The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump vs. DeSantis Culture War, and Sorority Trans Pledge Lawsuit, with Jeffrey Lord, Michael Duncan, Viva Frei, and Vinnie Politan | Ep. 532

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Michael Duncan, co-host of the Ruthless Podcast, and political strategist Jeffrey Lord to discuss the culture war being waged between the Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis camps in the GOP field over Bud Light and the trans issue, the political relevance of how these topics affect kids, Trump as commentator vs. politician, the DeSantis "pudding fingers" ad, RFK vs. Biden in the Democratic primary, if Biden will run again and his obvious cognitive decline, and more. Then Viva Frei, lawyer and YouTuber, and Vinnie Politan, lead anchor for Court TV, join to talk about the Fox News - Dominion settlement, the media's insane reaction to it, the complicated case of Daniel Perry in Texas and a potential pardon, Perry's racist comments being uncovered now, Kappa sorority sisters suing over being forced to accept a trans pledge, disturbing stories of this trans person's interactions with the other sisters, the latest in the lawsuits involving Alec Baldwin for the movie set shooting, and more.Duncan: https://ruthlesspodcast.comLord: https://thejeffreylord.comViva: https://vivabarneslaw.locals.comVinnie: https://www.courttv.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Wednesday. We've got a hot show lined up for you today. In just a bit, we're going to break down the settlement, which happened just after we went off the air yesterday between Fox News and Dominion. So I got my wish So I got my wish. I got my wish. I did not want this thing to be tried through for very good journalistic reasons. And I think it was a great result for Dominion. I think it was the right result for Fox, given where they were. And it was the wrong result for Nerd Prom. Nerd Prom's sad. Nerd

Prom doesn't get to spend the next six weeks writing about the cool kids at Fox News. Brian Stelter. I can only imagine the discussion he had at home. He's got a book, a podcast, and a column of Vanity Fair going based on this trial, which now has settled. Plus, we're going to have a big follow-up to the fake rape story out of Stanford. The students were protesting all over campus saying Stanford supports rapes and rapists. Turned out she was a liar. She had made up not one, but two fake rape stories, potentially ruining a man's life. We'll bring you the update. But we begin today with politics and the increasingly ugly battle between former President Donald Trump and as yet undeclared presidential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Buckle up,

it's going to be a bumpy ride. Joining me now, Michael Duncan, co-host of The Ruthless Podcast, flying solo today without the rest of the gang, and Jeffrey Lord, a political strategist and contributing editor to The American Spectator. Great to have you both here. Thanks for coming on. Hello there, Megan. Great to be here. Yeah, it's great to see you. Okay, so it's starting to get, you know, a little thorny. It's presidential politics.

It should. This is what's expected. But we'll kick it off on an issue near and dear to my own heart, which is the madness around the transgender conversation these days. Ron DeSantis giving an interview to Benny Johnson, who went down there, spent some time with him walking around. We played a clip yesterday, but then Governor DeSantis got really specific on where he stands on this issue. And our pal Matt Walsh over at Daily Wire,

who's been in many ways leading the charge in this whole thing. He's the one behind the movie, What is a Woman? All that stuff. He loved this clip. He loves DeSantis. And he was saying, um, no other candidate has come close to being this direct on this issue.

Let's play it. It's not one. Some of this is, yes, it's taking away opportunities and athletics and some other stuff. And that's really, really important. But I think there's also just the issue of,

are we going to be a society based on truth? Are we going to be a society based on deceit? And if you take a man and they dress up as a woman and you tell me I have to accept that they're a woman, then you're asking me to be complicit in a lie. And I just refuse to do that. Wow. Pretty extraordinary. And right on the nose, like going beyond sports and women's locker rooms and all that. Before I bring you in, I'll just play the other side. Here's just like a highlight reel of Donald Trump Jr. I think is in here and Donald Trump himself. And there's a little bit of DeSantis. It's just a mashup of the other guys, including a little DeSantis and their prior positions on this. I don't give a shit, dude. If you're an adult and you want to be trans and you do it, great. If you're happy, you're productive. I actually don't give a shit.

I'm fairly liberal on the issue. And if you take a man and they dress up as a woman and you tell me I have to accept that they're a woman, then you're asking me to be complicit in a lie. And I just refuse to do that. Speak about North Carolina bathroom law in particular. Leave it the way it is right now. There have been not very few problems. Leave it the way it is. Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses.

That is correct. That was from David Reboy, who put it together. Just, you know, you can see some lines are being drawn. Let me kick it off with you, Jeffrey, since you are new to the program, but I always admired you while you were in Trump as a fierce on CNN as a fierce Trump defender. You know, it's like you need both sides represented. I'll just say to the audience, this is one of the problems we had last time around at Fox News. We were going into the election in 16 and we had all these sort of conservatives on who were more establishment types who looked at Trump as a joke. And sooner or later, Roger Ailes realized we had no true Trump defenders on the show. We only had like Republicans who hated him, which really did leave lead to an imbalance that the audience objected to. So I appreciate you coming on as a as a full throated Trump defender. And we'll get to Duncan's perspective to go ahead. Your thoughts on this issue and how it's unfolding.

Well, I think I think Donald Trump, in one sense, is a bit of a libertarian when he comes to this, you know, just shrug your shoulder, do what you're going to do. But I do think on on the other hand, you know, this whole business with Bud Light, I mean, that was not organized. It's not like somebody planned to do that. The outrage, as it were, that swelled up from the bottom, I think really says where the country is. They may not care about some of this, but for heaven's sakes, they're not going to be pushed into going along with some of it, whether it's on sports teams or the silly business with the beer or what have you, what have you. And I just think that that is a major political force here in this discussion. And you will see it surface again and again and again.

I haven't heard Trump talk about this issue lately, Jeffrey. I feel I could be wrong, but if you were to compare the way I sounded on this issue four or five years ago versus now, I would sound very different. And I do wonder whether Trump is going to sound different. Now, Rick Grinnell didn't sound different. You know, he was sort of coming after people like David on this, suggesting some of this talk is transphobic. But I wonder, do you think Trump is going to sound more like DeSantis in that clip when he does speak about this? Oh, I think I think Donald Trump will always sound like Donald Trump. He he he used to kid me that I compared him all the time to Ronald Reagan. But as I also tried to say, Trump is Trump.

You know, Reagan was Reagan. And I think in this case, Trump is not going to be DeSantis. He'll be Trump. And his own unique take on this, not to mention everything else for that matter, but certainly on this. You know, Michael, we had we played the clip earlier this week of Don Jr. out there ripping on the Bud Light boycott. I'll play just a little bit of it to freshen people's memory, but he was against it. Here he is. Anheuser-Busch totally shit the bed with this Dylan Mulvaney thing. I'm not, though, for destroying an American and iconic company for something like this. When I actually look into it, I'm not going to blame the whole company for the inaction

or the stupidity of someone in a marketing campaign that got woke as hell. And we looked into the political giving and lobbying history of Anheuser-Busch. And guess what? They actually support Republicans in woke corporate America. Anheuser-Busch supports Republicans. And by the way, here's Ron DeSantis on the issue of Bud Light. I've ever seen it. I drink Bud Light. I mean, like, honestly, that's like them rubbing our faces seen it. Why do you want to drink Bud Light?

I mean, like, honestly, that's like them rubbing our faces in it. And it's like these companies that do this, if they never have any response, they're just going to keep doing it. If you don't have conservative beer drinkers, you're going to feel that. And so, you know, I think it's a righteous, I think it's a righteous thing. Will we ever see you drinking a Bud Light again? No, I don't think so. Go ahead, Duncan, what do you make of it? Well, I think, number one, there's a particular irony of Team Trump who has been attacking Ron DeSantis as sort of this globalist shill for the, you know, the donor set talking about how,

oh, well, Bud Light donates to Republicans, so we got to lay off them. Right. Like there's something dissonant about that, number one. I mean, but then also, I think the Trump team has to decide whether they want to be a commentator about the issue of culture, if they want to engage in the culture war itself. And, you know, clearly Ron DeSantis has decided that he's going to be a culture warrior on this issue. In particular, it animates the base, not just because of women's sports or the Dylan Mulvaney issue, but when it comes to kids, that's where I think primary voters are going to be incredibly animated. And I think also Donald Trump's clearly uncomfortable talking about these

sort of culture issues. You saw it with the bathroom bill in that clip that you played earlier. And so I think what you'll see is he sort of retreats to commentator Trump. And I've talked about this a lot on the show, where instead of really engaging on the issue or the policy, he's talking to you like a guy on your couch, right? And you see that with Disney, right? He's out there on truth social. He's putting up truths about, oh, De know, DeSantis is getting played by Disney again, yada, yada, yada, how bad that is. But he's not really talking about the issue itself that animates the fight in the first place, right? Which was Disney coming out against the DeSantis legislation in Florida that the media falsely claims is a don't say gay bill.

