The Megyn Kelly Show - Tucker Carlson vs. Fox News Legal Battle, and George Santos Arrested, with David Sacks, Jonna Spilbor, and David Wohl | Ep. 547

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Megyn Kelly begins the show by discussing the Tucker Carlson vs. Fox News legal battle ahead, Tucker's announcement about his return, the still awful Fox News ratings, and more. Then David Sacks of Craft Ventures and the All-In Podcast joins to talk about Elon Musk and Tucker, Twitter and free speech, the left-wing freakout about Elon and Tucker, the Murdochs involvement in the Tucker story, the potential for a massive financial crisis in 2024, how that could affect the presidential race, VP Kamala Harris as "AI czar" and the danger of government regulation, NYT's Elizabeth Holmes piece, and more. Then criminal defense attorneys Jonna Spilbor and David Wohl join to talk about the defamation verdict against former President Trump, E. Jean Carroll's allegations and whether she'll get any of the millions awarded after Trump will appeal, Carroll's bizarre past comments, Rep. George Santos arrested on federal charges, the hypocrisy of Merrick Garland's prosecutions, the latest on the Jordan Neely case, and more.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. A massive news day today, so thank you for trusting us to bring you all the developments and analysis you will not hear anywhere else. We're going to talk about the legal and political ramifications for Donald Trump after a Manhattan jury found that he sexually abused but did not rape writer E. Jean Carroll some 30 years ago. But we begin today with the latest on Tucker Carlson giving the middle finger to Fox News and plotting his return, announcing that it's happening. So as you may have heard yesterday, late in the day, Tucker decided to give Fox News a dose of its own medicine. You want to fight? You got one, is essentially what he said.

He tried to take the high road for over two weeks as they smeared him and tried to ruin his reputation while muzzling him and hoping he would just sit back and take the check. And Tucker being Tucker, that was not acceptable to him. It's not just Tucker, don't forget. It's some of his staff, his executive producer, who, by the way, is married and he has a husband who is in very poor health, which Fox knows. So that guy's been fired too, is dependent on his health insurance. There are all sorts of issues and there are all sorts of reasons why Tucker's ready to fight. He wanted to get his voice back out there. And finally,

last night he began to. He posted a video on Twitter, okay, on Twitter, which took the media world by storm. He posted it and provided a link to his new site, tuckercarlson.com. You often hear people say the news is full of lies, but most of the time that's not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read the New York Times is in fact true in the literal sense. It could pass one of the media's own fact checks. But that doesn't make it true. It's not true. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.

The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it. That's not a guess. It's guaranteed. I'll tell you this. I'm delighted to see what he's doing.

I'm delighted that he's going to go out with his own show. People were a little confused on whether he's in a partnership with Elon Musk. He's not. He's just posting the show for now on Twitter. And then it will link once he has his full show running to, I think, Tucker Carlson dot com, which will be a subscription service. So right now people are signing up to get the latest. And as Elon Musk has come out and said, we haven't signed a deal with Tucker. He's just utilizing the Twitter platform, which is smart because Twitter is better than ever.

Conservatives feel welcome there now in a way they didn't before Elon. And it's a great way of reaching millions and millions of fans. So Tucker comes out with his video saying, I'm back. It's a three minute video. It's got tens of millions of views already, just a sign of what Fox News is in for. But the more interesting piece of all of this to me is the legal threat that Tucker, through his lawyer Brian Friedman, who I've mentioned before, also represents me, made to Fox News late yesterday, but before Tucker's announcement. And Tucker's announcement will be treated as a breach of his deal by Fox, which, as you know, if you've been listening to this program, I've been urging him to do. I think it's a smart legal

strategy given what they're doing to him. I mean, what is he really supposed to sit out the 2024 presidential election? Okay. Let's see what arbitrator is going to uphold that non-compete when he's given back the money and he's been fired by Fox. Okay. Let's see. Fox knows it's vulnerable. Let's see. I mean, that's the most interesting thing of all to me in this case right now is will they fight to enforce only the non-compete which is what is at issue right now the bullshit nine non-compete that we're forced to sign these things are extremely controversial to begin with um they they happen in many. It's not just media. It can be the beauty industry. It can be the fast food industry where they try to get you to sign away your right to work for a competitor,

even if they fire you. I mean, it's controversial enough if you just choose to leave, but if they fire you, you're not allowed to go to work for a competitor. You just have to sit, sit out and not work. And there haven't been a lot of recent tests, especially in the media industry on these under circumstances like these. Let me tell you who doesn't want to see non-competes struck down in the media industry. Fox.

It does not want an arbitration award or a federal district court award saying you cannot get specific performance. You cannot enjoin Tucker Carlson from working Fox News under these circumstances where you fire him not for cause. Keep in mind, Fox is not yet arguing they fired him for cause. He gives back the money, the benefit of the bargain that he was receiving. And so you've received your money back. You've kicked him off the air and you get to silence him. Let's see if they get to know if he gets an award saying that non-compete needs to be thrown out. It's terrible for not just Fox, but all these media media conglomerates, which

use them wickedly against talent, high and low, well-known and not very well-known. People like me who were on cable for 13 years and people who are just starting out whose names you wouldn't know. They get you, they hold you, and it's unfair. So would love to see a fight over that. Do not predict Fox News will win. And even if they did win, how do they win their viewers back? That's the real question. How are they going to rebuild what's happening at eight? Well, the only fight is about whether they're trying to silence their favorite host, right? How does that happen? I want to watch it happen. Love to see it happen. I predict Fox settles this thing now. They're not going to take

this to an arbitrator. They're not going to take this to a court, but that's what Tucker's threatening. So he writes, this is via Axios, which has seen the letter. He writes a threatening legal letter to Trump saying, or Trump, to Fox saying as follows, The non-compete provision in his contract is no longer valid. Fox breached the contract first. You know, I've been saying this. I've been saying this all along. It's very clear. If they were behind these smears and you know my reasoning for believing they are, it's a breach. It's a breach of what we call the good, the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, which is built into every contract. And in the employment law context, what it means is an employer has the obligation, the contractual obligation to deal honestly and fairly with the

employee on the other end of the contract, honestly and fairly with the employee who signed the contract? Is it honest and fair for a company to fire a man, silence a man while day by day leaking his confidential moments and communications within the company when he was a faithful servant of the company? Is that honest? And is it fair? You can't say shit. Sorry, Tucker. You can say nothing. You will sit there silenced or we'll say you breached. We meanwhile, we'll call the New York times. We'll call the daily beast. We'll call media matters. We'll call whoever the hell we want. And we will say whatever the hell we want about you. We'll say you're a racist. We'll say you're a misogynist. We will take the moments you trusted us to protect when you were on set in commercial breaks or gearing up for a hit or for

your show when you did not think you were on the air, but you trusted us to protect your on-camera but off-air moments with the confidentiality that we provide every other anchor. And we used it against you. Why? What did you do again? What was our justification? Oh, we just wanted to ruin you for future employment. That's what we wanted to make sure you couldn't get another job after your 18 month stint on the sidelines ended. Oh, that's okay. Sure. Is that honest, fair treatment of an employee? That's what they're up against here in New York state. Thanks to the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. You're not allowed to do this. You're not allowed to do this. So the threat from Brian Friedman is

Fox broke its promises to Tucker Carlson in that deal and beyond. Number one, they take aim at Irina Briganti, the head of the Fox comms shop that we've been talking about on this show. They said that she has attempted to undermine, I'm quoting here, embarrass and interfere with Tucker Carlson's future business prospects, which he maintains would constitute another breach of his employment contract. Quote, make no mistake, we intend to subpoena Ms. Burganti's cell phone records and related documents which evidence communications with her and all media, including but not limited to the New York Times. Remember, I've been jumping up and down about that one New York Times piece that both revealed Tucker Carlson texts in the Dominion lawsuit

saying these were the reason these were the real reason behind his termination and happened to reference two of the ridiculous videos where Tucker's caught on camera during a commercial break, who would have access to both of those? Dominion? No, no, only one entity. And it's Fox News. And the leaks continued well beyond then. And their lawyer, Tucker's lawyer, appears to believe, just as I do, that the person behind those leaks is Irina Briganti. And there is a very educated reason to believe that she was behind it all. And now we'll find out because guess what? There's no reporter privilege for her. I'm sure they'll try to get the New York Times reporters and say, who gave you this information? And the Times reporters will say, I'm not obligated to tell you that I'm a reporter

and I'll protect my source. She doesn't have that right. The one doing the leaks doesn't have the right to refuse to answer. So if they want to see this through, Brian Friedman and Tucker are going to see it all. Going to see Irina Briganti's texts, though I know from personal experience, she's smart enough not to text. She usually does her dirty work by phone. They're going to get all of her cell phone records. They are going to get her landline records.

They are going to get her landline records. They are going to get her sitting in a deposition and say, who did you talk to? And she will have to tell them. They're going to get the Fox News executives under deposition, under oath, and say what was discussed, what was the plan, what were her marching orders, what did you do to stop it? Best case scenario for them right now is she was a rogue agent, or maybe let's say she didn't do it. Somebody else did it. Best case scenario is why did you wait two weeks before you tried to stop anything before when we had 12, 13 leaks hurting Tucker's reputation? What did you do to protect your employee? What did you do to make sure that his confidential moments were protected?

