The Megyn Kelly Show - New Fani Willis Witnesses, and the Power of Drudge, with Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Chris Moody, and Jamie Weinstein | Ep. 738
Episode Date: March 5, 2024Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis to discuss the major 9-0 ruling for former President Donald Trump at the Supreme Court and the secondary 5-4 ruling that helps him, why ...the lack of insurrection charges against Trump is crucial to Supreme Court ruling, the lack of evidence about insurrection on January 6, the media freakout after getting it so wrong, Judge Chutkan could hold Trump's D.C. trial during October 2024 or even after the election in November, whether these criminal trials are election interference, what might happen if Trump is jailed after elected but before inauguration, the millions Trump will have to pay after the New York trials, new witnesses alleging they knew about Fani Willis and Nathan Wade's affair, Terrance Bradley seemingly talking to a lot of people about personal issues, and more. Then Chris Moody and Jamie Weinstein, host and producer of the "Finding Matt Drudge" podcast, join to discuss the mystery of where Matt Drudge is now, why Drudge turned on Trump in 2020 after being a supporter in 2016, whether it was political or personal, how the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal made Matt Drudge, the way that story changed the media forever, Lewinsky back in the news now, how Megyn met Drudge, and more.Aronberg- https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAronbergFLDavis- https://article3project.org/Moody & Weinstein- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-matt-drudge 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
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Super Tuesday.
Remember that? Do you guys know that SNL reference? I used to do this on the air at Fox and Brett
Barrow would be like, I'd be like, what are you doing? And then he learned to love.
Super Tuesday.
Wah, wah.
It's really not that super.
It's kind of super boring.
2024, a very different election year from the prior Super Tuesdays.
We know President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are going to dominate tonight
and they're going to be the nominees.
The only thing that's going to stop them is somehow their own parties intervening to stop them or, you know, the big man upstairs stepping in to say
you won't be around November. God forbid. I'm just saying it's going to happen. These two are
the nominees. We're going to let you know officially what happens tomorrow, but that's
not where the real news is today when it comes to this presidential race.
Instead, it is in the courts. And we have major
updates in several of the proceedings, including the Fannie Willis disqualification case in which
not one but two new witnesses have just come forward and the implications for former President
Donald Trump's trial there, as well as continued fallout in the Supreme Court decision yesterday,
which we and others have been pouring over to figure out just how good it is for Donald Trump. And it turns out it's even better than we thought.
Plus, we've got trial updates now out of New York, D.C. and more. There are a lot of maneuverings
going on behind the scenes by the Democrats to make these things happen faster. And of course, by team Trump to
slow them down and then by the media to express outrage in response to any Trump win. But then
you knew that. Joining me now to kick things off today is Mike Davis. He's founder of the Article
three project and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.
You can find Mike on Fox, Dave on MSNBC, but together only right here on The Megyn Kelly Show.
Guys, welcome back. Great to have you. We'll get to Fannie in a minute, but I want to start with with the Supreme Court decision yesterday, nine to zero, that Trump should stay on the ballot
in Colorado. And this will affect him in all the states. Anybody trying to kick him off is going
to have to deal with this. But as it turns out, there was more in the decision, and it just broke
in when we went to air yesterday, than we really knew. And I'll paraphrase it from Andy McCarthy's National
Review piece where he said, OK, it's for sure they held that states are not empowered by the
14th Amendment to remove alleged insurrectionists from the ballot. That is clear. All nine agreed on that. States can't do it,
can't have the patchwork of Colorado finding differently than, you know, Georgia, Florida,
et cetera. And then five of the justices went on to say, the only conservative who didn't join in
this is Amy Coney Barrett, that this insurrectionist piece of the 14th Amendment can only be enforced against someone
who's been convicted of an insurrection, who has been convicted of an insurrection.
And that is the piece that drove the three liberals nuts. So they wrote their own decisions,
Sotomayor, Kagan, and Katonji Brownji Brown Jackson saying you went too far. I read this to
the audience yesterday. There was no reason to get to that. You shouldn't have gotten to that.
And the reason they're so mad about it, Mike, is that what this does is it makes it impossible
for Congress really at any point at any time, it's going to affect Trump to invoke this clause against him
again, because the majority of the Supreme court said this piece of the constitution,
the 14th amendment saying you can't run if you're, if you're an insurrectionist can only be enforced
against someone convicted of an insurrection. And Trump hasn't been convicted. He was impeached for things
in the in the House. He wasn't found guilty in the Senate. He hasn't been indicted for insurrection
anywhere. And so this really was even better for Trump than at least we first thought when we
looked at it yesterday. What do you make of it? Well, the Supreme Court's exactly right. And
they're following a precedent from more than 150 years ago called the Griffins case.
And it was it's not a controlling precedent. It's a persuasive precedent where then Chief Justice Salmon Chase,
writing circuit as a circuit judge, not a Supreme Court justice, decided a case where it was these exact patterns where someone was, they were trying to
disqualify a confederate who engaged in insurrection or rebellion. And Solomon Chase said, no, in order
to do this, Congress has to pass a federal criminal statute for insurrection or rebellion with a
disqualification clause, which Congress promptly did. And it's on the books now. The
most updated version was 1948, and it's still in the books. And if Jack Smith or the Democrats
want to get rid of Trump, if they fear American voters and they don't want American voters to
decide the election on November 5th, 2024, then Jack Smith better get moving. He better
charge Trump with insurrection under this statute. He better get a federal jury, grand jury to
indict, a federal jury to find guilt unanimously with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, a federal
judge to convict, and that conviction upheld on appeal. That's the only way you can disqualify
under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. You have to
ask yourself this. The January 6th Democrats and the Biden Justice Department have spent tens of
millions of dollars hunting for insurrection evidence on Trump. And they charged Trump with
many other things, but they couldn't charge Trump with insurrection because the evidence
doesn't exist. How many insurrectionists go unarmed and into into a
nation's capital get to the senate floor of the nation's capital and walk through velvet ropes
follow police direction uh take selfies and don't burn down the damn place january 6th was a lawful
protest permitted by the national park service that devolved into a riot period, full stop.
And what Andy says, Dave, is that this means that congressional Democrats would not be able to,
on the next January 6th of 2025, right after we've had the election, you know, that was the day they certified the vote. Mike Pence counted the votes. They would not be able to refuse to ratify a Trump victory on the grounds
that he is an insurrectionist. The Supreme Court just took that away from them. And this is one
of the many reasons why some on the left are very angry at the Supreme Court for this decision.
And in particular, for that additional step
the five conservatives took? Well, first off, good to be with you, Megan. It's nice to see
Mike so happy for once. I can see why he's got two. He's got two really good Supreme Court
decisions under his belt, plus good polling numbers. So congrats, Mike. This is your halcyon period.
And I tell my Democratic friends, this is what you get when you listen to Susan Sarandon for
your political advice and end up voting for Jill Stein. You get a Supreme Court that doesn't know
the idea of judicial restraint. So instead of just ruling on the issue in front of them,
they went further. And the one thing I would disagree with, Megan, is, and I have a lot of respect for Judge McCarthy,
but I didn't see that in the opinion where you have to have a conviction for insurrection before
you can bounce someone from the bout. And I read this and the concurring opinions. And
here's how I interpret it, is that what the Supreme Court said is that only Congress can enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Now, there's nothing in Section 5 that says it's exclusive to Congress, but the Supreme Court said only Congress.
So if that means that there is someone who did engage in insurrection and was convicted of insurrection, that state states cannot bounce
that person off the ballot. Only Congress can establish a mechanism. If Congress doesn't
establish a mechanism, then tough luck. Plus, even wait, let me just let me just answer that.
You're right. I mean, I simplified it for the audience. But what Andy is saying is that right
now, the only existing statute that could be used is the penal law against
insurrection. That's that's the only law in the books right now that could be used.
And Trump has not been charged as an insurrectionist. So, yes, going forward,
sure, they could change the law. But you tell me how in a Republican controlled house and we all
remember schoolhouse rock, it's got to go through the House
and the Senate and be signed by the president to become a law. They're going to change the law
between now and November. Oh, there is a less than zero percent chance they're going to do that.
There is not going to be a change. Congress is not going to act. Congress is going to do what
they're best at, which is do nothing. So what this court decision did was to also tell federal courts that you
don't have the power to disqualify a federal candidate from office because of insurrection.
Even if they're convicted of an insurrection, it's going to be up to Congress to create a mechanism
to do that. And so that takes the power away from state officials and judges until Congress acts.
So that's why it was such a broad ruling, such a powerful ruling by these justices and why even
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, hey, let's not go this far. Let's use some judicial restraint. But
Katie barred the door. Mike's shaking his head. No. Why? Well, I would say I think David is right
that you can have a civil component to this because the predecessor to this criminal statute on insurrection or rebellion, there was a civil statute. So it
could be either civil set up by Congress or criminal. So that's, you know, well, according
to the Griffin's case, it has to be criminal, but there was a civil component to this. So,
you know, that's, he could be, he could be right there. I would say this on could Congress right now, could federal prosecutors right now get rid of people engaged in insurrection?
And the answer is yes, they would have to be charged.
Those insurrectionists would have to be charged under this federal criminal statute for insurrection or rebellion with a disqualification clause that's already on the books.
Congress wouldn't have to do anything. No, it's just the the Biden Justice Department would actually have to do anything new. It's just the Biden
Justice Department would actually have to come up with evidence of insurrection or rebellion.
Well, like, take, for example, some of those J6 defendants who actually were charged
with insurrection and found guilty. Well, I don't know if they were charged with insurrection. I
think they were charged with seditious conspiracy, which is different. Oh, right. Correct. You're right. You're right.