So I think, you know, Donald Trump and his strategy is going to kind of triangulate around the culture war and basically criticize DeSantis or other candidates for what he sees as perceived missteps in the fight rather than engaging as directly as Iran DeSantis will. By the way, for our audience, if you did not listen to last Thursday's Ruthless, which did a postmortem on the Tucker Trump interview and how Trump answered some of the questions you missed out, as you guys were talking about how Trump does have this ability to talk to you like you're his buddy on the couch. And they were like, you know, Tucker says something like, you know, what do you make of she? And he said something like he had the hottest translator. His translator was so beautiful.

You guys had me crying with that analysis. Well, but it's so true, Megan. And it's also what he does so well on a debate stage, right? you guys had me crying with that analysis. Well, but it's so true, Megan. And it's also what he does so well on a debate stage, right? It's like you can attack Donald Trump for any number of things that you might want to based on what he did as president or comments he's made.

But what he's doing is he's having a meta conversation with the audience. And half the time he's like, can you believe this guy? Can you believe this guy's attacking me? And it's effective. It really is. But this one is interesting for me, Jeffrey.

Well, but let me ask you, let me stay on this for a second, because this is interesting to me. I think this is going to be one of those issues that the GOP field, they're going to be divided on. You're going to have to pick a lane. Are you just in the sports locker room, bathroom lane on women's rights and versus transgender rights? Because you do have to make a choice there. Or are you more in the Matt Walsh,

Ron DeSantis field of you can put on a dress all you want. Doesn't make you a woman. That's not factual. That's a lie. I'm not going to say it. That's been a very controversial view. I think it's coming more into vogue. To me, that sounds more like a position the Republican Party would be saying at the presidential level. Transgender voters are a very, very small sliver of the populace, but the woke is a much larger sliver. But I mean, like, are the GOP going to try to go after the woke vote? I don't I don't think so. And, you know, interestingly, when I think think back about this, I've met Caitlyn Jenner but once. And you know where I met her? The Trump inaugural. Wow.

In 2017, she was there. She was decidedly enthusiastic. And it you know, I just found it very interesting. So that may in itself tell you a tale about the future here. base, her career, you know, they completely turned on her. It's been absolutely nasty what they've done. And she's been an outspoken advocate of women's rights in sports. And so she doesn't support all this nonsense. All right, let's talk about the ad wars that are now unfolding between the two guys. And of course, there are presidential candidates I should mention. Tim Scott appears to be getting ready to throw his head in. Nikki Haley's already declared Vivek Ramaswamy's declared Asa Hutchinson. Okay, so we've got a few others out there.

Correct me if I'm missing anybody. So DeSantis was reportedly spotted eating pudding with his fingers, unconfirmed and denied by Team DeSantis. But there was a report that he was spotted eating pudding with his fingers. I put this in the column of Mitt Romney putting the dog on the top of the car and Amy Klobuchar eating her salad with a comb. Why? Why would anybody do that? And is it true? So it's been denied, but Trump has put out an ad making the most of this report. Take a look. Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don't belong. And we're not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements. Like cutting Medicare, slashing Social social security even raising our retirement age tell ron de santis to keep his pudding fingers off our money oh and get this man a spoon

okay so for the listening audience you can see the fingers like sticking into the pudding and like shoving it in the man's mouth. It was not DeSantis. But Jeffrey, your take on that shot across the bow. Yeah. Well, you know, this is I always say to people, buy popcorn stock because this is going to get a lot more like that. And for history's sakes, you know, I just think people should chill out and relax. I went back and took a look at some of these elections in the past. And Megan, back there in 1800, the Thomas Jefferson, John Adams fight for president, the Jefferson people accused John

Adams, no kidding, of being a hermaphrodite. He had sex organs. And the Adams people came back by saying Jefferson was a dangerous atheist. Every four years, this kind of thing goes on, is emphasized now because of social media and television and all of that sort of thing. I think most Americans just look at it. They let it go right by them. Those of us who watch it for a profession really do like to see all this excitement. And it gives us lots to talk about. But I don't think there's anything new about it. I think it will get worse before it gets better. You know, George H.W. Bush accused Reagan of being into voodoo economics and he wound up on the ticket. Yeah, right. Well, let's not forget what happened between Kamala and Joe. So, Duncan, what did you you're you're in the business of helping various candidates get elected.

What did you make of that ad? You know, number one, it's it's almost like a Democrat attack ad that you would see in any general election environment for the past, gosh, decade against Republicans. I would say it's disappointing that we have the front runner, Donald Trump, for the Republican nomination talking about how we're not going to touch Social Security. We're going to strengthen this when the program is going to be insolvent in a decade. That's obvious for anybody who's a conservative. But it's obviously effective. And I think it uses the pudding thing well to sort of wink and nod to the media that he's hoping circulates this ad, right? I mean, Donald Trump is very smart with how he uses the media to amplify his message. And not only that, this ad's running in DC. It's not just running in early caucus and primary states. It's running in D.C. as well, because he knows that the audience for this ad isn't just Republican primary voters. It's also the media itself, because what he wants to do is get the media to attack Ron DeSantis and be like, oh, gosh, I don't know if Ron DeSantis is ready for this, you know? And so there's sort of like a little bit of like, you know, the tail wagging the dog here in the creative choice in the ad. I think it's smart, but it's also, I mean,

the issue itself is really depressing if you're a conservative. No Republican wants to say that they're going to cut security and Medicare or social security or Medicare. I mean, of course, the reality is it's going away. I'll tell you guys, just the other day, we were doing our pitches. We have a staff meeting where everybody offers their pitches. We should book this guest. We should do. And Danny, our booker who booked both of you guys was like, we should do a segment on whether I'm going to get any social security. Danny's, I think, 24. I'm like, you're not. The segment's done. Let's move on. What do you mean? What are you saying? The 20 year olds don't realize the pot is going to be empty for me, never mind for them. Go ahead, Jeffrey. Well, one of the other things out of the corner of my eye is my phone here. And while we've just been talking, Fox has just posted a bulletin that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has or is about to announce his candidacy for president. So in other words, the fight that we're talking about on the Republican side, there is going to be some kind of a fight on the Democrat side. And Bobby Kennedy Jr. is apparently going to take it to Joe Biden. That will be popcorn worthy as well. I can't wait to watch that. We just saw an announcement. He's pulling

at 14 percent. I have to say that's kind of impressive, is it not, given the circumstances? Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, if he's anything like his father and, and full disclosure, when I was 17 years old, uh, which was just the other day, I think, um, I was a big time Bobby Kennedy supporter and, uh, you know, hung on everything. And I still have my, uh, little Kennedy for president button over here on the,. And his father pulled no punches. He was known for being ruthless and out front. And they organized a campaign against Senator Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia primary that accused Humphrey, who had been turned down for World War II, as being a draft dodger, you know, to compare him to JFK, the hero of PT1 and right. They're pretty ruthless. So what happens with RFK Jr.? What happens, Jeffrey? Does he like what happens? Is he just a thorn in the side of Joe Biden for the next year and a half? There is one possibility out there.

You know, in 1968, Lyndon Johnson had been cruising along from his reelection in 64. And Eugene McCarthy, the unknown senator from Minnesota, jumps into the race on the issue of the Vietnam War and lo and behold, almost beats LBJ in New Hampshire. And then I think he actually did beat him somewhere else. And it resulted in LBJ getting out, out of the blue, and Bobby Kennedy Sr. getting in. So there was always a possibility that there was enough dissent from the Biden world that could give Bob Kennedy Jr. a showing of some sort. And then you get sort of bandwagon stuff. I mean, that could happen. I wouldn't rule it in 100 percent, but it's possible. I don't put a lot of a lot of stock in that. I think really the reflection

in his poll number now is just dissatisfaction with Biden himself. You know, if you look at polls of Democrat voters, majorities don't want him to run for president again. It's probably the reason why he's been holding off the announcement for as long as he has. You know, so look, I think it's a it's a protest vote as of right now. I have a hard time thinking, you know, he'll be able to grow that momentum because if it if he really was able to, I think you'd have other people jumping in the ring as well. And there'd be a talk whispers around Washington.

I don't think Biden really has it. You know, it's time for him to step aside for Kamala, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. But it is compelling itself that you keep in that protest vote alone. He can get as much of a of the primary electorate as he has. Well, one wonders if he I mean, he's not going to get the Democratic nomination. The Democrats don't really like Bobby Kennedy Jr. He's too anti-vax in some of his positions. He doesn't like that term, but that's what they'll say. The interesting thing about him is if he managed to run as a third party, he'd get GOP votes, a lot of them too, like a lot of them. He sounds more like a Republican on things like COVID and government overreach now than he does

a Democrat, though I've asked him this repeatedly. He still considers himself a liberal Democrat, you know, the traditional liberal, not what we have today. Yeah, but I mean, actually getting ballot access at the presidential level as an independent is notoriously, notoriously difficult. I have a hard time believing he'd be able to get the money behind a campaign like that to get ballot access. I mean, the last person to really do it successfully was Ross Perot, and he quit his campaign, and then he came back and all of that sort of stuff. And I mean, that guy's a billionaire. So yeah yeah, I just I don't put a lot of stock in it. And the Kennedy money will not be behind Bobby Jr. You know, but I think Michael is right here that if he manages to do enough damage to Joe Biden, the instant question would be, well, it's not going to be Bob Kennedy and it's not going to be now Joe Biden. So what is Gavin Newsom doing or what is, you know, fill in the blank major Democratic star doing? And I think that's when you could see a real change in the shift if he manages to do that kind of damage. And I think psychologically to Jeffrey, to that point, it's like, you know,

the Democrats are still like psychologically scarred from 2016 and that they let Hillary Clinton walk away with the nomination. You saw what Bernie Sanders was able to do in that primary. I don't think you'd end up in another situation where, you know, the front runner candidate, Joe Biden, in this situation was as damaged as he could be. And they would just, you know, circle the wagons for him. They would be too worried about electing Donald Trump again. Yes. Well, speaking of Joe Biden, he's he's, you know, misstep every day, some sort of verbal gaffe, the politicos of the world continue to celebrate. I, there was some

ridiculous excerpt in, in, I think it was political the other day, like over there, he wasn't gaffe prone. He was charming. He wasn't, he wasn't losing it. He was entertaining. And he made many bizarre comments. Here was one we did not get to, but I'm telling you, this is what the Democrats are going to be dealing with. Listen to him in Ireland. There's nothing our nations can't achieve if we do it together. I really mean it. So thank you all. God bless you all. Let's go. Let's go lick the world. Let's get it done. Lick the world? What, Duncan?

