← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Cultural Decay Leading to Left Celebrating Violence, and Defining "Hate Speech," with The Fifth Column | Ep. 1150
01:43:23
Megyn Kelly is joined by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, hosts of "The Fifth Column," to discuss the cultural decay exposed after Charlie Kirk's assassination through prominent leftist reaction, the ghoulish celebrations of political violence, a couple instances of graceful responses, the rush by some on both sides to their priors in the wake of the murder, how some on the left can keep their careers after cheering violence, the hypocrisy in our culture, Netanyahu’s comments on Kirk’s legacy, Candace Owens’ remarks about the letter and Kirk's views on Israel, Megyn and Charlie's conversation about Israel last month, AG Pam Bondi claiming “hate speech" should be criminalized, the actual parameters of free speech, her comments about punishing companies for their speech choices, and more. More from The Fifth Column: https://www.wethefifth.com/ BeeKeeper's Naturals: Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/MEGYN or enter code MEGYN for 20% off your order Riverbend Ranch: ...
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- [00:01]
Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111, every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. We have breaking news this morning as we are learning more about the Charlie Kirk assassination. Plus, there is a big debate breaking out over what to be done about hate speech in America. Nothing. The answer is nothing. It's fine. It's part of being American. Too bad you don't like it. Speak the opposite. That's the answer. You're American. That's how we do it here. There's nothing wrong with hate speech. Sorry, not legally. There's nothing for a prosecutor to do, an attorney general to do. The only thing you do is to speak louder with your pov. That's it there. I solved it. But we're going to start with what FBI Director Cash Patel just told Senator Josh Hawley about an online chat group involving alleged shooter Tyler Robinson.
- [01:04]
Camille Foster
Watch fortunately, has been leaked that there.
- [01:07]
Megyn Kelly
Was a Discord chat. And for those unfamiliar with it, it's.
- [01:11]
Camille Foster
A gaming chat room online that the suspect participated in.
- [01:17]
Megyn Kelly
So what we're doing, we've already done a sort of legal process, not just on Discord, so that the information we gathered is sustained and held in a.
- [01:26]
Camille Foster
Evidentiary posture that we could use in prosecution should it be decided to do so. And we're also going to be investigating.
- [01:32]
Megyn Kelly
Anyone and everyone involved in that Discord chat.
- [01:35]
Michael Moynihan
Okay, very good. I see the public reports that the.
- [01:38]
Matt Welch
Discord thread had as many as 20 additional users. It sounds like you're trying to run.
- [01:42]
Megyn Kelly
Down all of that to see if that's accurate. Who else may have been on that thread, what they may have known?
- [01:48]
Michael Moynihan
Is that fair to say?
- [01:49]
Camille Foster
It's a lot more than that.
- [01:50]
Megyn Kelly
And we're running them all down. It's a lot more than 20.
- [01:52]
Camille Foster
Yes, sir.
- [01:53]
Megyn Kelly
And you're running all of that together? Every single one, yeah.
- [01:55]
Michael Moynihan
Fantastic.
- [01:58]
Megyn Kelly
A lot more than 20. That makes sense. If you listen to AM Update today, we laid out the list of just alleged X accounts and online social media posts before Charlie's assassination, promising something devastating was going to happen to him on September 10, and then spikes of the football thereafter. It was. It's disturbing. It's very telling. It's going to be very hard for somebody to actually meaningfully argue that it. These people had no foreknowledge. By the way, on AM Update, we attributed most of that reporting to the Washington Free Beacon, which did do a good report. But the person who broke all of this was someone online who goes by Esthetica. It's at Ancestics and this was the person who actually broke all that news and it should have been properly attributed. Tyler Robinson is due to make his first court appearance later this afternoon where we are expecting to learn exactly which charges he faces. He's supposed to be in Court at 3pm Utah time. I think that's right, 3pm Utah time, which would be 5pm here and two hours before that they're expected to release more details, excuse me, on the charges which would be 1:00pm Utah time at 3:3 3:00pm Eastern. Joining me now to react to all of this, our pals from the fifth Column podcast, Camille Foster, editor at large for Tangle News, Michael Moynihan, host of the Moynihan Report on two way and Matt Welsh, editor at large for Reason. You can find all of their work and subscribe@wethefifth.com and you'll find them on the road with me for Megyn Kelly Live. Our tour starting next month. Go get tickets@megankelley.com now here's one way to clean up your medicine cabinet this season and replace toxin filled conventional products with more natural ones. Propolis Immune support Throat spray and Propolis plus Vitamin C liposomal can be must haves in the medicine cabinet as seasonal germs start to hit. Did you know germs can enter through your nasal passages just as easily as through your mouth. Propolis nasal spray is a great non toxic swap for other over the counter drug filled meds. It's non habit forming natural and has antimicrobial benefits. Beekeepers Naturals makes clean non toxic products that actually work. They never use harmful ingredients like red dye number three or other synthetic dyes or artificial flavors. Their products are third party tested for all pesticides and they're dedicated to sustainable beekeeping and to helping save bees. Beekeepers Naturals is offering you an exclusive offer. I can't. I'm trying. I'm trying to keep things straight. Okay? We're talking about Propolis and not propolis. I'm trying to keep the pronunciation straight and I'm back to Beekeepers Naturals. It's Naturals in the name but the things in their ad are not natural and very hard to say. They're offering you an exclusive offer right now. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com Megan or just enter the code Megan to get 20% off your order. That's beekeepersnaturals.com megan or or enter the code Megan when you check out Beekeepers Naturals products Are also available at Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens. Guys, welcome back. I actually haven't even spoke speak to you about the tour, about Charlie, about anything you do. You do you plan on going still on the tour. Did you guys have any hesitation? Was that a discussion?
- [05:28]
Michael Moynihan
Not a second. Not a second.
- [05:30]
Camille Foster
Zero.
- [05:30]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah.
- [05:31]
Camille Foster
We'll absolutely be there. Yeah, you can just put us around you in chairs.
- [05:35]
Michael Moynihan
It'll be fine. We have Defend Megan T shirts on.