So that wouldn't do it.
But if you were to have a January 6th defendant charged with insurrection and convicted of insurrection, the Supreme Court has basically said those people are not going to be president.
Correct.
So, you know, Dave, maybe if you go after a horn man or lectern guy, my two favorites for presidents, you know, you could you could take them out with that statute.
Well, Megan, Mike, Mike is right that no one has been charged with insurrection.
They've been charged with a conspiracy, which is different.
But now, correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, I the statute that says that insurrection is a crime contains a section that says you cannot run again.
I thought that was what was in the 14th Amendment,
Section 3.
The statute actually prohibits you from running again
if you violate that.
Now my head's starting to hurt.
Yeah, yeah, so the insurrection or rebellion statute-
If you've lost me, you've definitely lost my audience.
Just give me the bottom line
without doing in-depth statutory analysis.
So if you want to disqualify for insurrection or rebellion,
there is a statute on the books, a federal criminal statute on the books right now. The
latest version was 1948. It's been on the books for a long time. You charge under insurrection
or rebellion, and there is a disqualification provision in that statute. So if you're convicted
of insurrection or rebellion under that statute, you are disqualified.
OK, but that hasn't happened to Donald Trump.
That's the operative point.
And while they could change the law going forward, there's zero chance that this House
controlled by the Republicans is going to be on board with that.
So for now, Trump is protected.
And not just for now.
I mean, all the way through the election and potentially, you know, up to January 6th when, you know, he's he's if he wins, he's going to have the vote certified and so on.
All right. So that's a very good thing for Donald Trump.
And it's very bad for people like Michael Ludig, Lawrence Tribe, who I mean, since this idea came up and Ludig was one of the ones who did it, he was, you know, I mean, I think it's fair to say he's a respected appellate court judge.
But this is a cockamamie idea. And he was put, it's not like you see Michael Ludig all over
cable news on a normal basis, but he was a star on cable news. Lawrence Tribe, he's been on MSNBC.
He's a very hardcore anti-Trump guy. But here's just a
flashback of some of the media and the experts embracing this wonderful idea, which, as I point
out, while they were split on just how far they went, nine out of nine did say states are not
empowered by the 14th Amendment to remove alleged insurrectionists from the ballot. Watch this inside.
Colorado is executing its state's rights to decide who should be on their own ballot.
Grounded in the Constitution. That language in the Constitution, Jim,
that simply could not be any clearer. This is a slam dunk. The former president is not eligible to be president again.
Trump incited and therefore engaged in an armed insurrection against the Constitution.
Trump is indeed ineligible to be president.
Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection against the Constitution.
Donald Trump cannot be president.
For under the Constitution, he cannot be our president again.
That engaging in insurrection has disqualified himself from holding any future federal office.
Will the Supreme Court agree with themselves? We're confident the Supreme Court will reject
that claim. Or not. That was courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon.
For our audience, both guys are laughing. Both lawyers are laughing. It is kind of funny. I mean, look, we'll see whether those experts now go back in and say, gee, even my side ruled against me on the critical point. I mean, you know, that it looks like me. It looked like me when
I said that the Supreme Court would deny cert in the absolute immunity case. You know, so I've been
there. It's just there's no getting around. And that's that's because it really was cockamamie.
I mean, it was a real reach. And I forget whether what I found. I remember looking into Ludig. He's
I think he's more right leaning, but he's a never Trumper. He's a never Trumper. You have to when you look at the conservative leanings of
these judges, Mike, you have to figure out, OK, it's not enough just to say they're conservative
and therefore I need to take them seriously on an anti-Trump move. You do have to figure out
one step beyond that. And I'm sorry to make it all boil down to politics. But mean in this case it does yeah so judge michael ludic is a total
goofball they he lost his mind when he got passed over for the supreme court by george w bush i was
in the white house at the time he got mad he resigned from the bench and he's just been a
bitter washed up loser for years and years and years.
Here I am defending the Federalist Society, ultra conservative judge, Judge Ludig. Look,
here's the thing. This wasn't a complete victory for Trump at the Supreme Court in that they did not address the issue that Trump wanted them to address, which is whether or not he engaged in insurrection. They left that to the lower courts. And by doing that, the finding from
the lower courts is that Trump did engage in insurrection. So where Lutig and others are
coming from is that if you did engage in insurrection, the plain meaning of the text
of the 14th Amendment, Section 3 says you are disqualified for running for office. So that's where they came from.
But the Supreme Court decided to abandon their textualist roots, originalist roots, and decide to rule on principles of federalism and just common sense that we don't want 50 states to go in 50 different directions.
There would be chaos.
All right.
Here's a little sample of that point.
Not to lump you in with these people, Dave, from reacting to this decision. This is given to us by the Media Research Center. Saw three, watch.
This is actually what I had been concerned about. I had been concerned that it should
go to the Supreme Court. They would rule this way. I'd laugh if it weren't so sad.
My next guest says Donald Trump is still an oath-breaking insurrectionist.
The court itself may have overstepped.
The court went way further than it needed to go.
Our colleague Melissa Murray has called this Supreme Court
the YOLO Court.
The criticism of the court is that they're
playing interference.
Not since Bush v. Gore have we seen a court that
has had this many opportunities to interfere in the election.
The headline here is that this is a unanimous ruling,
but if you scratch the surface just a little.
This is a five to four ruling. I'm part of it.
This is actually a five to four decision.
It's five to four.
Trump will take this, spin it,
spread the misinformation, disinformation on it.
You can't save the people from themselves.
Whatever happened to Larry Sabato? Remember him, Mike Davis back in the Fox days,
he was like a normal pollster that you could rely on for down the middle analysis. Now he's
gone hardcore, never Trump. But look, I understand the five, four argument for the reasons that we
kicked the show off with, but on the court point, it was nine Oh. And I wonder whether these same
people are going to be so disgusted with the court and ready to dismantle it after the court is likely, Dave, to rule against Trump and his claims that everything he going to drag their feet and that will infuriate my colleagues.
And I understand that because if they continue to delay this matter, the trial in D.C. may not ever happen.
So that's what they took it up. What are you saying?
The only people who dragged their feet were Jack Smith and the Justice Department.
As soon as they filed the charges, Trump started to challenge it legally.
Now it's gone up. Supreme Court took it. They could have kicked it to next fall.
They didn't have to put it on this term, but they took it on this term.
They're not dragging anything.
Well, compared to what they did here in the Colorado case, Megan, where they expedited matters to give this Trump a decision within weeks to make sure it was done before Super Tuesday, where they even issued an opinion on a Monday, which was so rare.
And then you compare it to intervening in Jack Smith's case, where they first said,
no, we're not going to intervene in December.
No, no, no.
We're not going to get in and Bigfoot.
That's because Jack Smith was trying to skip the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
That's the only reason they said not yet.
They said, you got to turn. You got to go to the middle, guys, before you come to us,
which, Mike, every Supreme Court would most likely prefer, because then you get a whole
decision with reasoning from the lower court that you get to kick off the argument with.
It wasn't unusual at all for the court to say, slow down, Nellie. You're going back. You do it
before the Court of Appeals, and then you come to us. Well, yeah, I mean, Nelly, you're going back. You do it before this court of appeals and then you come
to us. Well, yeah, I mean, of course they have to decide this Colorado disqualification case
as quickly as they can, because these states need to print ballots, right? And they need to
print ballots and figure out whether Trump is going to be on the ballots or not going to be
on the ballot on this presidential immunity. They are deciding this case in like warp speed. They did. They set this case for oral argument in April. They're not allowing Trump
to seek on bark review with the D.C. Circuit. They're not waiting to hear oral argument in
this case next fall or even next winter, as they should. That would be the normal course. They're
very much expediting this. And there's no need for them to expedite this because it's not relevant to the election. Whether Trump is on the ballot
is relevant to the election. Whether Trump has presidential immunity is not. The Colorado election
is today. Yes. I mean, look, I would say this about presidential immunity. I know you guys
both disagree with me on this, but I seem to have a track record on this. The Supreme Court is going to find that the president, any president, is immune from criminal prosecution for his official
acts. Then the Supreme Court is going to remand this case to D.C. Obama, Judge Tanya Shukin,
to hold an evidentiary hearing on what Trump allegedly did on January 6th that was in his
official acts, like he was going to fire his acting attorney general. That sounds pretty presidential to me versus in his personal capacity. And then
once they decide that Trump can appeal that again, because you're dealing with immunity.
And so the bottom line is, is that there's no chance this case is going to go to trial before
the election. And I would say to these Democrats, boo hoo, you're going to actually have to vote for the president of the United
States on November 5th, 2024, the old-fashioned way, instead of having your left-wing judges
remove him from the ballot or throw him in prison.
Here's, take a listen to Jim Acosta on CNN talking about how sad this is and how Trump gets all these appeals, delays everything like
like a normal person, even though everybody in the United States who gets convicted or sued
civilly and loses has the opportunity to file an appeal, which Jim Acosta, he should familiarize
himself with a lovely service known as Google or any of its competitors,
which we're moving to now, because this is not a special Trump thing. This is called being an
American thing. Watch this. Jim, what do you say to all those Americans out there who are watching
this who are frustrated and say, you know, Trump is getting away with breaking the law, that he
files appeal after appeal. He tries to delay every proceeding
that's brought against him in a way that is just it just goes against what our judicial system
should be about. I mean, isn't he treated differently than just about everybody else
in this country? I mean, just about anybody else would not have the ability to appeal things until
kingdom comes. Well, actually, they do have the ability to do that.