What? I don't know. I think he forgot where he was giving the speech. I don't know. I think it was almost like he was trying to transition to some sort of campaign rally, and he couldn't decide what he wanted to land on. I mean, yeah, look, it's embarrassing, but he's been embarrassing for a long time, and then, you know, you haven't had anyone really turn on him yet, which is.

I was thinking of his chocolate chocolate chip. Go ahead, Jeffrey. The serious part of that is and I say this as somebody my my mom, God bless her, started to head down when she was about 96 with dementia and I took care of her. She passed at 99. But watching her and dealing with her, taking care of her close up, I look at Joe Biden and I think there is a real problem here. And the thing about this kind of stuff is it gets worse. It doesn't get better. And it's not a fall off the cliff kind of thing. It's a gentle descent. And I think we are watching this in real time with him. And you never know when it's going to show up, you know, whether it's Dr. Jill taking him by the hand and leading him in a certain direction or God only knows the Easter Bunny on that one occasion.

He kind of wanders around or he shakes hands with people that aren't there. You know, this is, you know, it's one thing for people like us to be talking about this. It's another thing when you realize that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, you know, are all watching this and calculating accordingly. That's what's so dangerous about it. Here's the excerpt from Politico's Adam Cancrin. He wrote as follows, in part, It was here, inireland that the criticisms he faces at home seemed to fade away his age didn't make him old it provided him wisdom his gas didn't make him shaky they gave him charm wouldn't it be so helpful to have this

kind of media behind you when you're running for president or president? It's absolutely incredible. I think the way I described it on the podcast was it was like, you know, a sophomore in college writing home about their semester abroad, you know, and that's just sort of the way the media treats them, unfortunately. All right. So back to the GOP side. Now we've taken our little dalliance over into Lane Lefty. Ron DeSantis is now finally starting to fight back. You can see it. You know, his Trump is crushing him, crushing him in the polls. I think the real clear politics average has Trump something like 36 points over Ron DeSantis. If you look at all the polls that went into that average, it's like 37, 33, 35, 38, 30. I mean, he's crushing him in these national polls. But Trump's also been very

much in the news, but it was for being indicted. But the Republican base knows that's BS. So they see him as wrongly being targeted. All of that goes into these numbers. But DeSantis has been relatively quiet and now he's getting a little louder. His book tour didn't go over very well. It didn't do anything for those numbers. And now he's doing more one-on-one. He did that thing with Benny. He went to Capitol Hill. He met with some Republicans. He's trying to get some Republican state legislators behind him or Republican congressional delegates behind him. I'm not sure how that's going.

Let me ask you first about the change in messaging. He released an ad and it's basically about Trump's negativity toward his fellow Republicans. It's sought for. Donald Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York. So why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida? Trump's stealing pages from the Biden Pelosi playbook, repeating lies about Social Security. Here's the truth from Governor Ron DeSantis. We're not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans.

What did Trump say? Entitlements ever be on your plate? At some point they will be. We will take a look at that. Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump? Jeffrey, I'll ask you. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty good.

Starting. Yeah. Well, you know, what I noticed about that is Governor DeSantis was here in suburban Harrisburg two weeks ago, and you heard none of that from him. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure he mentioned Donald Trump's name. He did go after Alvin Bragg and went after the justice system and all of that sort of thing. But he never said a peep other than that about Donald Trump.

So that ad, I think, just shows that things are starting to heat up. Now, whether he will be on the stump saying these things himself, that remains to be seen. At some point, I don't know how he can avoid it, but I haven't seen it yet. I thought it was a good comeback, Duncan, to what Trump released with the pudding. What, what are you attacking me for? Yeah, I don't understand the strategy here in, you know, basically making a process argument about Donald Trump to the Republican primary electorate. And you start the ad with five seconds on how, you know, evil the D.A. in New York is and how sad you should feel for Donald Trump.

Interesting. I think I don't think that works. I mean, if you're going to hit Donald Trump, hit Donald Trump, right? Don't make a process argument about how, oh, it's unfair what the DA in New York is doing to Donald Trump. And also, it's unfair that Donald Trump isn't attacking him and instead he's attacking Ron DeSantis. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to also try to get to the left of Donald Trump on how great Social Security is. So I think it's just convoluted. And I like the tagline at the end, what happened to Donald Trump. And I can picture thematically doing a series of ads on that, that would be impactful on things like COVID, or the border wall, or empowering Fauci, or guns. There's a whole bunch of things you could do with

this is what Donald Trump said he would do and this is the reality of what happened. But a processed ad about what Donald Trump should do in attacking Democrats, I just don't see how that works to Ron DeSantis' advantage. I think Ron DeSantis' advantage is making an argument on electability and he needs to stay focused on that because, I mean, Donald Trump, the process argument about Donald Trump is just not going to cut it. I feel like most of DeSantis' behavior makes sense if you understand his main goal right now is to get the Trump voters. He assumes the establishment GOP is with him, and his big challenge is to get those Trump voters. So he's got to say, I'm as mad as you are. I hate Alvin Bragg, too.

But he's kind of being a douchebag. But I mean, really, like you're right. He's he's holding he's fighting with one hand tied behind his back, Duncan, because he doesn't want to piss off the Trump base. They're already a little mad at him for even running the hardcore Trumpkins. And he's trying to dance. Why did Donald Trump get a bump in the polls after he got indicted? And it's because every other candidate in the field

was going out there in front of a camera to talk about how unfair this was to Donald Trump. You think Donald Trump, if the situation was reversed and this was Ron DeSantis being indicted in New York, you think Donald Trump would get out there and be like, oh, it's so unfair to Ron DeSantis? Of course not. I mean, look at what Donald Trump is doing on True Social every single day about Disney.

He's commentator Trump. He's your friend on the couch. Oh, geez. I think Ron's really stepped in it with Disney. You know, I mean, so, you know, I think they've sort of manifest. These other candidates have manifested that polling bump that Trump has seen, although I think it's receded a little bit. That little bump that he got after the indictment where everyone was rallying behind him. But I think like, you know, if if Ron DeSantis announces a presidential campaign, he has to be succinct and direct with what he's attacking Donald Trump on. Otherwise, you're just going to end up arguing with the Trump electorate for a Trump light version. And I just don't think that actually sells with the electorate.

It's like Bill Maher said, why would we pay to see the cover band when the original is still available? You can't be the Trump cover band and beat Trump that way. You got to be something different. So we're starting to see little taste of that, like I said, on the trans stuff and what's happening with the whole Disney battle. I mean, I don't know how that turns out, but I know that the non-woke like to see him fighting. To me, I don't think whether he wins is really the point. It's him fighting and trying, which so many in the GOP base feel Republicans have failed to do for far too long. Michael Duncan, Jeffrey Lord, what a pleasure. Yeah, go ahead. I'll give you the last word. When you see a trans figure with their fingers in the pudding, you'll know we're really into this. I do not need to see that. But thank you for that image. All the best, my friends. Come again soon. including the guy who's trans, he's masquerading as a woman, who joined a sorority, kappa kappa gamma. And now the whole thing is blown up. What a shock. We'll get into it. Lots of legal news to get to today with our Kelly's Court guests, including the $787

million settlement Fox News reached yesterday with Dominion Voting Systems. On that first, before we bring in our legal team, we're joined by our executive producer of this show, Steve Krakauer, who joins us to discuss the media reaction because, Steve, he is not a member of Nerd Prom, but he does write a column, a substack, and do his own thing for many, many years when it comes to media commentary and following the press. So the media is very sad. They're super sad, single tier, because this thing settled, Steve. They are. Yes, I think that there were two big takeaways for me when this came down about 4 p.m.