- [05:39]
Megyn Kelly
You guys are awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you so much. We haven't had anybody try to cancel on us so far. Like, it's amazing. All of our guests. And as I was reading your names, you know, it's like I thought of Charlie because it's like he came on the show almost as frequently as you guys did, and our relationship goes back further, but he was here almost as often as you guys are. And I. You know, it's like I feel the way about his loss the way I'd feel if, God forbid, something happened to one of you. It's like we don't hang out a lot. We don't go for dinners a lot, but we know each other. We've spent hours and hours. I can. I can't think of a lot of friends I have spent this much time with. You know, if you look at the number of times you've come on, let's just pick the last six months. You know, like we spent election together. The election day, all of it. These relationships you form with the people who you interview and spend time with in this space, they're real. They're actually really meaningful. And I'm still so just upset about Charlie and just reading all the leftist freakouts about him. I love National Review. You know, they have a little TDS over there, but it's fine. I love them. And Jeff Blahar wrote a great piece. He predicted this. Okay, the listen to this. He wrote this earlier, before the Charlie assassination. It was after poor Irina was murdered on the train. And he wrote this. I fear we're on the verge of a great societal breakdown, One right out of the late 60s and early 70s, and we are not prepared for it. Something wicked this way comes. The atrocity in Minneapolis is but one articulated edge in a far larger fractal pattern of violence and madness creeping across our landscape. Once the progress was imperceptibly slow, but technology has proven to be the accelerant. The threat is pre political, generational, and perhaps even civilizational. The worst are full of passionate intensity. Things are falling apart, crumbling at both the margins and the center of our societal self conception. What comes next? I suppose we'll find out. My God. So he writes this and then he writes the following, which I want to kick it off with you guys on. I want to express my burning contempt for the social media charade that I and every other conservative just had to endure. The experience of watching Charlie murdered and then watching vast numbers of propagandists and people who know better tell us that Kirk was actually shot from a far right groiper or a Nick Fuentes fan or a maga true believer and anyone but a person associated with a left coded cause which Occam's Razor already suggested was the likely reality. As each new detail trickled out and the killer's transgender associations became clearer and clearer, the hysterical spin and assertions of blunt unreality mounted. Cynical pros began inserting outright lies into the mix as partisans part, as partisans took up their work and used it in desperate craven attempts to either spin facts in ridiculous ways hypocrisy his parents are Republicans. Or simply pretend the facts weren't facts at all. All of it was done with the intent of trying to will into existence through the spread of fear, uncertainty and doubt, an alternate narrative whose intended moral calculus amounted to, in so many words, Charlie Kirk was killed by his own team and this is actually your fault. So no, I'm not about to move on just yet. Totally agree with and endorse every word of that. The gaslighting that we have been subjected to over the past five or six days is infuriating and it's like even more so. It's like unsettling. It's actually kind of deeply unsettling your thoughts.
- [09:26]
Matt Welch
Before we even get started, Megan, I just want to say on, on behalf of the boys since they're going to elbow me in the throat before all of that. We watched you as you were struggling with this on air and just kudos for you for elbowing your way through it. I know how I only begin to imagine how rough that is and then also for you doing what Ben Shapiro did. Ben who is not a big F bomb dropper, but his response to this, like yours is the correct one. I am going to go in public and speak and we are very, very happy to go with you. Not because we always agree with you, but precisely because we always don't.
- [10:06]
Michael Moynihan
Kind of the point when.
- [10:08]
Matt Welch
Which is something that Charlie Kirk like exuded in his bones. So that's the throw clear. Thank you for all of that. Thank You, Matt, it's, it's terrifying to watch how many people have talked themselves into an entire narrative. Heather Cox Richardson, I think the most popular substacker.
- [10:24]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah.
- [10:25]
Megyn Kelly
Out there.
- [10:25]
Matt Welch
Incredibly successful. An academic of some sort. Just sort of out there stating as. As kind of fact now that I guess they're saying he's a left groiper.
- [10:35]
Michael Moynihan
New category.
- [10:36]
Megyn Kelly
Unaware of.
- [10:39]
Matt Welch
And there's, there's a whole category.
- [10:41]
Megyn Kelly
Groiper is just, just for the audience. I know Groipers is a term that is generally used to describe these Nick Fuentes fans. Nick Fuentes, who is sort of described as the. One of the OG modern day online white supremacists. And I don't. It's got some lineage with these like, frogs. Pepe the frog, whatever. In any event, it's, it's a, it's a. Like a white supremacist who follows Nick Fuentes. A griper.
- [11:05]
Matt Welch
Yes. So there are people who are going to talk themselves up into that and there's even some preliminary survey data that that is going to be an epistemic bubble that's not getting popped. There's going to be people like, yeah, yeah, he was definitely, definitely on the right. The same wisdom applies to absolutely every tragedy, violent act of violence, especially if it's politicized. It's okay to wait a beat. It's okay not to state with 1000% certainty X, but please don't state with 1000% certainty the opposite of X. And it is revealing to see who is doing that right now. Don't have to do that. We can demand better of ourselves and of the people that we and the institutions that we consume with in media.
- [11:54]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, I just second what Matt said. And also to say kudos to our friend and friend of all three of ours, Jeff Blair from National Review for a great piece that I hadn't read. So thanks for reading that. I mean, there's been. I don't even know how to begin this because I've, you know, my brain hasn't stopped whirring and whirling since it happened. And, you know, in seeing you, Megan, do that in real time and pivot very quickly. It's not a podcast, people. This is a podcast. We release things that's just an hour here and there. I mean, reacting to the news in that way was, I think, pretty helpful to a lot of people. It certainly was for me. But one of the things that's really interesting about this, that nobody really has pointed out is that this is actually a new thing. Why is this different than all of the other examples people talk about. You know, Minneapolis keeps coming up in this political point scoring. It's never okay to do, you know, acts of violence towards politicians. That should be obvious. But it is kind of interesting that this is the only one I can think of of an act of violence against a pundit. That doesn't happen very much. It's very, very unique. I can think of one that we were doing an episode of the Fifth Column with our listeners, talking to them on Zoom, and I thought of Alan Berg, who's probably totally forgotten about by people, who was a talk radio host in Colorado, I think, who was killed by neo Nazis. He was Jewish, and that was enough. And they. And he had attacked these Nazis and they killed him. But that was the only one I could really think of. And I think that was actually specific too, about him attacking a specific person, specific people responding. Whereas this was, you know, somebody who had ideas. And at the end of this conversation, at the end of all of these conversations, when you have these, well, what was on the. The casings, the bullet casings, what did they mean? What did he say? What was the. What did he say to his friends? All of this stuff which is trying to divine the politics of this psychotic shooter. It seemed pretty obvious to me because he killed Charlie Kirk, what his politics.
- [14:03]
Megyn Kelly
Were back to the Occam's razor.
