Time with you, the parents, the parents, the family, more important than friends, more important than sports, It's more important than academics. Like, there's so much pressure on these kids. This has to be prevented before the drug problem

and the 15 or 18 rehabs. Like, at that point, and I've talked to so many parents of, like, seriously drug-addled kids, I don't know how to say this without sounding really brutal, but, like, at that point, the kid becomes like a nightmare. Like... Somebody else. You're saddled with them because they're yours and they're not capable of supporting themselves and they're out there in society and you can't just say they're society's problem.

You have some obligation to society to do something to protect society from them and make sure that they're not just, you know, in a tent on the street that you walk past. But a lot of these parents know they're dangerous. They're actually, if not just suicidal, homicidal. And this is not minority report. you cannot have them arrested before they've committed a crime. And yet you know they're likely to and you know your family may be the first victims. It's a nightmare. This has to be headed off early.

And with mental illness, it's even more, far more complicated. Oh, totally. And I'll say, I don't know how many of your, I imagine a fair number of your listeners, no. But, I mean, you really are a role model in this regard. You and Doug, and we've met your kids, well-adjusted young people who, understand family dynamic and have access to their family and you know we've looked at that and and anybody in this line of work there is always somebody asking for something but if for a lot of your listeners it doesn't matter what line of work you're in somebody's always

asking for something there's always something else you can do and you have to rattle around the opportunity cost of each time you go to dinner or each time you go away or what does this get me what is it not just remember that whatever cost you've associated with your family, it is much higher. Yes. It's just, I don't know. That's another problem with Hollywood is like, as talented as Rob Reiner was and made so many movies that we all love,

now I look back and I wonder who paid the price for all the time he spent on those films that I loved. You know, where was Nick during those years? You know, what, how much time was he putting it at home? I'm not, again, not blaming him, but I think it's a fair, inquiry to say all of us, all of us should be reminded now of the cost, the potential cost to not putting the hours in and raising our kids. And while they seem to have done Herculian work later in life when they realized he was really struggling, it's really hard to stop that

addiction train once it started so hard. I want to keep going, but I'm going to take a quick break, not on Reiner, but I do want to get to what's happening at Brown University, you guys. it's going from bad to worse there. I'm sorry to use the overused Keystone thing, but it is starting to feel like Keystone cops there with this May. Stand by. More with the fellas right after this.

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The fellas from Ruthless are back with me now. So I want to go now to Brown University where there is still a killer on the loose. And one does not take any comfort from what's happening with the local authorities. I want to give you what Mayor Brett Smiley said on an interview with Good Morning America. Hold on a second. Let's just make sure I've, yeah, this is what he's talking about. he's talking about whether the suspect who was in custody, the person of interest, but then he got released. He's talking about whether that the person of interest has been fully cleared. Here he is

on GMA. Watch this. So you're absolutely convinced the person of interest said nothing to do with this? We're not saying that definitively. What we're saying is that after a review of the evidence that was gathered, it was determined that the person of interest needed to be released. Okay, so that's him yesterday morning saying we are not saying definitively that that person of interest is fully cleared. Later that day, yesterday, the attorney general, this is the mayor, the attorney general, Peter Nerona of Rhode Island, reiterated that the person who was detained and released yesterday is no longer a person of interest, quote, he has been cleared. He has been cleared. But the mayor, when asked whether the suspect had been fully cleared, quote, we're not saying, saying that. Indeed, you are saying that through your attorney general, you idiot. Like,

how are they not on the same page with that, you guys? It should be at least a conference call, right? Maybe just a heads up, but we're all, we think something about this grisly situation. Hey, I'm about to go on national television, you know? Make sure to book the national television and then give an answer that shitty. Right, right. That's the problem with so many of these politicians are like, hey, this is my chance for fame rather than here is a terrible thing that's happened in my community. I need to get to the bottom of it and let somebody else talk to the national press. You know what I mean? This is a terrible trend in our politics. And national media only feeds it. And I mean, who cared? Like the mayor on Good Morning America, the ratings aren't

what they used to be on Good Morning America. The guy needs to do his job and help this community who he was elected to serve. Yeah. You know why he can't. Ashbrook. He explained. He explained why he can't do his job that easily. He's got some issues, and I think, hold on a second, I want to make sure, here it is. Here are some of his issues. This is from a Monday afternoon presser. SOT 11. Everyone you see behind us, we've all been working for now 49 hours. We're tired. We're serious about the task at hand. I know all of you have been working very hard, and I suspect all of you are just as tired.