Literally, you know, they had selected the jury. They had selected the alternates. They took a little bit of a break. They were about to come back and do opening statements. And then boom, settlement hits. And all the people who are there in Delaware excited for their six weeks of bashing Fox will have to sadly go home and find something else to cover for that time and find another way to attack Fox, which they of course did in the hours after, but it won't be able to last for so long. So yes, I think there are two big takeaways for me. First of all, yes, absolutely the idea

that the media doesn't get their punching bag here for the next six weeks, the embarrassing moments that may have come from the Tuckers and the Rupert Murdoch's being on the stand, a little bit of what we saw with the text messages that have leaked out, but this would have been on much bigger scale. So they lose that aspect of it. But then of course is the number, $787 million is an enormous settlement. I saw someone like David Frum saying, oh, this is the second largest defamation verdict of all time in America. It's like, well, no, this was not a verdict, but it is obviously a large settlement that they came to. And you really break it down from November 8th until about when Tucker went on the air and tore Sidney Powell a new one 11 days later.

There was massive confusion chaos that was happening inside of Fox, as we know now. And for those 11 days, it will cost them $787 million, it seems. I've noticed that the media has quickly moved to, you forgot to mention, they're very upset there was no apology. The media is upset that Fox was not forced to apologize. It just shows what a stakeholder they are in embarrassing Fox.

They want to see Fox's nose rubbed in it. They got away with instead having to say something to the effect of, we acknowledge that the judge issued a ruling saying some statements were false about Dominion in the passive voice, not like we made false statements about. And I'm sure that was a very difficult sticking point. There's zero chance of Rupert apologizing ever. Yeah, that's important because the early reporting we saw from people like Jake Tapper and others

was that Fox was going to have to admit to airing lies on its network. And it gets to the whole Trump era situation of falsehoods, false statements versus lies. And obviously lies is a very much more subjective version of admitting something that was false that got on the air. And so yes, there is absolutely no admission by Fox of airing lies. And importantly, they will not have to put anything on the air at all, whether through statements or on the actual network addressing this story. And no, they pay the money so that they don't have to have some sort of admission of what Dominion was essentially alleging.

And obviously not just Dominion, but the entire rest of the media ecosystem had been alleging that this was going to be this big trial about democracy and the big lie and all of that BS, not going to have to happen. I love the way the media, and look, I'm not excusing the way Fox covered this case, not for a minute, but I love how the media has cloaked itself in these robes of, we've never we've never oh my god seen it's like my goodness can you like just look what they did to the the covington kid uh on the steps of the supreme court they had to settle that case because they embarrassed nick sandman and tried to make him sound like a villain who was harassing a native american guy on the steps of scotus and the truth was exactly the opposite not to mention russiagate MSNBC, Trump's attack. We could go down the list of the egregious years long misreporting that these others have done.

But now it's all about Fox. Yes. Yeah. They went on their high horse yesterday. This was the CNNs of the world, the Jake Tappers in particular, MSNBC, Morning Joe, as if this was an isolated incident, as if it's only the hawks that does this sort of thing. No, for years, I was just recalling this morning a conversation I had with someone who I consider to be a very smart person, but someone who's clearly of the left, who literally to this day believes that Donald Trump was elected due to a hacked election, hacked in 2016 by Russia, and that he stole

the election. This is something that he believes to this day, seven, eight years later. And it's because of what happened, because of the coverage that happened at the time by MSNBC, by CNN, by the New York Times, Washington Post, and others, that was never corrected. That was simply let out there. Talk about the big lie. This is something that has continued for years and years and years. And so it's not excusing necessarily the Fox's coverage of what happened in that

moment. Although as we've described many times on the show, there's a big difference between showing what Lou Dobbs was talking about and the text messages that came out showing that people like Tucker Carlson did not believe that and yet also did not platform that sort of language also. And so I think it's a lot more complicated, a lot more nuanced, obviously, than what the corporate media wants it to be. And it also allows them to attack Fox in a way that doesn't implicate themselves in a lot of what the problems we've seen with the press over these last 70 years. So that's the thing. So the most damaging thing for Fox already happened, which was

the release of all the text messages, the private internal correspondence. And that was not a good development for Fox. Now, it hasn't changed the relationship between Fox and its audience. As we discussed yesterday, the trust has gone up. However, let's be honest. It has definitely changed the media's perception of Fox. I can speak to that personally. When I was there, the news division of Fox News was respected. It was. And it was the driving engine of the entire channel. And it was the reason why there was a begrudging respect for Fox, even though people didn't like it. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time. They lost it during Trump, during the coverage of 9-11, not 9-11, but January 6th. They lost it. But the release of these text messages was the final nail in the coffin. It's not respected at all by competitors who used to have to at least tip the hat to the

news division. Yeah, I think that we saw that. We addressed this also yesterday a little bit with Chris Stierwald and Bill Salmon. That aspect of those text messages was more damaging in the internal side of how I think the broader media thinks about Fox and talks about Fox. Although in a lot of ways, it feels like once 2015, once 2016 came, the divide between the Foxes of the world and the rest of the media became this giant gulf that is really representative, I think, of the Trump moment. And so yes, there was a little bit of confirmation bias in a lot of ways by what we saw with those text messages. Certainly, you know, internally among the media, those text messages and what happened

with the news division and how it was really after Arizona. I mean, they became the fall guy within Fox as well. But yeah, this is the kind of thing that they eat up. And as we talked about also- Okay, but can I just say this? So yes, they loved it. And that's why Fox should have settled this early. That was the point I was driving to.

Like they should have settled it early. They could have easily settled it for $800 million back at the beginning. Dominion would have taken that. They never thought they'd get this much money. So earlier would have been better. But my point I was driving toward was, can you imagine if the text messages that. They never thought they'd get this much money. So earlier would have been better. But my point I was driving toward was, can you imagine if the text messages and internal emails and

correspondence between the top anchors at CNN or at MSNBC and the executives there or the Today Show got released in the context of a big lawsuit or some other way? They would look terrible. That's why it's just so impossible to look at these people like, I'm shocked. It's not a journalistic outfit and say, okay, could you like, you should take a seat. Let the lawyers debate it. That's fine by me. But you cable news anchors, just stop it. Yeah, that's it.

Well, on one level, I think that that was why James O'Keefe, when he was at Project Veritas, released all these CNN internal 9am calls, the call that I used to be on when I was at CNN, that Jeff Zucker led. And there was a real big nothing burger for me, because it only showed that all these people believe what they actually say. They actually think that they're in this existential fight with Trump. I mean, it's ridiculous. But it's not like they're secretly saying, oh, yeah, we know he's fine. But on the air, we're going to portray it as something else. No, they bought into that full sale.

So that's one side of it. But the other one, the thing that bothers me the most about the criticism with the corporate press had over these text messages were the kinds of things about the business. People talking about the stock price or the loss of viewers. That is a real thing. This is a business. Everyone who works at MSNBC or NBC or anywhere knows that. And it's a joke if they're going to try to say that the things that they do every single day is not about ratings, is not about the bottom line. It's very much a part of this as everyone in the business knows that. Yes. That is why the series they were trying to do with Van Jones,

I can't remember what it was about. It was like homelessness or something. I can't remember. But that's why it's no longer on the air. That's because there's no audience for that crap. And sooner or later, the business realizes, I wanted to look good, but I want profits more, just as Netflix. That's why they had to stop going so woke. All right, Steve, thank you.

Get back to your other job now. We're going to bring in the legal side of this story on this topic and many others. Our Kelly's Court panel, David Freiheit, lawyer and and YouTuber better known to his audience as Viva Fry and Vinnie Politan lawyer and lead anchor for court TV guys. Welcome back to the show. So what'd you make of the Fox news settlement? First of all, and then I'll ask you about it's coming legal troubles because that's the second page the media has turned to like, don't be too disappointed. They settled because smart Matic has still got its lawsuit. Let me start with you on it, Viva. I was going to say start with Vinny.

Look, I'll start with Vinny. I will. Go ahead, Vinny. Well, this is why Court TV rarely covers civil cases, because it's about money and it's a constant negotiation and they settle. So while everyone, and this was fascinating listening to you, Steve, talk about this, how people were making this lawsuit about something more. No, it's a civil lawsuit. It was about money. It was one side trying to see how much they could get, the other side seeing how little they could pay, and what was it worth for one side to make it go away? What was it worth for the other side to all of a sudden get all this money that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise? So the big legal takeaway from this is what we should learn is in civil cases, it's always except in Johnny Depp's trial, except in Johnny Depp's trial, it's always about the money.

Yeah, there was a stelter tweet that says, you could argue that dominion wins, but the public loses. The public. Oh, the people relishing in Fox News as the fake news, as though CNN didn't do the Sandman thing. Time magazine with the Martin Luther King, all of these Trump removing the Martin Luther King bust from the from the White House. This is such a disgusting self congratulatory lap that all the other media are running. But Vinny says it's about the money. Typically it is, which is why I don't understand how they possibly settled for nearly $800 million. I saw the news and I said, this has to be inaccurate.