- [14:06]
Michael Moynihan
That's the Occam's Razor. He killed Charlie Kirk. He did not take a shot at some sort of left wing pundit or left wing politician. And at the end of the day, every conversations should start and begin with one sentence. Um, he was killed for what he believed. He was killed for what he said, full stop. Why are you saying. And I keep on having these conversations. You know, Camille, Matt and I had this conversation. We immediately reacted to it. The day that it happened is that I'm increasingly getting uncomfortable with the throat clearing. This sort of. You have to do this throat clearing if you're not a conservative and say, well, I didn't agree with everything that he said. Well, hold on a second. Why does one say that? I get the instinct because you just want to. You, I'm not this guy. But what is built into saying something like that is that I didn't agree with these horrible things that he said, but you shouldn't kill him. I mean, that kind of sentence, which presumes that there are certain, I guess, certain language that you can use where it's justified. I don't know what motivates people to say that, but I don't care. It should be. Look, Ezra Klein, liberal columnist, the New York Times, who I think particularly Matt and I have had a fun time making fun of for many, many years. Matt profiled him for the Columbia Journalism Review, and it was a bit of a tough profile, but we've made fun of him for a long time for a variety of reasons. But he came out and wrote a piece and said, you know, this is what we should be doing. This is how we argue. I think the sickness of the political culture which is demonstrated in the assassination of a pundit is also. There's a second wave of seeing the sickness of this culture as the reaction to it, of course, but it was the reaction for main people getting mad at Ezra Klein for having that measure of grace and saying, you know what, the guy tried to engage people. He might not like what he said and you might not like what he thought. But, you know, this archaeology, the offense, archaeology. What did Charlie Kirk say? What did he say, you know, 10 years ago? Which, by the way, one more thing. This, I'm sorry to drone on about this, but it's, it's all very upsetting to me, is that when you go in this, these archaeological expeditions to try to find bad things that Charlie Kirk said in the past, I mean, we do. I mean, you wouldn't take long for people to find stuff that I've said we do this for a living or on the air all the time. But it doesn't allow for growth because Charlie Kirk has been doing since he was 17 or 18 years old. I have wildly different views than I had when I was 17 or 18 years old, and I think he probably did, too. Not wildly so, but you're going back and trying to punish a man in death who is assassinated in, in trying to find these aberrant thoughts that he had when he was 18 or 19. Guess what, guys? That's when you're allowed to have those aberrant thoughts. You should always allow to be allowed to have them. But that's when you have things. You're working things out in your head. And now you've been gunned down in front of your family, kids left fatherless, and these vultures are out there trying to find the things that you said that were wrong and by the way, and then misquoting you in doing so. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.
- [17:19]
Megyn Kelly
I totally agree with every word you just said. I want to give a shout out, too, because, you know, in our business, we're always giving each other jazz and people who are on the opposite side. So much more so. But I always have been of the belief that with the exception of maybe 2% of the people who come under my own withering criticism, I could go have a beer with 98% of them. I really could, without. I could check the politics to the side and I could have a beer with them and we could talk about things that we do agree on, you know, whatever it is. Sports is tough for me, but I. I could make a showing of it if it were important to the other person, whatever. There's a lot of stuff beyond politics, and even within politics, there are a lot of safe zones. I mean, there are people we can all agree are terrible. Eric Swalwell, nobody likes him. It's easy, you know, we go there.
- [18:03]
Michael Moynihan
No beer for you, Eric.
- [18:04]
Camille Foster
But we don't want any harm to come to him.
- [18:06]
Michael Moynihan
No, no, we just don't want to.
- [18:08]
Megyn Kelly
It'd be easy to. Just to find someone we can all agree on. And I wanted to just give a shout out. I hope he'll forgive me, because he didn't. Like, he didn't say it was off the record and he didn't ask me not to say anything. But Tommy Veder of the Pod Save America guys sent me one of the nicest notes I've received. And it was all about how sad he was over Charlie and how he's been reflecting on his own life and his own dialogue on his show and just how meaningful what Charlie built was to him from afar. He did not say any of the throat clearing at all. Like, I didn't agree with him. Not, not a word of that. Just I respected what he built. A man with a family. And Tommy has one too. And now he's officially my favorite Pod Save America guy. But it is important to call out like there. Not all leftists are insane and have lost their minds, you know, but far too many have. And far too many civilians in powerful positions, like those who are flying our planes and operating in our hospitals, have shown the mania, you know, the mania of enjoying his death and really wanting to celebrate in it. Your thoughts on it all, Camille?
- [19:20]
Camille Foster
Well, I think one of what you just said there reminds me of something like one of the major defects of the kind of social justice epoch of the past five or six years is the magnification of any imagined defect in the people that you most disagree with. So America just becomes utterly white supremacist, clearly irredeemable. Everything about it must be foregrounded by acknowledging in the strongest possible terms the worst its Most its worst imaginable failures, and in many cases, just totally imagined failures. And unfortunately, much of the country has permitted itself to be kind of led around by the nose, by the worst malefactors in our politics. People who have fringe ideas, who say fringe things at times, some of those fringe things, because they've been allowed to be led around by the nose by these people, have just kind of risen, like to the very top. And suddenly it becomes impolitic to criticize people for, say, burning down buildings or punching Nazis in the face or whatever you prefer. I mean, you can find so many examples of this. And this just became part of our politics. And I think many people who in other contexts would have shuddered at the thought of endorsing those sentiments, perhaps became a little bit more familiar with it. But there's this quote which I believe is Nietzsche. And here we are like 10 minutes in, and I'm going to try to go deep philosophical here, but it's not that profound.
- [20:56]
Megyn Kelly
We need it.
- [20:58]
Camille Foster
When you're fighting monsters, like, the thing you have to be careful of is that you don't become the monster. And I think one of the concerns that I've had very recently, and not just recently that's true of kind of my critique of the left is that in analyzing the fringe characters, and there are too many people in this country who endorse really disgusting views, who are celebrating the death of someone they disagree with or believe it's even appropriate to utilize violence in contexts like this.
- [21:28]
Megyn Kelly
That.
- [21:29]
Camille Foster
We aren't insisting that these people are representative of the broader opinion on the left. It is the case that well over 80% of Democrats disagree with this stuff. Based on this YouGov poll that I know a number of people have been citing recently. And that 80% is. I wish it were higher. And based on the polling, it is higher amongst Republicans.
- [21:54]
Megyn Kelly
You know what we need, though, Camille? We need that 80% to call out the 20%.