Nothing is going to be the answer. That's Fox's best case scenario. That's not a good look for Fox News in front of an arbitrator or a federal judge. And the reason they did nothing is because they liked it. They wanted him destroyed. This is their bread and butter playbook. So they're going after Irina. They're also alleging that Tucker was told, first of all, let me back up, that Tucker was promised that Fox would not settle with Dominion, quote, in a way which would indicate wrongdoing on the part of Carlson and not to take any actions in a settlement, that they would not take any actions in a settlement that would harm Carlson's reputation. Carlson was told by a member of the Fox board that he was taken off the air as part of the Dominion settlement.

Two sources briefed on a conversation told Axios. So this is Tucker saying he was told by a member of the Fox board he was booted as part of the Dominion settlement and that Fox assured him that they would not settle the case in any way that would indicate wrongdoing in the part of Carlson. Don't forget, he had controversial texts, but he was the one who stopped Fox from its reporting the Sidney Powell lies. He's the one who said, we can't, she's a nutcase. He said it on the air. So Tucker had some texts that were controversial in that case, but he was not the reason they lost $800 million in that settlement. They say these created additional terms of Carlson's employment, which were then broken by the company, that Carlson was also promised by the Fox News lawyers, by the general

counsel of Fox News, that if he turned these texts over to the company when they were subpoenaed by Dominion, that they would not be made public, that Fox would not use them to smear Tucker. It's one thing to comply with your discovery obligations in providing something to opposing counsel. It's quite another to hand them over to your own counsel, knowing, fearing that your company might use them to publicly smear you. And they are alleging Tucker received a personal assurance from the lawyers on the Fox side that that would not happen and that nonetheless, it's happening. Another breach. I mean, think about that. You get a promise from the lawyer and then the lawyer or someone connected with the lawyer and the company violates it. That's not a prior material breach of your employment conditions. We'll just see about that. Here's what I can tell you. I know,

based on my contacts within the building at Fox, there are other talent whose names you would know who refused to turn over their personal cell phones in connection with the Dominion subpoena. They refused. They hired outside counsel of their own, and they made sure that their private communications, their private thoughts would be protected. Others, like Tucker, trusted the company and just used the company lawyer and the company general counsel because they worked for the company maybe for a decade in Tucker's case and had every reason to believe the company would protect them and live up to its word. Well, what happened here? Did the company then turn around as soon as it settled this case and start leaking because the old man decided to fire Tucker and

they decided to ruin him? Didn't matter what they promised the guy. F him. It's he's out. Like I said, he's out now. You're out of the cult. You're the enemy. Bit by bit, he'll be destroyed. No, he won't.

That's what he's saying now. No, I won't be. I'll use my voice and we'll just see if he signs a non-disparagement too. That's definitely going to be an issue. They're going to try to get him to sign something, even if he's allowed to go form a company and speak up professionally, saying he won't say anything bad about Fox.

All right, let's see how that goes. As you know, I refused to sign mine. They withheld months of my pay, to which I was legally entitled, to try to punish me for exercising a right I had, which was not to sign a deal they offered me, not to sign a non-disparagement I had no obligation to sign. So they will try to strong arm him into silencing any criticism he may have of Fox News. And that's why this lawsuit is so important. It's so important because this is every talent

in the industry should be rooting for this. Let's just see how strong a company's rights are over its menial talent. We're the ones who pay their bills, right? We're the ones. And let's just see in the context of this case, whether there really was a deal term in the Dominion settlement saying Tucker needs to go. To me, one of the most interesting things is this allegation. Tucker was told by a member of the Fox board. He was taken off the air as part of the Dominion settlement. The Fox board, the Fox board only has like five people on it, five or

six. They would know this is not some vast 40 person thing where all somebody's speculating. This person would know. And the denial of this by Dominion, I took another look at it is a little hinky. It reads as follows, quote, Dominion did not insist on them firing Tucker Carlson as part of the settlement. What does that mean? They did not insist on it. Well, they don't say it wasn't a deal term explicitly. They don't say it was not part of our agreement. I mean, these are my questions. Was it a deal term? Was there an understanding? Did Fox offer to fire Carlson and you accepted, right? Was it discussed? None of that is denied by Dominion did not insist on them firing Tucker. We did not insist on them firing Tucker. It is a

little interesting the way they worded it. So I don't know. We still don't know what the reason is. Trust me, when they get them in court, they're going to have to tell. And finally, back to my point about what they need to do to win back their audience, taking him to court to keep him silent. Ain't it? The bloodbath continues on the 8 p.m. ratings and beyond. The latest numbers are in for Monday night, and they are just as devastating as they have been for the two weeks since he left. The overall in Tucker's hour, 1.6 million. When Tucker was in the spot, his average over the last two weeks he was on the air was 3.1 million. Okay. Down to 1.6 now on Monday in the key demo of 25 to 54 year olds, Tucker was averaging for the two weeks prior

to them booting him. Um, I get it. 382,000 on Monday, they pulled a 161,000, a 161,000. That's awful. That's embarrassing. They know it. And it's ruining the entire primetime. Hannity comes up next, also down 171. He lost to Maddow. They continue to lose to MSNBC and CNN on various nights. And the averages are just awful. Overall, we took the Tucker's last two weeks on the air versus the two weeks since he's been gone. And the 8 p.m. time slot is down 50%, 49% in the 8 p.m. overall and 60% in the demo. They've lost half of their older viewers and they have lost nearly two-thirds of their younger viewers. Think about that. Nearly two-thirds of their younger viewers.

I could go down the list. It's affecting all hours. The 7 p.m. is down 35%. This is, again, the two weeks before he left versus the two weeks after. 7 p.m. is down 35. 8 p.m. down 60. This is in the demo. 9 p.m. down 41. 10 p. down 41, 10pm down 32, 11pm down 25. The whole primetime has been blown up thanks to this boneheaded decision. So you go ahead, Fox, and you try to have a 19 month battle with Tucker over whether he needs to sit on the sidelines and not add his voice to the national conversation when he's giving you back the money, when all he wants to do is news commentary. See how that goes for your two thirds of the audience, which has fled. By the way, I took a look at Newsmax just to see how they're doing.

The last two weeks when Tucker was in his seat, the 8pm on Newsmax, in the overall they were getting 148,000. In the demo, they're getting 20,000. Now the overall on Newsmax is up to 473, and they've doubled their demo up to 46, which for Newsmax is good. So they've doubled their demo and what? Tripled their overall. So Newsmax is the beneficiary of a lot of the older viewers. And I think the digital lane has been the beneficiary of a lot of the younger viewers. Our numbers are up huge. A lot of conservative media up huge right now. I don't know that Fox gets them back. I really don't. Fox is not the behemoth it used to be. It's not the monopoly it used to be. It's got a lot of meaningful competition out there. And their swagger needs to be dialed back a little because abusing their top talent is now having real life consequences for them.

Joining me now, one of the most brilliant minds in Silicon Valley, David Sachs. Happens to be a lawyer, but is better known as a venture capitalist who runs Kraft Ventures and a co-host of the popular All In podcast. Also is a close friend of Elon Musk. So he's a great person to talk to about all of this. Welcome back, David. Great to see you. Good to see you, Megan. Thanks for having me. What's your reaction to Tucker's move last night? Well, it's interesting. I think the most interesting part of this to me was the deal, no deal aspect of this. You have Tucker first announcing he's bringing his show to Twitter. That would be

a show very similar to the one he did on Fox. And then as we learned more details, we found out from Elon that actually Tucker is operating under the same terms and conditions as every other user of Twitter. There is no special deal. He said there's no signed deal. There's no contract. In other words, it's just that Tucker will have the opportunity to earn the same rewards on Twitter as every other user. Those rewards being the ability to use Twitter subscriptions. So, you know, monetizing a subscription base. And then Elon also announced that creators would have a rev share on advertising that they generate, which I think is a new announcement. I think he's alluded to it before, but that is a new opportunity for creators on Twitter. So it's very interesting to

me that Tucker here is not signing a deal, a traditional media deal. He's not going to a new company. There were all these $20 to $30 million a year, $100 million offers that were being lobbed at him. But it would have required him to make a deal with them similar to the deal he had with Fox. And obviously, he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to be subject to the rules and strictures of another media company. He wanted to work for himself and he's gone completely independent. And again, I think what's interesting about this is that Tucker is going to use the same tools that are available to us citizen journalists that the top rated professional in the industry feels like the same tools that I get to use on Twitter are good enough for him. So that to me

is a real watershed in the industry. We're kind of moving away from major media companies being at the center of everything to more of a creator-centric economy here. Can we spend a minute on Elon? Because I was thinking about this the other day, the amount of impact this guy has had on the national conversation cannot be overstated.