No one cares you're tired. I would get up and let him have a peace of my mind. We got Mayor McChese. I mean, what's the population of this town? This guy thinks he's like, the president. What are you talking about you're tired? 49 hours? You don't even get your facts straight.

What is your job, first of all? Like, what is the responsibilities you have? Because keeping your people safe and everyone on the same page, you haven't done that. I think that's like the basic job of any elected office, right? How did no one get up and just slap him? Boy, they've slid a long way since Buddy seen. Buddy Sianci, haven't they? Oh, that buddy would have had that guy cuffed and stuffed.

The former Providence mayor? Oh, God. I don't know. How do you know the former mayor of Providence? Oh, you're this guy. There is a wow. Yeah, Buddy Siancy used to be a wonderful mob town. Yeah, exactly.

Ramin Patriarcha. Oh, this is, no, you've got to get up on this. There's a crime town. Yeah, crime town. It's a good podcast. It's a good podcast. You should check it out. But it examines the rule of Buddy Siancy.

It holds Italians accountable, but of which I can promise you that in Buddy Sianci's Providence, none of this would be an issue. Yeah. Yeah. Now we've got Mayor Smiley, who's super Smiley and tired. What a joke. It's very hard to track down a killer. No one feels sorry for you.

I don't know why on earth he would say such a thing. But, yeah, he did say such a thing. And by the way, just in case you're feeling confident about the attorney. General, who apparently set the record straight by saying, oh, no, no, the guy has been cleared. We have moved on. He's the same Attorney General who put this woman on leave but then kept employed his assistant attorney general named Devin Hogan Flanagan, who you may remember from a couple of months ago. He's one of our favorites.

Right? Who was boozing it up at a Newport restaurant, very drunk, and started to play the I'm an AG, I'm an AG card. Here she is in SOT 12. I want you to turn it by it came off. Protocol is that you turn it off. It's a citizen request. It's a turn it off.

So they want you guys to leave? Let's just leave. Let's just make it easy. We're not going to make it easy. You guys just want them out? Do you want them trespass? Anything we can do. Trust pass?

Yeah. I just need it. Trestpast got to get a map. Please. So you're trespassing, so we got to leave now. Unless you want to be in hand. We're not trespassing. You haven't notified us.

So we're not two. You have been notified us. you. Let's go. Number one. I don't want to arrest you guys. What did I just say? You're not going to arrest us.

Number two is that we got to go. We got to go. We got to go. I think this is where she shows us the world. So she knows. Well, that's a lawyer stuff. So that's not true. So we got to go.

No. It is. That's law. I'm an aging. I'm an aging. Good for you. You're so fancy. Let's go.

Good for you. I'm glad you ended that clip where I take. You got a little race. Is this the first time of Flanagan got a too many Guinness deep and started trouble and problems? But it's not we're going to be a day night. A lot of bashing of the Irish, all right? Hold, slow your role.

There, smug. But yeah, she's still gainfully employed. And for all we know, working on this case, who the hell knows? Here's another one for you. This is Colonel Oscar Perez. What's his role in this? He was at the presser Monday afternoon. This is the police chief.

And listen to this, because the reporter asked the question that we all want to know the answer, too. We've all heard the reports about this shooter, allegedly, allegedly yelling Al-Ahu Akbar before the shooting, unconfirmed. The reporter phrases it a little differently, but listen to this non-answer. Sadie. Now, there's a report the shooter yelled something right before he shot came in. Could you tell us what that was? Yeah, part of the investigation, John and we'll, yeah. The only reason I ask that, though, is, for instance, like with a Unabomber, his brother recognized the writing. So it's possible a friend or family member might recognize if the person said something that was significant.

Correct. That's why, you know, other than the 9mm, is there anything else inside that auditorium that you could tell us? No, that's correct. Listen, like I said earlier, investigations will bring us to... to evidence that we need to collect in order to be able to prosecute that. With that being said, with that being said, we're going to continue to collect evidence. And if it leads us to something to that nature, that's going to be extremely helpful. I'm going to go ahead and say he didn't, he didn't shout Merry Christmas.

Okay. I think that's probably. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And also, what is with that reporter, you know, somehow tying this to the Unabomber. Like, like, maybe we're going to discern something. of these two words the guy said.