- [21:58]
Camille Foster
We do need that. We do need that, without a doubt. And I think there just needs to be a broad recognition across the political spectrum that this is an issue, full stop. And I do think that the left has historically, and I believe I've said it on this program and I've said it in other contexts as well, had a very difficult time acknowledging the fact that they have extremists who endorse really dangerous things on their side as well. They've spent so many years, I'm sure you guys remember all of these studies that were being trotted out maybe 10 years ago, where they're like, oh, now we know why conservatives trend fascists. It's because of some weird defect that we could see in all of these studies. The data proves that these people are just congenitally fascist. That was despicable. It was wrong. And it was also a mistake to try to correct overcorrect in the other direction. And I just. I want us to be locked into the fact that as bad as things have felt, and I felt, even listening to you all talk at the beginning of this, I kept thinking to myself, I'm not sure I'm ready to do this again yet. I've been able to hold it together in most of these appearances, but I'm definitely not quite myself. This feels profoundly different. It makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. I can't stop thinking about Charlie and his kids. And I keep having this impulse to reach out to even people who I've had kind of public disagreements with, to try to mend bridges. And if that's what comes out of this, then that's good. And I think the only way we get to that coming out of this is to acknowledge clearly most of us are totally sane. Most of us hate seeing what's happening to this country. And even while we disagree vehemently on so many issues, like we always have, and we found a way to work together productively, and that has to be what comes out of this. Not a kind of campaign of reprisals or recriminations. Yes, Find everyone who is advocating for and actively plotting violence and do something about that. Call it out in the. In the first case and in the latter case, find them and prosecute them. But let's also focus on, like, trying to build bridges and find partnership with the broad universe of people who hate political violence, who hate the acrimony that has become so common in our politics.
- [24:11]
Megyn Kelly
That's an important tale on. That's an important tale on there, because it's like, we are not going to build bridges to any of these loons who are out there celebrating Charlie's murder at all. They're not reachable. We have no desire to be around them. They're dangerous people. There's no dialogue there. There's only defeating. But there is a section of the left that hates what happened to Charlie, and that doesn't do the throat clearing. And that is still rational. It's just we haven't. They have not been the dominant voice over the past week at all, which has been really rattling, I think, to many of us on Team Sanity. It's like, I certainly expected the universal Condemnation without any qualifiers, to be a lot wider and to be the dominant message. Even I expected that and I've been just disgusted with the mainstream message. It feels like the mainstream message from most corners, which starts with we may never know the motives. Honestly, it's, that is so infuriating. Go fuck yourself. We clearly know the motives. He wrote them on the bullets. How much closer are we going to get? You know, you've got the Utah governor saying explicitly that he'd been, he'd gone radically left. We've got the family saying he'd gone radically left. We have the family saying he hated Charlie. Kirk, we have the FBI saying that he said he hated Charlie, that Charlie was coming to town and that he planned to kill him. We've got the fact that he put weird furry writings on the bullet casing that actually shot Charlie. He shot Charlie when he was discussing trans shootings. He waited until that moment of the debate. He was dating and living with a trans male to female person who was also a furry. The transgender community, some of whom were following that boyfriend, were predicting the murder and then celebrate. I mean, like, look, you don't have to be Colombo to put two and two together here. And so it's just the denial of reality is very unsettling. It's like you can go with the vast majority of trans people don't murder. You can go with the vast majority of radicalized online 22 year old men who spend all their time gaming don't murder. You know, you could take it any one of those places and we can have that debate. But you cannot go with these motives are irrelevant and they're lies. And really he's just a Republican Mormon, gun loving, you know, well, Christian is what they're saying. I just, that is too destabilizing. You know, there's truth, there's reality. And I, I will say this too. I've been very, very conscious since the moment of Charlie's death not to just revert to my own priors, which is what I think most people are doing right now. Yes, as soon as I saw him shot, especially when we heard the question that he was answering, the first thing I thought was it's a trans activist of some sort. It's somebody acting in some way on behalf of the trans community. And to be honest with you, I still think that's true. I, I believe based on this evidence that's pretty clear. But I've seen everybody I know go to their priors, you know, like, you know, they're like, I've Seen whatever. I, I've heard Tucker and I've heard Candace and we'll talk a little bit about what Candace is saying today. Go to like, is there any sort of state, possibly Israeli involvement? Tucker didn't say that explicitly, but you know, you can see he might be kicking it around and she's saying it a little bit closer to explicitly. You see people who are just more conspiratorial in their thinking and that's fine. Honestly, we've talked about this many times. They've gone to like the massive conspiracy, like our own government did it. Our own government somehow wanted to get Charlie and that's online in certain corners and that his own security shot him. And the video slowed down to show you how his own security guard was in on it shooting him from the other side. Somehow the magic bullet made it through and around and to the left, even though the guy was on the right. All this stuff. So I, I think most of what we're seeing right now in the news is people going to their own priors. The left is like the right are fascists. They're the evil ones. And so they're the ones who pick up guns and shoot people. And our people are peaceful, which is a lie. And you know, somebody like me who's been very active in that what's happening in the trans community is deeply wrong. Kind of goes there first saying I suspect them and so on. So we all have to check our own biases and stay fact based, fact based, no matter where the facts lead us. Which is very possible if you're aware of your own priors and you take the facts as they come in. But the left, I submit to you, is not willing to do that. It is not willing to do that. It is not going to accept. Even if this guy comes out at this arraignment today or his first appearance today and says, I did it for the trannies or I did it for Israel or whatever. You pick it. You know, any number that's going around now, the left will not accept that. They will only go with the pre existing narrative. I don't know why they're divorced from reality. They can't accept what their side is doing. You tell me.
- [29:16]
Michael Moynihan
There's so much to unpack here. I mean, there's, you know, the frustration that I had when everything, you know, Occam's Razor, as we've mentioned a couple times, was so clear that Charlie Kirk, of all people, was gunned down in the middle of one of his debate sessions with students at a university Pretty obvious what's going on here. I mean, there's a narrow band of people that could be groipers or something, but yet, because there's, you know, one person out of all of them. You have Heather Cox Richardson, the biggest substacker and apparently a professor of some repute, which she should lose any of that repute for the stuff that I've been reading by her and you know, the bullet casing stuff. Well, that wasn't true. We've got to take that story back. Somebody told the Guardian that he'd gone very far left. And then the Guardian said, well, we don't know if that's true. We're actually going to append something. Everyone's being very nervous about this, about his politics. And then you think back to Jared Loughner, the psychotic loser who shot Gabby Giffords, and we saw Paul Krugman the next day, you know, trying to tie this to Republicans, people trying to tie it to Sarah Palin. And then you saw his, what he wrote about this before he did it. And it was a bunch of babble about numerology and how grammar was an evil conspiracy.
- [30:34]
Megyn Kelly
Grammar, exactly.