I have been on a tear lately, David, about women and what we are and what we are not and rejecting some of the crazy gender nonsense that's being shoved down our throats and saying things like, you know, Kelly J. Keene's, what is a woman, an adult human female, period. That's the end of it. I've been tweeting about it. I've been posting pictures about it. I've been doing segments about it that get posted on Twitter. None of this could have happened pre-Elon Musk. And I think that there's a shift in the national gender conversation, not because of me, I'm just saying because like in part because of Twitter. You got Riley Gaines on there tweeting out every day this week. She's, she's calling out a female athlete like Serena Williams saying, where are you? Why aren't you supporting women in sport

and their rights to not compete against biological men? Like it's Twitter's had a major role in changing that conversation, which was actively being suppressed by old Twitter. And now you got the Tucker thing, embracing this, understanding this is a place where he can say what he wants to say without somebody muzzling him with the hand over the mouth. There's a sea change going on right now. Right. Well, I think one of the reasons why Tucker feels like he can bring his show to Twitter and use Twitter as his primary platform is because he knows he won't get censored. So if he was going on a platform like YouTube, he just can't trust that the euphemistically called trust and safety division, which is basically the censorship division of Google, won't censor him, especially when he's criticizing big tech and companies like

Google. So I think that this is a major enabler. The fact that Elon is committed to free speech means that the platform he owns is much more viable and acceptable to Tucker. And now there are some others. You have Rumble, for example, but at a different level of scale. And the fact that Twitter is really the only big tech company at this level of scale that's willing to guarantee free speech, I think makes it uniquely desirable to someone like Tucker. And I think that if not for Elon, then yeah, I think maybe it would have been the case that he would have to go sign another major media deal of the kind he had at Fox. So it does change the

game quite a bit that Elon's willing to defend free speech. That's the thing. I mean, I don't, is there a greater free speech warrior in America right now than Elon Musk? No, I mean, and, you know, especially given that it's really all downside for him, right? I mean, he doesn't really gain anything by being so out there defending free speech. In fact, his other companies have already been threatened. Remember, he was excluded from the EV summit that the White House did. You know, they clearly see him as an enemy. You had President Biden at the White House podium saying, you know, investigate this guy.

We need to be looking more closely at him. There've been murmurs about the FCC restricting SpaceX's ability to put up more satellites. So he is definitely facing all sorts of political retaliation or reprisals because of this position he's taken on free speech. And so, yeah, it's, but he's doing it because he genuinely believes in the principle. That's really all that's in it for him. And yeah, that, that I think makes it pretty amazing. And if it weren't for Elon, we wouldn't know anything about, about the government's involvement in the suppression of, of speech. You know, again, we've had the Twitter files get released. That was a hundred percent Elon's decision. And we learned that it wasn't just a matter of corporate bias here where the executives of Twitter wanted had 80 FBI agents coordinating with them, pointing out posts that they wanted taken down. You had weekly meetings between Twitter's trust and safety department and the FBI and Homeland Security and the state department and even, you know, maybe even the CIA. So, you know, we learn all sorts of really disturbing

details about the way that our government is involved in censorship. And again, that only happened because Elon was willing to open up the Twitter files. What do you make of the mass exodus of viewers from Fox and what I described as, you know, the loss of its monopoly in conservative media. Just you look at media and your availability as a conservative viewer of, or even just, you know, center viewer, what's out there for you today versus just 10 years ago, David, it's, it's a whole new world. Completely. I mean, you have so many more alternatives now. I mean, basically the podcasting world is, you know, it's like cable, but with an infinite number of channels. And you can tune in to whoever you want. You can get that content distributed to you. And you have so many choices

now. And so there's really not a huge need to go to Fox. I'd say that Tucker's show was the main reason that many, many people tuned into Fox, certainly in the younger demographic. His show was, I think, uniquely capable of reaching young people and even Democrats and young Democrats. So it was a unique draw for Fox. And just speaking as a business person, I really can't fathom Fox's business decisions here, that they thought they could fire their most important host, their top-rated host on their network and really, I think, in the history of cable news, and that they could do it in the way they did and there wouldn't be blowback. I just can't fathom the business decisions they made. And then to try and think that you can make it better by dumping an oppo file on him,

I don't really understand, again, the business logic of that. All you're going to do is antagonize and alienate your viewer base. It doesn't do anything to woo those viewers back. I mean, who are they trying to appeal to with that oppo? I mean, the New York Times likes the oppo dump, but I don't think the viewers do. So I just can't fathom the business decisions that they're making here. It's very strange to me. And I don't, you know, you're talking about maybe the motive here is the Dominion settlement, the idea that Dominion demanded this as part of the settlement, and then Dominion has come out saying, no, we didn't. I actually believe in Dominion.

You said we didn't insist. We didn't insist. Yeah. I tend to believe Dominion in this. I'll tell you why. Because Tucker's firing cost Fox more than that $800 million. Their stock price just the day that they fired him went down by something like a billion dollars. So Fox lost more by firing Tucker than they did in that settlement. And Dominion doesn't gain anything by the firing of Tucker.

Maybe they don't like Tucker, but Tucker was not the problem from Dominion's standpoint. If you look at Tucker's show during that, there were other hosts were far more sympathetic to Sidney Powell and brought her on. And by contrast, Tucker dismantled Sidney Powell. And all the text messages that were revealed show is that Tucker said, hey, I caught Sidney Powell in a lie just like I expected to. And he was calling her names that I'm sure Dominion agrees with. So of all the people that Dominion,

of all the hosts on Fox that Dominion would have a problem with, I don't see why it would be Tucker, but more importantly, they don't gain anything. They don't, you know, there's not a compensating benefit to Dominion on the level that there's a cost to Fox. So in other words, if you're in a settlement negotiation, right. you know, I can understand why Dominion would demand 800 million and I can understand why Fox would not want to pay that 800 million, but I don't understand how they could reach agreement on a point like firing Tucker because it costs Fox a billion and Dominion, sorry, yeah, Dominion makes zero off that. So just as a matter of negotiation, I don't understand how there can be a meeting of the

minds on that point. It doesn't make sense to me. I agree with you. I've doubted this is the reason all along. I'm just basing my update today on letting people know what they're saying that Tucker was apparently. But can I say one other thing? The fact that it's now apparently wound up in the lawyer letter, the true nasty ground. This is how you send a real nasty ground, not what happened with Wilson Sonsini with his CYA letter to Dominion and to Media Matters from Fox like, hey, you better really stop printing all the all the bleak stuff. You know, we're really kind of mad about you doing the leaks. Wink, wink. What's interesting about it is if they really are going to go after Fox saying you made Tucker promises about Dominion, you promise not to smear him in connection with any settlement, and you promised that you would protect his texts from leaking to the public, then that reopens everything about Dominion in any litigation between Tucker and Fox. That allows Brian Friedman to depose Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch and Viet Dinh, GC,

and say, what was the reason? Why did you settle for 800 million with Dominion voting machines? What was it? You have to tell us. And this whole, we're not going to tell Tucker why we fired him, that's out the window too. What was the reason? You have to say, here you are under oath. So all these obfuscations will fall away. And it's yet another reason why they're not going to do it. There will be no litigation or arbitration between Tucker and Fox News. Fox is going to fold. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you that they just don't want to go there.

I mean, it's going to further alienate their viewer base, and this is not something they want to litigate, I would assume. But I think to one of the points you made earlier, this was a termination. I mean, Fox put out a press release saying we've parted ways. What does parted ways mean to you? It means to me, they fired someone. It's a separation. They're done. So in Silicon Valley, we would call this a constructive termination. Whether you have formally terminated someone, you've constructively terminated them. You've basically put them on the bench. You've canceled their show. You have announced to the public that you're no longer in business with this person. And then you're presumably leaking things that hurt them. This is a constructive termination.

In California, at least, I know that this non-compete would never be enforced. I can't speak to New York law, but I do know in California, because this is where we do business, there's no way that this non-compete would be enforced. And I feel pretty confident that this would be seen as a constructive termination. Well, you know what else? Let's say it's not a constructive termination. Let's say, no, it wasn't. He's still employed at the company. And we know technically he's still employed at Fox. Um, okay. So he, and let's say there was no quote,

constructive termination. Then it's a hostile work environment. He's sitting there and an executive vice president of the company is leaking under his lawyers, good faith, belief, and mind for whatever it's worth. Um, Day after day, confidential documents about Tucker, confidential tapes involving Tucker and his staff, trying to smear him with the New York Times and other outlets day after day after day while he has to sit there. She's created a hostile work environment for the guy.

How is he supposed to go to work every day knowing this woman's there doing nothing other than ginning up bad will for him inside the building and out. Yeah, I mean, I think this is just it's an untenable situation for Fox. I would just assume they want to be done with it as soon as possible. It's weird. Yeah. I mean, you would think they just want to move on. So, yeah, they don't because I'll tell you how I know they don't.

This is from The New York times. Uh, on Monday, they report, Mr. Carlson had a conversation with the Fox Corp executive chairman, Lachlan Murdoch to discuss a possible exit from the company. Okay. If that happened, then obviously Lachlan Murdoch did not solve it. Obviously Lachlan Murdoch did not say, you know what, Tucker, we'll let you go. You know, thanks for your service. Let's shake hands. You know, we'll pay you out or we won't pay you out.