Who on earth settles for 50 cents of the claim the night before trial when a lot of damaging information has already come out, when your risk at a trial is only two X-ing your guaranteed settlement, and then you abandon your appealing of the summary judgment that they just got. You abandon your leverage about dragging this out for years and years and years. The quantum doesn't make sense to me. The timing makes perfect sense. But my goodness, settling for 50 cents on the dollar of the claim

and abandoning all of your other legal recourse, which you would have used as leverage to further negotiate. I don't want to get too conspiratorial, but there has to be something else at play here, like really damning stuff

that Murdoch et al didn't want to be revealed or some mutual interest that they're both going to have in agreeing to such a monumental settlement. But it's a terrible precedent as far as I'm concerned. I don't think they like their chances on appeal as much as they were saying publicly.

I mean, I don't understand that theory. Like Keith Olbermann was saying, not something identical, but something similar yesterday, Vinny. He was saying, I was convinced there was a new worse email that prompted a Fox offer to settle that Dominion, that Dominion has now accepted. In civil litigation, you have discovery, you have all your evidence. It's not a big surprise. When you go to trial, you're not

allowed surprises. You know exactly what you have and what the other side has. And, you know, maybe there's some surprise rebuttal witness or something like that, but like there would not be a new email at this point in the proceedings unless something had gone really, really wrong. Right. And there's a constant calculation that you're doing. Right. So as the attorneys, you've got to constantly communicate with your client. Right. So the client here is Fox and you've got to give them. All right. What are our chances of winning? What does this mean? What does that mean? I don't know. Were they not happy perhaps with the with the panel that ended up on the jury? Because that's the one thing that happened in court just before the settlement. Here's the jury that we ended up

with. Do we like it? Do we not like this jury? It's all part of the continuing calculation that you do during a civil case and determining what's our exposure and what's the pain that we'll have if we go forward? What's the possible worst case scenario? What's our best case scenario? How have things changed now that we know exactly who the people are that are going to be making this decision? In watching Fox from the outside and the inside over the years, my general feeling is they will fight to the bitter end. They will be absolute pricks about it. They will scare you to within an inch of your life,

but then in the, in the last, literally the last minute, they will pay up. They don't actually want their biggest stars, their biggest executives taking a stand in front of a Delaware jury. This is not Texas. So I think it was a smart move to not put this case in the hands of a Delaware jury. This is not Texas. So I think it was a smart move to not put

this case in the hands of that Delaware jury. And I know $800 million is a lot, Viva, but it's Rupert Murdoch. He's literally one of the richest men in the world. This is a rounding error. Well, I made a face earlier because if I'm agreeing with Keith Olbermann, then I'm going to start questioning my own existence. But the $ 800 million is a lot, which is why typically the settlements hedge your bets. They mitigate your risks. When you're agreeing to pay 50 cents on the dollar, guaranteed, no appeal, no further leveraging. If you can afford 800 million, take it to trial and take your chances on a verdict. But there, I mean, and you said like, maybe there was more damage. But your stars, your biggest stars, all your top executives have to take the stand.

I agree. But, you know, that if that was the rationale, then they should have settled this before the discoveries when the damaging information already came out. I mean, if anything, according as far as I'm concerned, they could have attenuated their bad depositions and their bad discoveries on the stand and said, yeah, we thought we thought Sidney Powell was crazy. But that's my personal opinion. We were just reporting the news. They could have attenuated their bad discoveries. Go ahead, Vinny. I think, though, the real problem here is the reality, right? Like reality check for the client, right? The beginning, like, oh, we're going to fight this. We can win this. You start losing the legal motions. You see which way things are going with the judge. You're seeing how things are playing out. Then there's the PR aspect of it, right? That Fox has to take into consideration. But this is like the moment, right? The trial's about to start.

Once the trial starts, now things get really real. Yeah. And you're like, I can see where it's going. Let's cut the losses. 800 is a lot to us, but it's not that much to Rupert or to Fox. OK, stand by. We're going to get to that trans case and many others next. All right, so let's start with this case that's been making a lot of news. It's gotten the attention of Tucker Carlson, among others, and it involves a man down in Texas. Daniel Perry, 33 year old white man, has been convicted of murder in connection with his shooting of a man named Garrett Foster, 28, also white. Okay, so both guys are white, but Garrett Foster was a white man who was a BLM protester. And they encountered one another when Daniel Perry's car found itself in the middle of a BLM protest and Foster came over to the window, the driver's

side window, some sort of a confrontation or words, uh, were exchanged and Daniel Perry, the 33 year old shot and killed Garrett Foster, the 28 year old white man. He was in Austin, Texas. That's where the rally was happening. And he's just been found guilty by a jury. All right. Well, it might not get your attention, but now there's a big push immediately to have him pardoned. And governor Greg Abbott has taken this on before there's even been a sentencing. Governor Greg Abbott has personally taken this on and said, um, do we have sound from him? I can't remember what we got or it's just a tweet. No. Okay. So he said, quote in a tweet, I am working as swiftly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon, the pardon of Sergeant Perry.

Texas has one of the strongest stand your ground laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney. However, he can't just do it with his pen. He's got to get the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole to recommend the pardon before he can sign off on it. But after he took this stance, after I think Tucker did a segment on it and it got a lot of attention, all these texts of the accused murderer were released and they do not reflect well on Mr. Perry. So we'll get into all of it. Viva, I could see you wanted to say something in my description of the case.

Go ahead. Yeah, I think maybe one critical element you missed is that the victim, the person who was shot dead, was open carrying an AK-47. Oh, that's a big one. When he confronted Perry in the car. And as per Perry's testimony, it looked like he had the barrel raised, not aimed. That was a little discrepancy in the evidence of the trial, but pointed or lifted in the general direction of Daniel Perry, who then fired five shots. But yeah, the open carry is the determinant element here as to who provoked who. It's an interesting story.

I followed a bit of the trial and I've gotten into a debate on Twitter with another lawyer, Branca, who's a self-defense lawyer, who seems to be, yeah, and he's relatively convinced that this was not self-defense and is challenging people's perceptions of that. I happen to disagree with the judgment, but it is difficult to say, well, I didn't hear the evidence. I wasn't the jury, But I am of the opinion that, you know, if you take a wrong turn or even if you turn deliberately and your car is swarmed and encircled by protesters, one of whom is carrying a weapon that Perry said it wasn't. I didn't want to give him time to aim, but he said that it was pointed in a potentially threatening manner. I mean, everybody here is playing stupid games and this is how tragedies happen, but there's a lot of inverted comparisons that you can make to the Rittenhouse case where Rittenhouse crossed state lines with a weapon, was open carrying, and he was public enemy number one. And here, the same circumstance, the person who ends up getting shot and killed is public victim

number one. So it's a lot of ideal, you know, some double standards here. This guy who got shot and killed, Vinny, this Garrett Foster, was there in like the Kevlar vest. He was dressed like he was going to war, this guy. So it's hard to believe that he was just out there for a little stroll, holding up a little placard, BLM. He had the Kevlar, he had the AK-47. How do you even get your hands on that? Hello? That's the gun that all the people who want to take the guns away think everybody's running around with, but really they're not. This guy had it. And this guy who's, you know, they're both veterans in the car. You see that coming at you? I mean, I can understand his fear. However, the prosecution argued he was intentionally putting himself in the midst of this so-called

protest, Vinny. Yeah, I think that's a key factor, right? Because in a self-defense case, what I've seen at Court TV, and we've covered a lot of them, and we've covered a lot of not guilties, including the Kyle Rittenhouse case. One distinguishing factor in the Kyle Rittenhouse case was video of everything that happened. And it was very compelling video. It was video, it was audio of everything that was happening that night, painted a much different picture than was painted by the media of what actually happened in the Rittenhouse case. This one, now you're relying upon witness testimony, and everyone, and every witness in this whole thing obviously has some level of an agenda in

the way they're going to see something, right? If you're at a protest, you have a perspective. You're there for a reason. So at the end of the day, we put it in the hands of a jury and the jury has to make a very tough call and self-defense. The Texas jury, the Texas jury. The Texas jury, but are we in Austin, Texas or are we in the regular Texas? Yeah, that's a good point.

This is Austin, Texas. Okay, that's a good point. It's not real Texas. It's a good point. This is Austin, Texas. Okay, that's a good point. It's not real Texas. It's a different state. I've been there. It's a different state than the rest of Texas. The laws are the same, but the people who are applying the law to the facts of the case are much, much different. So the prosecution wanted us to believe that this guy, that Perry, sped up his car, like

an attempt to mow down protesters. And then this guy Foster was trying to stand up for the fellow protesters like, Hey, what are you doing? And, and he has a partner or a spouse who was, hold on his fiance, who's a quadruple paraplegic black woman, the victim Foster. Um, that that's his spouse i don't know if she was right there with him but the point they the prosecution tried to say the the defendant perry was you know a hothead who gunned the engine tried to drive into this group protesters and then foster was trying to say hey what are you doing but there was expert testimony there saying that the car did not speed up, that one expert testified that he was slowing down when his car entered the demonstration. So there was a dispute on that.

The jury wound up, I mean, they found against the defendant. So that matters because the Texas Stand Your Ground law, Viva, says as follows. It removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force if the person is in a place they have a right to be. He was. He has that one. He is not engaged in criminal activity. That's also true. Even speeding up to get through a crowd of protesters, I don't know that you'd be charged with a crime. But here's the third one. And has not provoked his assailant.