- [30:36]
Michael Moynihan
Not liberals, not, you know, grammar. And so they were very happy to jump to those conclusions then. And now it's everybody urging calm and reflection. One thing I want to say about, about sticking to facts. I mean, we absolutely have to do that. And I see so many people like you, Megan, who are not doing that and are getting out in front of themselves to try to make some sort of political point. There's a problem though, the way that people actually deal with facts and deal with things that are undeniably true. So you have people saying, well, what about the. Whataboutism comes in when we're trying to figure out who is more violent, the left or the right, which is bugs game. It's a stupid idea. It's a stupid game because there is something in this that is important, but no one is paying attention to it. They're trying to figure out on a scorecard. I've seen many of these scorecards. The actual case here is not that there is a scorecard. It's how your side, it's how the people in your retinue, how they deal with it and how they internalize violence. What I mean by this is right close to where I am right now. I just saw a news story pop up that a judge dismissed two charges in the Luigi Mangione case.
- [31:49]
Megyn Kelly
One of them, I think, the terrorism charges.
- [31:52]
Michael Moynihan
The second story I saw related to that was a chorus of cheers from people out in front of the courtroom, odd people who are holding signs for Luigi. I just imagine if there was. I don't love playing this game, but I just imagine if there was some sort of right wing lunatic killer and there was 50 people out in front of the courtroom in New York City cheering that person having less, you would never hear the end of it. And if I can do one very quick thing, and I'm just thinking about this this morning, because I was coming in to the city on the subway and I'd mentioned this the other day, the institutional acceptance of violence on the left. And I'm sorry, I'm tired of being ecumenical about this. There is no people in universities who committed right wing terrorism who now have university jobs or are treated with respect. And I went down the list.
- [32:46]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. Nor does the right ever stop a speaker from coming to a college campus.
- [32:51]
Michael Moynihan
And if they did, we would all denounce it, I hope. I mean, I know that you would, Megan. I know all three of us would do it, but I was just thinking of the people because I'm obsessed with this stuff and I have mental health issues, Megan. And so I know all these people, these mad terrorists from the 1960s who I've written endlessly about. And I was trying to think that people who have been charged with crimes, terrorism crimes, been in front of a court because of this, who have advocated violence and in a lot of cases participated in violence and in some cases been convicted of murder.
- [33:18]
Megyn Kelly
Kathy Boudin.
- [33:20]
Michael Moynihan
Kathy Boudin, who was at NYU and Columbia, she was convicted of murder. Bill Ayers at University of Illinois. Bernard Northwestern. I was writing them down. Eleanor Stein, member of the Weather Underground. SUNY Albany. Susan Rosenberg, John Jay College and Hamilton College. Judith Clark at cuny. Kathy Boudin. Jamal Josephs at Columbia University. Erica Huggins at California State. Howard Machtinger, University of North Carolina. The list goes on. All of those people were involved in terrorism. This is not a controversial position I'm taking here. People have been, have been either convicted or were part of this sort of organizing committee of the Weather Underground. Not only did we allow them back into society, like, look, you served your time or you were found innocent. I don't want to put people in a corner forever. Most of these people didn't go back to their views and say these were wrong, they got university teaching jobs. University teaching jobs. And I ask every listener of the show if you think that it's a small proportion of people that are celebrating or justifying Charlie Kirk's murder. I suspect it probably is small, but it's way too big. Those are the same. You can have exactly those two sentiments at the same time. And just think of anyone that you know on social media who has said something, friend of a friend who sent you a screenshot of one of their friends. I have had so much of this, and none of these people are in the world that we live in, the world of politics. And it's astonishing to me, much like the Luigi Mangione thing, how many people are saying, well, it's bad, but that is a bad place to be. And I want everyone to walk away from politics for a second because you start thinking, well, what did Charlie Crook think about trans rights and affirmative action? You know, you should be. You should be. My daughter, who's 14 years old and just the most fantastic person on earth, she found out about this and texted me. And you know what her text was? He had two kids. That's what she said. And that's the right thing to think. She couldn't imagine, like, their father was taken away. She has no politics in her. She's 14. She doesn't think about politics. So she thinks about the natural thing that we should think about is someone being gunned down. And, you know, there's so many horrors of it. But taking away a father from the kids who will, you know, don't have a father growing up, I mean, it's so horrifying to me. And I thought when my daughter sent me that text message, I was like, yeah, we need to get back to that. We need to get back to being this and get out of the politics and just think of the consequences of this disgusting person's disgusting actions.
- [36:00]
Megyn Kelly
I just wanted to say one, two factual things on what you said. Yes, there was that controversy about the bullet casing. People say, oh, well, that fell apart. No, it did not fall apart. The first bullet, the bullet casing on the bullet that hit Charlie Read notices bulges o wo which is a. A furry meme. It's a meme from furry culture which is very closely linked to the trans community. And who does it turn out? His boyfriend is a furry slash trans person. And the shooter himself is linked to a furry website. He's he registered on this furry website. So it's very linked. I mean, don't. Don't believe me? Go ahead, look at it online. That furry culture and that trans culture culture are two sides of the same coin. So it did not fall apart. In fact, if anything, it only came into full flower once we learned about the boyfriend, not for nothing, but there are unconfirmed reports now that there was a second boyfriend who was also much like the first one. We'll see whether that's true or not. But clearly this man, the shooter, and his boyfriend were extremely tied to the trans community. And according to what I read from Esthetica and the Washington Free Beacon, also to some sort of group online that was predicting this murder. So the FBI is looking into all that. And then secondly, you mentioned the friend interview to the Guardian, which then the Guardian stood down on. The friend of the shooter was allegedly saying he went very left in recent years. And it's. This is a left wing publication, so the left didn't know what to do with that. Like, why would they. You can see why National Review would write that. But why would the Guardian say that if it weren't true? So it was a problematic report for these lefties. And then the Guardian stood down on the report saying, oh, we're not sure. And then all the left use that too to say, oh, see it what? He wasn't a lefty. Totally ignoring that. The Utah governor has repeatedly said, and the FBI has now repeatedly said on the record, on camera, not anonymously, not leaked that, that he had been infected by far left ideology, by left wing ideology. That is what they both said. They won't acknowledge it. Instead, we get. Here's CBS Evening News's John Dickinson. Just the other night, on Monday, last night, five days after Charlie Kirk's murder, the shooter's motive remains elusive. No writings left behind. Vague secondhand testimony that uncertainty and the risk of drawing sweeping conclusions suggest the murder may share similarities with recent violence not driven by an obvious political ideology. The FBI recently recognized a new category. Nihilistic, violent extremism. Hmm. What is he talking about?
- [38:44]
Matt Welch
Very selective, very selective skepticism. Again, I'm in favor of like, let's hold off, wait for the evidence to come in and try hard not to root for what category the shooter belongs to. I think that we all should do more of that. So maybe the first half of his sentence could be read to the like that. But then the second half of the sentences, it suggests this explanation over here.