That's part of our justice system.
Well, for all practical purposes, that doesn't happen.
I mean, the vast majority of defendants out there don't have the resources
to drag everything out in umpteen different cases across the country.
Mike.
I mean, has he heard of public defenders? I mean, I used to clerk for Judge Gorsuch on the 10th Circuit. I used to clerk for Justice Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. We heard appeal after appeal
after appeal from rapists and murderers and carjackers and these same Democrats who bemoan that, you know, Trump's
not above the law. They want Trump to be below the law. They want him to not have any rights.
They just want to throw him in prison and bankrupt him and take him off the ballots
after they impeached him twice for nonsense because they fear American voters. Why do Democrats
fear American voters? Why do they not want American
voters to have a choice on November 5th, 2024? I'll tell you why. Keith Olbermann's
going to explain it to you. I know you were waiting to hear from him. Here you go.
Of course, I'm respectable, says John Houston as Noah Cross in the movie Chinatown to Jack Nicholson as Jake Giddes.
I'm old.
Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
And then there is what happens when you are all three of those things, as the Supreme Court is all three of those things.
Politicians pretending to be justices
working in an ugly building. And as Trump relied upon and yesterday was proven correct,
they are all whores. And I have lots to say about the Supreme whores and what they have done
and what they might yet do, which probably enough includes making Joe Biden into an instant American king.
Yet they are not the lead story.
The evidence is mounting that what Donald Trump is suffering from is something called
fluent aphasia.
There are two million Americans with aphasia, a kind of catch all for a series of communication
disorders.
And obviously, this is a layman asserting this.
I could be wildly wrong.
Yes.
Some self-awareness at the end.
I'll give you the first crack on that one, Mike, because I see you laughing.
Well, I would say this.
I take offense to what he said about, you know, everything else he said was fine,
but he said the Supreme Court building was ugly. And I just, I take great offense to that because
I think the Supreme court building is beautiful. I agree. I agree. We can all agree on that.
I know it's absolutely beautiful. And the actual courtroom in which the justices sit is magnificent,
has a bunch of history. And I, who knows whether Keith Olbermann's actually ever dragged himself
out of his cave to go over and behold the majesty that is the Supreme Court building, but whatever. He's just fun. He's just
fun to listen to. I'm not going to lie. I'm kind of glad he's in the national conversation just
because he's entertaining, but literally nothing he says is right. I mean, it's either offensive
or wrong or both, which is why we go to him a fair amount. Okay, so it's done. The insurrectionist
thing is over. Um,
and there's plenty more to discuss on the legal front. All right. Now that brings me to,
I'm going to figure out what I want to do next. Okay. January 6th, that's the underlying case
with judge Chutkin. This is actually getting very interesting. So her entire proceeding is delayed. It's frozen
while SCOTUS in a separate matter that we made a reference to tries to decide whether Trump is
immune to that prosecution entirely. So it's frozen. She can't do anything on it.
And Politico comes out with an article called, entitled, The Enormous Pressures About to Land on Judge Tanya Chutkin. the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Trump in Dave's jurisdiction, had an appearance before
the Florida judge in the Mar-a-Lago case recently and said to that judge, Aileen Cannon,
there are no DOJ policies that prevent cases that have already been charged from going to trial
in the run-up to the election, even if the defendant is on the ballot.
All right. Notwithstanding this, you know, supposed DOJ policy that they would not do
anything to interfere with an election within 60 days of the election. They wouldn't charge
a candidate. They wouldn't do anything like that because they don't want to influence the vote.
Now they're saying to Judge Cannon, we we're actually not going to follow that in this case.
It doesn't apply because we charged him well before.
And so now there's real speculation about whether Judge Chutkin should go ahead with this trial as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court gives it any sort of a green light, should rush it to trial, in fact.
And the suggestion is that she could hold the trial only three to four days a week,
leaving Trump the remainder to travel the country and campaign.
Hold the trial on alternating weeks,
allowing Trump to campaign in the weeks in between his criminal trial in D.C.
Hold half- day trial days,
leaving Trump the remainder of the day to travel to closer states right around Washington, D.C.,
and to campaign nationally through his media appearances. And then the writer goes on and
Khush Khodori to say, you know what? The trial also does not need to even
end before November, though that's far from ideal. They can keep this thing rolling and potentially
you could get him convicted even after he wins. And then he could be, I guess, kicked out, not certified.
I don't know what the end plan would be if they got his conviction between November and January.
But my takeaway on this, I am coming back to you, Dave, but let me just give this one to my first two, is that these Democrats will stop at nothing.
He can campaign in the afternoon in the states around Washington, D.C. in October 2024.
Yeah, remember, they waited 30 months, 13 months to bring these charges. And these are
coordinated charges with the Biden White House and the Biden Justice Department.
I've given you specific names in each one of these
cases where they're specifically coordinating. You have Nathan Wade, for example,
billing his time to meet with the Biden White House and the Biden White House counsel, right?
You had Matthew Colangelo going from the Biden Justice Department, the number three office,
to Alvin Bragg's office to bring the first indictment ever against a former president
and a likely future president.
You had Jonathan Sue, Biden's deputy White House counsel, waive Trump's claim of executive privilege on behalf of President Biden. So you have Biden's fingerprints on all four of these
things. You had Biden going out there leaking that Garland was acting like a professor instead
of an attorney general. And so then Garland moved forward. And we have these four coordinated indictments and criminal charges against Trump. And they've timed these trials
back to back to back right during the 2024 presidential election season. And Jack Smith
will probably convince D.C. Obama Judge Tanya Shutkin that he can do this. Maybe he'll convince Judge Cannon. But
here's the deal. The legitimacy of the judicial system is on the line. When the American people
start paying attention and they see President Trump in a courtroom for these bogus charges
instead of on the campaign trail, this is not going to go well with the American people. And
when the justice system loses its legitimacy with half of the American people, they're going to go well with the American people. And when when when the justice system loses its
legitimacy with half of the American people, they're going to lose a lot of their funding.
I mean, Dave, if this is the Democrats campaign strategy, this is the thing that Biden thinks
will win him the election. That as again, quoting here from Andy, who's making a reference to Adam
Liptak of the New York Times outlining, outlining the possible plan. A felony trial of Trump on the
January 6th charges before a hostile Washington jury pool and an unfriendly Obama appointed judge
beginning after Labor Day, running through Election Day. That is the Biden campaign strategy.
It's outrageous. It could work, I guess. Do we have a judge in Chutka and Judge Chutkin
who would go along with this? Megan, there is absolutely no evidence that Joe Biden has been pulling the strings on
any of this stuff. Remember, he, and I would agree, is frustrated with Merrick Garland,
because Merrick Garland, the one thing I will agree with what Mike said is that he slow walked
a lot of this stuff. He is timid, and I don't think he was the right pick for attorney general.
But he finally appointed a special prosecutor, and then it was on. Remember, this is the same
attorney general who's prosecuting Joe Biden's son, the same guy who let Robert
Herb become the special counsel and then release this report bashing Joe Biden's mental acuity.
And as far as the Department of Justice and the 60 day rule, there has never been a rule that says
you cannot try a case before the election. Just ask Senator, well, he's not around anymore, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. He had a trial for his fraud claims, his criminal activity in late September of the year
where he was up for reelection. In fact, the jury gave a guilty verdict a week before election day.
So this has happened before. It's not a surprise it's happening now. And if anything,
I got to tell you, I think the Supreme Court was dragging its feet. I know we've talked about this, but one other thing about that,
they didn't have to intervene in this matter. They didn't have to wait two weeks to then say,
yeah, we're going to get involved. And then when they did so, even after they granted cert,
they didn't have to issue a stay. And then they could have had the oral argument like now,
like in March, it's all teed up. You don't have to wait till the end of April.
So I look at it from a different perspective.
Not only is there no coordination between Biden and the prosecutors here, but it looks
like the Supreme Court has been intentionally dragging its feet to make sure justice is
not served before the election and voters don't get the information they need to make
a rational choice.
I'm going to I'm going to have to bust out my mother's cupboard again, aren't I,
Dave? Lack of planning on your part does not justify an emergency on my part. She used to
whip that thing open whenever I'd be like, Mom, I need you to pick up my school report and bring
it. I forgot it. No, it's they drag their feet. Now it's not up to the Supreme Court to suddenly
have to go faster than that aircraft carrier normally goes. It's just not how things work there. But
I will say Mike was nodding his head. Yes. Whether judge shut can could actually help
them engage in this strategy on J six, but here's, here's the thing I want to get back to.
Andy's saying, Mike, the DOJ pointing out, even if Trump wins in November and Mike Davis is his AG
elect, right?
The one that he's going to appoint.
You will not be in power until January 20th, 2025.
And he writes, remember, a president elect is in no position to dismiss anything.
There may be more than enough time between
September and January to get Trump not only convicted, but sentenced. Jack Smith is banking
on at least the former, the conviction, and he'll push for the latter too if it's remotely attainable.
My God, so he's, I hadn't even considered this scenario, Mike, where Trump,
where they do press forward on J6 trial before Judge Chutkin after the Supreme Court rules,
if they allow this case to go forward in any way. And I realize the whole heart of that case may get
gutted by another case that they're about to hear a Fisher. That's another matter.
That they might put pedal to the metal, make him do the
half days or the four days a week, what have you. He wins the election. And between November 5th
and January, they get a conviction and sentence him to prison. What happens then? Does anyone have any idea what happens then?
And that's that's why this Jack Smith is a scud missile that the Democrats send in.
