The Megyn Kelly Show - Smith's Slap Fallout and Dems and Unions Coziness, with Sen. Tim Scott, Arthur Aidala, Mark Eiglarsh, and Lee Smith | Ep. 289

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina to talk about Biden's massive new budget, policing in America today, the economy and inflation, coziness between unions and Democrats at the expense of kids and workers, how Biden's handling the Ukraine crisis, journalistic objectivity, the Supreme Court and Ketanji Brown Jackson's possible confirmation, and more. Then it's Kelly's Court with Arthur Aidala and Mark Eiglarsh, talking a possible Will Smith slap-related lawsuit, what the Will Smith punishment should be, Hunter Biden's legal troubles (and whether it could implicate President Biden), Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, and more. Plus, journalist and author Lee Smith on the latest in Ukraine, China's influence and how the Iran Deal will empower Russia, and Megyn reacts to crazy leaked videos of Disney executives.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Florida's controversial bill that critics have dubbed the don't say gay bill has now been signed into law. But the firestorm is far from over. Meanwhile, Democrats are doing all they can to prevent a red wave this November and beyond, while President Biden has now introduced his massive budget. I'm excited to speak about all of this with my first guest, who's making his debut appearance on this particular show. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is here. Senator, great to have you. Thank you, Megan. Good to be with you. Hope you're doing well. All right.

I'm doing great. So, I mean, I have my glasses on today because I'm getting LASIK in two weeks and I'm excited about it, so you can't wear a context. Congratulations. But I almost wish I couldn't see the numbers next to this budget. It's huge. It's huge. 5.8 trillion. All I can think is so much spending. And you explain to me what this is about, because as I understand it, mostly spending proposals and tax hikes, President Biden tried to get through before and failed to. And now he seems to trying to be improve his chances of getting what he wants with a few carrots to Republicans like, oh, more defense spending and more funding for cops because he

needs a win before the midterm elections. Well, Megan, you hit the nail on the head. The bottom line is that this is a messaging bill for election years. This is not what will happen. This is what he wants the American people to hear about, not actually what he's going to accomplish. The truth is that, yes, I would love to see more military spending. We desperately need it, especially in the face of global challenges around the world. And frankly, you think about the genocide led by Putin in Ukraine. Certainly, we should have more resources. We should be able to be in two places at the same time from a military standpoint. Second, I'd say that after defunding the police, after that strategy literally took millions upon millions of dollars out of the pockets of law enforcement agencies, making officers more vulnerable. Certainly, we should have a

conversation. I've been having that conversation with the Democrats for several years. They prefer the issue than the solution. So, outside of those two very important issues, messaging, messaging, messaging. And I don't know that he's actually interested in getting something done. If he was, he would be at the table with folks like myself working on police reform for the last three years, at least seven years since I first started working on the issue. And the Democrats have literally stiffed on me, literally the stiff arm. And so I got to just say, it is refreshing to have a conversation with someone who understands and appreciates the necessity of common sense and the American people leading

first. And that is not the conversation that the Biden administration is having with anyone. Yeah, that's right. And the thing about the police really, that caught my attention to more than 32 billion he's proposing and spending to fight crime here at home, $20.6 billion at justice, another $3.2 billion for state and local law enforcement grants for hiring cops. My note in my own outline reads, how about you stop making it totally you're trying to tie their hands behind their backs on virtually every aspect of their job, not to mention the constant public shaming. Well, Megan, let me just hit on that point, because that's such an important point. Police officers today are literally being shamed in streets, pushed around. They are having more violence against them than in the history of the country.

In the last two years, what we've seen, Megan, is a 70% increase in officers being shot. Let's just think about what that means to the officer running into danger without feeling like the government is behind them. In big blue cities all across this country, homicide rates are up nearly 50%, if not higher. And yet officers are being shot 70% increase in officers being shot in the last two years. Put those two statistics together, it's an ugly reality for people growing up in poverty

and in communities living on the margins like the one I grew up. I can't imagine anything worse than 80 percent plus African-Americans agree with me on recent polling. They want more policing or the same level of policing in their neighborhoods. You don't get there by defunding the police, by shaming the police and by taking away the necessary qualified immunity that keeps them at work and able to defend themselves. This is just asinine. And frankly, there aren't Democrats who actually support the president's move for more funding for the police because they've been running in the opposite direction for the last half decade. So this is not only a reversal, this is simply a political reversal, not an actual reversal. And that's shameful, to be honest with you.

Without any accountability for those dead cops or dead citizens who had to suffer the consequences of the defunding of the cops. As you point out, many of whom live in African-American communities and haven't wanted this from the beginning, but they're the ones suffering and having lost loved ones. And now we're supposed to pretend they never had these positions. And Megan, to that point, think about the increase nationwide. Homicides are up in the last two years by about 44%. 85% of that increase are African-Americans and Hispanics being killed. So when you talk about separating the issue of funding the police and community peace, it's not a binary choice.

If you want to do one, it relates to the importance of making sure our officers are as safe and as prepared as possible to do the work. And that will always translate into safer communities on a consistent basis. That's the history of our country. We've gotten better, not worse, until we started seeing this defund the police actually get traction around the country. And now they're quietly trying to walk it back. Let's talk about a little bit more on the money front, because I know you've been sounding the alarm in this record inflation.

And now some analysts are predicting it's going to go up to 9% soon, 9% within the next couple of months. I mean, that's just so eye-popping um but in the meantime his plan seems to be to quote tax the rich okay that's always the rich is always it always feels good when it's the rich as long as it's not you you know are you not in the rich and the problem with the rich is it always trickles down to the not rich at some point the thing about the the taxing uh of this rate that two things that i wanted to raise with you he wants the corporate tax rate to go from 21 to 28 which i think makes us uncompetitive with our with our

sort of fellow g6 countries um who are more like 22 corporate tax rate uh plus i don't know that it's what small businesses need or businesses need in america right now is extra taxes they're suffering too a lot of them not like jeff bezos but like the more the smaller businesses but secondly what about this proposal to tax unrealized gains he wants the super rich 100 millionaires or more i mean if you have 100 million or more to pay taxes on like if their stocks go up um they got they have to pay the tax on the unrealized gains, even if then the next week the taxes go down and those unrealized gains are now losses. Yes. Megan, you asked two very important questions. Let me just say it simply. The president and his administration fundamentally misunderstands the

American economy. They obviously have not spent any time working in the private sector. 50 years in the government is not good for understanding how the real world works. Kitchen table economists, also known as moms around the country, get this better than anybody else. Corporations write the check, but people pay the tax. That's something we should always remember. So when you take the tax from 21% to 28%, you're only increasing by about a third the burden on everyday people who are buying those products. Number one. Number two, as you said, accordingly to our competitors, G6 or OECD countries, a 28% tax makes us completely uncompetitive. 22% makes you mediocre. There are countries today that are trying to get into the teens in their corporate tax rate. That

means that we're heading in the wrong direction. And then the second part, really important part, Never, ever in American history have we seen a tax on an unrealized gain. So you say you sell something and you make a profit, we tax you on that. This is suggesting, well, if it goes up in value, we're going to tax it. Well, like you said, what happens when it goes down in value the next day, the next month, the next year? That is a ridiculous nightmare. Unlike most people, this administration thinks that empowering the IRS to have more time on your kitchen table is a good thing. That's a terrible idea. away the 20% haircut that we gave small businesses in the 2017 tax cut so that they would hire more people and invest in more equipment, taking that away only slows the growth of this economy. We can't do that. And this administration simply doesn't understand what the real world in the private sector looks like and how it functions.

It's kind of crazy because they don't have to look back that far in history. You know, the beginning of the Trump administration to see what policies were making the economy really cruise along and lowering unemployment, putting more money back in people's pockets. And what we saw under the Trump administration is when you lower the corporate tax rates, the economy does very well and the American employee does very well. And some of these targeted groups that they want to vote for them in November do very well. But it's just an ideological commitment to spending and taxing, spending and taxing. And that is unions. And I know you've done a lot on this and are actually doing sending edits to the CDC on school reopening guidance in a way we didn't know. We knew that there had been coordination prior, and now we learned that it was much more, I don't know, incestuous than I would like, sending that their AFT's senior director of health was emailing the

CDC director, wanting the following line included in the reopening guidance for schools, quote, in the event high community transmission results from a new variant, a new update of these guidelines may be necessary. In other words, paving the way for more school closures directly from the unions. I mean, once again, more proof they care way more about their teachers than they do about the students, which we've known for a very long time. They need to be in school. Your thoughts on it? Well, there's no doubt that the Democrat Party and especially the progressive wing, I'm not sure that there's actually a difference anymore, has been wed to the labor unions more than they have to the to the kids. So big labor is more important than little kids.