So the prosecution was trying to say, you did provoke. You provoked this confrontation. And you can't, so therefore, stand your ground is not available to you. Yeah, and the basis of the provocation was allegedly turning his vehicle into the crowd to provoke them. The problem is this. Yes, a jury found a verdict of guilty. And it's the risk of when you go to court and, you know, Fox News just avoided the risks of leaving things in the hand of a jury.

The broader problem might be you leave things in the hands of a jury of a crime that possibly ought not have been prosecuted in the first place you can't then wash your hands of this unjust prosecution just because of a verdict uh so a jury subsequently ratified the prosecution with which might be a questionable verdict yeah they said okay he provoked the crowd i but for rittenhouse i'd say who would provoke a man carrying an ak-47 who would provoke uh BLM rioters? By the evidence, the expert evidence with which the jury heard and didn't take into or didn't retain, he wasn't speeding up, he was slowing down. By all accounts, his car got swarmed and encircled at a protest. And we live in a world where despite the guy's text, which we do need to get to because they're very, very incriminating. We live in a world of, you know, the Rodney King riots where people were pulled out of their cars and beaten mercilessly, where people are pulled from their cars and shot. Well, we saw what happened during the Summer of Love. You know, people randomly shot by the by by mobs who are on the street. So you have that always in the frame of the mind to explain the rationale of the person.

One has to reconcile all of this now, however, with these prior texts, Facebook messages, DMs, whatever they were. We'll get to that one second. But here's what troubles me. So Foster's family has a civil attorney who said, what is Governor Abbott doing? Talking about a pardon. We haven't even had the sentencing phase yet. And not to remind an appeal.

And he said, this turns the rule of law on its head. I totally agree with that. We cannot have governors stepping in before cases have even reached their finality to undo a jury verdict. Because if you let, you may like it in this case, because you you're anti BLM or you're pro, you know, gun or whatever it is. Um, you're not going to like it in the next one because that if that's the power of the governor if that's appropriate action by a governor you know how many cases they're going to undo that that you don't want to see undone that's not the proper role for a pardon and the jury had it say the appellate process is there for a reason so here's what happened abbott comes out takes a strong stance stance refers it to this parole board, went on April 10th.

Fox News is playing on it too. Like, yeah, this is an unjust verdict. Then they release this guy, Perry, the defendant, his texts. And one text, one exchange did get in front of the jury, but it sounds to me, and I haven't gone in depth on this, but it sounds to me like the judge limited what would get in front of the jury to just this. So it wouldn't be too unfairly prejudicial to the defendant. What was, what was shown to the jury was six weeks prior to the shooting, uh, Perry had privately discussed, uh, a similar situation that happened between a driver and a protester in Seattle. And, uh, he told a friend he had watched the video of it, of a protester getting shot in Seattle after pulling someone out of a car. And Perry said, since that happened in

Seattle, the gunman would probably go to prison. But if it were in Texas, he'd already be released. Okay, not great. Jury saw it. They did convict him. What wasn't shown to the jury oh my god was just all this crazy stuff perry often made racist comments this is from the court filings um they were released by the travis county judge unsealed by the travis county judge often made racist comments regularly made clear his desire to kill protesters in the months leading up to foster's death according to social media posts and texts contained they say a newly unsealed court document. So I suppose, guys, it is possible the jury saw this and just we didn't see it. I don't know the answer. In a Facebook message from May 2020, just weeks before the shooting, Perry told a friend he might have to kill a few people

who were riding outside of his apartment, then said, quote, I might go to Dallas to shoot looters. Said in a Facebook message two days later, no protesters go near me or my car. The other man replied, forgive me, audience, replied, can you catch me a Negro daddy? And Perry responded, that's what I'm hoping. Again, the man he shot was white, but he was at a BLM protest and his fiance was black and may or may not have been with him. He went on to say in another text message, the blacks are gathering up in a group. I think something's about to happen. I wonder if they will let me cut the ears off of people who have decided to commit suicide by me.

Went on to compare the Black Lives Matter movement to a zoo full of monkeys. I could go on. It's deeply disturbing. And this is awful, but this is relevant. In April of 2020, he sent out a meme, which included a photo of a woman holding her child's head under the water in the bath, with the text, quote, When your daughter's first crush is a little Negro boy. So in other words, a white girl being with a black boy or, you know, interracial relationships tick this guy off. And that's what his victim was in. or interracial relationships, tick this guy off. And that's what his victim was in.

Again, do not know. It's relevant to find out whether the fiance was right by him. But the point is, here he is at a BLM riot. And all those statements, my God, my God, who would like to take it? I'll take it. I don't think that we can equate a white person killing a white person with as a as a hate crime, as a race. I don't see the relevance of that stuff. You can talk about general character, but it's clearly irrelevant for the jury. And in this instance, the piece that was allowed in front of the jury, I think, is a great issue on appeal.

I'm just hearing that just my team is telling me the jury did not hear all that. I was right the first time. Right. All that stuff they didn't hear. But the one that they did hear, I don't even know if that was probative. It was more probative than prejudicial. I don't know what relevance it had talking about another situation involving someone else under different circumstances where someone was pulled out of a car. But to me, it's the same analysis as the Rittenhouse case. Everyone trying to make Rittenhouse into a case about race and a hate crime. And I kept saying, everybody was white.

Everybody's white. In this case, everybody's white. So what are we talking about? What is the relevance of him being a racist? I get it's a BLM protest route, but the victim is not. He didn't go there and shoot someone of another race. It wasn't a hate crime. To me, all that sort of stuff is only relevant if you're charging someone with a hate crime. So whether it's part of his sentencing, I still don't think it should be. But now we're talking about pardon. I see your point.

I see why the judge kept it out from the jury. By the way, the wife was there. So how does it play when you talk about a pardon? Now you're getting into politics, right? When you talk about a pardon, it's not necessarily pure law. Does this guy deserve this extraordinary relief of the governor stepping in? Go ahead, Viva. an unlawful firearm still has the right to use that unlawful firearm for the purposes of self defense. The racist text messages, etc. I imagine could only be relevant if they want to show some sort of animosity that he had for the victim, because the victim is involved in an interracial marriage, as far as I know, or just at a BLM protest. True. As far as I know, that evidence

wasn't deduced. The other text messages, which I could easily argue for the probative value, the relevance to set the frame of mind, this was somebody looking for a fight, not somebody who found himself in one. I can understand that. But again, it's not because he said stupid things or had even if we attribute it to ill intent prior that he wasn't in a position at the current moment where he felt uh the need for legitimate self-defense and was entitled to it uh when a mob if i mean this is sort of like victim blaming like well you shouldn't have been out at two o'clock in the morning you shouldn't have been out at a blm protest uh and if you do that when they swarm your car with one guy with an ak-47 uh you just have to take a beating to quote uh binger from the rittenhouse case i it's definitely not,

it's very bad. I mean, it makes it look terrible. It makes it politically more dangerous to defend publicly. You just have to bring it back to the evidence as to whether or not this should have been prosecuted in the first place, because there was evidence from the lead investigator that this was basically a political prosecution from the get-go that the lead investigator said, we should not be prosecuting this. I don't think we should. And he had like 100 pages of his PowerPoint presentation or whatever it was removed from what was submitted to the grand jury. Screw the jury heard from that expert and nonetheless convicted. It is nuance, but it gets really politically dirty when they start revealing those text messages because they don't make it very popular to continue defending this guy,

even if in law he might be right. You're making good points. And the other thing is, think about yourself in his position. Okay, maybe he's doing some tough talk. Maybe he's saying, this is such bullshit what's happening on these riots. If they tried that with me, they'd get a different result putting the race stuff to the side. There could be that kind of tough talk that wouldn't mean you'd actually go out there trying to provoke an encounter in which you could kill somebody but if some guy comes up to your car in the midst of a blm protest riot you know whatever you want to call it with an ak-47 and these are military guys they know that gun it's not like me i i any big gun i'd be scared but an ak-47 and he's wearing the vest neoprene not kevlar. I don't know the difference. I'd be scared too.

Kevlar would have been ballistic resistant to some extent. But of course you'd be scared. And then you have to get into the contradicting evidence that the defendant himself gave Perry where he said he was pointing the gun at me. But then in some deposition or investigation, he said, I didn't want to give him a chance to aim. Yeah, look, you're in one of those situations where even I understand that. Like, I mean, think about it, Viva. Like, did he really have to show that the guy was pointing the gun right at him? It's like you came over to my car. You confronted me. You got me to roll my window down. You were armed to the teeth. He also had a knife. You had an illegal weapon that could inflict mass damage in a split second. You had a mob of people.

I had nothing. I was in shorts and a t-shirt and flip flops. So yeah, I was where I was, where I had a right to be under the law, all those things. I don't, just so nobody says it, I don't think the gun was illegal. I think it was legal. And I think it was a legal open carry. But yeah, you're in a circumstance. Those are not legal to carry around.