And he is so reckless. Remember, he was overturned nine to nothing when he brought his bogus corruption charges against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald, a likely presidential or vice presidential candidate in 2016.
He was able to win his conviction and destroy Bob McDonnell's political life and personal life.
And then the Supreme Court eight to nothing reversed him in 2016.
It would have been nine to nothing. But Justice Scalia passed away. Right.
But that's exactly who Jack Smith was. He got banished to The Hague because he is a partisan buffoon prosecutor. And then Garland's brought him back as the scud missile to take out President Trump before the election. This is all about election interference. it anymore. It's very blatant that what they're doing is they're trying to interfere in the
election. They don't care what the American people want. They fear American voters. And so they're
trying to bankrupt, disqualify from the ballot and put Trump in prison because they don't want
the American people to put Trump back in the White House. Okay, Dave. I mean, I think the answer to my question is we don't know,
right? It's truly unprecedented to have a president-elect get convicted of a felony
and be sentenced to jail after he's been elected, but before he's been sworn in.
I don't think we know. We're on uncharted grounds here, are we not?
Agreed. We don't know. And here, are we not? Agreed.
We don't know.
And I get asked that question all the time.
You can run for president from prison.
You could technically serve as president from prison.
What would be interesting, if he is convicted and then he takes office, I assume there would
be a stay.
I assume there'd be an appeal and his sentence would be stayed and then he would go into the White House and then nothing would happen until after he's out.
I think that's why he's running for president. Pardon himself. Right. Once he's sworn in, he can pardon himself.
Well, it's not clear whether that would stick. He can try.
He could also resign temporarily under which Mike can help me, which amendment where the vice president takes over briefly and then parts of it. Which one is it, Mike? 25th. There you go. 25th. So that could happen. But, you know,
the reason why Donald Trump is running for president is because he realizes this is the
best way to escape all the legal liability swirling over his head. And it may just work.
So far, it is working. All right, so there are other developments still going.
Some crazy ones out of New York, too.
I'm going to take a quick break and come back.
The legal news today is actually really interesting.
We haven't even gotten to Fannie.
We have to ask if our guys can stay just a little later.
We'll do that during the break.
Mike and Dave, stay with us.
One final point that we raised the other day,
Andy raised it, too too in this piece,
and I thought it was important. In the Florida case by you, Dave, they went in there both sides
and said, okay, how about a summer trial date? The prosecution said, we want July, I think July
8th. And team Trump said, no, that's too soon, but we could do August 12th. And no one really
thinks that case is going to go off on August 12th. But the thinking
is that what he was doing there was getting a placeholder on that case so that Judge Chutkin
over in D.C. and all the peril I just described there can't go anytime soon because they're not
going to make Trump sit for a simultaneous criminal trial. So one is going to have to
go before another. So Team Trump appears to have thought, okay, better to have
that one on the calendar than judge Shutkin. Let's keep her at arm's length. But Annie makes the
point that, well, the downside to this is Trump's lawyers have now undermined their credibility to
argue to judge Shutkin that the Biden department of justice must not be allowed to subject Trump to a criminal trial
during the campaign stretch run. So how could that manifest? The judge, Judge Cannon in Mar-a-Lago
would say, you know what, we're not doing it on August 12th. I know that was we had a placeholder,
but too much to go through. So no. And then suddenly this big, beautiful window of time
opens up and Judge Shutkin says, I'm back from my European vacation and I would love to do it.
And at that point, is he saying like Trump would be unable to argue, unable to argue?
Oh, but it's not fair because he already agreed to in another jurisdiction.
It hurts his argument, but Trump said that they can't do it before the election.
And then he was pushed by Judge Kennedy to say, give us a date.
You got to give us a date.
So then they said, OK, August 12th for the reasons that you and Andy have mentioned.
They thought it would block Judge Chutkin's future calendar.
But it is correct that now they can use that against him.
But when it comes to Judge Cannon, it won't matter.
That case is not happening before the election.
Judge Cannon is going to give in. That case is not happening before the election. Judge Cannon
is going to give in to Trump's demands to delay it. Where it could come into play is, yes, with
Judge Chuck. And when Trump says we can't do it before right before the election, then Judge
Chuck says, ah, you gave them August. So that is a real possibility. And yes, she has said she's
going to ditch her European vacation to come back and try this case. So kudos to her.
Sure. She's like, this is vacation for me. This is this is the happiest place on Earth,
not Disneyland. OK, let's jump to New York for a minute. There are big updates today on Fannie.
I'm going to save it to the top of the hour. Via Katie Fang of MS, Donald Trump has until later this week to post a $91.63 million bond to stay the execution
of E. Jean Carroll's judgment against him. This is the civil case for, first it was sexual assault,
and then the big judgment was for him allegedly defaming her. And Newsweek says, of course,
in New York, a person must pay a court cash bond that amounts to 110% of the
judgment to appeal the ruling of a civil case. That's why it's more than the 83 million that
was ordered. So he has to pay $91 million in bond to stay the execution of that civil judgment
against him as he tries to appeal this. On Monday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said he would not reach a
decision on Trump's motion to stay the execution of this judgment, but he will render a
decision soon. So, Mike, what does this mean? Is Trump going to have to post this bond for 91
million? And is he then going to have to post the bond for the half a billion dollar judgment that's
been handed down against him in the corporate fraud case against the smiling Judge
Engeron. I mean, that's the problem. I mean, so what is is Trump going to have to liquidate assets
to pay the bonds on these bogus judgments up in New York? I mean, they changed the law
in New York for this this nut job. Gene Carroll's bogus claims against Trump. I don't have any
money. Gene Carroll's go ahead and try to. I don't have any money, Gene Carroll.
So go ahead and try to sue me.
I was going to say, she's going to sue you.
She's going to sue you.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, sweetheart.
But, you know, here's the deal.
I mean, Trump's going to have to liquidate his assets.
He's going to have to post these bonds
or they're going to go in and what,
like take over his buildings and do fire sales.
This is, again, this is part of the Democrat lawfare.
They're doing this on many fronts.
They're doing this on the disqualification front,
the impeachment front, the four criminal indictments.
They're trying to bankrupt him for non-fraud.
They're trying to go after him for $100 million.
But, Gene Carroll, this is lawfare and election interference.
And Democrats may be gleeful about this right now,
but they're not going to be very gleeful
when Donald Trump essentially runs over their puppy with a lawnmower on November 5th, 2020, when he goes back to the White House.
What an image.
That's a terrible image.
Terrible image. get the New York appeals court to reduce the amount of bond he had to post in that half a
billion dollar judgment against him, the judge said, no, now he's trying to get a larger panel
of the appellate court to reconsider this, um, arguing that it's an excessive fine under the
eighth amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual, but also excessive fines. And so far, these judges are
all saying, no, no, no. Post the bond, the one judge said, on the 500 million, they said,
we'll let you go get loans. All right. If you want loans, you can go get loans. Because originally
that crazy judge, Engrod, said you can't even get a loan for this from any bank that even does
business in New York, which rules out every bank in the world. And so they said, all right, you can get a loan.
But what's going to happen? Because there's like a Wall Street Journal piece today really talking
about how Letitia James is threatening to seize his properties. And while that's really not the
state's first choice, because they don't know how to run buildings or sell buildings.
That what what else can they do?
That's that's their threat.
And if he doesn't post the bond, that that would have to be their next move.
Right.
I do think he'll get loans to pay off the bonds.
But you're correct, Megan.
This is a real threat to Donald Trump.
And he takes this very personally when you go after his finances. But this is where his own rhetoric hurts him, because when he says how rich he is and he has way more money than people know, yeah, the courts use that against him. So
a lot of this is his own braggadocio. How is he going to get the loans? But how is he going to
get the loans? Because I understand he's got some money. But if you're a bank and you see how
leveraged he is right now
to the tune of over a half a billion, I can see you not wanting to loan anything to Donald Trump.
My own fear is like the Saudis are going to be like, hey, we'll do it. And then he owes the
Saudis, which we don't want in our future president. That is a real concern. That's
something, Megan, that I think we can all agree on. We do not want that.
Now, Trump does have an asset
that could be blowing up financially,
which is the true social,
where he could be in line
for a couple billion dollars.
So he could put that up as collateral.
So that's something that he could use
to get a loan.
All right, that's better.
Mike, am I wrong to fear
like China coming in and saying, we can cover the 500 million bucks?
Here you go. Yeah, I mean, it would be very bad to have a president of the United States corrupted and compromised by foreign loans and payments.
You know, from China, Ukraine, from Russia, from Kazakhstan, from Romania, every other trouble spot around the world. I mean, I'd hate to see a president of the United States or his family members take any money from these
foreign countries. Oh, wait. Well, how about the Bidens and the Biden crime family?
Okay. This would dwarf that on a massive scale, but I'm against it. I want to go on record and
say I'm against it for Biden. I'm against it for Donald Trump too. I really hope this doesn't happen. But this is kind of the position he's being placed in. I mean, what would you do if you were Donald Trump? Would you sell Trump Tower so Letitia James could get it just to give to these Democrats in Albany who are busy taxing us to our eyeballs? There's no victim who's going to get this money. All right. Stand by. Fannie's next. And there's two new witnesses in the case. Don't go away. Before we get to Fannie Willis, I've got
to tell you, this has been reminding me of something. I've made this reference before.
It's one of my favorite movies and it should be one of everyone's favorite movies.
This Keith Olbermann little rap that he did today on the Supreme Court and that he did last week on the Supreme Court.
Remember, here it is.
The conservatives on the Supreme Court are Trump's whores.