It was extremely scared to ask the obvious question. The obvious question. Do you say al-Aqbar? We had 35 years of terrorist attacks in this country since the Unabomber. And it kind of had some similarities. I don't know if anybody's paying attention. As a reporter, do you have to justify your question, especially at a presser? We only get one shot.

What did he yell? There are reports it was Allahu Akbar. Can you confirm? That's it. Get up and down on your question. Don't give me a history lesson. No one cares about Ted Kaczynski in this moment. We have a killer to find.

My God, like the ineptitude. So now yesterday they did release additional pictures. They're going to other houses now because since apparently of the hundreds of security cameras across Brown University, they don't have one on this building and they don't have one showing the suspect in any way that's clear. So now they're going to area houses asking for like their ring cam video and they've put out, let's air them. I mean, it's a little tough. All we know is this guy is husky. He's husky.

They're saying he might be around 5-8 and not a thin guy. Looks like an overeater. He doesn't just look big bone to me. This is the best we have. This is what your Ivy League tuition goes to. Let's hope the neighbors got ring cameras. Or the civil libertarians know where to move, huh? I mean, this is unbelievable.

This is unbelievable. How are we going to catch this guy like this, you guys? It's not like Luigi, where at least when he was on the run, remember he had gone to like that, this is the best. one right here. Luigi had gone to like some soup kitchen or something and he had pulled down his mask when he was looking at that girl. And so he did have a picture of his face, which is how they found him in that McDonald's. This guy so far nothing. And here we are. Now it's Tuesday. This happens Saturday. We don't know where he is. And the mayor is still saying everyone should send

their kids to school. Would you send your kids to school this week in Providence, Rhode Island? Hell no. I think I'd move out of Providence altogether if I saw that this was the, stand of the law enforcement. I mean, Keystone Cops is right. This is unbelievable. Look at this. This is what we're getting from the local authorities. I couldn't believe they put that out. There is clearer pictures of Bigfoot than there are of that situation. No, seriously, look it. It blends. Yeah, it blends into the background. It literally, there is better evidence of Bigfoot than that. You cannot see anything. This does not instill any sort of confidence whatsoever. It's like, if they didn't have to. The people,

Well, Providence deserves better. Yeah, like, why not? Why wouldn't you? Like, what are the crime fighting methods at the university? Like, I don't get it. I'm very concerned because no one knows where he's going next. No one knows whether there is a list. And then there's this reporting by our own Mark Halprin, who's part of the MK Media Network,

who reported as follows. Watch this. People are telling me that the family of Ellicook, the Alabama, a young woman who was a sophomore, has been told that she was the target of what happened at Brad. I have no idea whether that's true. There's other theories about why the person did what they did. But now that we don't know who the assailant is, it's going to be harder to say. He admits this is not something he would put in the New York Times if he worked there.

He doesn't feel the reporting is shorn up to the level of like you'd put it in print in a major newspaper, although we can debate what the standards are at the New York Times. But in any event, he's saying that he is being told by reliable source that that's what Ella Cook's family has been told. She was the vice president of the college Republicans on campus. The other man who was killed was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Uzbekistan, who had dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon who, I mean, for what it's worth, appears to have brown skin and didn't match like the same profile as the young white Ella Cook, who was the college Republican. Just for what it's worth, I mean, there were many other people who were shot, but the reporting that Mark is getting is that Ella was the one who was targeted and she and this other young man are the ones who were killed. It's just one of the many reasons why we need to find this guy, you guys, because, of course, people, if this is some sort of a Republican targeting, no matter what kind of targeting it is, we need to know. It's bad enough if it's the worst case scenario, if it's targeting of young adults.

I mean, does that mean other universities need to be on alert? Schools need to be on alert. Again, I would not send my kids to public school or any school this week. Were we in Providence? Yeah. Well, and there's also, I mean, what happened at Bondi Beach, the bus that happened out in California of that, I don't even know how you classify those psychopaths that were trying to bomb New Year's Eve.