But yes, you can have your freedom. That didn't happen because it was Tuesday that Tucker had to send the nasty gram to the general counsel and to Irina Briganti. So Lachlan obviously didn't get it done on Monday night. And there I don't know that they know what they're doing, but I think they're operating, David, to me, like the old Fox, like the Roger Ailes Fox, the swagger of the Roger Ailes Fox

when they were the only game in town. And if you were conservative, you had to go on Fox. And if you were a host who had all leaned right or wanted to say right-wing things, you had to go on Fox. There was no other place to go. And if you were a viewer, you had no other options. Those days are gone. They are not the behemoth they used to be. There are plenty of other places for a Ron DeSantis, for a Trump to get their message out, for viewers to consume

media that's fair and balanced, and for hosts to plant their flag, whether it's Twitter or independent media, what have you. And they need to understand that they just they don't have the power to be the bullies they once were. We're too powerful over in our lane. It's a whole new world. All right. I still the last word. Stand by. Much more to discuss with David Sachs. Quick break. And then we're back. Twitter was already under fire for misinformation, disinformation, all out lies, anti-Semitism, racism, before Elon Musk took over. I think this is the point. It is a free fall. It's what Elon Musk wants to provide. This move by Tucker may cement the idea of Twitter as a right-wing website. And then they asked, who is going to police Tucker now? Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. David Sachs of the all-in podcast and craft ventures is with

me now. Who, David, who will police him? That's the left freak out over this deal. Right. Well, I remember when the New York Times criticized unfettered conversations. Remember that? This is similar. I mean, the structure of the media industry that they want is they want all the major creators to be working for big media companies that they either control directly or that they can discipline through vexatious litigation. That basically is the media structure that they want. And what we have here is something very different, which is that creators like Tucker can simply self-publish, put their content on a distribution platform like Twitter and get enormous distribution.

And so, yeah, of course, they're freaking out about it. Now, in that circumstance, Tucker would still be liable if someone wants to sue him for defamation or something like that, but Twitter would not be. I think this is another very interesting ramification of the fact that there is no signed contract here. Tucker is just another user of the Twitter platform. There is no rights deal. There's no upfront payment. And so therefore, Twitter has Section 230 protection. They have distributor liability. They are not a publisher. And I think that's going to be really important going forward. I think we're seeing that companies that are subject to publisher liability will be

subject to a never-ending stream of litigation. And I mean, this is where maybe I feel a little bit of sympathy for Fox, even though they've totally mismanaged the whole Tucker thing, is that it seems like they're being sued in a never-ending way. Now, Tucker could still be sued, but at least Tucker will control his lawyer's decisions, that he will be able to defend himself. He will be able to decide if and when to settle and what the terms of any settlement would be. He's not going to be subject to the Fox litigation department. I think that's really important. I think it's going to be a really important part of independent media going forward. And I think it's really important that all conservatives and Republicans understand

the importance of Section 230 in this alternative media structure. It is kind of funny to see the left freaking out that Tucker so soon has resurfaced. You know, AOC said she worried that like The Hand and a Marvel movie coming back out of the grave, he'd be back. Of course, he's going to be back and you as a public figure as a congressman shouldn't be lamenting that this should still be a country where you can hear alternate views even if you find them terrifying no one brings these points home like my friend gad said i played a soundbite last week of him over the the navy drag queen spokesperson you know how this is a whole new approach by the navy They're now going to twerk their way

out of military confrontations. He hayweighed in on the freak out by the left on the Tucker-Elon collaboration. I got to show you just some of it just for fun. As you all know, I was very, very afraid when Elon Musk took over Twitter because he was going to support the very dangerous and white supremacist idea of freedom of speech. So that already was terrifying. But now I find out that the ultimate white supremacist and real anti-Semite, Tucker Carlson, is going to be relaunching his show on Twitter. This is unbearable. I hope that occasional Cortex AOC

weighs in soon and puts an end. We cannot. It is too dangerous for a free society to support the ethos of freedom of speech. I think Tucker is coming to take me. I got to go, bye. He's under his desk.

But who is this? Who is that? His name is Gad Saad. He's a professor in Canada fighting the good fight from inside the belly of the beast, David, with all these woke professors, which he's not.

So it takes courage for him to post these videos. I love them because no one has quite the humor and intellect combo that he has. All right. Well, he makes an interesting point there, which is that he says that in a free society can't tolerate freedom of speech. That is the view of AOC and the former censorship department at Twitter and the Senate Judiciary Committee and on and on. I mean, all the people who want to restrict free speech and don't want to see Tucker be able to use Twitter as a distribution platform. I mean, this is these are the tactics they use is they do not want to have the debate.

They want to suppress the debate. As you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the one Democrat who is vocally opposed to censorship and in favor of free speech, as he recently said, throughout history, if you're the ones who are on the side of censorship, you're always the bad guys. The good guys are never in favor of censorship. They're always in favor of free speech. And so, you know, this is really a matter of these ruling elites basically do not want to have a debate in our society. They really very angry. I'll give you just a couple of examples. Roland Martin, just so we're clear, CNN's about to do a town hall with Donald Trump, a twice impeached man who openly cheered an attack on our government and who was just found guilty of sexual assault, defaming the same woman and lying about it. This is your guy at GOP. You've got Andrew Cuomo accuser, Lindsay Boylan, retweeting quote, CNN will soon host a sexual abuser who's under indictment,

being investigated for both insurrection and mishandling top secret documents, shameful stuff, pushing for boycotts of CNN by people like Keith Olbermann and so on. They don't want to see him. Can I get you to comment at all on the verdict we got yesterday by a civil jury, not a criminal case, finding that Trump did not rape anybody, but did abuse E. Jean Carroll back in 1996, we think, exercised wanton disregard for her and defamed her, awarding her some $5 million in damages. They are going to appeal. Your thoughts on it? Because some are saying, this is it. This it this is it trump cannot he cannot be the nominee well i i wouldn't go so far to say he can't be the nominee but um but but i i do i i do so i understand what what trump supporters are saying is that they're saying that this is part of a larger witch hunt that includes alvin bragg and all these other prosecutions

that trump has a better case that he was actually the one who was defamed, that Trump can't get – or conservatives in general can't get a fair trial in New York or Washington, D.C. And that they point to the many holes in this case. There was no real evidence other than her telling a couple of friends that this happened 27 years ago. So I understand all those arguments. Nonetheless, I do think that this is just a little bit more incremental baggage for Trump to drag into a general election. And Ryan Jardusky had a good Substack post today explaining just the electoral math on what's required for Trump to win in 2024 if he's the nominee. He has to flip three of five states that he lost in 2020.

And when you actually look at what those states are and what would be required for him to be able to do that, it is a pretty uphill battle. I mean, Trump does have electability problems, particularly with, I'd say, suburban voters, suburban women voters. I know a lot of centrist business types who would be willing to vote for a DeSantis, would be willing to give really any new Republican a chance, but they just consider Trump to be beyond the pale. And, you know, I'm not saying that this in any way, you know, justifies the, you know, all this litigation has been brought against Trump. You know, in fact, I think Democrats are doing it for a reason. I mean, you read Hoffman who funded the litigation as a big democratic donor, and he's not a dummy. So

he's doing this for a reason. But nonetheless, I do think that Republicans could nominate somebody who is more electable than Trump in 2024. And I'm a little concerned they're going to blow it, to be honest. I know a lot of your viewers won't want to hear that, but that's kind of where I come out on this. They're used to hearing all sorts of views on this show. So that's a good thing. I will say he won't be helped by the lapdog media for the left. Here's just one example of how Gayle King, who's supposedly a straight news journalist, reacted to the news that he was found liable. When E. Jean Carroll went on her show this morning and E. Jean Carroll revealed what Gayle King had just said to her. Watch this clip. You have never wavered over these years.

The jury came back for many people surprisingly fast. What did you think when you heard their decision? I had the exact reaction you just had before the camera came on. You said when you heard it, you went, hooray. That's how I felt inside. Tells you everything you need to know. Yeah, you know, there's going to be a steady stream of this litigation against Trump. And I, you know, I think he makes some valid points that he's being subject to persecution that no other candidates ever been subjected to that, you know, I think,

especially with the Alvin Brad case, which was extremely weak. I think on the other hand, I think that there are ways in which Trump, to some degree, brings this on himself because he, you know, he's a little bit undisciplined in his statements. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, I do think it's interesting. Like that clip was interesting to me because it does show what Trump's up against. The media is 100 percent rooting against him. They hate him. And, you know, saying to the plaintiff in this case, yay, espouses shows her bias. By the way, this woman is part of the two person team that is supposed to be CNN's answer to its fair and balanced problem. Remember, they're supposed to be getting more fair to Republicans. What did they do? They hired Gayle King to do a once a week show partnered with Charles Barkley.

That's your answer. Okay. Well, it doesn't seem like she's all that open-minded to the man who's probably most likely to be the GOP nominee. You might want to work on it. David stays with us. I've got to ask you about this crazy profile of the new Liz Holmes in the New York Times, no longer Elizabeth, now Liz. So David, a couple of numbers I wanted to get into with you before we leave the discussion of Trump and his legal troubles. There's a report, this is also via Axios today. They say, for the first time in a long time, top Republicans and Democrats telling us the same thing in the same words, Trump looks impossible to beat for the Republican nomination. A stunning finding in that Washington Post poll. Even though majorities think Trump should face criminal charges, of course, you know, he's been indicted and arraigned by New York D.A. Alvin Bragg in

connection with the Stormy Daniels payments. Even though majorities think he should face criminal charges, 18 percent of those who want him arrested still back him over Joe Biden. 20% who think he's a criminal still would pull the lever for him over Joe Biden. And I'll tell you, I mean, my own belief is because of things like the economy, that Washington Post poll that they referenced showed, among other things, on the economy. Americans say Trump did a better job than Biden, 54 to 36 percent. So they might plug their nose and vote, but they're ready to vote non Biden one way or the other. What are your thoughts on how the economy is going to affect the decision the voters are facing right now?