Chief Justice Roberts is a Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
And Justice Alito is a Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
And Justice Gorsuch is a self-contradicting Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
And Justice Kavanaugh is a drunken abuser Trump whore and he can burn in hell.
And Justice Barrett is a handmade Trump whore and she can burn in hell.
Reminds me of Tommy Boy.
Stand by.
And that's when the whores come in.
There we go.
God bless Chris Farley.
God bless Chris Farley.
We can all agree on that.
He's obsessed.
The man's obsessed.
I'm just telling you, there's some sort of a revelation in his constant focus on whores.
I'm just going to put it out there.
There's some sort of a revelation.
I leave it to the audience to figure out what that is.
OK, on to Fannie Willis, where there is new news.
Not one, but two witnesses have now come forward to various defendants saying that they would like to and are ready to testify.
They are both saying, shocker, Terrence Bradley is full of BS.
The lawyer who once represented Nathan Wade for a short time and was Nathan Wade's friend.
And when he took the stand, that was standing all of his admissions to attorney Ashley Merchant before he got to the stand about, yes, I know when it happened.
It was long before they said they were lovers.
That happened when she left the D.A.'s office as a junior person and became a judge in 2019.
And then he gets on the stand, doesn't remember anything.
Two other people are like, he talked to me like that too. He told me all the same secrets he told Ashley Merchant and went on and on and had great detail. So it wasn't just the
texts to Ashley. All right. Number one is a woman named Cindy Lee Yeager, who is not just some
rando. Cindy Lee Yeager is currently the co-chief deputy DA for
Cobb County, the neighboring county. This is Fulton County for Fannie, but, you know, kind of
next door. This is the co-chief deputy DA. So this person also has an obligation of candor for the
court to the court. And she's apparently ready to take the stand if the judge, because he's still
considering whether he will reopen the evidence or whether he even needs to reopen the evidence.
And she says from August of 23 through January of 24.
All right. So basically this past fall, that's the same time Ashley Merchant was talking to Terrence Bradley, that she had numerous conversations with Bradley as well, in which he was talking about his favorite subject, Willis and Wade and their romance.
According to the filing, he told Ms. Yeager that relationship began, see if this sounds familiar,
guys, around the time that Willis and Wade met at a judicial conference in 2019. Wade, quote,
had definitively begun a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis during the time that Ms. Willis was
running for DA, which is 2019 to 2020. Mr. Bradley stated that he had personal knowledge
of this relationship and included details regarding Mr. Wade's use of Robin or Ms.
Willis's use of Robin Yurte's apartment and other meetings between the two of them
prior to November of 2021, which is when he filed for divorce and got hired by Fannie.
Mr. Bradley told Cindy Lee Yeager, she alleges, again, this is an officer of the court saying
this, that Mr. Wade personally prepared his own divorce complaint against his spouse
and told Terrence Bradley, you just sign
the divorce filings and file them, suggesting that the actual attorney-client relationship
did not begin until around November of 2021 and not back in 18 as Terrence Bradley testified.
And they say, based upon these statements, it is Ms. Yeager's understanding that Mr. Bradley did not begin representing Mr. Wade until November of 2021.
All right. Now, just going to give you the second thing.
This happened this morning, moments ago.
Another person has come forward, another officer of the court.
His name is Attorney Manny Aurora, former adjunct professor at Georgia State School of Law.
Apparently he's a friend of Terrence Bradley's. Terrence Bradley, he talks a lot. He spoke to Terrence Bradley, says Manny, and he's willing to testify that Terrence Bradley, same time period,
September, October 2023, this past fall, regarding the relationship between Willis and Wade, Aurora claims that Terrence Bradley told him
the relationship began when Willis was running for DA in 2019 through 2020, that Bradley had
personal knowledge of the relationship, including details regarding the use of Robin Yurty's
apartment. That's exactly what the other one said. Personal knowledge, including the use of Robin Yerty's apartment. And he adds that Mr. Wade, this is what this guy learned from Terrence
Bradley, had a garage door opener to the property. This rung a bell with us because Ashley Merchant,
I think was also told this by Terrence Bradley because she raised it when he was on the stand. We pulled the saw. Watch.
Do you recall that he had a garage door opener to either a house or a condo or something like that of Ms. Willis?
I've never seen a garage door opener.
So, no, I do not have any personal knowledge of him having a garage door opener.
Do you have any knowledge at all from Mr. Wade or any source that he had a garage door opener to access one of Ms. Willis's residence?
And I'll object to any source as to hearsay.
All right. Depends on the source. Overruled.
No, no, I don't have any knowledge.
Well, it's clear that Ashley Merchant got that from somewhere.
It appears to have been him.
But for sure, we've got a lawyer named Manny Aurora who's willing to take the stand and say, he told me.
Terrence Bradley told me Mr. Wade had a garage opener to that property. And again, we have another witness,
a DA, saying he told me that they were having an affair at that time
and had details about the use of her apartment
in another meeting.
I mean, a little butterball turkey.
The thing has popped out.
It's done.
It's done.
Dave, is it done?
How many witnesses have to come forward
to put the lie to this?
It's only done if they had firsthand information.
What they're doing is just, again, saying that Terrence Bradley lied on the stand.
He was out there saying things, and he has clearly loose lips.
And then when he got on the stand, he said, well, I was just speculating.
So I think that's what would happen here.
He'd get put on the stand.
He'd say, I was just speculating.
I was talking trash. And so I don't think it moves the needle as much as something else, Megan, that you may have seen where the first witness,
Yeager, said that she heard Bonnie Wills's voice on a phone call to Bradley.
Yes. And that would right. That would contradict. Actually. Yeah.
That I think is a bigger deal than this. This to me, Megan, because it's not firsthand information, does not move the needle.
And I don't think that the judge is going to reopen it just for this.
It's that other thing which we'll talk about, which may be a bigger problem.
I'll just fill it in now.
This first witness, this assistant deputy D.A. in Cobb County is willing to take the stand and tell this judge under oath that Fannie Willis was
calling Terrence Bradley when Bradley was visiting Yeager in September. So Bradley was with Yeager
and he got a phone call from Fannie and she was calling Bradley in response to an article that
was published about how much money Nathan Wade and his law partners had been paid in the case.
She was mad because the press was going off about how well compensated this one guy was with no relevant experience in prosecuting RICO
felonies and so on. And Ms. Yeager personally heard DA Willis tell Terrence Bradley, quote,
they are coming after us. You don't need to talk to them about anything about us.
Us.
An obvious reference to Fannie and Nathan.
Mike, all of this undercuts Terrence Bradley trying to claim he knew nothing on that stand.
And of course, the underlying under oath assertions by Willis and Wade about their affair.
Yeah, I mean, this is a train wreck. And
I would say about this Terrence Bradley, look, he's a lawyer. He was a law partner with Nathan
Wade. Why is he running his mouth? Just keep your damn mouth shut, even if it's not exactly an
attorney-grant relationship or may or may not be. If you're a law partner, if you're a previous
lawyer, future lawyer, just keep your damn mouth shut. Why is he running his mouth to all these
people? It's just that to me just makes me not like him at all. I know why. I don't know. This
is my opinion is he's mad. He got pushed out of the firm over allegations of sexual assault that he denies.
So he doesn't have. And then he got that's when his relationship with Nathan Wade,
at least as a lawyer, ended, he testified. And that was, I think, summer of 2022 or maybe
September of 2022. So he's probably pissed off a little that not only did they push him out of the
firm, but he got accused of being a terrible person of like sexual assault again, which he denied on the stand. Um, and so while
it appears they had some contact going forward, it wasn't particularly close. He denied that he
had any contact, but now we have this guy calling Ashley merchant, leaving the voicemail saying,
I served them having lunch together a couple of weeks ago. So Nathan Wade and Terrence Bradley, and that I know these players.
I knew exactly who it was.
And I introduced myself and like just all the bricks are falling out of this wall for
Terrence Bradley.
And why?
Because he's embarrassed that he did blab inappropriately on a friend and worse potentially
on a client.
But he did blab and it's out there.
And for better or for the worse,
I don't know.
You tell me.
The judge is a human.
There's no sequester order on him and media, Dave.
So he's going to know this
and he's got to review these motions
to see whether he's going to allow these people to testify.
Right.
I agree with everything you and Mike said
about Terrence Bradley.
Remember when Fannie Willis's lawyers went after him?
We didn't understand why. So why go after your own witness? He's given your side whatever you
wanted. But now we know that because I guess they anticipate all this stuff coming out.
And the fact is, he did have a bad breakup with Nathan Wade. And so, yeah, this is something the
judge is aware of. The judge may have already made up his mind and this doesn't matter.
But if the judge has not or if he's ruling for Fannie Willis, then he's more likely to allow
this to come in. I still believe the only thing that really is relevant here is that conversation
that that Yeager heard herself of Fannie Willis's voice talking to Terrence Bradley.
I'm just going to say, Mike, how do you speculate that he has a garage door
opener that he uses to access this apartment owned by Robin Yerty, where he's visiting?
That's quite a speculation. And very specific, a very specific speculation. I mean,
this case is a mess. I don't know if Dave is with me now that this case, they should absolutely get disqualified from this case.
And this case should be dismissed with a new prosecutor brought in because it is so corrupted.
I would say to the Democrats, why would you use these corrupt, lying buffoons as your front people for the lawfare against a former and likely future president
of the United States.
If you're going to run lawfare in 2028,
pick better people next time.
I think that's good advice.
That's free legal advice.
I agree with that.
And I want to tell the audience again tomorrow at 9 a.m.,
Ashley Merchant will be taking the stand
in front of the Georgia Senate Committee
that's investigating this.