And that manifests in multiple ways. The mandates that you're talking about and the writing of policies from the CDC because of this intimate connection with big labor union is a massive problem for the little kids and their parents. One of the reasons why we are the party of parents is we want to make sure that parents are much more in charge of the education pathways of their parents. One of the reasons why we are the party of parents is we want to make sure that parents are much more in charge of the education pathways of their kids. What stands in the way of that? Big labor unions in education. Example, in Chicago, while we're seeing kids not having to wear a mask around the country, in Chicago, the teachers union is literally signing contracts that requires what they want, not what OSHA and the courts have said. So we see that all over the nation, but that is a

spotlight on the power of the labor unions in education. And it's something that has to be broken. It's one of the reasons why, Megan, for the first time, at least in my lifetime, African-American support of school choice is over 70%. Hispanics, around 77%. Working class families, 80%. Something is fundamentally broken in education, and the parents want to be responsible for their kids and hold big labor unions accountable for the misdirection of America's education system. I mean, I know that one of these unions donated something like a million dollars to the Democratic super PAC, but the numbers have got to be huge. They've got to be way bigger than that for the Democrats. 700 million plus.

This beholden. Okay. OK, so. Well over seven hundred million dollars come from labor unions. What the NRA used to be to the GOP, and I realize the NRA has lost some of its power. That's what the unions are to the Democrats. I mean, that's because I think to myself, why? Why are they so beholden to this group of people who, you know, when you see the voters saying we want to be able to fire bad teachers and we don't necessarily want the agendas of Randy Weingarten. And we definitely don't want to be forced to join a union if we decide to become teachers. But we have to in a lot of the right. So when you see that pushback, you think, why?

Why are the Democrats so beholden to them? And it's just sheer cash. Absolutely. Ninety percent of labor union spending on politics, on elections, go to Democrats. Now, interestingly enough, Megan, about 40 to 45% of the members of unions vote for Republicans. So they literally have no control over how their dues are being spent. why in my Employees' Rights Act, the legislation that I've sponsored, we're trying to make sure that we empower the union members to decide whether or not you can use their dues for elections, whether you have to maintain the union if after a few years you haven't had a vote. We want to make sure that the workers of the future are in charge of the workplace. And what the Democrats want is centralized control of every facet of your life to include your workplace. That's the wrong direction for America. That's going backwards, not to our future. The latest polling on President Biden shows the American public

doesn't have a lot of faith in the leadership he's showing and the direction he's taking the country. And some of these issues we're discussing are on the list of what they don't like. Just to bring you up to speed, the audience, the latest NBC News poll shows he has an approval rating of 40%. The erosion in his approval rating has been across the board among key demographic groups. Black respondents have gone from 64% approval in January to 62 now. Women from 51% approval to 44 now. Latinos from 48 to 39 now, independents from 36 to 32 now. All these issues factor in. One of the issues, of course, is also Ukraine. Seven in 10 Americans expressing low confidence of his ability to deal with Russia's invasion. How do you think it's going, his response to Ukraine, and how could we be doing better? Well, the answer are basically two words,

Biden blunders. On the Ukraine front and on the global stage, I haven't seen this number of missteps in a row in my lifetime by a United States president. The American presidency is ultimately the platinum standard of leadership. And now it might be copper because literally we've lost a lot of the shine on the leadership posture that we have held in this world for my entire lifetime. It cannot be going much worse for the administration as it relates to their inability to make a decision and stick with it. He says one thing, a secretary of state says something else. President said something, vice president said something else. But here's what the Ukrainian people, the liberty-loving, freedom-defending people of Ukraine want. They want the resources to defend their nation. And too often, our president has been slow in delivering the

resources and the weapons they need to do the work. I think they can actually win this conflict. The administration refuses to acknowledge that there's a chance that they could win. And so when it comes to swift bank sanctions, instead of sanctioning 80% of the banks, he should have already sanctioned them all. Energy sanctions, this should have been on the table from day one, and it has not even entered into the conversation seriously in the administration. But Congress, we are seriously looking at those steps. Also, Zelensky, President Zelensky said it so well when he said, there are too many jets on earth and not enough in the sky. What he was saying is if you won't give me a no-fly zone,

and frankly, I'm not sending American troops there personally if I had a vote, but I would give him the jets so that he can create his own no-fly zone by having the air power to defend his space. Why the president has been shuffling his feet on this important topic, I have no idea. And real-time intelligence, if he knew where the targets were real-time, this could be a very different conflict. You know, the pushback on the jets is that's essentially, you know, Russia's already said we're going to see that as the United States sending jets in World War Three. Well, there's no question that the Russians continue to look for a reason to talk about escalation. The fact of the matter is every time President Biden takes a step back, the Russians and Putin take a step forward.

There are very, very few things that we can do to stop de-escalation. Giving the Ukrainians the resources and the weapons necessary to do so is one of the things I believe that Putin would respond to. He's a thug. He responds to power. Without that, he doesn't respond at all. So when you tell President Putin, here are some areas that you should not actually have cyber attacks, well, that's telling him exactly where to hit. We need American strength now more than ever. And we see that by a president who's willing to stand toe to toe and say no more. Here came out in an interview, I think it was yesterday, saying now's the time for Vladimir Putin to release whatever he has on Hunter Biden and the Hunter and the Biden family with respect to this Hunter corruption probe that we now know the DOJ is in the midst of. And, you know, this this guy could be arrested.

Hunter Biden could be potentially facing criminal charges. And now there's questions about how linked it is to our sitting president, whether he's been compromised by his son's financial dealings and so on. It's all being investigated. President Trump's critics, no surprise to you, are slamming him for appealing to Vladimir Putin at a time like this to release dirt on Hunter Biden. Do you think it was out of line? And what do you make of the newest information on the Hunter Biden probe? Well, we should thank New York Post for leading on this charge during the election cycle. The truth of the matter is that the American people deserve to know what is in those emails. We should have the ability to understand and appreciate perhaps any negative information that any country has against the sitting president of the United States, son and family, or the president himself. So, I do think that more information on this is incredibly important.

As it relates to asking for the information from President Putin, I would not recommend that. I do believe that without any question that the emails themselves are now available. The DOJ is doing the work. We need to see that work finished and understand that that is the right direction for our country. Yeah, it's an interesting point because one Trump's specific demand was that that allegation that the former, the wife of the late mayor of Moscow paid Hunter Biden some millions of dollars. And he wants that investigating wants the proof one way or the other. And of course, the media's response is a big yawn like, oh, this has been looked at.

No, it hasn't. It actually hasn't because the media won't do its job. Now, behind the scenes, the DOJ is apparently starting to get interested. But so far, the media has paid no attention to this. Well, Megan, to your point, the media has been whitewashing the Biden family for a very long time. This administration benefits from literally no bad coverage. And what the American people want from the media is objectivity. Thank God for your show. Thank God that you call balls and strikes, that you're not interested in choosing a side. You're interested in right versus wrong, not left versus right. That's a position

we would love all the media to take. It would give us confidence as the American people when we're making decisions about really important conversations. And frankly, without objectivity in the media, who do you believe? You try to figure it out on your own. And that's very difficult in today's environment. I hope that people like yourself continue to provide objectivity when I like it and when I don't, because at least then we're having a serious conversation about the issues that matter. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I do say things that my audience, I know they don't like, but I think they know I'm not his broker, you know, I'm not his pocket and that we need that because so much of the media cannot say the same. All right, quick couple of hits on other things.

I know that you're not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but we just learned that Susan Collins of Maine says she will vote yes for Ketanji Brown Jackson. Not a huge surprise. I mean, it used to be that unless the nominee were a complete lunatic, everybody would vote yes. I mean, the standard was pretty low once once nominated for voting yes. Now it's gotten much more partisan. But, but do you have any idea how you're going to vote when it goes to the full Senate? Megan, my staff, we are still doing all the research we can on not only her rulings as a judge, but also how the superior courts have overturned her rulings. That's the area that gives me some pause. She obviously is a smart, bright, likable person. But the truth is, I'm more interested in her judicial philosophy than I am her personal temperament.