- [39:07]
Megyn Kelly
Like, where was the tick tock of evidence, Matt? Okay, if you're going to say we don't know what the motive is, you must offer the evidence we do have. There were no writings. Yes, there were. There were writings. There were writings on the bullet casings. You absolute. Like, there were writings. And they couldn't have been more tied intimately to the actual murder. This is insanity to say that and not. By the way, there doesn't have to be writings anyway. You. But if there are, and then you look at the man's lifestyle and they back up everything that was written on the bullets, it seems like it might be worth leading with John rather than, gee, it might be. It's just a mystery. And by the way, then we saw Jessica Tarlov try to do that on Fox News. Is the Five as she Both sides. Is both sides the violence issue. And it was a great response from Greg Gutfeld that is very satisfying to watch. I encourage people to watch the whole thing online because he spoke for all of us in his. His firing back at her and her shutting that shit down. Here it is. Why is only this happening on the left and not the right? That's all we need to know. There's absolutely no what about Melissa Hartman that you want to talk about? Melissa? Did you know her name before it happened? None of us did. None of us were spending every single day talking about Mrs. Hortman. I never heard of her until after she died. Don't play that bullshit with me. You know what I'm talking. What I'm saying is there was no demonization amplification about that woman before she died. It was a specific crime against her by somebody who knew her. The both sides argument not only doesn't fly.
- [40:54]
Michael Moynihan
We don't care.
- [40:55]
Megyn Kelly
We don't care about your both sides argument. That shit is dead. All that I was saying is, is could we have all of the information before you just say they did this? Because that is a broad brush to paint with this and this kid. Let's have a conversation. No, Charlie had a conversation. You got shot. They built this thing up. We're dealing with it. We're going to act. We don't care what the what about ism is anymore. That shit's dead. I. I couldn't agree more. I like, I just feel like, what do you. She's acting like it's a total mystery. She's. She's pulling the John Dickerson thing. Chicken Dickinson, where it's like, gee, just such a mystery. Oh, and by the way both sides do political violence. They keep raising this House speaker in Minnesota and it is infuriating. First of all, Gutfeld is exactly right. She wasn't killed because there were universal attacks by the right on her stirring up the national animus against her. Nobody knew her name. She wasn't some. Some star in Minnesota either, where it was like, oh, every negative article about this House speaker that's not at all what was happening there. And secondly, the guy who killed her, the psycho, remember, who broke into her home and was wearing the mask, was a psycho. The guy was a psycho. He had clearly lost his mind. You can attribute it to political violence, like, yes, he targeted somebody who was in politics, but he was a nutcase. So far I've seen no evidence that this particular 22 year old was a nutcase in the truest sense of that word, nor the guy who shot Trump and got shot himself in Butler, Pennsylvania for that matter. Now, they may have been 20 something year old men who had a break, but the evidence on that is out. But, but, but to raise the speaker in Minneapolis like, or Minnesota like she is in any way comparable to Charlie Kirk is a lie. The left is lying. It is their side that does political violence. And because you might be able to find one random right wing example, okay, Paul Pelosi was attacked. That wasn't a Republican attacking Paul Pelosi. Are you kidding me? The guy, everything around him, he was with the pride flag and the blm, and he was a nut too. But don't tell me he was some Republican doing Republican violence against her, but her husband, because they're Democrats, the things they pluck are inapposite, as we would say in our legal briefs. They don't fit, they're off point. And while they do that shit, they don't acknowledge we had two, arguably three presidential assassination attempts on our guy as he was inching toward the polls before November of 2024 and his most prominent supporter. There's not a more prominent Trump surrogate than Charlie Kirk was just gunned down in the prime of his life. Deal with that.
- [43:43]
Michael Moynihan
Imagine the situation if someone shot Barack Obama, Joe Biden in the ear and then not long after shot one of his biggest supporters or one of their biggest supporters in the neck and killed them. I think that we would be having a conversation about the epidemic of political violence right now. What we're having is, well, what about this? And you know, it doesn't look, we're a nation of 330, 340 million people. You can have a time in which 10 people who are nominally on the right, you know, or the left, you know, go out and do terrible things, kill people, shoot people, burn things down, whatever it might be. That's not the interesting thing. I'm sorry, it's just not as far as trends go. The thing that bothers me is my daughter also said to me, she's like, it's going to be Luigi Mangione all over again. This is the 14 year old. I'll send you the one.
- [44:39]
Megyn Kelly
That's my fan, isn't it? Yeah.
- [44:42]
Michael Moynihan
She sends me clips and I was like, could you please block Megan? You're getting radicalized. This is a little too much. You go to school in New York City.
- [44:50]
Megyn Kelly
She's in good hands.
- [44:51]
Michael Moynihan
I got it. She's in very good hands. But the thing about this is that again, it doesn't really matter to me if we're keeping the scorecard. It matters on how people react to it. If there is, for instance, a bunch of people who say, you know what, Mangione, yeah, maybe you shouldn't kill people. But you know what the. Do you know what the health care companies do? It's like this kind of reaction is.
- [45:13]
Megyn Kelly
Remember when you guys were on right after that happened and we refused to have that conversation right now? It was like you could have a conversation about health care and insurance and all that. It's totally inappropriate to have it right now as the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was killed by some nutcase over it. Right. Like by Luigi Mangione. Like, no, we're not doing that. We refuse and nobody else will do that. They. That's all they want to talk about his murder.
- [45:39]
Camille Foster
That part is true. Sure.
- [45:40]
Michael Moynihan
His murder was defended by somebody who was previously employed by both the New York Times and the Washington Post in a big position.
- [45:48]
Megyn Kelly
Taylor Lorenz.
- [45:49]
Michael Moynihan
Correct. I mean, defending a murder and saying, well, you know, and then talking about this on CNN to the CNN correspondents. Chuckles. If you think that I'm talking about this, chuckle and going, oh, we played the clip. But isn't that hilarious that someone was gunned down and his kids are left fatherless again? If you treat violence that way, if you're Brown University and you buy the papers of Mumia Abu Jamal, the prisoner, I guess he's not on death row anymore, but he's in prison for life for shooting a father down in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, killing a cop. But he was warm and fuzzy and had dreadlocks and was on npr, period. They used to put him on npr. They said radio commentaries from this assassin, this murderer. But he had the right politics. If people on the right, I would more sympathy with Jessica Tarloff and people who are doing the whatabadism. If there are people on the right who committed crimes in the name of conservative politics in the rest of us said, well, you know what? You know, there's. By the way, I don't see a lot of people going around talking about how Augusto Pinochet in Chile was the great hair. There's some people, they're called groipers. I mean, there are people that actually do have these Pinochet T shirts because he killed people in this anti communist crusade. I mean, I can find if I walk down the street with a Castro T shirt on in this city or in this, my neighborhood, nobody would bat an eye. Another murderer of Latin American dissidents.