They've subpoenaed her
and all of the texts between Ashley Merchant and Terrence Bradley. They've already interviewed what
they say are whistleblowers in this case, though we don't know anything more about that. So we're
expecting to learn a fact or two directly from Ashley Merchant tomorrow when, interestingly,
she takes the stand. All the lawyers are taking that pretty soon. Dave and Mike are going to have to take the stand and I'm going to take the stand.
We're all going to be, but we'll tell the truth. Guys, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you, Megan. All right. When we come right back, the mystery of Matt Drudge,
there is a new podcast out, which is riveting about one of the biggest names and least understood men in media. Catch the Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love.
Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly.
You can stream the Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are.
No car required.
I do it all the time.
I love the SiriusXM app.
It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more.
Subscribe now.
Get your first three months for free.
Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free.
That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free.
Offer details apply. It is one of the great mysteries in media.
Where in the world is Matt Drudge?
Despite being named one of the most influential names in journalism,
Matt Drudge has all but disappeared from the public eye. His website,
Drudge Report, is still going strong, but is he even behind it anymore? And why did he turn so
hard against Trump in 2020 after having been pretty openly supportive of him in 2016? All
these questions have led to a fascinating new podcast called Finding Matt Drudge.
The host and producer, Chris Moody and Jamie Weinstein, join me now.
Welcome to the show, Chris and Jamie.
Great to have you.
Thank you for having us.
Great to be here.
Jamie, great to see you again.
What a fun idea for a podcast.
He really is this enigmatic guy who no one ever sees. I, I've
seen him one time. I have had one in-person interaction with Matt Drudge. It was in the
Fox news green room. And, um, he likes it that way. It's not just because he's looking to stir
up buzz about him. He really is reclusive. And so talk to me about how you got this idea.
Well, it was in the middle of a pandemic. We're looking for something to do. So my wife and I,
we started a little production company, and this was the first idea I had, in part because Matt
Drudge obviously wields influence and has for over 25 years helped shape the media narrative.
But there's also a mystery to it,
as you mentioned. There are questions that people still don't know. They don't know why Matt Drudge
became increasingly reclusive over the years, ended his radio show, stopped going to the White
House Correspondents Dinner, basically disappeared from public life for the last decade. They also
don't know why he turned against Donald Trump after pretty heavily going all in for Trump.
And as we show in our podcast, visiting the White House after Donald Trump was elected.
And there's even speculation there was an article a couple of years ago.
And some of the people that Chris talks to on the show still think perhaps he doesn't even run the site anymore.
So there's these mysterious questions surrounding him.
He's obviously a person of great influence.
We thought that combination made for a pretty interesting show.
And that's why we went and did it.
Totally.
Absolutely.
It does.
Just in the, just so people know, I don't know if the audience is familiar with the
Drudge Report.
They must be because it's one of the biggest sites online.
He doesn't like it when you call
it a blog. It aggregates stories and it could basically be the newsroom, you know, the sort of
editorial hub for Fox News for many years or for other right-leaning publications. He has enormous
power in conservative circles and beyond. Yes, my team is telling me that in the media, I power rankings
this year. Um, okay. I was number four. They're telling me and Matt Dredger's number five. So
he's a power, very, very powerful, very clearly. Uh, but he legit is. And, um, you went back.
And Maggie, can I just add, he's five now and that's at when people are saying his power has
ebbed, you know, he's know, he's not at his height.
So, you know, even after 26 years, he is still in the top five of the media power rankings, which shows just how powerful he must have been at his very height.
Yeah, I mean, truly, when I was at Fox News, you did not start your day without going to
the Drudge Report.
You just, it wasn't done.
And then you could see over the years, him change for sure. His feelings about Trump changed. And I don't know if you guys noticed
this and we have all sorts of fun thoughts from your podcast that we're going to play, but
my own impression was he was very much behind Trump in 16. And then during the Trump presidency,
um, he was, to me as a reporter, it was very clear that Ivanka and Jared were his two best sources because every
other day we'd see some glowing picture of Ivanka or some great piece about Jared who were getting
hit by all the other media. And so, you know, you can kind of tell as a reporter who a guy's
sources are when that happens. And then suddenly, bupkis, like 2020 came around, his coverage on
Trump changed, even in Jared and Ivanka got
ignored, Chris. And what was it? Do you guys figure out why? Why did he turn on Trump?
Well, we should emphasize how important the Drudge Report was to the Trump campaign.
Trump had been courting Drudge even since 2015, actually even a few years before that,
where he would leak things to Drudge through certain spokespeople on election night, Bannon and Jared Kushner called Drudge on the phone for advice for what to do with the exit polls coming out, showing that Trump wasn't doing very well.
And Drudge told them, said, you know, hold the line.
Those are BS polls.
Trump is going to win.
And then in the aftermath, of course, Drudge was visiting the White House and was speaking
with the president and his staff quite often.
People saw him there certainly more than once.
So he was a part of that in more cases than just somebody influential in the media.
Now, the reasons that he turned on Trump,
there's a lot of different speculation.
But what we've heard from the Trump White House
is that there was talk of Drudge
not being happy with Trump on immigration.
That was a certain policy reason.
But we also have an interview coming out very, very soon
with a former Drudge Report editor named Joseph Curl,
who talks about how members of the Trump White House spoke negatively about Drudge,
and it got back to him, kind of took him for granted, said things kind of like, well,
who needs Drudge? Who needs a blogger? That kind of talk. And, you know, Drudge has ears everywhere.
He hears things. If you say something about him, he will notice it.
And that got back to him.
And so it could have been a little bit of policy, could have been a little bit personal,
but it certainly was a mix that made him turn against Trump in the end.
I believe the immigration thing, because one thing I think we know is that he's good friends
with Ann Coulter and Ann Coulter,
of course, everybody now knows has completely turned on Trump. And it's, I mean, if ever there
were a single issue voter, it's Ann on immigration. She's, it's, she's devoted her life to this issue
and God, she's been proven right every day on her forecasts. And, think she and she has Mickey Kaus on all the time.
I enjoy her, her substack and her submissions, but I think she and Mickey Kaus and Drudge
share this one issue as a true passion. So it would make sense because she was an ardent
supporter of Trump's and what soured her on him. It was he didn't build a wall.
And even though he did more, certainly than Biden has done on immigration,
he didn't really get it done. As as we can see, everything he got done got undone
as soon as he left office. Well, Megan, just to to follow up on that, we actually
have an interview with Mickey Kaus who hasn't aired yet, where he talks about a dinner that Ann Drudge and he had after one of the
debates in 2016. So there's definitely a nexus. He's not a stranger to Drudge either. So that
is certainly part of it. But let me just add one more thing that I think we heard to what Chris
said about why he turned on Drudge. I think those two are crucial. The third is, I think people
mistake Drudge for a partisan kind of Republican Party operative sometimes. And he's not that. He likes to be
different than what people think. There's a clip from him on C-SPAN in 1999 talking about Pat
Buchanan entering the race saying, oh, this would be interesting. I think he always wants to be
interesting. I think he wants to go against the grain sometimes. And after supporting know, after supporting Trump, what's more against the grain than turning around and
showing that he's his own man and doesn't necessarily need to follow Trump and do the
same thing four years later. So the podcast gets into his beginnings, and I didn't know any of this,
but he apparently worked at CBS News for a time, always loved media, always loved news,
even as a kid, grew up in the the Maryland area and gets a job at CBS News
and starts pulling things out of the garbage ratings.
And you have a bit of that.
You have a clip of the actual Drudge.
Here's a clip for our audience from your podcast
of you, Chris, introducing the clip.
And here's the clip, watch.
Drudge started finding that CBS staffers
were tossing television
rating numbers in the trash before they were made public. He went out and dug them out.
Here he is telling the story during a speech in 1998. Overhearing, listening to careful
conversations, intercepting the occasional memo with volunteering the mailroom from time to time.
I hit pay dirt when I discovered that the trash cans in the Xerox room at Television City were
stuffed each morning with overnight Nielsen ratings, information gold.
And it wasn't CBS News. It was The Price is Right, right? Price is Right,
where he worked for a time. So fascinating. So just put some meat on those bones, Chris.
Well, Drudge knew a story when he saw it. You mentioned that he grew up in Maryland, right outside of Washington, D.C., in the shadow of the great institution that was the Washington Post.
Right. And I think he idealized it quite a bit and wanted to be part of an institution like that. But due to, I think you could argue,
educational or class differences, he never really was welcomed into that club. And I think he always
carried that with him, that he wasn't part of them. So going out to California, right at the
advent of the internet, he's using what we would see now as a primitive computer in his apartment.
This is the moment when the gatekeepers really started coming
down. And a 20-something like Matt Drudge could dig something out of the trash and then wouldn't
have to get permission from an editor. He could post it on his own, on his own terms, on his own
website. And that is the key change. And it was in those seeds at CBS that we saw his greatest scoop that really launched him
just a couple of years later when Newsweek magazine had some details of the Bill Clinton,
Monica Lewinsky scandal, and then paused on publishing it. Well, Matt Drudge got a hold of it
and published it real quick, right on his website and thrust the news media very quickly into the
internet age, realizing that anyone could scoop
these institutions all of a sudden. And I believe that clip that you played was when Drudge,
after releasing the Monica Lewinsky story details, going back to Washington and speaking at the
National Press Club, surrounded by the people who I think he would argue in his mind rejected him and
saying, hey, I scooped you and now things are changing.
And that was the start of it all.
And now he scoops them all the time.
I mean, you know, it's it's wonderful when you get a clip on The Judge Report or a link
to your, you know, something you've done because your volume of hits just goes through the
roof.