If you can play the two together, you can come to some easy conclusions. If you separate the two, it's a harder fact-finding mission that I'm on that will lead me to the best decision on how I'm going to vote for her. What did you make of the Cory Booker, you know, Spartacus moment where he had a Spartacus moment with Kavanaugh? I'm Spartacus. I'm releasing the documents. Hello. We've all already seen them. They've been released. This time it was this sort of Oprah-esque moment with this very distinguished jurist, like you're good enough, you're smart enough. And gosh, darn it, people like I mean, it was really kind of with the tea. I don't he's so over the top. But what did you make of that? Well, listen, I think he was certainly very passionate about supporting

the first African-American female to possibly serve on the bench. And frankly, I think that's a sign of American progress that we have such diversity and contention for the highest offices in our land, including our court. But more importantly to me than the color of one's skin or your gender, it's the content. It's how will you judge Americans fairly going forward? Are you prejudiced by your own philosophical disposition or not? And to me, that matters more than what you look like. And I catch a lot of challenging comments sometimes for that comment. But the truth is, I'm willing to stand for America, even if it requires me to stand in a different position than people that I respect. I just don't appreciate some of the

rulings that I've seen. Yeah. All right. I know you got to go, but I got to ask you about 2024 because Donald Trump has basically suggested if he runs again, it will not be with Mike Pence as his number two. And you are often mentioned not just as a potential presidential candidate if he does not run, but as a very possible vice presidential running mate with President Trump, would you would you accept the post if offered? That's a great question, Megan. As you probably know, I'm up for reelection right now. And as a fan of the SEC, the best football conference in college football, the best thing to do is win Saturday and then discover what's

beyond it after Saturday's game. And I have a Saturday game, so I'm not that interested in talking about presidential politics. I do hope that we win the majorities in the Senate and the House this cycle so that we have a great contrast based on principles why the American people should take a second look at the great opportunity party. All right. Now, great opportunity party. I like that. Now, I don't understand any of the sports references you just made, but I think that was neither a yes nor a no. So you're keeping the door open. That's going to be my headline for it. What a pleasure. It's so nice to speak with you again, Senator Scott. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Megan. Thank you. And thank you once again, sincerely, for your show. I like objectivity, and it is something that is missing in media. So I'm very passionate about following people who lead us in the right direction and not in their direction. Oh, I appreciate it. It's an honor. Yes, ma'am. God bless. Take care. All right. So coming up, we are going to dig into the very latest on Ukraine with a journalist who's been pushing back on a lot of these sort of mainstream narratives. His name is Lee Smith, and he's also just done a five part series for our pals over at The Daily Wire on China and its immense influence in so many areas of America

that you may not even realize. So he is going to be fascinating. Stay tuned for that. Joining us now to discuss the latest on Ukraine is journalist, author, and narrator of the brand new Daily Wire investigative docuseries, The Enemy Within, which is all about China. Lee Smith. Welcome, Lee. So good to have you here. Megan, thank you very much for inviting me on today. I really appreciate it. It'll be a pleasure, I'm sure, speaking to you. Oh, I can't wait. I really want to get into the China stuff. I mean, I love what you've been saying and writing on Ukraine, but I'm into the China thing too. Okay, so Ukraine, the latest today, this is from the New York Times reporting, is that they've achieved their, quote, most significant progress yet in peace negotiations.

As of yesterday, Moscow promising to reduce, proposing that negotiations about the status of Crimea, which is the Ukrainian peninsula Moscow seized in 2014, might be conducted over a 15-year period with Ukraine refraining from trying to take the peninsula back by force. On and on it goes. That's somewhat of a glimmer. That's a glimmer. I'll take it. Take a glimmer in the midst of the past six weeks where there hasn't been much. knows because the russians can't be trusted on their promises and both sides are in the midst of spewing propaganda to us which is one of the points you've been making it's such a great frustration lee i was on spring break over the past two weeks i literally heard like on tucker he's got the general that who

he loves saying it's over russia's won then i listened to my pals over a commentary uh which is a you know right wing podcast more but they they're open neocons um saying ukraine's winning right so like what what right like these are technically people who are on the same side of the political aisle who cannot agree even just on the facts. And there's a reason we can't agree on the facts, which is we're being shoveled a bunch of B.S. from virtually every corner. Right. Well, look, I mean, it makes sense that we're getting propaganda from Moscow and propaganda from Kiev. These both of these parties are at war. And, you know, we all know the old expressions that truth is the first casualty of war. So war propaganda is to be expected coming out of these two countries, out of these two sides. One of the issues that I was trying to get at in that article that you kindly mentioned is that why do we have so much propaganda coming from American officials, coming from our press, it's very hard to figure out

what's going on. And one of the main issues is this. I think that a lot of Americans are sitting at home, especially a lot of Trump supporters. They're sitting at home and they see the same figures showing up on TV, the same figures who pushed Russiagate, the Russia collusion narrative. They see the same figures who were responsible, who testified in the House impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. And these are the people that were expected to believe to be telling the truth about what's happening in Russia and Ukraine. And that's the essential point. Why isn't the American public getting a clear picture? And the idea that that now we have a lot of officials and I'm sure you've seen this, Megan, as well, both on, you know, both in the media and to be asking questions about what's going on, to not be clear about what's going on, and to have been misled for six years by the same people who are now calling them pro-Putin, it's very bad for the country. It's very bad for our political

discourse, which was polluted by Russiagate, right? And so now we're seeing some of the wages of Russiagate. It wasn't just a political scandal within the Beltway. It was also a national security issue. And now we're seeing how it's affected our national security establishment and how it's affecting how Americans live and speak with each other and understand the world abroad. You're being kind in saying that these folks have been lying to us for six years, right? Like, look back at the Afghanistan papers and all the lies they told us about that, not to mention Iraq.

You know, we could spend the whole week talking about those misleadings. You're absolutely right. I'm just speaking specifically, the same people who were saying Putin, Putin, Putin, and Trump. these are the same people who are now like one of Obama's former ambassadors to Russia, Michael McFaul. I mean, this was a guy who was pushing Trump, Putin, the collusion narrative for six years. And now he's a guy that's coming on and trying to explain what Vladimir Putin is up to. In normal circumstances, this would be very important, right? The idea that a former ambassador, a former American ambassador to Moscow could provide genuine insight into what's really happening. But these clowns squandered their credibility

by lying specifically about these issues for the last six years. So let me ask you, I mean, I'll disclose that I like Mike McFaul because I know him personally a little bit. And I got to know him before my interviews of Putin when I was at NBC. I don't I take your point. Russiagate was made up. There was no truth to it. And in fact, the whole thing was generated by Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, which the media had absolutely no interest in investigating at the time or now, even post Trump's presidency. It just like didn't happen. But I don't know whether you can say people like that were actively misleading. My belief is, and it could be my own naivete, and this is not necessarily true of like a James Clapper, but my belief is that they just have such a negative view of back in Russiagate, certainly Vladimir Putin, but way more than that, Donald Trump, more than Putin, Donald Trump, that like they believed it because they needed to believe it. It was easy for them to believe.

And some of that same dynamic colors their commentary today. I mean, unfortunately, I think there are millions of Americans who are left to believe that Donald Trump is controlled by Vladimir Putin. And I imagine for several generations, this will be taught in schools in blue areas around the country. And it's a tragedy for the country, this amount of misinformation. But I think that people who really have some expertise in the subject, that they would understand what reality really looks like and what they were, was not reality, it was a political operation that's done tremendous damage to the United States. And now we see part of it, Americans should understand what's happening in Eastern Europe. I mean, this is a major land war, right? This threatens to and I'll just say something about China right now, that what we're seeing in Eastern Europe now is the rise of a new order,

right, which includes Russia. It includes China as well. We see that China and the Russians are partnered. It also includes Iran, because there's something very important happening here. While Joe Biden and while the Biden administration is digging in hard on Putin regarding Ukraine. In Vienna, Biden team negotiators are dealing with Russian negotiators over the Iran nuclear deal. So while we're talking about or what the Biden team is talking about sanctioning Russia and going hard on Putin, what the Iran deal will do, it will flood Putin's war chest. It will flood them with billions of dollars and will turn Iran into an arms client for Russia, as well as for China. And it will turn Iran into a nuclear client for Russia as well. So this is really one of the major things that we're seeing happening in

Eastern Europe now, the rise of this new anti-US order. And that's why it's so important for experts, whether it's on CNN or MSNBC or Fox or wherever, to not spend their credibility so lavishly, because it really is important for the American public, American voters to understand what's happening right now. Why do you think that the, I mean, it's really's really the Obama Biden sort of duet? Why do they want this this Iran deal so badly? I mean, it's like Trump got us out of it. Why? Why? Especially given that we need Russia to make it happen. Why now wouldn't we be like, you know what, we're going to table that, you know, because we all know it's not actually going to stop Iran from getting the bomb. In fact, most people think exactly the opposite. So why?