Well, it is going to have a huge impact for sure. It always does. But let's go back to the midterms that we just had. Around, it was May of 2022, Biden was also at historically unpopular poll numbers. His polls were at a low. And then we had the Dobbs decision. And nevertheless, what was expected to be a red wave petered out and kind of turned into a puddle. And so things can change fast in politics. I wouldn't just look at today's poll numbers. The reality is we've A, B tested this, as we would say in tech land. Trump's candidates, preferred candidates, all lost, every single one of them in the midterms. He himself lost in 2020 to Biden. And so it's, and let me just say about the midterms, at that same time that those results

came in, three quarters of the country thought we were on the wrong track and we're already in a recession. So the fundamentals did point to a red wave. There should have been a red wave. The out of power party always gains in the midterms. And yet the Republicans lost the Senate to an even bigger majority., things can change rapidly in politics. And the fact of the matter is that Trump is he's extremely unpopular, too. I mean, he's maybe the only politician in America who's more unpopular than Joe Biden. Those same polls show that. So it's pretty clear that I think the public would love a choice other than Biden Trump again. I think they're fatigued by that choice. And I think that as unpopular as Biden is, Trump is the one politician who could lose to him. Now, it's true that if we're in a

very deep recession by 2024, that that does change the game and it may swing some states into Trump's column. But I think he's going to need something like that, quite frankly. Are we likely to be? The buzz now is that keep your eye on the commercial real estate sector because they're getting hit worse than anybody with these federal interest rate hikes that we continue to see from the Fed. Plus, nobody's working in the buildings now, thanks to the COVID hangover, the banking crisis that is or isn't, depending on your viewpoint. You know, we had you and Vivek on debating

that not long ago. So how do those two things play out over the next few months, well, year plus? Yeah, I think there's a very substantial chance that we'll be in a deep recession or just a major recession by next year. So you're right. Last time I was on your show, we were discussing this banking crisis, and I was debating Vivek about that. And his claim was that there is no banking crisis. This was a Silicon Valley problem. And that I was exaggerating the problem because I wanted a bailout. And the situation at SVB was uniquely caused by a bunch of reckless startups. And it was sort of Silicon Valley fat cats who were pushing for this Fed intervention. And I was making the point that S&P was a canary in the coal mine, and that we do have a larger crisis in the banking sector as a result of higher interest rates.

That has caused both sides of the banking ledger balance sheet to be challenged. On the one hand, you've got deposits fleeing the system. So over a trillion dollars deposits have left for things like money market funds because they're paying 5%. And then on the other side of the ledger with respect to their assets, they've all been massively impacted by the increase in interest rates. So first at Silicon Valley Bank, the reason why they went ins saw them, the reason they went under, it was not because they invested in risky derivatives or some other crazy product. It was because their T-bills, their long-dated bonds went down massively in value as a result

of the interest rate increase. Now, the Fed created a program to solve that. It was called the Bank Term Funding Program, where they would loan money to banks at par value of these bonds to help provide more liquidity. But the Fed has not solved the other problem on bank balance sheets, which as you mentioned, is commercial real estate. A lot of these regional community banks, they've made huge numbers of loans. They're the main lender for small business borrowing and for commercial real estate. And the commercial real estate sector is extremely challenged right now. And they are carrying these loans on their books still at par value. And the reality is if they had to mark these things to

market, I think it would show huge losses. So I do think that there's still an enormous amount of stress in the banking system. None of the sort of underlying currents that are causing that stress, the high interest rates on the one hand, and then the challenged asset portfolios on the other. None of those things are really getting better on their own right now. So I think there are still likely more shoes to drop here. It's interesting because of course, before it could ever be a Biden versus Trump or a Biden versus DeSantis, those two guys are going to have to hash it out with people like Nikki Haley, like Vivek, like Tim Scott on the GOP side. And this has potentially advantaged Trump.

Tell me if you think I'm wrong, Just because the economy was so booming under him as president, DeSantis doesn't have that to point to yet. Florida's doing well, but it's not a national test. Just to give you a couple more numbers, there's a new morning consult poll out today. Trump has his biggest lead yet over DeSantis. Certainly things can change, but we're getting into the process now. We're going to have presidential debates in a few months trump 60 desantis 19 in december that same poll had trump up with a 20 point lead okay but now it's 31 um so that's wait a minute 40 is that 41 60 minus 20 is 40 yeah so it's 41 it was 20 before. Could be a slight outlier. The average of all polls has Trump up by 30. But man, oh, man. You know, if you're telling DeSantis what

he should do, looking at this number, these numbers, what's the answer? I mean, I guess, number one, get in. Right. Well, yeah. So in fairness to DeSantis, he's not in the race yet. And so he's been a punching bag by Trump and his surrogates. They've been beating up on him and he hasn't really been responding. So, yeah, he's got to get in the race and he's going to have to start punching back. He's going to have to start making the case for why Trump shouldn't be the nominee. I think the electability issue is one of them. I think there are also things you could point to about Trump's record. I mean, so it's true that we had a much better economy under Trump, but it's also the case that we had trillion dollar deficits every year under Trump. He was a big spender. He did not focus on budget discipline. Biden's been even worse, to be clear. Biden's running $2 trillion deficits. But DeSantis can make the argument that, hey, I presided over a

state budget where we balance the budget every year, and we've had a booming economy. And we understand the things that it takes to create that economy in Florida. So being pro-business, having a favorable tax environment, things like that. So I think DeSantis has arguments to make. There's no question, obviously, the polls show that he's an underdog. But, you know, in fairness, he hasn't he's on the race yet. So he's going to get in there and make the case. The effort to rehab Kamala Harris, since she's nobody's idea of a lift on the ticket, has begun now that the Democrats seem to be accepting that Biden is running again, as he said in his little video announcement, and she's going to be his running mate. We've seen it popping up a little bit more. A couple of things here. They're naming her AI czar, AI. She's going to be the artificial intelligence.

Oh, God. The plan is to launch 25 research institutes across the U.S. that will seek assurance from four companies, Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT uh i don't know who the fourth is to participate in a public evaluation of ai um she like i think my dog strudwick might know more about ai than kamala harris i'm concerned about this choice uh elon musk tweeted out maybe someone who can fix their own wi-fi router wouldn't be too much to ask. Do you have faith that Kamala Harris is the one to oversee this particular challenge? No, no. This has been my concern all along about the haste with which we are moving into seeking to regulate AI. I understand that there are some dangers associated with AI. I understand that there are some dangers associated with AI. There's things you can point

to, like the potential for people to create deep fakes, create fraud, or other crimes using those deep fakes. I think Elon has a much deeper concern, which is at some point, the pace of innovation could give rise to an AGI, artificial general intelligence, that is effectively a new species. It's a super intelligence that could decide it wants to replace humans and it would be smarter than us and it might have the capability to do that. I think that's a more far off sort of risk of AI. I think that's not something that's going to happen in the next few years, but I understand why he thinks that. I mean, there are a lot of smart people who think that is a real danger. But the

problem I have with regulation is we just don't know yet how to even approach that problem from a regulatory standpoint. There's a lot of conversation in the industry around this topic of what's called alignment, which is how do you create an AI or an AGI that is aligned with humans as opposed to something that might want to replace humans. But even the people who are working on the alignment problem don't really understand it yet. They don't really know how to proceed. So the idea that people in Washington are going to understand it better than the industry

and know how to regulate it, you know, and I think Kamala Harris is not unique in this. I think, you know, we've seen it in all these tech hearings that, you know, they barely understand how these products work. So no, I don't think Washington knows how to proceed at all in terms of regulating AI. And instead, I think what's likely to happen here, if we do try to regulate it, is industry capture. It's going to be the big tech companies who are able to afford all the lobbyists and the political contributions, and they are going to influence the conversation, and they're

going to skew it towards themselves and their interests. And it's going to be like all these other industries where, you know, whether it's, you know, like, again, what Bobby Kennedy Jr. points to is, you know, the FDA seems to be controlled by Big Pharma, and the EPA seems to be controlled by Monsanto, and so on down the line. He points, you know, the military industrial complex seems to have a huge influence on our foreign policy. It's going to be big tech that effectively controls or influences whatever new regulatory agency we create for AI.