That's the power of his reach.
But yeah, the Monica Lewinsky thing is roof. That's the power of his reach. Um,
but yeah, the Monica Lewinsky thing is huge. We'll, we'll get to that in one second. Um,
where he lives, how to find him, how to actually lay eyes on him is weirdly a huge mystery.
He doesn't want attention. And, um, you, you talk about in episode two, this moment, Chris, where you're at the Palm
restaurant in Washington, D.C. And to me, it's like Kaiser Soze, you know, like you just
had a, but no, what happened? Well, Jamie had gone into the restaurant for dinner and the maitre d'
rushed up to him and said, you won't believe who was just here and jamie says hi who you know somebody famous and he says matt drudge now it
is remarkable that a maitre d would be so excited to see somebody because they see celebrities at
the palm all the time but matt drudge is someone so elusive so mysterious that he's worth gossiping
about and talking about the maitre d spoke to to us on the podcast. But it is it did
drive us a little crazy that we had started this project and we almost had him by, I think, 10 to
15 minutes. Drudge also, I want to say, came into the door, didn't see anybody at the front,
just kind of slipped in quietly, had a drink at the bar. People noticed him. They googled his
face. They said, I can't believe it's him. And then before they could turn back around, he was gone.
This is really emblematic of how he operates.
He appears in Washington or he appears in a place and then he just disappears on his
own terms.
You can never really nail him down.
You mentioned how elusive he's been.
The guy hasn't been photographed, I believe, in over a decade.
When we spoke to Joseph Curl, who was his staffer for four years at their exit meeting before he left the company, Joe Curl said,
hey, brother, can we get a photo together? And Drudge said, absolutely not. And he's never
spoken to him again. And that's Matt Drudge. I love it. And he's always got the fedora on,
you know, which is kind of interesting because that is a tell that.
Well, he always does, Megan, unless he wants to be recognized, takes that thing off. And he's just a guy walking around town and
people don't recognize him. It's, it's kind of like Batman's mask. You know, you wouldn't know
it's Batman if he took it off that the fedora in a way is his mask. So one of the people you talked
to about drudge was Tucker Carlson. who's of course been in conservative circles, media
circles for his entire adult life. And actually before then, even when I was a kid, his dad worked
in the media. So this is a fascinating story and I'll play the audience a little clip. You should
definitely download the podcast so you can hear the full story. Again, Finding Matt Drudge. Here
it is from episode one. I remember having one conversation with him.
We were talking about, I was always fascinated by who is he personally? And somebody once said
to me that he had bought a bunch, maybe Breitbart, I think, told me that he had bought a bunch of
land in Miami-Dade, but kind of on the outskirts, far from Miami, and had built a sort of doomsday
compound. And for the record, I'm not against doomsday compounds at all. I don't
think that's a crazy thing to do in the slightest. I think it's an admirable thing to do. So I wasn't
mocking him, but I asked about it and he became so emotional and burst into tears and started
yelling at me. And I was going to betray him and tell people about his compound. I suppose he was
right because now I am. A lot of people in the media business
really want to be famous. In fact, it's the rule rather than the exception. And here was a guy at
the center of the media business, at the top of it, who didn't want any attention personally.
Okay. So you actually followed up on the alleged compound and you've got a story in the podcast about
someone who actually in 2020 found it, went onto the property, which already seems scary to me.
You're like, it's somebody who doesn't want you there. And yet he did it. So what,
what tell us about that? There was a reporter named Bob Norman,
who was working on a story about why Drudge turned against Trump in 2020.
And as a good reporter, he couldn't get comment over the phone or over email.
So he drove over to Drudge's house.
He assumed there'd be a big gate.
Maybe he'd leave a note.
And the gate was wide open.
So in drives Bob Norman right to Matt Drudge's front door.
He steps out, knocks on the door.
No answer. Then so he gets up and
he leaves not long after his telephone rings. And who is it? But Matt Drudge. And he is furious.
Couldn't believe that this reporter would come onto his property, said he was going to call the
police, said, you know, you were brave for doing this. You could have been shot. Something could
have happened to you. You know, that kind of thing. And what the reporter noted was that Drudge, he said it was about a 30 minute phone
conversation, wouldn't stop ranting about him coming on his property. Every time he tried to
turn the conversation back to an interview about the story he's writing, Drudge would just come
right back around. And he actually exasperated the reporter so much that he
just said, please just stop. Now we did our own following up.
You know what's interesting? I have to tell you what's interesting about this to me is
the more I live and the more I meet very successful people, whether they're extremely
talented or they're extremely hardworking or whatever, or they've made a bunch of money
and doing something, the more I realize that these people tend to come in very interesting and complex packages.
And in many of the cases, and I don't mean this pejoratively, but they're a little off socially.
You know, I honestly, I could say the same about myself. I definitely have social anxiety and I'm
constantly a bull in a china shop and saying the wrong thing. But I just think, not to say I'm this brilliant person, I'm just saying like I can relate to you might be very
strong at one thing and like kind of not so strong at another. And he's that to the extreme,
right? He started this with no support, no connections, just this sort of aggregated
news source. And then he's for all these years been so incredibly powerful to this day. I check
the Drudge Report every morning. And I love that you're these years been so incredibly powerful to this day. I check the
Drudge report every morning. And I love that you're looking into whether it's still Matt behind
it, because I have wondered and, you know, and you actually conclude it's him that like we'll
know when Matt Drudge is no longer interested in doing this. How will we know, Jamie?
Well, Chris interviews some people that were at Andrew Breitbart's funeral. And of course, Andrew helped edit the Drudge report when Drudge needed someone to stand in for him
back in the very beginning. And Drudge shows up and some of the Breitbart staffers there who were
just about to launch actually Breitbart's website talk to him. And they say, well, uh, uh, talk to him and they say, uh, uh, you know, uh, he, well, he asked them
actually, he goes, uh, what are you going to call the website now? Uh, and they go, well,
we're going to call it Breitbart. He goes, really? You're going to call it Breitbart,
but Breitbart's passed. He goes, yeah, but we want to honor, uh, Andrew Breitbart. That's what
we're going to call it. We're going to continue on. And he said, well, that won't be for me when
I'm gone, that website is done. So when, you know, basically it gives the answer to the question we're trying to answer,
whether he still works on the site.
There's also, you know, other information we have to show that he does.
But he will not be, that site will not exist if Matt Drudge is not working on it.
That's basically what he said.
Well, on the subject of the house, Chris, it looked like, I haven't seen
it personally, but I know we have some video and he's putting it up for sale now, so I think it's
okay to show it. But it wasn't, it's a nice house, but Matt Drudge has got to have tens of millions
of dollars. There's just no question he's a multimillionaire, thanks to what's happened
with the Drudge report. I don't know. Did you expect him
to be living more elaborately? Well, one thing about this house is that the price is in the
location. It is secluded. You cannot see it from Google Earth. It is covered in green. It is
invisible from above. You cannot see it from the road. It is tucked away. It's almost built into the earth,
is how Bob Norman described it. It's a place where somebody who wanted to get away and not
be bothered would certainly go. He used to have a place closer to downtown Miami Beach and those
kinds of places, but he just wanted to get away from that exposure. And you did mention that that
house is for sale and it went up for sale right in the middle of us doing this podcast.
And the descriptions have changed.
They've added more exclamation points and more references to why this seller is very motivated.
So we don't know why he wanted to get rid of it.
But one can speculate.
But I will say that this is not.
I should reiterate that they put this online.
He put this online through his realtor.
They want you to see it.
Oh, it's not our video.
We wouldn't.
Yeah.
No, no.
It's not like you secretly got in there.
No, no, no.
But he also is known to live around the world.
You never know where he actually is.
His staffers never know where he is.
He could just be in Israel.
He could be in Arizona.
He could be in Florida.
He has properties.
He spends a lot of time in Las Vegas. He likes to get really fancy suites. Matt Leshak, his biography, his biographer has reported. And so he's a person that likes to move around. And that I think when you mentioned like, hey, this, you know, this doesn't look like a palatial mansion or anything. It's like, well, you know, he has other priorities and he has other properties too. And it was a beautiful home. I just know, I mean, he's got to be one of the richest men in media.
I went down to Miami. You could go big, you could go right in the ocean. Uh, okay. I'm going to get
to two things. We have to talk about Monica Lewinsky, and then I will tell you about the
time I met Matt Drudge in person and the conversation that we had. Um, so Monica Lewinsky
is really what put Drudge on the map. And you point out
in the show, most people think Matt Drudge broke that story. And he did, he did break the Monica
piece of it. Did he not? Cause I'll tell you my experience of this. I mean, I was not in media.
I was just a kid. Um, but I was a lawyer and surely thereafter, when I got to Fox news in 2004, Brit Hume told
me this personally, that the reason special report launched the night it did was because
drudge broke, uh, the Monica Lewinsky story and they understood at Fox, this was huge.
And they had no choice, but to like fire up an engine, the special report show that they were
not yet ready to put on the air, but they're, you know, Fox is kind of, it was a startup to begin
with. They're like, let's fucking do it. You know? So they did it and the show is still going strong
and now hosted by our friend, Brett Baer. Anyway, Matt Drudge got that whole thing started. And I
see in the piece, Michael Isikoff, who writes for Newsweek, who actually had the story but was told by his publisher, Newsweek, to hold it.
He's kind of like, he didn't really break it.
You know, I broke the piece about being investigated by the Justice Department for a lot, you know.
But it really was a Matt Drudge thing.