- [47:15]
Camille Foster
You might get a compliment, actually.
- [47:17]
Michael Moynihan
You would absolutely get a comment. I'm very, very exhausted by this idea that if you commit crimes in your motivation is the appropriate one, we excuse the crime. No, no, no. It's nonsense.
- [47:31]
Camille Foster
I mean, I disagree. I disagree with virtually all of that. But I will say like that, that clip of Jessica and Greg, you agree.
- [47:37]
Megyn Kelly
Or disagree with all of Moynihan's point?
- [47:40]
Camille Foster
I agree with all of Moynihan's points.
- [47:42]
Michael Moynihan
I was about to fire you from the podcast on air. The live fire Shock. That was a shock to me. I was gonna say was watching Jessica.
- [47:53]
Camille Foster
And Greg's exchange was actually kind of hard. Cause we know both of them. I like Greg and Jessica a lot. And it's actually clear in the clip that they're both pretty emotional, like both of them. But she doesn't get to be. Well, I haven't seen the whole clip and I mean, I think it's certainly fair for her to have complicated feelings about all of this circumstance. I'm confident knowing the kind of person Jessica is, that she is sympathetic to Charlie and his family. And I have to suspect that she is like condemned violence because that's the kind of person she is. What I suspect, though, is that if the two of them were having a longer conversation in a different context, away from cameras and microphones, at a moment when we're dealing with so much raw emotion. My suspicion is that they would agree on much of the most important things. But I suspect Greg could even make a forceful argument that these two things really are categorically different. And that there really is an issue where you have had for so long a steady drumbeat of narrativizing about the kind of apocalyptic danger, about the genocidal risk of a particular political faction in this country that has been happening for years. The phrase transgenicide is one that I encountered yesterday watching clips of something, and it bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever. And it's hard to imagine that it's also not something because it is part of our politics. Now, that isn't helping to animate some of the consternation and insanity that contributes to crazy acts of violence like this. Ultimately the individual who has done the thing is responsible.
- [49:32]
Megyn Kelly
Seven mass shootings.
- [49:33]
Camille Foster
That's different.
- [49:33]
Megyn Kelly
Just in the past couple of years by trans identified shooters. Seven. Seven. That just as Charlie said in a couple of the last words he ever spoke. How many of these mass shootings have been perpetrated by trans shooters? Too many. That's what he said. That's the truth. Seven is a lot. Given their percentage of the population. There's something wrong that we need to take very seriously. And not talking about it, not being honest about the connection to that culture and individuals who are celebrating it and may have been in on it to begin with was will will find out is deeply wrong. That is hashtag part of the problem and setting us up for more violence. I wanted to add to the woman who was killed in Minnesota, the Speaker of the House there. She, she was killed by this nut case who wrote Tim Walsh had instructed him to kill other demonic politicians. So if there was any connection by that guy who had done work with Tim Walsh, by the way, it wasn't to Republicans. Okay, we, we have a lot more to get to. This Pam Bondi statement on hate speech is nuts. And we're going to talk about the Candace. What's happening between Candace and Israel and the Turning Point group next. I've been talking a lot about Riverbend Ranch lately because their stakes are amazing. Riverbend Ranch has taken Black Angus beef to a whole new level. For the last 35 years, Riverbend Ranch has been creating a very elite Angus herd by using ultrasound to select genetically superior cattle with a focus on flavor and tenderness. When you purchase from Riverbend Ranch, you are not only supporting the 64 Cowboys and Cowgirls and their families who work on that ranch, but you're also supporting over 260 other US ranches and the hundreds of American families who work on them. It is born in the USA, raised in the USA and processed in the USA. It's aged to perfection for 21 days and shipped directly from the ranch to your home. This is not your average Black Angus beef, so order from Riverbendranch.com use the promo code Megan, and that'll get you 20 bucks off your first order and let me know what you think. Riverbendranch.com promo code Megan did you know that apparently over a third of Americans have below average credit and that drivers with poor credit can pay over 100% more for their auto insurance? Let me tell you about kickoff. You can Sign up in minutes, no credit check. And it can be an easy way to build credit fast. With plans Starting at just $5 a month, no hidden fees, zero interest. Kickoff makes it simple. Get started for just one buck. Start building credit with Kickoff today and you can get your first month for as little as one tiny little dollar that's 80% off the normal price. When you go to getkickoff.com mk today, that's kickoff without the C. Getkickoff.com M K I K O F F getkickoff.com mk must sign up via getkickoff.com mk to activate. Offer applies to new kickoff customers. First month only. Subject to approval. Offer subject to change. Average first year credit score impact of plus 84 points. Vantage score 3.0 between January 2023 and January 2024 for kickoff credit account users who started with a score below 600, who paid on time and had no delinquencies or collections added to their credit profile during the period. Late payments may negatively impact your credit score. Individual results may vary. Back with me now, Camille Foster, Michael Moynihan and Matt Welsh of the Fifth Column. I want to tell our audience that today over on Charlie's show, you know, his wife Erica said his show will go on and yesterday we had a substitute host, I don't know how you know, a, a host of The Vice President, J.D. vance hosted it from the White House. Today, it's the crew from the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles all together in Charlie's studio out in Arizona. So good for them. Okay. And that leads me to, I'm going to lay out what happens, what's going on here with Candace, Bibi Netanyahu and Bill Ackman because it kind of leads up to something that happened between Charlie and me on this show about a month ago, August 6th. Okay. And the audience experienced this with me. So I'm just gonna set up what's happening so everybody understands. Bibi Netanyahu went on Fox News on September 11, the day after Charlie was shot, and commented on the loss of the man he said was his friend. And here's that in Sat 1 in.
- [54:16]
Michael Moynihan
Part, he was an extraordinary friend. You know, he said he wrote me a letter on May 2 this year. He said, one of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel and forming alliances to defend Judeo Christian civilization. A few weeks before the tragedy yesterday, I called him and I spoke to him and I said, please come to Israel. I invited him to Israel. And sadly, that visit will not take place but he was. He was a defender of our common Judeo Christian civilization. He was unbelievably excited to walk in the footsteps of Jesus here. He valued our bond, the bond between America and Israel.