And the person who's going to pay the price for that is the entrepreneur. It's going to be the two founders who are working in a garage trying to create something new who now have to go to Washington to get permission for their new business idea instead of something they could have just done without permission. That's the big risk that I see here. regulating this and creating some new regulatory agency over AI. I think it could really destroy the thing that makes the American economy special, which is permissionless innovation. I'm really not that comforted by your assurance that we're not going to have the supercomputer intelligence in the next few years. How long do we have? A few hundred. That would have brought me some comfort, myself and my kids. All right. While we're all over in the tech world, I've got to ask you about this New York Times profile of not Elizabeth Holmes, Liz, Liz Holmes. She's just like you or me. She's just like any regular citizen mom helping people out, although she's been convicted and is supposed to go to prison for 11.25 years this is what the times writes i mean it's clearly an attempt to by her by holmes to rehab her image

as she's looking at heading off to prison liz holmes wants you to forget about elizabeth is the headline the black turtlenecks are gone so is the voice as the convicted theranos founder awaits prison she's adopted a new persona devoted mother this is the person behind the Theranos founder awaits prison, she's adopted a new persona, devoted mother. This is the person behind the Theranos thing. Like you can just with a finger prick of blood do the same kind of testing as a tube of blood that you would get at Quest Labs or someplace like this. And she at 19 years old came up with a revolutionary technology to do this. And it was a fraud. That's that's basically how it imploded.

Miss Holmes speaks in a slight, slightly low, but totally unremarkable voice. to do this and it was a fraud that's that's basically how it imploded miss holmes speaks in a slight slightly low but totally unremarkable voice no hint of the throaty contralto she used to use while running her defunct blood testing startup theranos uh they go on to say i tell her that i heard jennifer lawrence pulled out of portraying her in a movie she replied almost reflectively they're not playing me they're playing a character i created i believed it would be uh she said this public persona she created how i would be good at business how i would be taken seriously and not as a little girl or a girl who didn't have good technical ideas uh they go on to say to point out she was found guilty in january 2022 on 11 counts

11 charges that she defrauded theranos investors out of more than 100 million dollars by saying she had working technology when she didn't uh and then the writer goes on to say okay she's theranos and elizabeth holmes just filed a last minute petition to remain free pending an appeal and that automatically delayed her report date to prison by an undetermined amount of time this is all bs because honestly this woman i think she had her second baby who was only days old when she gave this interview so she could avoid going to prison. Who has a baby knowing that they're going to be without their mother when they know they're going to prison for a decade? I'm sorry, but it's extremely selfish. But according to the piece, we're

supposed to feel sorry, I guess, for her because what it says is, I realized I was essentially writing a story about two different people. There was Elizabeth, celebrated in the media as a rock star inventor whose brilliance dazzled illustrious rich men and whose criminal trial captivated the world. And there is Liz, as her husband, Mr. Evans, and her friends call her. The mom of two who, for the past year, has been volunteering for a rape crisis hotline. I can't. I mean, come on, David. Don't they all go volunteer for the rape crisis hotline as they're about to go off to jail and asking the judge to keep them out? This is such a fake, obvious attempt at rehab. The writer's somewhat self-aware about it, but will it work?

Well, this rebranding reminds me a little bit of when Philip Morris changed his name to Altria Group. Whenever you feel the need to do a rebranding, it's usually not a good sign. And I think the thing to understand about Elizabeth Holmes or Liz Holmes, I guess now is that she's in no way representative of female founders in Silicon Valley. I don't really buy this argument that she was required or even pressured to engage in the fraud that she engaged in, let's remember it was a fraud. You're allowed to sell a big picture and a big vision. That is not illegal in Silicon Valley, even if it doesn't work out, even if it ends horribly. But she did a lot more than that. She basically forged documents. She doctored lab results. She misrepresented the current state of her product to investors. I mean, she engaged in a fraud. And I think it's-

Patients were hurt. Yeah, exactly. And it could have been even worse. So she caused real harm here. And we have invested in lots of female founders in Silicon Valley. None of them have felt the need to engage in any of this kind of conduct or behavior. And I think it's pushing an agenda and it's really demeaning to give any credence to this idea that she needed to do this because it's so hard for female founders. Every other female founder that we've worked with Silicon Valley, they, you know, they do not engage in this kind of behavior or fraud or this sort of, this sort of fake personal rebranding. So, you know, I mean, you're right. She's playing the woman card, right? Like I had to do all those things because I was a woman. I wanted to be

taken seriously. Oh, and by the way, I'm now a new mother. Oh, and also I volunteer on the rape crisis line. She's desperately playing the woman card to try to keep herself out of prison. Well, once again, what she's doing is appealing to the media. So Silicon Valley actually wasn't fooled by Elizabeth Holmes. If you go back and look at who actually invested in Theranos, major Silicon Valley firms did not lead her funding rounds. And I can tell you that nobody in my poker game in Silicon Valley invests in the company. There were skeptical conversations about the company. People thought it was suspicious. Some of the things we were hearing from job candidates who interviewed there and thought there was something funny going on.

None of the professional investors in Silicon Valley at major firms who could actually diligence the company were fooled by Elizabeth Holmes. This was before she was brought down. And the people who were fooled, quite frankly, were the media. their cover where she was wearing like the Steve Jobs turtleneck because they want to promote the story so badly that she was the next Steve Jobs that we'd have this female Steve Jobs. I think not really understanding what it was about Steve Jobs that made him so special and nothing to do with the way he dressed. It was about the products he created, but this is the story that the media wanted to promote. And so I think, and so really the people who caused Elizabeth Holmes and allowed her to get so big and for that fraud to be so much larger than it otherwise should have been,

it was not Silicon Valley that did this. It was the media who really blew her up into a much bigger figure. And in a way, this is what the New York Times is indulging. And again, they're allowing her to spin this narrative that it's not, you know, that, that again, that, that, that she in some way should be absolved for her crimes because she had it so tough as a female founder. And again, I would just point to the fact that she's not representative at all of, of, yeah, I've met a lot of entrepreneurs. Don't feel the need to take a behavior. Um, they go on to say just to the point she said she believed that making herself the poster girl for women in tech put a huge target on her back she regrets being the subject of fawning magazine covers um what does she think would have happened

if she hadn't garnered so much attention as the second coming of silicon valley miss holmes does not blink we would have seen through our vision. In other words, she thinks if she spent more time quietly working on our inventions and less time on a stage promoting the company, she would have revolutionized healthcare by now.

Word of caution, she is still working on healthcare-related inventions and would continue to do so behind bars. Okay, good luck with that. Buyer beware. And I'll just end with this.

The writer says that one person that Liz and her husband, Mr. Evans, suggested the writer speak to, she went. One of these friends said Ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at Theranos and didn't deserve a lengthy prison sentence. Quote, then this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe everything Ms. Holmes says. There you have it. David Sachs, we believe everything you say. Thanks for coming on and saying it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Megan. Great to see you. Okay. We're going to have our legal panel up next on a couple of things going on in the news. The latest on that subway death with the Marine who's now potentially facing charges and also on the E. Jean Carroll verdict. What does it mean? Also, George Santos just got arrested and he's in federal custody.

Whoa, we'll tell you why. There's more legal news to get to, including the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll, Donald Trump's civil case that came down yesterday, which I mentioned to you. Trump announced that he does plan to appeal and we've got George Santos now under indictment and in custody.

Oh, how's that going? We've got an excellent Kelly's Court panel to break it all down for you, plus some other legal stories. Joining us now, two criminal defense attorneys, John Espelbor and David Wall, two longtime favorites of the Kelly's Court franchise. All right. So the viewers are pretty much up to speed on what happened with E. Jean Carroll. Thanks for my discussion with david sacks want to give you just a little flavor of eugene and her lawyer on the morning shows today how they sounded and what their messaging is in the wake of this civil verdict in her favor i feel fantastic i have it is yesterday was probably the happiest day of my life it It was this five foot three and wily female attorney and this elderly 79 year old advice columnist who are finally holding Donald Trump liable.

I promise you that we will collect those damages. What would you want to say to him now? I said it to Joe Takapina yesterday. He came over to congratulate me. He put out his hand and I said, he did it. And you know it. Way to stay classy in the wake of your big win. All right. So, David, I'll start with you on this because we haven't seen you in a while. Welcome back. What do you make of the chances Trump has on appeal? Well, he's got a great chance on appeal. I don't think she'll ever collect a penny of this ridiculous award, Megan.

You know, I found fascinating about it yesterday was this jury said that Ms. Carroll was lying about being raped by President Trump. But on the other hand, because President Trump said she was lying about him raping her, he defamed her and ordered him to pay $3 million. Now, how does that work exactly, I wonder? The other thing is, Megan, for good measure, they decided, well, you know, we'll concoct a verdict of sexual battery because we've got to find some way to damage him for 2024. And so they came up with that verdict as sort of a gimme. And, you

know, none of this is going to hold up in a court of appeal. I suspect that if it isn't resolved in lower courts of appeal, it will end up in the Supreme Court, just like everything regarding Trump does. And honestly, this is what you get, you know, when you have a jury poll that's 80% hates Trump, 80% people that vote against him. And here you are. Higher, 87%, 87% for Joe Biden in the borough of Manhattan. So, but John, the allegations by E. Jean Carroll, though, you know, it was 30 years ago. She couldn't even remember the year she confessed to the jury. She she didn't say no. Nonetheless, they went with her.