Why are they so dead set on continuing this pursuit? I mean, I think there are a couple of reasons. I mean, I think that one of the things that, you know, you put it very well, Obama and Biden, sort of the Obama-Biden faction of the American, you know, the American political establishment, I think that what they wanted to do was they wanted to realign, right? They wanted to realign American interests in the Middle East. And they were tilting against traditional American allies like Saudi Arabia, like Israel, in order to embrace Iran. And why they wanted to do that is very peculiar. Because our relationship with Saudi Arabia, almost 80-year relationship with Saudi

Arabia has been one of the engines of American prosperity. The idea that we've been tied to the world's greatest producer of oil in Saudi Arabia. And believe me, I know that there are plenty of problems with our relationship with Saudi Arabia and plenty of problems also with Saudi Arabia itself. But the idea of throwing away this relationship in exchange for a terror state, it's a terrible thing what's going on. And you're right. It's not going to stop them from getting a bomb. And what I try to explain to people, because, you know, a lot of the technical details are very difficult. So different friends who aren't obsessive lunatics like I am, I say, just look at the idea of the sunset clauses. What the sunset clauses mean is the different restrictions on Iran will expire over time. And once they've expired,

Iran's nuclear weapons program will be entirely legal. It's now under the protection of the US security umbrella, in terms of in terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That's what they're doing. They need to make sure that Iran is going to get the bomb quickly. Because one of the things that the Biden administration has to deal with is the fact that when Donald Trump came in, and he withdrew from the deal, the Iranians were very upset about that. And so there is no way to stop a next Republican president, whether it's Donald Trump in 2024 or someone else or someone else in 2028. There's no way to write in prohibitions against an American president getting out of it. So what are they going to do? They have to ensure that Iran gets the bomb, which is terrible. It's terrible news. And again, this rising order that we're

seeing in Eastern Europe, Iran is a part of that because we see Iran's relations with Russia, and we see Iran's relations with China, China and Russia. So it's really a momentous time looking at it with some sort of historical distance. But we are living in the middle of it. And it threatens our peace and prosperity. And China, meantime, so the third sort of pole of this triumvirate, is just mercenary in every transaction it approaches, right? It's just like, we're going to make money. We're going to exploit you. We're going to take over large factions of your community, even though we're going to lead you to believe

it'll be exactly the opposite. You can influence us. We'll have a partnership. It'll be mutually beneficial. And then before you know it, they're everywhere. They're ubiquitous. And this is one of the sort of points of focus of your five-part series for The Daily Wire.

Tell us about it. Thank you. We had an author from The Wall Street Journal on recently talking about how the Chinese have completely taken over Hollywood and how every movie you see now has been cleared essentially by the Chinese or at least would be acceptable to the Chinese and has pro China propaganda and often anti-American propaganda, which will please the Chinese. It's insane. But you your look is more expansive. It touches on Hollywood. It's more expansive. Right. Yeah. We look at Hollywood. We look at we look at Anthony Fauci and his dealings with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We look at the Biden, the Biden family and the Biden administration. We also look at American universities. We look at the media.

We really cover a lot of stuff. We look at the NBA and LeBron James, a whole bunch of different things. I think the important issue and what I really want viewers of that series to come away with is that the most important thing is this, is that it's our own ruling class, our own leadership that has done this. The biggest part of China's messaging operation is this. We are too big. We are too inevitable. We're a 5,000-year-old civilization. We refer to it as the Middle Kingdom.

Nothing can stop us. What's happened in the United States is that we've opened the door to the Chinese. Every industry. I'm sure you've had the same experience as I have ship out all of American manufacturing to China? It's disastrous. Pharmaceuticals, everything is manufactured in China right now. And if you look at how the American university system is so dependent on Chinese students, we talk about Chinese espionage and how the DOJ and the FBI is running them down. I'm sure you saw that the DOJ canceled this program where they were looking at Chinese espionage within the United States. And the

Chinese foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy in Washington boasted of having told the Biden administration, this is racist and it's terrible. You have to get rid of it. The fact is this, there are only 13,000 FBI agents in the United States. Let's say they're doing their job. There are hundreds of thousands of Chinese students here, visa holders, hundreds of thousands. The whole system is set up to make it impossible to catch people spying, taking sensitive, in some cases classified information from the United States. It's really the responsibility of our own leadership, of our own political corporate officials, our cultural leaders, because it's not just Hollywood. It's the arts community as well.

As I said before, it's sports. So it really starts right here for Americans to understand what our own leadership is doing and how they're the ones who are betraying us to the Chinese Communist Party. And that's why the series is called The Enemy Within, because that's the fundamental problem. We can't stop what China is doing to the United States until we have our own leadership on our side, on the side of the American public. I mean, if we don't, if we don't, if we change no policies and we don't try to disentangle, what does the United States look like in terms of China's influence? What does the world look like in terms of China's influence in, let's say, 30 years? Well, you know, you mentioned something

before that we thought for many years by granting china most favored nation status and trade that we would influence china and we would make them more democratic what's happened instead it's the habits of autocracy have rubbed off on our leaders everything from desire for social social credit system to a mass state, that's what it will look like. That will get increasingly worse. And one of the things that I try to explain, a lot of people are wondering why so many things are happening, why whether it was turning off Keystone, whether it was vaccine mandates, all these different things, it looks like the people who are governing our country are not working on behalf of the interests of Americans. Why is that? And one explanation is this. They are primarily loyal to their. I'm saying what's important to them is this is the source of their wealth, power and prestige. It's an enormous network. So for us to look at this, we have to understand it from inside into how it came to be and how now some five to six million people are dead worldwide and the total disinterest in getting real answers on that. Lee Smith, thank you so much for being a brave voice out there in the ether who I know you get a lot of pushback, but I love reading you.

I appreciate it. That's very kind. Thank you so much, Megan. And thanks again for having me on. You bet. And don't forget, folks, you can find more interviews like the ones we just did with Senator Tim Scott and with Lee Smith on video by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly, or by downloading our show and listening to it as a podcast,

wherever you get your podcasts for free. Chris Ruffo, the one and only guy, he's been invaluable, hasn't he? In this whole critical race theory fight and so on. He got a hold of some absolutely insane comments from Disney's top executives in an internal meeting. And take a listen to one of them. This is Carrie Burke, who is the president of Disney. I'm here as a mother of two queer children, actually, one transgender child and one pansexual child. And also as a leader, one of our execs stood up and said, you know, we only have a handful of queer leads in our content. And I went, what? That can't be true. And I and I and I realized, oh, it actually is true.

And I hope this is a moment where. Shoot, the 50 percent of the tears. Sorry, coming. We don't we just don't allow each other to go backwards. Yeah. So Disney and she have apparently made clear that they are going to be putting as many, you know, the acronym they use now is so long, LGBTQIA2 spirit goes on and on and on all these folks in as many Disney movies as possible. They that they want these characters to become ubiquitous in the Disney movies. And I think that is totally unnecessary and out of line. I don't want you to work out your woke ism on my kid. OK, do a movie

that teaches tolerance, kindness, support for your fellow human beings. Don't shove two spirit people, which, by the way, is not a thing. And pansexual. I don't look it up. You know what that means? It means you're attracted to everybody. So you're bi, I guess. But that's that's not a thing.

That's already a thing. They already have a letter. I'm sorry, but please, all these glommers who just want attention. It's a new thing. Remember the Willow Smith one? And she was like, I'm this thing that means I just I only want to have sex with people I care about. Well, you mean normal? That's normal. Anyway, it's good to know. We owe a debt of gratitude to Carrie Burke for being so explicit about their plans and certainly Chris Rufo for letting us all know about them. Beware. You beware. Don't put a Disney movie on in front of your kid

before you fully come to understand what it's going to be promoting, who it's going to be starring, and what agenda they're pushing. They're no longer the Disney of yesterday. We'll be right back with Kelly's Court. Now it's time for Kelly's Court. Before we get to the guys in Kelly's Court, men on earth want. Then the person I was referring to was actually Andrew Cuomo's daughter who came out and declared herself, quote, queer because she's, quote, demisexual, which means you only have sex with people with whom you have an emotional attachment. And in her case, I would say that is virtually every woman on earth. I mean, it's like, what? Why are these people trying to be like special and declare their sexual preferences and the pansexual, the Demite?

Like, shut up. Just shut up. OK, back to Kelly's court on the docket today. Could Will Smith be prosecuted for slapping Chris Rock, even though Chris Rock himself has declined to press charges? Jim Jim Carrey certainly declined to press charges. Jim Jim Carrey certainly wants to see that. He spoke out about it yesterday. We'll also ask whether Hunter Biden will actually be indicted on his ongoing federal tax probe and whether Clarence Thomas should be forced to recuse himself or even resign as AOC is demanding over his wife's

politics and texts. It has emerged. She sent to Mark Meadows, Trump's Trump's chief of staff during and in the wake of the election challenge and the January 6th Capitol Hill riot. Joining me now to discuss it all, Mark Eilish, a former prosecutor, now criminal defense attorney and Arthur Idalla trial trial attorney. It's got the same pedigree as Mark. And now he's managing partner at Idalla, Bertuna and Kam attorney. It's got the same pedigree as Mark. And now he's managing partner at Idalla, Bertuna and Cayman. It's good to see you guys.

Hey, Meg. And Megan, can I get a dictionary of all those words that you just said about people, sexual or appears number one, I don't know what they mean. And number two, I am so with you.

Like who cares? Like, should Mark be like, I I'm the guy who likes big butts. And I'll be like, I'm the guy who likes big butts and i'll be like i'm the guy who likes big boobs or i'm the guy who likes skinny people or i'm like come on i am i am i am wife i am wife sexual that's it just her okay i'm grooving on that guy who likes big boobs again you mean you're a man it's like i don't leave these people who are trying to act special and

glom on to the actually you you know, sort of LGBTQ crowd. If I were LGBTQ, I'd be mad. I'd be like, you know what? Get out of my lane. You don't get to glom onto my letters. Your thing is not real. Mine is. Nobody's discriminating against somebody who likes to have intimate relations with more than one partner or who will only have sex with people with whom they have an emotional attachment. How about this Michaela Cuomo girl trying to like declare herself in like a protected class because of that?