What I'm no, I'm I unless I'm mistaken and maybe the crew could check this out in real time. I think that gun was lawfully owned and it was a legal open carry. But I'm open to being wrong because I'm not an expert on that stuff. We're checking. We're checking. This is one of those situations also where you can have both sides having a legitimate defense in law of mutual self-defense and like in gauge Grosskraut in the Rittenhouse case where, you know, had he been an innocent bystander who was carrying a gun

and saw the situation and pulled it and shot Rittenhouse, you know, there could have been an argument for both parties in their own minds would have been within their rights to use self-defense. Gross cross, the context was a little different because he chased down Rittenhouse and, you know, all that. But you could find yourself in an unfortunate situation where both parties think they're invoking legitimate self-defense and they can, in fact, raise legal arguments to that effect. But, yeah, you get swarmed by a mob and there's a guy carrying an AK-47 with a knife and you're in flip-flops with your girlfriend or your wife in the passenger side. I mean, who the heck is looking for that fight to begin with? There's, okay, so now my team is clarifying AK-47 type weapon and it was legal. So I don't know

what that means. In the liberal press, That's an AR-15, which is not the same thing at all. So we do have to dig deeper on some of these facts. The point is any sort of long gun. Most people would be scared. You know what, Liz? So, yeah, we'll see. I mean, so far, Governor Abbott is not backing down. He submitted the request on April 10th. The parole board got the case on April 10th and this stuff came out and he has not changed his stance. All right. So let's we'll find out what happens. Let's move on to Kappa Kappa Gamma, which is the greatest lawsuit I've ever seen. I mean, this may be my favorite case and I've done so many Kelly's Court. It's wonderful. You are welcome America from me, from me for bringing it to you.

University of Wyoming. This is incredible. Seven sorority sisters are suing the Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity, they say, though it's a sorority. I guess they're all technically fraternities, but claiming that Kappa Kappa Gamma has violated its stated purpose by inducting a transgender member. The transgender member really wanted to be a Kappa. I personally was a Tridel, and this was never an issue at Tridel. But Kappa Kappa Gamma at Syracuse was the very, very blonde, very, very sweater set, pearl wearing group of gals who had tea while we were throwing back shots, jello shots over Tridel. Okay. So it was a different land back then, apparently, because now Kappa Kappa Kappa has gone trans and now I'm sorry, but it's not like, you know, a trans person who's really making an effort to pass as a woman and trying to blend in, like really just wants to

be a Kappa. This is the trans person. Okay. And this trans person, this is a man who wanted to join Kappa Kappa, did the pledging in August and was rejected probably because he has a penis, but he didn't get in. Then he decided to go through the informal process that came a couple months later, where it's called like an open bid. Students through meet meetups usually to test for compatibility with the sorority get together and you can use that lump of that loophole to get in though the girls were told there's a 99.9 chance we will not be offering this person whose name is artemis a bit so not to worry got to go through these hoops but artemis is not coming in well wrong wrong because then they did something in coordination,

alleged lawsuit, with the national chapter that wanted more trans people, where they had not an anonymous vote on Artemis, but a public vote. You had to register your email to offer your vote. And Vinny the Girls felt pressured. And they were explicitly told, if your answer is no on Artemis,

you have to say why specifically. It has to be like a personality trait that you've encountered. So you must have met him. And they felt like they're going to be, and they said, or it'll be rejected as bigotry. So he got in. And then, I don't know if you've read the details, but it's absolutely horrifying what happened with Artemis inside the sorority house after that this is a picture of the girls with artemis over there on the left i don't have to point that out because it's blatantly obvious which one of these things is not like the others so what do you make of the case before we get into the details oh vinnie go for the legal side of this i'll go for

the uh social cultural side well i want to know what the bylaws are with the sorority and what you agree to when you agree to be a member of all this and what the rights and responsibilities are back and forth. I didn't pledge, members that don't want the new member to be a member of the sorority. And that is some of the behavior that they are alleging. To me, that's a much better route. This is going to get really messy. But to me, it's almost like a contract case. Right. And I want to know what what exactly each side has promised to one another as a member and being a member. So I think that's that's the first part of the attack for the plaintiffs here. Hmm. They are dancing. I'm dancing around this one. This is a very this is a dangerous position because I don't want to say the wrong thing here. Welcome to my world, Vinny. Go ahead, Viva.

And at some point, people are just going to have to, I don't say that you lack a spine, but people are just going to have to say, I'm going to say it, even if it's going to be unpopular. That might be part and parcel of the problem that got to this in the first place. People didn't want to vote not anonymously because they didn't want to deal with the repercussions.

And then this is what happens. Yeah, the bylaws, as far as I understand, it was a sorority set up for ladies. So this might be Katanji Jackson Brown's like SCOTUS decision. Any lady. They use that. 1871 bylaws say any lady may become a candidate for a membership who shall be of good moral character and above average talent. By the way, Artemis, not for nothing, has a 1.9 GPA. 1.9.

This might be the moment when Katanji Jackson Brown gets that expert biologist on the stand at SCOTUS to say what a woman is like. What's a lady? What was a lady in 1870? It's a no brainer what was intended by the bylaws. The behavioral side of it, because apparently, in addition to not meeting the scholastic criteria, the individual also would sit around watching the girls change, basically. That's the least of it.

This reminds me of the case up in Canada, where you had this teacher who purported to be trans, wearing obscenely, ridiculously large prosthetic breasts in woodshop class. And I'm convinced that this is people trolling. And these are people who are trying to push the limits of what, you know, push the limits of a tolerant society. Disagree. Sexual fetishes working themselves out on our children and our sorority sisters. That's what it's not a troll.

That guy in Canada is a dude who takes off those enormous breasts. He was caught by Rebel News up there. It's the most unbelievable report I've ever seen. That 10 minutes by the Rebel News was spectacular. They chased him down. It's Kayla Lemieux

without the enormous boobs. And he runs. And then the Rebel News reporter runs. It's all a farce. They all brave and demand their rights until it comes time to, you know, answer questions for their conduct. But a troll, as to whether or not it's to push the limits or a troll as in to push their fetishes.

You know, we'll just we're agreeing on the same principle, just different explanations. Yes. But it is. I mean, this is what happens when women who have been reluctant to be vocal about defending women's rights, you know, in the name of tolerance, in the name of, you know, social media virtue signaling sort of that type of currency, don't say anything. And then lo and behold, you now have to change in front of a biological male. It's like, Megan, I've been saying this for a little while. Five years ago, under the hashtag Me Too movement, Geoffrey Rush was being cancelled because he allegedly exposed himself to female members of crew on a film. And now you got Riley Gaines,

you got these sorority girls here who are being compelled to undress in front of biological males. And they're being, in Riley Gaines' case, even physically assaulted by men while speaking up for women's rights. The world has gone absolutely topsy turvy mad. And it takes a bit of courage and a bit of willingness to deal with the blowback to say,

I'm voting against it. And here's why. And I'm within my rights. And if you do it, I wish I had been in this. I would have walked right over Artemis and said, what the fuck are you doing with your hand down your pants? Get your hand out of your pants right now and get the hell out of this sorority right now before I call the police on your ass. You are 100% evicted from the sorority. The only question now is whether you're going to prison. That's it. All right. You're, you're kicked out. I'm probably going to sue you. And my next call is going to be the 911. Get out. Here's what he did. The lawsuit accuses, allegedly, the lawsuit accuses him of sitting on the couch in the second floor common area, not studying, watching the women. The women felt

uneasy as he stared at them without talking for hours. One sorority member walked down the hall to take a shower wearing only a towel. She felt an unsettling presence turned and saw Artemis watching her silently the lawsuit alleges that artemis behaved inappropriately around her around the sorority sisters on numerous occasions including once when artemis had an erection visible through his leggings other times he had a pillow in his lap oh i wonder what was going on beneath that pillow the complaint alleges that artemis took photographs of the women at awkward moments when they were not prepared when they were at a sorority slumber party. Artemis, I am going to beat the.

OK, then the question. OK. Oh, apparently he repeatedly questioned the women about what vaginas look like, breast cup size, whether women were considering breast reductions and birth control. You know what? I've had this experience with newly trans people myself. They think that women sit around and talk about this shit. We don't. That is not what women sit around and talk about. They think this is like fitting in. What does your vagina look like? Abby!

I'm afraid I cannot partake in this. I can't partake in this portion of the conversation. But Megan, you say I would have called the cops if you're in Canada and you call the cops like you saw what happened to billboard Chris out in Vancouver, where he gets physically assaulted by a man. And then the cop is there saying, well, you're wearing a billboard that says, you know, children can't consent to purity blockers. That's provocation.

I mean, you're not even sure to get justice from the police or the courts. It's what happens when the entire system has been captured by ideology. Oh, my gosh. This is this should be a sexual harassment suit. That's what it should be. That should be your basis. And you bring in the sorority as well. We're enabling all of it. That's where you have to go. Let them fight that. Let them fight that fight. That's the one that you want. You endangered us.

Exactly right. You endangered us. You pressured us. You made us unable to reject this person who we could identify as a potential pervert. And then we were subjected to his lewd and lascivious behaviors. Just a couple more. Other members told the woman that he appeared sexually aroused after having seen one girl take off her top and stood near the door with his hand over his genitals. Since then, he keeps asking the woman about her romantic attachments.