She alleged that he penetrated her digitally and then raped her. So it is possible that this could be upheld on appeal saying, OK, maybe they believed the first allegation, which wouldn't necessarily be that would be sexual battery, not rape, but not the actual rape claim. And therefore, that's what all this award was for. I don't know. I think, you know, for me, the fact that they let in the Access Hollywood tape, the fact that they let in all these other women who said me too, which New York is doing more and more they did in the Harvey Weinstein case. I mean, it just makes it impossible for a defendant to win these cases. I agree. And look at the legislation to begin with. You know, I have to get this off my chest. Kathy Hochul will not sign the Grieving Families Act, which would give an avenue for the 15,000 people who lost loved ones in nursing homes because of the

mishandling of COVID under Governor Cuomo. She won't sign that, but she'll sign this Adult Survivors Act, which gives a small window for people who allege they were sexually assaulted as adults. The statute of limitations has run. It gives them a small window to go after who, Megan? It only gives relief to people who have a deep pocket to go after. If Joe Schmo sexually assaulted somebody in college and now whoever that is wants to get relief in the courts under this act, is she going to bother? Is she going to bother going after somebody who assaulted her in college allegedly, now is on divorce number two, making a buck 20 a year selling insurance? No. So this is just a virtue signaling legislation that Kathy Hochul signed.

For what reason? It's perfect. Now it's perfect because now this will follow Donald Trump well into the 2024 campaign and he won't ever pay a dime. And if he does, it'll be well after he's reelected

or this 2024 or somebody else is in office. It just won't matter. You're right, we're going to hear about it. It's going to be put into the questions that he gets asked at the primary level debates. And if he becomes the nominee at the, at the general election debates as well, I mean, you're right. It is going to haunt him, but you know, the thing is, and he can say it's unfair and he can say he didn't know her. But the whole process to Trump was really unfair because how are you going to defend somebody as a criminal defense attorney or as a civil defense attorney with a 30 year old charge? How we saw this unfold live when Brett Kavanaugh got accused. Thank God that guy had those detailed little notebooks as the Supreme Court future justice might.

But I wouldn't have notes of 30 years ago where I was or what I was doing. How is a man supposed to defend something like that? No. And you're seeing right now, Megan, why this was not filed in a court of criminal jurisdiction, because there's no way in hell it would have been sustained beyond a reasonable doubt as a conviction. That's what's going on. We don't have any surveillance video of that day in Bertdorf Goodman. And the idea that somebody as famous as Trump would go into Bertdorf Goodman, into the dressing room, rape a woman, then just walk out, saunter out the store like nothing happened. She would never report to anybody, although her

friends say they told her. Her own sister said that she never told her. No police report was ever made. She decided to come forward with it in 2019, right in the heat of a political season when Trump was running for reelection. And the incredible thing, and Megan, you talked about a video being played of Trump during this trial. I wonder if the video was played of Ms. Carroll's appearance on Anderson Cooper a few years ago when she said most women feel that, you know, rape is a sexy thing. The rape is something they fantasize about. And even even Anderson Cooper was stunned and had to go to a commercial. We have that, David. Let's show the audience what you're talking about. Stand by. And then you don't feel like a victim. I was not thrown on the ground and ravished, which the word rape carries so many sexual connotations this was not this was not sexual

it just it it hurt it just what it just you know i think most people think of rape as a i mean it is a violent assault it is not i think most people think of rape as being sexy let's take a short break think of the fantasies you think go ahead i mean megan was that played at the trial because i'll tell you what this entire claim at least from trump's perspective is a fantasy uh and if she thinks that way you gotta put in a serious question whether she's got all her marbles i mean no sane woman would say something like that. That was one of the most horrible, violent offenses you could suffer. So what was that about? She did have two contemporaneous witnesses who she told the story to, Jonna, at the time,

one of whom was a well-known newscaster who's got a lot of credibility in Manhattan, who said, yeah, after it happened, she came to me and told me it happened. I said this yesterday. I stand by it. It's amazing how the left totally credits those two witnesses in this case. But when Tara Reid, Joe Biden's accuser, said she had a witness who came forward and I I've spoken with this woman said she came to me right after it happened and told me. And there was a second witness Tara Reid had to totally dismissed her. Oh, that's not true politics may come in because she, E. Jean Carroll also claims that she was sexually assaulted by Les Moonves, another big media guy who used to run CBS. She didn't sue Les Moonves even though he too came out and said this was a lie. That's what Trump said about E. Jean Carroll. So why, why Trump and not Moonves, who's also a deep pocket? Could it be one is a politician who she doesn't like the politics of and one isn't? That's got to be the only reason why, you know, I can imagine. I'm not saying this has happened, but I can imagine that we are now in a place where somebody could approach her like Kellyanne Conway's ex-husband, like a George Soros, and say, look, do this for us, and win or lose, we'll take care of you. But there's no need to do that with a Les Moonves who's not running for anything.

There's no need to do that for somebody who's not Donald Trump. So was she motivated by financially and politically to do this? Maybe. We'll never find out, Megan. Well, we kind of know. Don't we kind of know?

Because George Conway went to her and then you had this guy, Reed, what's his name? Funding the litigation. Who's this big Democrat activist? I mean, we kind of know. Hoffman. You know, I think it's a very strong possibility. And it's fascinating that

E. Jean Carroll can get on TV and compliment her lawyer for her size. Like what the hell is wrong with you? Seriously. So to me, this is a farce. It's the reason why Donald Trump didn't even bother to show up to defend this case. He didn't want to be bothered. It wasn't worth it. You tell me, David, because there are a lot of even Republicans, but it's kind of the never Trump or Republicans. It's the anti-Trump Republicans, which are not necessarily the same saying, no, this is going to be a serious issue for him. This is going to be a serious issue for Donald Trump. I don't know. I just feel like he didn't even show up to defend it. I feel like if I were Trump, I'd be like, just saying what he's

saying. I don't know this person. I didn't show up to defend it because it's BS. It was an anti-Trump judge, which is true. And you know, this woman, she didn't, she didn't, she said, even in her mind, she couldn't remember when it happened. She didn't have any witnesses to it happening. And even in her fantasy world, this is Trump's alleged defense. She didn't even say no when this, it's like, is this really going to be held against him by people who aren't already against him? Yeah, a rape happening in a major department store. Nobody saw a thing. Nobody heard a thing. No, it's not, Megan. You remember the last time when the information came out with his conversation with Billy Bush, I think it was

grabbed him by the P word. That didn't hurt him. I mean, then he just said, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. He admitted to that um and it just strengthened his campaign people know at this point the more piling on that goes on the more unlikely it is that any of these allegations are true uh trump was impeached twice i mean that's that's the leading candidate for the gop now if that those two events didn't hurt him, this sure as hell is not going to hurt him. It's just going to energize his base, Megan, like most of this garbage does. And so I suspect that next time we see some polling numbers, he'll be further up on DeSantis and further up on Joe Biden. Yeah, we just got that today. He's up 40 points over DeSantis in

the morning consult poll. 40. I've got to play the Trump deposition excerpt again because it's just, I mean, sorry, but it's TV gold on the Access Hollywood comments. Can we watch this again? It's unbelievable. Sot 7. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet.

Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. That's what you said, correct? Well, historically, that's true with stars. It's true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy?

Well, if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately. And you consider yourself a TV star. Yes, he considers himself a star. It's unbelievable. And unfortunately or fortunately, and it depends on your point of view. Now this, in any average race, that would doom a man. That would doom any potential candidate, Jonna. But it doesn't doom Donald Trump. It barely got even pick up even by the left wing media, which

I actually found rather surprising. Well, he's owning it and look, it's old news, right? We heard this years ago before we elected him as president. So, uh, you know, who cares at this point? It's nothing new. It's not nothing shocking. Um, so it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. All right. Let me ask you a follow up on it, Jonna, though, if you've cross examined many, many people in court, in deposition and so on. Here is this other remark he made to the lawyer, the female lawyer who, despite being short, did it all. Here he is in the most infamous exchange from that whole deposition. It's well, you guys know it is eight.

When you said in that video that Ms. Leeds would not be your first choice, you were referring to her physical looks, correct? Just the overall, not, I look at her, I see her, I hear what she says, whatever. You wouldn't be a choice of mine either, to be honest with you i would not under any circumstances have any interest in you i'm being i'm honest when i say it uh she i would not have any interest in so jonna would you have let that like what how would you have handled that i would have throat punched him because that's a big insult to any woman he should have he could have used a little more charm against this adversary but he knows exactly what he's doing he knows how offensive

it is to to basically call a woman ugly uh and especially in a professional setting he did that on purpose yeah you know and what's for it's worth, that's what he did. Megan, she's also an open lesbian. So she's really not his type. Go ahead, David. When I'm sitting next to my client in a deposition like that, I wouldn't have throat punched him,

but those are the moments when you're kicking him, kicking his foot repeatedly, trying to get his attention, trying to get him to stop. I love President Trump. I worked for him in 2016, as you know.