No, you're not. They want attention. They want attention more than anything else. It's a way to get the camera on them. And look for Ms. Cuomo, maybe it's a way to get the camera off her dad and only on her. But it's, in my opinion, it's ridiculous.

Shut up. Do your own thing. How you do it. And if someone discriminates against you because of it, then bring it to someone's attention. But until there's that that that violation, then go have fun and do it on your own time. Yeah. Keep it to yourself. Yeah.

And I will say that it doesn't matter who you're attracted to. As far as I'm concerned, I love you no matter what. It's OK. Yeah. Honestly, I agree with that. it doesn't matter who you're attracted to as far as i'm concerned i love you no matter what it's okay yeah honestly i like i agree with that but i do think for the record i think michaela cuomo might be demisexual only has sex with people with whom she has an emotional attachment but i think her father is more polyamorous like willow smith meaning he likes intimate relationships with more than one partner at a time okay I'm making my bad guy. Here's my armchair.

Under the circumstances. Let's see how it all plays out, Megan. This is crazy. This is what we're talking about in today's day and age. What I read in the papers. Okay, so speaking of the Smith family, let's go from Willow to Will. And the slap scene round the world. For those of you living under a rock,

Will Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock at the Oscars a couple of nights ago because Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith having her head shaved. She has no hair. And he said, you're looking good for G.I. Jane, too. Something like that, because G.I. Jane was a movie with Demi Moore and she shaved her head to become part of the armed services. Anyway, Will Smith takes the stage. He slaps Chris Rock unprovoked and then he sits back down in the audience and he has keep my wife's name out of your effing mouth. Nobody did anything. Will Smith won best actor. He was celebrated the whole night long. He wound up not apologizing to Chris Rock that night, but to the Academy since then, he said he's apologizing to Chris as well. He's a work in progress.

He's trying to do better. Good job, PR people. That was a better statement. And now there's a real question about whether the LAPD, I guess it would be, should file charges against him, even though Chris Rock says he doesn't want that. He's not filing charges or asking for criminal charges. Mark, what do you make of it? Okay, so let me start off with when I woke up and I read that Chris Rock declined charges to be filed, I was upset. I really wanted Smith to pay for it.

Then my position kind of changed. This is personally, I'll go legally in a second. When I saw his apology, he hit every note he needed to hit in that apology, whether he wrote it or his publicist wrote it or they wrote it together. He said what needed to be said to get me off the ledge. I'm now calm, saying that violence of any kind is poisonous and that his actions were unacceptable because I was most concerned about people looking at this A-list actor and thinking that now we're going back to the 1800s where we're going to have duels to the death and that shows our romantic sides to our wives. Forget it. That's ridiculous. But I think from a legal perspective, you don't bring charges. I don't know the prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. I think that that any reasonable hypothesis like potentially Chris Rock believing that this was acceptable touching, maybe not in the moment, but it wasn't

against his will. It wasn't unlawful. He would need to state that for this to be a provable case. Really? I don't know. We see that all the time, don't we, Arthur, in like domestic violence cases where the woman won't cooperate and they're like, Holly weird. This is Holly weird. It's a little different, Megan. I know, but there's Megan, you're right. That's part of why they might charge him. Go ahead, Arthur. But no, you're correct. It is most typical in domestic violence cases where you have a victim who is so under the control of her assailant and usually dependent, whether that's financially dependent, child care dependent, emotionally dependent, that they don't have the courage to come forward. So law enforcement,

if they have the evidence, so if they've seen it or if it's on tape and they can bring the charges, they will bring the charges, what's called sua sponte, we mean all on their own. But it's not typical in like a street fight of cops roll up on the scene and two guys just had a fight and no one's asking for the other to get arrested. It's not typical for a police officer unless someone is really badly beaten. And here, Mark, I understand what you're saying, but I don't know the depth of their relationship because I keep hearing mixed messages about Chris Rock and Will Smith and how close they are or aren't. But, you know, if if one of my buddies, you know, I emcee a lot of these things. Right. And I rag on people. And if one of my buddies came up and whacked me, I don't think I would want the police

to be involved. I'd want to work it out between the two. Now, of course, there's not hundreds of millions of people, you know, whatever, tens of millions of people watching. So, you know, I don't know if this is a police intervention. I will tell you what my takeaway was. And I agree with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wrote a real rough article about it is it really hurt the black community and the image of the black community that they're fighting and have been fighting so hard to change the narrative. And I can relate to that as an Italian American,

you know, in this fifties and sixties and seventies, when, you know, a lot of people, including my immediate family, to raise the level of what people think of Italians. And then movies like Rocky Balboa and Vinnie Barbarino and Welcome Back Carter and Casino, they just enhance that whole image. Oh, all Italians are this and that. And, you know, I could tell you the black community is really disappointed

that Will Smith and, you know, you have a black on black man. It's it really hurt their mission. I didn't look at it that way. And again, this might be me. And I know that there's others who see it differently. But what I saw and I think think most people saw too, is that hurt people hurt people. I didn't see that. No. Will Smith is deeply hurt. You can just see he's troubled. He was laughing, Mark.

He was laughing at the joke. Did you see him hysterically laughing at the joke before his wife got upset? Arthur, this goes back way before the joke. It's not about the joke before his wife got upset? Arthur, this goes back way before the joke. It's not about the joke. Someone who's going up on stage and smacking him under these terms and conditions, there's a history here. And it also shows you what he's going through,

the pain and what kind of hurt is inside, what he's going through. That all- His wife had an affair because they had an open marriage and his wife went and had an affair. By the way, if it's an open marriage, it's not an affair, right? She too is polyamorous from the sound of it, like the daughter.

Again, into more intimate relationships with more than one partner at a time. But listen, if it's an open marriage, there are all sorts of speculation about whether it's an open marriage on both sides and what his preferences are and so on. Who the hell knows what's going on in their private marriage? But I didn't see somebody who was dealing with personal pain, Mark. I saw somebody who wanted to look like a tough guy, who saw an opportunity to look like a tough guy. Okay, we can go back, I mean, I guess through every decade of his life and say, well, what made him want to act like a tough guy? Who made him feel less than a tough guy that he felt the need to go up into there and act like that? I don't care. I really don't care. I don't care why the prisoners who go to prison do it. And I don't care why Will Smith did it. I feel like, all right,

he did something bad and he should be held to account. They shouldn't take away his Oscar. But I'd like to see some punishment, something with teeth, because it was bullshit. And I continue to look at poor Chris Rock, who was totally humiliated. And I know people don't look at him like, oh, you know, he's humiliated. He's a weakling. He's but you tell me, guys, isn't that how you'd feel? You'd feel humiliated. Somebody like that got up. Will Smith, of all people, one of the biggest stars on Earth smacks you. You don't smack back. You don't even know what to do. And everyone's looking at it. Yeah, here's here's my biggest problem with it. We haven't heard yet from Chris and there's a reason

why. Maybe he wants, again, he's coming to Florida here. I've got tickets for his concert. He wants to sell it out. Maybe he doesn't want to say anything. But the problem is so many of the reports led people to believe, I think erroneously, that he knew of her condition and then chose to make that joke. I'm fairly certain he didn't. And if he didn't, then it's just an honest mistake. That's the problem. Even if he did, even if he did know, it does make the joke, you know, a little bit more of a prick joke, but it doesn't excuse what Will Smith did. It doesn't rise to the level of get smacked.

And two things, Mark, he sold more tickets to his shows yesterday than he did the whole month before. So and I, Megan, you know, he was humiliated for five minutes, but pretty soon thereafter, when he got up there, Wilson, and he's hysterically crying. The narrative changed. Like, you know, he was he was the man who was the gentleman who showed class, who showed dignity. And he's coming out by all accounts as he was the hero. The other thing that went to your point about Will being just a bully, people who I've spoken to in Hollywood, Chris Rock is a relatively slight man physically. He's not known as a tough guy at all. If that was Woody Harrelson up there or Samuel L. Jackson,

or someone who could kick Will's butt back and really push back. Or like the rock. Can you imagine if it were the rock? He wouldn't have gotten up there and done that to the rock. No, no, of course not. I mean,

maybe he would have screamed and you know, as horrible as the smack was when he screamed, especially the second time from the seats, he was absolutely unhinged, unhinged, like spit flying out of his mouth. And I agree with you. There should be some form of discipline. The last words of his statement was, I hope the Academy invites me back. I see nothing wrong at all with them saying you could be nominated for the work you do as an actor, but no, you have lost your privilege, at least

for a period of time, to come back here and attend this award show. Are either of you condoning his arrest? You're not suggesting he should be arrested in spite of No, not at all. I'm condoning he should be thrown out of coming back to that award show.