He stood in the back of a sorority yoga class for an hour watching the assembled young women flex their bodies. These poor girls. This is so sad. Like this makes me so angry. I really want to punch the people at Kappa Kappa Gamma. Nevermind Artemis who behaved absolutely disgustingly. And you're right. Should be the subject of a lawsuit, but should 100% be kicked out. And by the way, guys, uh, I'm told that now Artemis lives outside of the sorority house at the moment, but is slated to live at the sorority in the coming year and often stays there for meals and other secret sorority rituals and events. This is a nightmare. This is we reap what we sow. KKG is to blame.

I don't blame the girls for suing. Go ahead. Everyone walk out of that sorority and leave it with the, leave it with one member. But can you believe Megan? We're living in a world where we are expected to describe this individual, the defendant as having, you know, as covered her penis. I mean,

this is, this is the absurdity of the world in which we're, it's, it's absurd. And it's not wrong to say it's absurd. And people have to appreciate that. This is, it is an abuse of people's otherwise tolerant willingness to accommodate.

And people have you know, it's not a question of violence or aggression or anything whatsoever. It's a question of basic justice. These these entities were set up for a specific purpose in the first place. And now you have like the cases being revealed by James O'Keefe and OMG Media. Prisoners getting impregnated after trans prisoners are led into women's facilities. There was a reason why. Why did Artemis choose to pledge, how long has Artemis been a fake woman? Because we have videotaped of Artemis two years ago in 2020 during the COVID pandemic on camera, right? 2020, what is it? 21? On camera with some panel discussing COVID and Artemis looks and sounds very much like a man who's not trying to pose

as a woman. Here's a bit of it. Communicating with friends, putting that, you know, social network that you have from in person to an online format would be extraordinary beneficial. And I wish that I developed that better. But living in a new environment is it was really difficult oh my god this is not a woman this isn't even really a trans person from the look of it this is this to me that what effort was made there what suggests you that this is a transfer how did they let this person in kappa kappa gamma if we don't find our voices and start speaking up against this nonsense we we can kiss every woman's face goodbye. We can kiss women's rights goodbye. We can kiss sororities goodbye. We can take off our tops and our underwear and do our yoga in front of perverted men who just want to get off watching us till the cows come home. Stick your daughter in the sorority. Let them at her. Find your voices, ladies, and the men who support us. Otherwise, this is our future. I'm sorry.

I'm done. I'm done. I don't want to deal with this shit at Tridel, at Kappa Kappa Gamma, in the women's locker room. You can be supportive of trans people and what they're going through without surrendering to this madness. It's exposing women to danger. And the whole reason why there were separate sports was to protect women. Call Wikipedia a bigot website. There are biological, physiological differences between men and women, males and females. The sports were set up to protect women. You need Wikipedia for that? No, I'm just waiting for Wikipedia to edit that entire page that explains the skeletal

differences, the muscular differences, the brain development differences. Just wait for that to be bigoted to note science. These divisions were set up to protect women physically, to prevent them from being exposed to certain types of assault that women are uniquely exposed to. And we're seeing what happens the second these rules start getting bent. The second these rules get violated in the prison setting, lo and behold,

you are literally locking women up to the foxes who are breaking into the hen house. And it's no different with Kappa Kappa Gamma, whatever this sorority is. Kappa Kappa Gamma. There needs to be a great plaintiff's lawyer who's going to take these cases now because you're endangering women.

Women are the victims here. And you litigate those cases. You put people on notice that no, no, no, it's not OK. You can't endanger these women. And Kappa should end up paying the tuition for these for these women, for the rest of their undergrad degrees and their grad degrees and should buy them their first home for this. But you need a, a good plaintiff's attorney who is going to, is going to be able to withstand whatever blowback that they had and push

forward with it. Gloria, Gloria Allred, go get Gloria. I'm tested. I'm tempted to dust off my shingle guys guys, and go out there and do it myself, although I'm not admitted in Wyoming. But I was admitted in New York and Massachusetts, Illinois, all over the place.

So, you know, if I really want to put it out there, I have to do a lot of CLE in any event. Can you sue in state court so Court TV can cover that trial, Megan? I will do it, Vinny. We're going to get him times federal court we're gonna i am fired up i just got this whole all this stuff has gotten so insane i have just had it i've had it as viva says we have to start talking honestly about it or it's preposterous nobody out there wants to take any rights from trans people because they're basic human rights. But what the trans debate has morphed into is basically what I'm calling biological supremacy over women. There are biological, physiological reasons for which divisions were set up,

for which sororities were set up. And we're now basically saying that trans rights, whatever rights that trans people are purported not to benefit from, trump women's rights. And if someone's rights trump somebody else's rights, we're doing it wrong. And it's just time to have that discussion without feeling guilty, feeling like the social media mob is going to say you're denying trans rights. I'm not denying trans rights. I'm preserving women's rights. They were fought long and hard for and everybody's got a mother. And, you know, a lot of people out there have wives and daughters. And you're not just standing up for yourself at some point in time,

you're standing up for the future of your children because it really is in peril right now. Isn't this how Tom Hanks started his career at the Sorority Union? That was when drag was fun. That was when drag was just good old clean fun. That is one of the benefits of being in the position I'm in now.

They can't cancel me. I'm independent. You can't take away my voice. You tried it once. I rose again and I am here to speak the truth. There's a Kelly's Court update I want to get to in a second, but let me just kick it off with Alec Baldwin. He has requested that this wrongful death lawsuit filed against him be dismissed with prejudice. Now the husband of Helena Hutchins, the cinematographer, sued him for wrongful death or, you know, was going to, but they settled the case. Then Helena Hutchins' family sued him for wrongful death. And that is why, Viva, he's

claiming it needs to be dismissed. He's like, I already settled the wrongful death lawsuit, as I understand it. And they're saying that the plaintiff must be married to the decedent under california law in order to be compensated for wrongful death yeah i don't know what the what the details of california law are on this i mean at some point you do you could get sensitive to the fact that you can't have every extended family member suing for the wrongful death of a family member. But the mother and the sister, if I'm going back to my criminal law in Canada, I'm pretty sure they can they can sue for loss of enjoyment of life. The fact that he settled with the husband is neither here nor there. But you got to give it to Alec. He's not afraid of taking the unpopular position that the lawsuit should be dismissed with prejudice

because you weren't close to her anyhow. So no basis to sue. Yeah, I don't exactly know the nuances of California law, but I'd be flabbergasted if the mother and sibling of someone who was wrongfully killed would not be able to sue civilly for wrongful death. There's another development. There's another development, I think,

that is really, really bizarre. Alec has waived his right to be at his criminal preliminary hearing, shooting and killing the cinematographer during the filming of Rust because he is going to be filming Rust. That's bizarre. That was part of the settlement with the husband is that they have to finish, you know, finish shooting the film. I actually made the prediction that they were never going to resume filming despite their agreement because of the criminal charges that were looming. The whole situation is utterly bizarre, but I don't, as far as I understand, like settling with the husband is not going to eliminate potential lawsuits from others who have claims against Alec. Well, here's the response. A lawyer for Hutchinson's mother and father and sister who are behind the wrongful death suit, the new one, they slammed his attempt to avoid responsibility.

That was their word saying, we're not surprised that he's once again attempting to avoid responsibility. Attorney Gloria Allred, as if on cue, she says it's abundantly clear under New Mexico law, which is where the shooting happened, she says, which will be applied in the California court, that he is responsible for all the harm he did to the entirety of her family. We're here to make sure that he's held accountable. So it'll come down to a choice of law issue. I haven't checked New Mexico law, but if they're right. By the way, we looked up more on the AK-47 issue. An AK-47 is legal in Texas as long as it's been modified to be a semi-automatic and not do the carnage that

it does when used as a true weapon of war on the fields of battle. That makes some more sense, though it doesn't undermine the fear of somebody who's looking one in the barrel or even on the side. Guys, that was a fun one. Hope you come back. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much, Megan. Thank you. See you soon. An update in the Stanford fake rape case. We brought this to you in March when I was in Montana with the fifth column. It was a great episode. This woman named Jennifer Grease, 25 of Santa Clara, Stanford University employee, accused someone of raping her not once but twice. She went to the medical center. She was reluctant to bring in the police, but she sat for a medical kit. She gave details about how one time the guy had dragged her into the basement. Another time

the guy had grabbed her into a bathroom and brutally raped her described the man um six foot one black looked very much like her co-worker in his late 20s um her race has not been disclosed publicly which i really do find interesting i'm i'm and there's no picture there's no mugshot let's find out um it was all lies she almost ruined this man's life just because he ticked her off somehow. She, she said she was upset with him because he gave her false intention and turned her friends against her. Stanford students were protesting for weeks. Stanford's not safe. Stanford supports rape. Stanford do more defund police, by the way, same time. Um, she was a liar. And last we knew she

was, it was just outed and fired or put on permanent leave. Now she has been criminally charged. Yay. Perjury charges because she filed for benefits for victims. And she allegedly lied about it in connection with the case. So she's got, she just had her first appearance. Two felony counts of perjury, two misdemeanor counts of making a false crime report. Good.

Email me, Megan at Megan Kelly dot com with your thoughts. And while you're there, sign up for my newsletter. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.