Oh, the Turtle Island Liberation Front or whatever? And this, all within a 48-hour period. Like, I don't know. I mean, did I read that there is. some kind of an estranged relationship there between the local law enforcement and the FBI on this, too? Because, I mean, it strikes me- They're pointing fingers at each other. The FBI definitely wants you to know that this is being handled locally and that the FBI is just in an assisting supportive role. And the locals were very sure to tell us that it was the FBI who told them

the guy in the hotel is indeed a person of interest and that it's cell phone. analysis unit had zeroed in on him. So there's definitely one of these things going where they're each pointing at each other. Yeah. I mean, look at a time like this, I don't think that's acceptable at all. I mean, this is all hands on deck situation. Also, I don't want a black pill on this, but let's say it is a Republican who is targeted. And let's say it is radical left-wing violence. Are we going to get any justice? Are we going to get any results from that? Has there been any nationwide crackdown on Antifa? If you're out there hunting, and hurting Republicans, have you felt justice?

Or are you allowed back on the streets? Are you celebrated? It's ridiculous. You know, like, when is there going to be consequences for targeting Republicans, for killing conservatives, for attacking them? When's there going to be consequences? Once there's going to be the crackdown? Because I remember under Biden, doors were getting kicked in if you're a conservative.

If you're a granny on Facebook, your door's getting kicked in. Yeah, a parent at a teacher. Yeah. The FBI was tracking conservative moms who show up to PTA meetings as radicalized trouble makers. But you're out there shooting or killing Republicans? If Ella Cook was targeted and they know that and they're not releasing that, they're endangering us all. Like right now. If that is a fact that they know.

Same thing with the aloh Akbar. If this was somehow, you know, Muslim violence for, you know, inspired by radical Islam, we need to know that. I don't trust these Providence, Rhode Island leftists to tell us all the relevant information, and there's a killer on the loose right now. This just came in for CNN. Providence police say they'll release at least one additional image of the person of interest seen in the surveillance video soon. A spokesman for the Rhode Island AG telling CNN that there is a, quote, an enhanced photo

that would be distributed on Tuesday. They anticipate footage will be released later, picture first, later than footage. shifting gears. Oh, and by the way, I think we're at 4 p.m., we're getting an update out of California on Nick Reiner and the status. Again, we began that segment by noting they said he was not physically capable of showing up at the court appearance. Now there's two breaking pieces of news unrelated, we think. President Trump just released that he is going to address the nation tomorrow night, Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern. All he writes is, my fellow Americans, I'll be giving an address to the nation tomorrow night, live from the White House at 9 p.m. Eastern.

I look forward to, quote, seeing you then. It has been a great year for our country and the best is yet to come, President Donald J. Trump. No idea what that's about. And last but not least, J.D. Vance, who was just giving some public remarks, was asked the first question about whether he is a conspiracy theorist referencing that peace and vanity fair. Here's his answer. that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles gave to Vanity Fair in which she's quoted as referring to you as excuse me and again not my word sir but a conspiracy theorist of a decade. Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.

Hell yeah. And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 and that, it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic. You know, I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job. And I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win an argument against his political opponents.

So, at least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it. And that's, that's my understanding. Mike drops. Yeah. So good. It's fantastic. It's a kind of common sense you get in Middletown, Ohio. Oh, here we are. The nation will benefit for more of it. That's why he's 48. That's why we call him 48. So good. Took it on, head on, didn't shy away from it, turned it into a positive. Like, he just completely neutralized it, right? And not the Susie Mottweiles, I think, meant to hurt him. But of course, Vanity Fair did. Yeah.

I mean, that crack you hear is the barrel of the bat. And that is what he does. But it's also why I don't think this piece does any damage beyond the, you know, 48 hours where everybody in D.C. sort of fumbles around with their accusations. It's because the commentary, almost all of it, is relatable internally in the way that they interact with each other, which is the only thing that matters. The design of that piece was to try to pull them apart. And that is clearly not happening.

Why do we think Trump is addressing the nation tomorrow night? I think what happens, we did this in Congress a lot, and I think this is what he's doing now, is you want to do a year-in review. And I think it's more important now. And I think that's what that's about. I don't know. I would guess. That's my guess. It's more important now than ever.

When you've got a Democratic Party that woke up from ruining our economy over four years and all of a sudden have concerns about affordability, you might want to reset the dial on that and reset the narrative going into 2026. Yeah. The tone of that true social post would suggest it something upbeat. It wasn't somber. Guys, what a pleasure to see you again. It's been too long. Thanks for being here. Yeah, great to see you, Megan.

Thanks so much. It's fun. Lots of love. Merry Christmas. Yeah, to you too. And happy new year. And we are back tomorrow with Kelly's Court and Moore. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

No BS, no agenda, and no fear.