Anyone else would have been arrested. Anyone else would have been arrested. Yeah, I agree. Anyone else would have been arrested. If it was a non-celebrity, if it was a non-celebrity who went up and smacked Chris Tucker, they would have been arrested on the spot. Like security would have ran on the stage and arrested them right there and then. Okay, but I have to say that the Academy is insane if they don't invite him back next year because their ratings have been plummeting they used to get 40 million now they get 10 million last year this year they got 15 million i guarantee you a that was in part because last year was

covid and the movies hadn't been made and so on but they got a bump for sure out of this when what happened to me probably happened to millions of people where i got a text from a friend saying oh my god did you see what just happened? Then you tune in and they get the ratings bounce if you happen to have a Nielsen box. The numbers went up 550,000. Half a million people immediately got that text. Yeah, so they got 15 million.

Let me finish my point. So they got 15 million. So next year, everybody's going to tune in if he's there waiting to see whether he does something else. I mean, you know he won't, but you got to see him sitting in the audience next year. You would tune in just to see that. I don't know. How do you punish him? You said something with teeth. So what's the teeth that you punish Will Smith? Let's see, like, I don't know. You can't mandate a donation. That's what I'd like to see, like a hefty donation to a worthy cause. What if we made it

big enough 10 million hurts everybody that's like unless you're jeff bezos you feel that um i don't sell a negotiated deal where you he has to make a donation to a worthy cause that you know like helping impoverished children whatever it is but something to make him pay your management programs anger management programs how about that Guys, the harm to me is the message that it sent to so many people and a lot of women who expressed, I wish my man loved me like that. And that somehow it's okay. This is the new normal to act that way. So he needs to do more than just put out that letter of apology, which was a great start. As far as I'm concerned. I wonder what you guys thought about it, but to speak more about how violence of any kind like that is unacceptable and repulsive. I need more of that. I have to tell you, I did not feel the, I did not feel like that's what I,

you know, I want my man to do. I feel like I, one of the things, one of the many things I love about my man is that he is able to control his emotions. And that's what I like in a man. I don't want a man who's overly emotional and like constantly, you know, losing it. He can regulate his own emotions. And he, I can tell you right now, would have had a stern face in response to a joke like that and would have dealt with it man to man behind the scenes later. And I think that's what Will Smith is now wishing he did. I've got to tell you this couple of things. I have a couple soundbites you've got to hear because they're so good. So let's just start with this one. Jim Carrey, he wants he doesn't understand why the cops are not charging him. And he wants Chris Rock to file a civil suit. Here he was speaking to CBS News yesterday.

I was sickened by the standing ovation. I felt like Hollywood is just spineless on mass. And it just, it really felt like, oh, this is a really clear indication that we're not the cool club anymore. They asked Chris, do you want to file charges? And Chris apparently said, no, he did not. He doesn't want to hassle. I had announced this morning that I was suing Will for two hundred million dollars because that video is going to be there forever. It's going to be ubiquitous. You know, that insult is going to last a very long time. You do not have the right to walk up on stage and smack somebody in the face because they said words. Well said, right, Arthur? I mean, what about maybe Chris Rock does come around to the point of filing a civil suit? I doubt it, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. It's definitely not out of the realm. There's actual limitations from filing,

having him arrested or filing a civil suit way down the road. And I think if he's just stays the course, does his shows, Chris Rock, I think he just comes out of this as the bigger man. I mean, his recovery from a professional point of view, his recovery at the award show after getting smacked was nothing short of brilliant. You get smacked that hard physically, you're stunned. Emotionally and psychologically, you're stunned. And I don't even tell you, Megan, you're already a little bit of a nervous wreck standing up in front of the world about to give an award, a very prestigious award. So he took all of that and he really handled it like a pro. And Mark, you know, regarding his apology, Will's apology, you just saw Jim Carrey get on a screen. You've seen other people get on the screen.

If he really genuinely wanted to apologize, even if it was someone else's words, all you do is you hold up your little phone and Instagram and you do it genuinely with looking out at people and saying, I messed up. He's literally just been voted the best actor in America. So do a little acting at a minimum. Look into the camera and recite some lines. You do it really well. That's right. He upstaged himself, by the way. He's such a good actor.

He stole the greatest moment, besides maybe the birth of his children. He stole the greatest moment of his acting career from himself. Yes. Because no one's going to talk about it that he wanted. They're going to talk about this guy's a nut and look what he did. And they stole a lot from Coda, which is a huge movie. It's a, in terms of people with disabilities, that's a game changing movie for them.

I was with a young man last night who's severely disabled physically. And that was his biggest complaint. He's like, this was a movie for my people, my disabled people, not people who like I'm polygamist or this or I'm that people were born without a leg. People were born without a hand. People were born deaf or blind, no fault of their own whatsoever. And no one's talking about that. Wow. A movie really focusing on handicapped individuals is the number one movie. Nope. It's about a slap from a guy who got a standing ovation after the slap. That's what Jim Carrey was saying.

Jim Carrey said that in sort of part two of his interview with Gayle King and was making that point about how he took the limelight away from all of those people who had worked so hard and put so much. And if you look at the ABC website, they don't mention this at all. Like yesterday, this was nowhere. They wrote up the Oscars because that's where it aired. They wrote about all the movies. They didn't write about this at all because clearly they want it to go away.

They're not happy this happened. Yes, it helped ratings, but it embarrassed the rest of the participants and it stole the focus. Let me say this, Mark Eichelarsch. There's one person, Chris Rock may not be commenting but

oj simpson is oh my god yes yes i had to listen to it and you do too here he is no no yes but the question i've been getting is will smith and chris rock hey look it was unfortunate. I think Will was wrong. Look, I understood the feeling. Now, in my life, I've been through a lot of crap when I was raising two young kids. Every comedian in the country had an OJ routine. I don't think I wouldn't want to be slapped a couple of those guys. But you've got to accept it's humor. And I didn't even think that was all that egregious. I thought it was a semi-unfunny joke.

But I don't know. I don't get it. Oh, my God. Megan. Megan. You really gave him his 15 seconds. Please. He's a murderer.

Come on. Take it easy. I hear what you're saying, Arthur. I mean. Come on. Take it easy. I hear what you're saying, Arthur. I mean, come on. I don't need to say anything. It's hard when you murder two people and then the comedians then take shots at you. It makes you want to go like, what? Go finish that sentence, OJ. Do what?

I've been pronouncing the word egregious wrong for my whole life. I didn't realize it's egregious, but okay. I'll fix the way I speak. The thing is this, it was a good joke. Will Smith is laughing at the joke. His wife, who's like a few inches behind him, is rolling her eyes. Then they cut back to Chris Rock, and you don't see whatever interaction happened between husband and wife, but something must have happened because he went from smiling when the camera's on him

to now we go back to Chris, who's about to present the award. And then the explosion, you'll hear him go, uh-oh. And he comes up. So then he saw her face. She must have said something. No, he saw her. She handled it very well. She just sort of expressed her disdain with her face and that was it. And it wasn't even a big face it was just sort of like not cool uh and he saw that and then he decided to have a big man moment make it about himself which you know that's what got us here can i save this before we go apparently there's another incident can we play this it's sound by eight will smith slapping a guy who was out of line totally i guess does this at awards shows on a red carpet went up and kissed him try to kiss Will Smith. Here's that video.

Come on, man. What the hell is your problem, buddy? All right. Hey, sorry. He said kiss me in my mouth. He's joking. He's lucky I ain't sucker punching him. Oh, sorry.

I said that on camera. So for those of you just listening to this, you don't see the actual kiss, but you see Will Smith with the back of his hand smack some guy who tried to kiss him on the cheek again this guy's he's like one of those people who tries to i guess get in the news by doing stuff like this and then will smith went on camera and spoke about it um not long after this is well i guess it's 2018 the incident happened in 2012. In 2018, he spoke about it and about how he was praised for the smack by Jay-Z, who'd been watching it with Beyonce. Listen to this. I was in Russia. It was probably a year and a half, two years ago. I don't know

if y'all remember when one of the reporters tried to kiss me. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I slapped him, right? So I was in Russia. So I get back and I'm pissed that somebody, like, because you famous, they get to do whatever they want to do to you. So I'm in my room and I have 10 urgent messages from Jay-Z. It was like it was such a breath of fresh air to see you just be authentic, right? That's, you know, that's what you were feeling

and that was like one of the first things and i was like because i'm like it was my natural reaction but it was it was like my space i'm from philly like yo but i thought that it would be negative and everything and and in this new yeah social media world it, the authenticity was accepted and respected. Listen, I got his back on that one. Somebody invaded his space. He reacted. Same. Apples to oranges to what he did, where he's essentially saying women need men's protection. They can't stand up on their own. I have to handle this for you. And then he did that. Completely different.