Well, Matt Drudge pushed it into the open in a way that Newsweek was hesitant to do.
There were lots of details swirling around at this time.
And yeah, in the finer points,
Isikoff had quite a few scoops
and he's a fantastic reporter.
He's now at Yahoo News.
But the point with Drudge
was that Drudge made this story impossible to ignore.
There was no more, hey, should we hold this story?
Should we check it?
Everyone had to run after the story.
Television shows had to be launched.
You know, it thrust the ships to war, as it were, in a way that might not have happened
in such an abrupt way.
It could have been a little drip, drip leak here.
We don't we don't exactly know.
But what it certainly did was put legacy news organizations on their toes.
And they realize in the internet age, if we don't break this, somebody else will. And I think it
pushed us into a digital era that we were in a different universe before Drudge broke this.
And for that- You could tell the biography of Matt Drudge,
game changer. I mean, you really could. It could just be called Game Changer because he really has been.
Here's Isikoff from the podcast.
This is a clip from episode two, Finding Matt Drudge, where Isikoff talks about it all.
Take a listen.
You had the scoop and why was it not run?
Why was it delayed?
Basically, they were nervous.
I mean, the editors,
you know, this was like they wanted to know everything. But like, wait a second, like, you know, can we really report that Clinton, you know, has been having an affair with an intern?
The story was going to come out. It's a question of how and when, right? But the
fundamentals were already there. It was just too explosive. They couldn't handle it. It was too big
to report. Well done. So, I mean, kudos to him because he did do great reporting on it. It was
just Newsweek that didn't have the appetite. And so that's the thing about Drudge because he puts up
the red siren above the Drudge report and everyone in news is like, holy shit, Drudge has got the
siren up. We all have to pay attention. And one day he did that involving yours truly. And this would lead to my encounter with him.
So it was 2013 and my son Thatcher had just been born in July.
And I had struck a deal with Roger Ailes to, when I returned from maternity leave,
join the Fox News primetime and take over the 9 p.m. spot.
And it was to be kept secret. I certainly wasn't going
to blab it to anyone. I didn't want to screw up my own career or cross my boss in that way.
And I was online one day in our little townhouse we had, and boom, there was the news on the Drudge
Report. And I remember it like, holy, oh my God, like, how does he know? Because I knew and Roger knew and almost
nobody else knew. And, uh, it says something like Megan to prime time. And I never found out,
but shortly thereafter, it's so it must've been, you know, between 13 and 17. Cause that's when I
left Fox. I saw Matt, Matt Drudge in the green room outside of Sean Hannity studio on a night. He, he,
I think he was going on Hannity. And, uh, I said, Matt Drudge, like, how you doing? I said,
someday you're going to have to tell me who told you that news. And he said, I promise you someday I will tell you. And that, then I haven't seen him again. So I'm really kind of hoping that someday it was like
maybe after the person dies, he didn't tell me what the condition would be, but he felt like he
was in a position to actually at some point share it with me, which I'd love to know if he gets back
to me, you know, I'll let you know. But anyway, uh, it's just another testament of how he gets
stuff. No one has. Yeah, he, he is remarkable at that. And I think Chris, in one of. Yeah, he is remarkable at that.
And I think, Chris, in one of the episodes, I believe it talks about how Trump secretly
would have things leaked to him after telling people, you know, don't don't leak this anywhere.
Keep this secret.
But when the doors are shut, he would have someone give it give it over to Drudge.
In part to curry favor with with someone he viewed as so influential, who which is Matt Drudge, and which is why from the
very beginning of his campaign, as Chris mentioned, they tried to court Drudge as a supporter. And
it certainly worked in the beginning. And he would send Drudge personal notes too.
Oh, I'm sorry. Trump would write personal notes to Drudge. He would have the Drudge report.
He does that with all of us.
Yeah. I got one myself. It's on my office desk here. But he would print the Drudge report and
then write little notes like great story, Drudge. You know, I mean, the personal attempt was was
very real going after him. What Donald Trump was sending me when I was in the prime time of Fox,
almost invariably, were stories about himself in the newspaper that he would then sign
and just mail them to me. Okay, thank you. But he would call me also to compliment various
news segments he had seen on the Kelly file. I have one from Trump that says,
Chris, you're a bad reporter. Signed Donald Trump.
With love. Okay, can we just spend one second? Cause we're talking
about Monica Lewinsky and the, and the whole Bill Clinton affair. She's actually back in the news.
You guys see this? She's got this huge spread in L magazine as like the next supermodel.
And these young people over on Tik TOK, et cetera, are reacting to her as though she is a hero.
She's modeling Reformation clothing.
And the young folks today are so incredibly excited about Monica Lewinsky, who for the
young people watching this show is famous, or I do believe the word is infamous, for
having an affair with a married man who happened
to be the president of the United States, whom she admitted to aggressively courting by showing
him her thong and bragged about her quote, presidential knee pads before she had even met
him. Um, so she was excited to go into the white house and get it on with the all too willing
sitting president of the United States. She was outed. One thing led to another. He lied about
an under oath and he was impeached, but not convicted, similar to Trump. And her name became
synonymous with blowjobs. That's what happened. I mean, that's all she gave him. They didn't have
actual conventional sex. And to get a Lewinsky became synonymous with getting a blowjob,
which was embarrassing, I'm sure, for her. But now she's resurfacing as like the new heroine to the young folks today.
I'll give you a sample of one of these TikTokers.
I don't know, 19 or 20, whatever you guys think is better.
It is.
I am not going to lie.
I had zero idea who this woman was.
So I had to do a little bit of research.
And this is Monica Lewinsky.
And she's pretty iconic. So she is the
woman that Bill Clinton had an affair with. The woman where Hillary Clinton got cheated on. But
Reformation basically partnered with Monica Lewinsky and Voter.org to bring awareness with
voting for the election for 2024. So this collab is truly iconic.
The fact that she is promoting voting.
Well, she had a literal affair with Bill Clinton.
Icon.
Legend.
Like, get that bag.
But can we take a moment for the red dress, the red tights?
Like, I know Hillary Clinton is shaking in her boots right now.
Like, I know Bill Clinton is peeping.
Like, he's lurking.
He's like, oh, that's Monica Lewinsky.
She looking absolutely fire pookie. Oh my God. I'm sorry. I'm going to be honest. I prefer
my female heroes to have actually done something heroic for womankind. I, okay. I'm glad Monica
Lewinsky is doing okay, but she's not it. Jamie, thoughts?
Well, first of all, the language just makes me feel old. Collab and get that bag. I mean,
this is a different era. I guess I am getting older. I don't know what to say to that. It's
so bizarre that Monica Lewinsky is being brought out again so many years later.
My only thought is that hopefully that bodes well for the show if people are figuring out
about Monica Lewinsky, maybe drudge podcasts,
but we'll be next up their alley.
I don't get it.
Are we so desperate?
Do we run out of actual heroes, like actual heroines?
There are actual women out there right now
doing great things for America.
I'm glad she's back on her feet.
And I'm glad back in her 2015 special, the black and white thing, she took responsibility for her
terrible decision-making. These were no ordinary mistakes. Yes. Every 22 year old makes mistakes.
These were not ordinary ones. You're having an affair with a sitting president of the United
States while his wife, the first lady's, you know, upstairs and you know and you're jeopardizing the country in a way. This was a huge one.
So she deserved some time on the sidelines. Doesn't mean she should never work again in
her life, but she's not a heroine. This is so weird. I don't get it. Young people seem
desperate to prop up anybody who's been through anything as a hero because they don't allow
themselves to go through anything anymore.
Even the bad words they can't hear.
Discussions about abortion, they need trigger warnings.
Reading the founding documents,
they wanted a trigger warning at the National Archives.
I mean, we could keep going.
So in any event, keep looking.
Go, Monica.
I love that you keep trying to reinvent yourself
and keep coming into the national news every other year saying this is the first time.
But anyway, it all started with Matt Drudge.
So what do you guys make of it now?
Because media over the, what, 20 years that he's been doing this has changed dramatically.
Does he have, I know we talked about number five media and all that, but does he have the same influence now?
Especially given how the Republican Party feels about Trump as he used to?
Well, you mentioned, Megan, that Fox News was always reading him in the studio and everything,
but it wasn't just Fox News. It was all the networks. It was ABC, CBS, NBC, all the reporters,
mainstream left and right. To your question, though, of has he declined a little bit
in his influence? I would say certainly so. The Internet has changed. Drudge is where you used to
go to see the latest news. You would refresh it. You would hit refresh, refresh, refresh to find
something new. But now that's on social media. That's on Twitter X. That's places like that.
And so that has kind of supplanted it a little bit. And also his reporting has kind of slowed down a little bit. It's a lot more aggregation and
fewer scoops than he used to have. But I think it's okay for a site like that to enter a new
season. I'll tell you why I really love going to the Drudge Report is because so much of my media
diet is run by an algorithm. I desperately want a creative, interesting person to find stories for
me to read and say, hey, I think you'll like this. And not because of who you are, but because who I
am, who I am as the editor. And I think that is what is going to make him stand up, that human
touch that he has. Even if he doesn't have the influence that he did maybe 10, 15 years ago,
he still certainly matters. I agree. He's done so much for the news industry, for causes I hold
dear, for the media coverage and media in general, that I'm grateful to the guy. Enigmatic though he
may be, that is kind of part of his allure. You guys can hear more at Finding Matt Drudge,
new podcast available on all platforms. Guys, thanks for being here. Thank you for having us,
Megan. Really appreciate it. All right. And we'll see all of you tomorrow with the latest on the Fannie
Willis hearing. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. you