He's a great guy, but he's sometimes brutally honest to a fault. And is a U.S. congressman, of course, from Long Island. After being indicted on 13 federal charges, Eastern District of New York unsealed the indictment today, 24 hours after he appeared to have no idea that he was even being charged. Seven counts of wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements, public funds theft. And it appears to cover just, I mean, a whole span of activity when he ran for congress in 2020 when he ran for congress this last time and won um taking people's public donations allegedly for his campaign and allegedly using them for private funds like his suits um lying about his whole like or all of them i mean just the list like half the stuff he got accused of publicly about a year ago has now come out as criminal. You know what? I got to say, I like this. I like this prosecution. Am I

wrong, Jonna? I hate to admit it. You're probably not wrong. I mean, he is a Republican and he's an unlikable guy. Like we've known from the getgo that he lied on his resume. Now it seems to have gone well, well beyond that. We can't tolerate that from a Republican or a Democrat. So we're going to have to see how this plays out. But he doesn't have a lot of support from either side, right? So he's probably going to go down fairly easily is my guess. But I don't know. This is brand new, so we'll have to wait.

Just to fill it in a little, David, they say he, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, he allegedly applied for and received unemployment benefits while he was fully employed and running for Congress. Uh, he,

during his second run for Congress, pocketed campaign contributions and use that money to pay down personal debts and buy designer clothing. Again, these are allegations. He'll have the chance to defend them. At the time he was getting these unemployment benefits. He was pulling in $120,000 a year

from his Florida-based investment firm and so on. Then they say he told a political consultant to inform donors their contributions were to elect him to Congress. That led at least two donors to transfer $25,000 to his campaign bank account. He then took those funds, transferred them to his personal bank account and use them for personal

expenses. They go on. The indictment does says he overstated the income he got from one firm and altogether failed to disclose the income he got from an investment firm during his first campaign. He did the same thing during his second run for Congress on and on and on. I mean, this is the same guy who remember he said his

mother, he said she died on 9-11 that she was in her office in the South Tower on September 11th. And then he said, oh, she passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer, suggesting, you know, the fumes from ground zero. Then he claimed on Twitter, 9-11 claimed my mother's life. OK, well, which is it? Was she there on 9-11 and died? Was it the fumes and the toxic waste? No, it was neither because public employment records show only one employer for Santos's mother. It was Imports by Rose, a company based in Queens, not lower Manhattan, that closed in 1994. 2001, September 11th. And there's also, this is quoting from a Vanity Fair or Forbes piece. I have both his sources. There's also the awkward matter of documents indicating the mother was in Brazil on the day of the attacks. She wasn't there at all. That's just one example. I mean, Megan, if I were defending him, I may well be looking into an insanity play at this point. I mean, he's so off the charts with these claims, and they're so obviously false on so many levels. That may be a good defense for him.

But, Megan, contrast this, however, with the speed and ferocity with which these charges have been filed. Contrast it with Hunter Biden, his ongoing, what, five, six-year, seven-year investigation into also obvious wrongdoing. They have the goods on him. They're dragging their feet forever. And for some mysterious reason, I'm sure it's not politics. He has not even been charged. So, hey, Merrick Garland, I know you're bitter.

I'm not making it to the Supreme Court, but come on. Let's see a little fair and balanced administration of justice. We are not seeing that here at all. It's a great point, David, because this is a federal prosecution. This is this is, you know, that's under Merrick Garland's purview, as is the Hunter Biden thing. They've got Hunter Biden on tape admitting he did some of these things, and yet they can't make that case. Exactly. They've got the they've got the document he signed to buy a gun. We obviously falsified information it's right in front of them they're just dragging their feet and just throwing it on

the back burner and hoping it all goes away nothing and you've got the president of the united states weighing in on that case saying he did nothing wrong really maybe you should keep your mouth shut about a potential criminal investigation of a family member but no he didn't all right let's talk about jordan neely He is the man who was, I don't know if the word is choked out, but on the New York City subway last week, he went on the train. He was threatening the passengers. He was loud. He had been arrested in New York. I've read both 44 times and 42 times, but over 40 times. He hurt a 67 year old woman. He hurt an elderly man. He tried to kidnap a seven year old child, long, long record of run-ins with law enforcement, suicidality,

being put in mental health facilities, leaving drug use. We could go on. So the former Marine who got him down, had him in this chokehold. And there were two other men, one of whom was a man of color. Uh, and Jordan Neely was black and the Marine was white, is now saying, you know, I'm very sorry, but he was threatening me and he was threatening other passengers on board that train. Now, the latest is that the Manhattan grand jury could review the case this week. They are expected to be meeting this week in the case of this Marine veteran. And, you know, we could see an indictment as a result of that grand jury meeting. The medical examiner has ruled this case a homicide, homicide.

And so what does that tell us, John? Is the fact that the grand jury is going to convene and it's been ruled a homicide? Yeah, that means the grand jury is going to come back with something. It's not murder, as AOC has so ineloquently put on Twitter. It's not anywhere near that. We do have a right to defend ourselves and third persons in New York with an amount of force that is relevant to the amount of force that is coming our way. Now, I will say this, as a real person, not just a lawyer for a minute, I was on a train three weeks ago, could have been Jordan Neely, could have been him, the same exact scenario, Megan, same exact,

where a man was terrorizing the entire train car, not because he was hungry, not because he needed a drink, he was terrorizing the entire train car, and nobody he was hungry, not because he needed a drink. He was terrorizing the entire train car and nobody was around. There wasn't a conductor to be found. I sat there and plotted how I was going to use my Prada as a weapon, because that was the only thing I had that could remotely resemble what I, and I'm serious. I was going to put it between me and him, like get off the train. I was scared. And if I was scared, so were other people in that car. What do you do? And I'm sure that Jordan nearly probably had drugs in his system at the time he was being subdued by this. I'm going to call him a good Samaritan. And I'm sure that that

contributed to his death. This is sad. It's unfortunate. And it didn't have to happen, not because we didn't need this good Samaritan. We did. But why are so many people with mental illnesses going unchecked in a city that's got a zillion programs for them? Why? Why wasn't he behind bars? Why didn't he stay behind bars when he was supposed to a year ago when he punched an elderly woman in the face? Why was he let go? So if you want to start pointing fingers, not you personally, if we as a society want to start pointing fingers, how about point him away from the good Samaritan and point him to the reason why the Jordanian of the world are allowed to terrorize law abiding people. Why? We're down there like sitting ducks. And meanwhile, his lawyers, of course,

go on Al Sharpton show with the following message to the marine daniel penny who is sorry that this man died but says he was defending himself and the other passengers on board here's the lawyers for jordan penny's family jordan neely and i've made clear in my capacity as head of national action network there is sufficient evidence in this case to at the very least consider criminal charges against Mr. Penny and the two holding down Jordan. Daniel Penny's regret is coming too late. And the police who showed up had access to Daniel Penny right there, the killer right on the spot, had access to every witness that they needed to question. This is an open and shut case. The killer, David, open and shut. You know, Megan, Mr. Penny is a decorated Marine as well. He had to make a split second decision. Could have been life or death. What if Mr. Neely had pulled out a knife, pulled out a gun and

killed someone? How would Mr. Penny live with himself then? And also, Megan, the big thing is this has to be done in the backdrop of every single day, Twitter, on air, online, seeing videos of people being violently attacked by mentally ill, homeless, violent people on subways, on trains, near subways, on the street. It happens everywhere. And it has to be considered as part of this evaluation by the grand jury. And as John said, did he have drugs in his system that precipitated his death? I wouldn't be surprised at all if that's the case. But you can't start calling someone a murderer who may have actually saved lives in what he did. And clearly, there was

no attempt or no intent to kill anybody he was trying to restrain him until they could figure out what to do with him and for whatever reason uh he died but this is not a murder why is this not um you know manslaughter involuntary manslaughter we we you know you didn't intend to kill him but you behave so reckless recklessly and holding him for 15 minutes while he was down and And at some point toward the end, not moving that it was criminally reckless to the point where you're looking at a manslaughter charge. Yeah.

Yeah. If I had to predict if the grand jury is going to come back with anything, it'll most likely be that. And, you know, and it's a shame that, uh, Daniel Neely has to,

um, I forgot his name. Sorry. I know it's Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny. They're so close. I mess them up too. Keep going. It's a shame that he's probably going to have to face some sort of criminal prosecution for this because again, he likely did save lives or save somebody from being harmed. How do you argue he feared for his life? Because deadly force is only appropriate if you feel fear for your life,

has to be that level. How does he argue that on minute 13, on minute 14, on minute 15? That's how they'll analyze it. Well, I have a couple of things. Number one, he did not think he was using deadly force, I guarantee you. And if there had been some law enforcement,

if we had cops again in the city and he didn't have to sit there for 15 minutes trying to trying to subdue somebody, then maybe this would not have happened. But I'm sure he didn't intend to kill him. He intended to hold him along the other two helpers until police could arrive. Where were they? So I don't think the level of intent is going to be anything beyond an involuntary manslaughter if it's unfortunately that. And those comments about being down there. And Mr. Meany flat out said it would hurt somebody. He said it flat out. That's true. And how is he supposed to know how severe the hurt is? Those comments about, look what we all have to deal with, that really could go to jury nullification, even if they have him on the elements. It's like, good luck finding a Manhattan jury that deals with what we all have to deal with down there and convincing them to put this guy in jail for protecting them. You guys, it was a pleasure as always. Thanks for being here. All right. Now I

want to tell you that tomorrow on the show, we are going to be joined and we're very excited to have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. back. Don't miss that. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show show no bs no agenda and no fear