I think it's, it could be used against him in a civil suit, potentially Arthur as like, and you enjoyed the accolades you got from Beyonce and Jay-Z and you enjoyed the accolades you got on social media and you saw an opportunity to get them again. That's how I would do the cross. Well, the thing,

the thing though, about the first slapping, which was like in 2012 is that all happened so quickly. There is no, no gap like there is with Chris Rock and that whole episode. This is because I watched, I was able to find other video. I mean, the guy really tried to like tongue kiss him on the mouth. Yeah. And loser, you know, he just, he just turned around and just like, yeah. And that same guy, I think he's been arrested going after Leonardo DiCaprio and others. Yes. Bradley Cooper too.

Yes. Okay. Bradley Cooper too. And he like backhanded him. He didn't whack him the way he whacked Chris. He just backhanded him and kept going. And you heard what he said. He's looking at him and sucker punching him.

I agree with Mark is right. I mean, it's really apples to oranges. And I know what you're saying. It'd be used as like prior bad acts, but I don't know. His comments about it, his comments about it are more telling than the actual incident. Nobody would fault Will Smith for,

I mean, that guy basically committed an assault on him and unwanted touching assault and battery. Actual assault, right. And then he responded to guys. So that's, that's of course a team will on that, his comments about it i think could be used against him if somebody gets interested in suing him or pursuing him criminally i don't think either of those things should happen but i do think if he's smart he'll hit some

agreement with the academy that has real teeth in it with money for some cause we cannot not some bullshit woke cause that half of us hate i I cannot stop swearing. I've got to find something else to give up for Lent. What's going on with that? I don't I can't. I don't mind swearing, but I gave it up for Lent. You would never know, given the way I talk on this program. That's what you gave up for Lent? I gave up drinking booze. I haven't had a drink in 30 days and I gave up pasta and bread. I've lost 10 pounds. It was a little self-serving, but that's what you give up cursing. It would have been easier for me. I asked if I could sub in something else and I cannot. Go ahead, Mark.

You're probably just cursing because subconsciously you're nervous about your eye surgery coming up. I think that's what it is. Look at you and like hurt people, hurt people. Yeah. Okay. Stand by because there's a lot more to discuss. We've got to get to Hunter Biden and also to these calls that Justice Thomas needs to step down off of hearing any case involving the January 6th riot or the presidential election challenge and so on because of actions by his wife. All right. Let's talk about Hunter Biden. It's getting more interesting. The Wall Street Journal with some in-depth reporting this week on what's actually happening there. And it's not just a matter of this guy who's on drugs, who is just a hot mess. He's he's appeared to cross some legal lines, though that's under investigation. It's the U.S. attorney for Delaware. He worked in this office during both the Bush and the Obama administrations and was nominated to run it by Donald Trump.

So he's been there under Dems, Republicans and so on. This began as a tax inquiry during the Obama administration. And then it widened in 2018 to include possible criminal violations of tax laws, as well as foreign lobbying and money laundering rules that he may have violated. in Europe and China while seeking who were seeking to bolster their credibility at home or gain footholds in the U.S. that the activity accelerated in 2016, the last full year of his father's vice presidential term, and that these foreign tycoons stood to benefit from association with the Biden family name while their money allowed Hunter Biden to maintain a globe trotting lifestyle. I mean, there's like, we knew about the Burisma, this Ukrainian oil and gas company was sitting on the board for 50 grand a month. We knew about that. But it goes on and on about like some company that he was allegedly associated with that got

sweet cars and on and like just cash payments that were rolling in all while Hunter was allegedly peddling the Biden name. You know, you pay me, Arthur, you get access not just to me, you get access to Linda. And Linda is the queen of Del Mar. And if you need to get into, you know, Belusio's, which is an amazing, Bellini's, Linda can set you up, but you just got to pay. You got to pay the daughter first if you want access. So it's like that times about 10 million. If this was a case, I'll speak of what I know. If this was a Southern District of New York case, a federal prosecutor's case here in New York City,

he would definitely be being indicted. The caveat is, you know, being the current son of the current president of the United States, they would definitely want to make sure they have all of their ducks in order. But if he was just a citizen and with the same facts, I mean, I'm representing Rudy Giuliani. They're going after Rudy Giuliani for something very similar, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Now, that's all they're going after Rudy for. It's just,

he didn't fill out a form, but it's no secret. They broke down and break down his door. He opened his door at six o'clock in the morning. He let all the feds in and took all his electronic devices. So they take this stuff very, very seriously. And Megan, I looked into doing my research for Kelly's court. Good man. Some of the allegations and there's a lot of tax situations. So if a company buys you a car, that's income to you,

you need to report that. It doesn't appear that that happened to you. They bought him an electric car called a Fisker, which, you know, ranges from not that expensive for a car to very expensive for a car. I don't know what model he got. And there are other perks along the way and just stuff that doesn't, doesn't smell right. You know, when you're a lobbyist and you know, he's allowed to be a lobbyist if he registers and goes through all the proper channels and says, listen, yes, I do have access to the white house under the Obama administration. My dad happens to be the vice president. That does not mean anyone is going to do anything improper, unethical, illegal, et cetera, et cetera. And here are all these forms that are transparency forms, basically, so people know what I'm doing and here's the money

I'm making. And it can't be contingent on him actually achieving the goal that they want. If you do it the right way, it's not a crime, but it does not appear that he did these things the right way. Whether they'll have the guts to treat him like they would treat a typical citizen, the son of the president of the United States of America, that remains to be seen. Okay. So now Arthur mentions this FARA and whether they're going to charge him under this, like was he lobbying for a foreign country and sort of peddling access. The New York Times has pointed out that Hunter Biden had a familiarity with FARA and a desire to avoid triggering it. There was at least one email in April of 2014 where Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma, again, the Ukrainian oil and gas

company on whose board he sat for 50 grand a month, given his absolutely zero experience in oil gas, I'm sure he was a great contributor contributor that they, quote, need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board. And to me, that just is such a classic CYA. But will it save him, Mark? Well, that becomes a more challenging charge. How about start with the really low hanging fruit?

He makes a certain amount of money. Did he pay taxes on that money? I don't care who your father is. You either pay taxes or you didn't. Then the defense becomes, well, I was knee deep in addiction. My head was all over the place. It wasn't criminal. I thought it was being taken care of when it wasn't, which is why I hear the feds are interviewing people about when he was using drugs, what his state of mind was, because they anticipate that as defense. The second thing, though, is this is

different. Normally, we don't get to go into court and defend someone based upon the fact that this is all political. It starts off with, well, that is a fair argument to make under the circumstances. Now, whether it's true or not, who knows? So the feds really have to have a solid case, which is why I will end with how I started. Go after him for tax evasion if you've got him on that. That doesn't lie. That's not the subject of our group. On the subject of it being political, it's going to be a tough argument to make since this investigation began while his dad was the sitting vice president and then continued under a Republican administration and now has continued while his dad is the sitting – like that's going to be a tough one to make. I don't like that part. But I don't like that, Megan.

I mean you're a lawyer. We're former prosecutors. Like it doesn't take eight years to bring a case like you did it. And we may need some time to do an investigation. But why is it going on through, you know, all of these years that that that doesn't sit well with me regarding how our system is working in this particular case. That's true. But can I ask you a question about the tax evasion, Arthur? Because there are reports now, and I think he's confirmed them, that he paid a million dollars to the feds in back taxes. And the reporting this week was that that was done basically to try to stave off criminal charges. You know, like, I was a bad boy. I was a hot mess. I fixed it. I paid what I owed. And then he had to take out a loan, allegedly, to pay that. Though there are reports he may be worth tens of millions of dollars, unconfirmed by us. So I don't know whether that's true. In any event, he did pay the million dollars in back taxes. So does that end it? If you had a client who came to you being charged with tax

evasion, does that, as a practical matter, put it to bed? Well, you have to cut that deal with the prosecutor, right? That's what we called prosecutorial discretion. So of course, that's the goal I'm trying to achieve. After I sit with his accountant and a forensic accountant, we find out, okay, yeah, he definitely owes this money. I then go in and try to use my bald head and charm and say, look, he's going to borrow money from grandma and grandpa and uncle and aunt, and he's going to pay all this money back now. Yes, he was addicted to drugs. Yes, he didn't know what he was doing. I could verify that. I have documentation about all of that. This was not an intentional act. It was a negligent act at worst. And he's got the money to pay back the government. So why don't we save everyone's time, effort, and energy? And you can order them every year for the next decade to make sure it doesn't happen again. But let's not bring a criminal prosecution and you pray that it works. And as the prosecutor, I say, I love your bald head and I love your passion, but I'm not making any guarantees. And what Arthur then would still do is tell his client, listen, you owe that money anyway, pay it. And then let's hope that that'll

cause them to use the breast. Can't hurt. mark you mentioned the fact that that this u.s attorney is calling witnesses i read this too in front of a grand jury that's investigating this who can speak to hunter biden's drug use so why would why would the prosecutor looking into this be calling witnesses who can speak to his drug use in front of the grand jury as opposed to just interviewing them privately and saying, what should I be thinking about? Was he really out of control? You know what I mean? Like, why would you call them in front of the grand jury? The direct answer is I don't know. I need to know more about their strategy, why they're doing that. But clearly they're doing it because

they, you know, one of the obvious defenses is going to be, okay, well, if I owed that money, my head was not in the right place. I'm trying to negate the mens rea, the state of mind that I intentionally chose not to pay the government money that I thought that I owed them. So I think that that's going to be- They also may be calling him in front of the grand jury. I had a case this week where someone came in and the prosecutor wants to speak to them. And I said, you're not speaking to them. But my client really doesn't have the basis to invoke their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because I don't really think they've committed a crime. So you have to have a good faith basis to invoke the Fifth. You can't just do it for no reason. So I said,

you want to hear what this person has to say? Put them in the grand jury and roll the dice what they're going to say in the grand jury. But you're not speaking to them beforehand. And if they really believe this person has done nothing wrong, they may put them in the grand jury. And in a case with these types of political implications, as a prosecutor, you want to say, look, I put it all out there and the citizens decided. But as Mark and you and I know, if they really want him indicted, they put one FBI agent in there and maybe one financial agent in there, and he's indicted in 15 minutes and the case would move on. But I just thought of something. I actually thought of something. As Arthur was speaking, we're so used to the grand jury just doing whatever the heck the feds want, whatever the

prosecutors want, and they'll indict a ham sandwich, all that. But maybe there's some grand jury in this universe, and maybe it's this one that may not indict. And so maybe the issue needs to be brought before them that, by the way, here's this drug problem, but it did not affect. And maybe that's become an issue where they're concerned that would become an issue. And maybe somehow they're doing that to help increase the chances of getting an indictment. Well, the big the big enchilada here would be any involvement of President Biden. You know, that's as much as we care about Hunter Biden. The question is, did Joe Biden get any of this money? Was there any cooperation? Was access

provided? Right. He did have a meeting with, I think, some of these Burisma officials, which they chose not to document in the White House logs when he was vice president. So there's some smoke, though no fire yet around him. But Peter Schweitzer, who's been doing a good job on this and on all things Biden probe could implicate the president saying Hunter Biden, if he was doing these deals, you know, and he was at precisely the same time that his father was the named point person on U.S. policy Burisma, then that this could become Joe Biden's problem. And they've got as their main exhibit now, the infamous laptop that we were told was disinformation by 50 security officials, by the New York Times, by Politico, by every public, by NPR, I think it was, or was it PBS? One of them. It's kind of the same thing that came out and said, we don't cover stories that are meaningless. It was NPR. We don't cover stories that are meaningless, that have absolutely no import. Meaning the laptop, the same laptop that the New York Times now acknowledges was legit. That's the basis for a lot of the FBI's investigation. That could be the basis for criminal charges. Is NPR turning around and apologizing, acknowledging its mistake?

Of course not. So, Arthur, your thoughts on how, if at all, they would capture the precedent in this? Well, to make this just a little personal, I'm going to bring it back to Rudy Giuliani. So the morning that they went to Mayor Giuliani's house, I was on the phone with him. And the subpoena was for all of his electronic devices. The warrant was for all his electronic devices. So he's, he handed them all over. It was without any drama. And then they, they pick up from the mayor's home desk. They go, what's this? And he goes, oh, that is a cloned copy of Hunter Biden's laptop. It doesn't say it on there. It's not written on there. He just holds up like one of

those little hard drive and then he tells them that's what it is. And they put it down and they left it there. How do they know that there was all kinds of criminality on that? I mean, he could have said that about the phone. This is Hunter Biden's phone and put it down. So it just shows you the culture inside of law enforcement. And this was not that long ago, months ago that they don't, they didn't want anything to do with that. Oh, we know Hunter Biden. We don't want anything to do with it. I mean, obviously to Mark's point about why the, about a grand jury, they are in the state, the tiny state that adores the Bidens. And it would be naive to say they're not going to do their best in their subconscious not to go after the president. There would have to be such hard core black and white connection with Biden for them to

go after. Megan, I was in court in Manhattan yesterday. There were protests in front of the Manhattan DA's office because they basically have dropped the case against President Trump. And from the little I know, but it's a little, but it's enough. There was a lot more, you know, there was some teeth in that potential indictment than what we've heard about President Biden. So no one's really running to indict a president of the United States past or present. Yeah, you would the kind of evidence that would rock your world more than that slap did. I mean, it would be like, oh, my good smoking gun stuff. I bet you if I bet you if Rudy Giuliani said it is it's the infamous P tape. I have it right here.

Here's the P tape that they would have taken that. They wouldn't have left that one behind. All right. I got to shift gears in the time we have left to Clarence Thomas. There are calls AOC. She's a moron. I hate to even mention her. I really try to avoid it, but she's saying he should resign. She's such a dumb ass. I'd like, here I go again. Dumb, dumb. She's a dumb, dumb. Thank you for getting the thumbs up. Give me Fodder for I have sinned. It has been 10 minutes since I cursed. Okay, so she thinks he should resign. But a lot of Democrats are saying he should recuse himself off of cases involving the January 6th riots.

Because Ginny Thomas, longtime political activist on the right, and she's is I mean, she is like, right, right, right. She's not like moderate. She's like, right. Texting Mark Meadows during the aftermath of the election, she very much did not believe that Trump lost. She's encouraging him to keep fighting. She's sending him YouTube videos. You know, it's the kind of stuff like your uncle sends you where you're like, OK, it's like Trump sting with CIA director, whatever. The biggest election story in history, blah, blah, blah. And like stuff like that, talking about watermark ballots and conspiracy theories and saying, don't concede. It takes time for the army who's gathering for this to have his back. And, you know, she's she does not want to believe that Trump lost.

OK, that's Ginny Thomas's belief for this. Clarence Thomas has to step down, has to recuse himself off of any January 6th case. What do you make of it, Mark? What's what's wrong with him stepping down, Megan? We're not suggesting that he couldn't be fair. What we're suggesting is, isn't that, not we, I'm not saying anything. I'm just, the argument is, doesn't it create the image of impropriety? I mean, if you really cared about an issue that he was going to rule on and it was related to this subject matter, shouldn't he? He's done it in the past when it came to something involving his kid's school, I think it was.

It doesn't mean he couldn't be fair. It just means we want to make sure that it's beyond reproach and everybody believes that this is completely and thoroughly fair. That's all. Arthur? I think back to Uncle Nino, Justice Scalia. And there was a big controversy when he was going to rule on cases involving the vice president at the time, Dick Cheney, because they had gone hunting together. And the way Justice Scalia dealt with that is he wrote a 21-page memo. It wasn't really a decision because it wasn't a case, but he wrote a memo and it cited all kinds of case law,

but he also spoke about the facts. And he's like, yeah, we went hunting. There were a dozen people there. When we went out hunting, I was never in his group. I never had a private conversation with him. And of course, we never spoke about the case. He goes, if my judgment is going to be bought so cheaply, then this country is in worse shape than I thought. So I would think that if Clarence Thomas is not going to recuse himself, he owes the citizens of the United States of america some sort of an explanation i don't think

it should just be hey this is my decision bye-bye i think he should just defend himself i disagree he doesn't have to well you disagree with justice scalia well listen god rest his 21 pages so that doesn't have to be the only way uh uh annie mccarthy had a piece on the national review talking about how justice breyer who helped pass the sentencing guidelines, he advocated when he was in the Senate to get the sentencing guidelines passed. And then as a judge, he did. He heard a case talking about whether they were constitutional as the justice on the Supreme Court. Didn't. No, no problem.

Not not recusing myself. Don't care. Elena Kagan. Same thing on Obamacare. She'd been solicitor general. Less personal. I mean, we start with Will Smith. You know what, Doug, my husband, he absolutely loves Duke. He's in love with Duke. Well,

guess what? I love Syracuse. It doesn't mean anything about my feelings on Duke. Like, we don't impugn the one spouse's feelings on anything to the other spouse and then tell them he can't sit for the case. Doesn't it look bad, though? I mean, come on. We're talking about the image of impropriety him he can't sit for the case. Doesn't it look bad, though? I mean, come on. We're talking about the image of impropriety. What's why is it necessary for him to say, no, I don't listen to my wife or she never talks to me about that. So so so no, I'm going to vote on this.

Why not just for Megan? There's there's one other little piece of the puzzle that I don't I don't think you mentioned. Justice Thomas and his wife refer to each other as my best friend. And in one of those in one of those texts, she alludes to my best friend agrees with me, which is code word from my husband. Now he's given he's been handed over. He's your position. Arthur just dropped a big one. Let's go, Megan. The Supreme Court doesn't. They don't have to recuse.

They don't have to explain why they don't recuse. They're not governed by the same rules as everybody else. And that's worked just fine for a long, long time. Mark and Arthur, you guys are the greatest. Before we go, I got to tell you quickly, actor Richard Dreyfuss joins us tomorrow. He's a legend. I'm really excited for it. See you then.

Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.