- [55:03]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so Candace, who's been critical of Israel in this conflict, did not appreciate that we had a foreign leader reading part of Charlie's letter, trying to characterize his stance on Israel without giving it its full measure because it had changed a bit in recent months. And she is not wrong about that. She responded on her show. And Candace was very good friends with Charlie. I mean, she called herself a Mason of Turning Point, and she is. She is. She helped build that group when she was coming up and Charlie was coming up. And they're both very young. They were out there at many events together before anybody knew the name Turning Point, or Charlie Kirk for that matter. And I was actually very moved by the video montage she showed of pictures of her and Charlie together, singing together and dancing, having a great time. You know, they're young in this business and figuring things out. So I believe Candace is sincere in her upset around Charlie's everything. I mean, obviously around Charlie's death, but around people trying to talk for him and sort of summarize his position on something as controversial as Israel. So here is what she said, again, in part. You should go watch her show to hear the full measure. But. But here is what she said in response to Netanyahu on her show just the other day. Stop. 2.
- [56:28]
Candace Owens
No, there definitely is a little bit more to the story. First and foremost, that letter he is holding up, he is severely misrepresenting. Those sentences are real. But I am calling upon BB Net and Yahoo, the dear friend to Charlie Kirk, to publish the letter's entire contents. Like, don't start with just two sentences. Publish the entire thing. You're holding it. I'm saying you're severely misrepresenting the contents. That in May, Charlie was concerned about Israel and their influence on American politics and how they were pushing things that he felt were in conflict with his beliefs. Free speech here in America. Bibi's holding it up. Like, Charlie just in May said, hey, you know what? I just want to write a love letter to Israel. That's how it was presented. Would you guys agree? That's not how it happened.
- [57:24]
Megyn Kelly
So she's basically suggesting he's leaving out an important piece of Charlie's evolution on Israel. She went on to talk about. And this is the first I had heard this news, a meeting that Charlie had at the home of Bill Ackman in the Hamptons on October 5th. Sorry, August. August 5th. With a bunch of influencers, as it was described by Bill Ackman later. Some of whom he said were pro Israel and some of whom he said maybe not so much. And there was a meeting at Bill Ackman's Hampton's home. Charlie was there. So are some other so called influencers. And Candace suggests that at that meeting Bill Ackman pressured Charlie, who had. He was very supportive of Israel. Do not get me wrong. I mean, I know I spoke with Charlie directly about this, but he was starting to have the same doubts, questions about whether this could continue without Israel losing all of its support in the world as I was. And he and I had a long talk about our frustration at being dubbed anti Zionist or anti Israel or anti Semites even just for those very mild criticisms. I mean, my guy. It was. It was fucked up, okay? It really was. And he was frustrated by that and so was I. Now, Candace had a different characterization of that meeting than the one you're going to hear from Bill Ackman. And hers dovetails with this reporter Max Blumenthal, who also reported on the meeting. Here is what she said again in part in SOT4 where she said they had this meeting. And she suggested that meeting with Bibi occurred while Charlie was at that meeting at Bill Ackman's house in the Hamptons.
- [59:09]
Candace Owens
A couple of weeks ago, before Charlie lost his life. Charlie was in the Hamptons and he.
- [59:18]
Megyn Kelly
Had.
- [59:21]
Candace Owens
More than one event, but he had essentially what was staged, an intervention was staged by Bill Ackman because Charlie's thoughts, Charlie's rational thoughts about Israel were a no, no, this is not the route that you should be going on. And Charlie was surrounded by his friends, his quote, unquote friends. Bill Ackman was very upset and threats were made. It was. Was at this time that BB Netanyahu was called and Charlie was invited to Israel. This was an under duress situation, I would say. And I know that Charlie was offered a ton of money in this moment, a ton of money. Bibi would fund it, you know, spend tons of money. And turning Point, I guess if it needed to go to a higher level, would. Would have gone to an even higher level than it already was at. And I know for a fact that Charlie denied that funding that Charlie denied. And what Bibi did include there, he declined to go to Israel.
- [60:33]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, here's more this Max Blumenthal reporting. He reports, he writes for his own outlet called Gray Zone. He used to work for the Daily Beast and the Nation, Media Matters. Which explains why in his reporting he referred to me as an anti Zionist. Zionist wrong, Max. I'm totally a Zionist. I completely believe in Israel's right to exist and I've defended their right to defend themselves after the disgusting, horrendous terrorist attack on them in 2023. So get it straight. But in any event, he too reported that the Ackman outing was an intervention he used during which sources say he and others hammered Charlie, that Charlie came away fretting about Israeli blackmail. He says he's spoken to five people with intimate knowledge of Kirk's meeting and that that he he alleged that Ackman personally confronted Kirk about his views on Israel. An unknown British woman joined in the argument, began screaming at Charlie when his host presented him with a detailed list of every offense he supposedly committed against Israel. Charlie was horrified, said one person. Ackman also allegedly demanded that Kirk rescind his invitation for Tucker Carlson to speak at his upcoming America Festival 2025 in December. Ackman, he came under fire too because he had tweeted out recently, I feel incredibly privileged to have spent a day and shared a meal with Charlie Kirk in the summer. He was a giant of a man. And once again Candace and others suggesting that that's not the whole story because if he really was threatening Charlie, that's a weird tweet, you know, an incomplete tweet. Now Bill Ackman responds as only Bill Ackman. Can we be here for another three hours if I read you his whole response? As you guys know, know the Ackman tweets are just legendary for their 49 paragraphs minimum. But this one deserved a bit of a response because he's being accused of something pretty vile and he described these accounts as totally false. I think I can easily put this to bed, he promised. I have receipts. As they say, he did not abide when asked to provide the so called receipts, reports Matt Black, Max Blumenthal. But Ackman did go on X and said I've been slandered by Candace Owens. She'll be responding, I'm sure shortly of staging an intervention with Charlie where in which threats were made. He says it's not true. At no time have I ever threatened Charlie Turning Point or anyone associated with him. I've never blackmailed anyone, let alone Charlie. I've never offered Charlie or Turning Point any money in an attempt to influence them. I connected with Charlie when he had DM'd me in late May of this year and expressed interest in meeting me on the zoom. He explained to me that conservatives, in particular young ones, were getting tired of defending Israel and this is very concerning to him. He suggested, Bill Ackman says Charlie, that recruiting a group of junior Charlie Kirks who could host open mic sessions on college campuses would be an effective way to encourage debate on a host of issues. An approach he believed be worthy of consideration and better enable students to get to the truth. I was interested in learning more. We scheduled a series of conference calls between Turning Point staff members and members of my team. And then we assembled this diverse group of influencers for a day and a half session. We chose the afternoon of August 4th to the afternoon of August 5th for the convening. Charlie members of my team worked to put together. I offered to host the sessions so that I could attend. Some. Charlie sent out the invitations. About 35 or so influencers accepted. Charlie and Turning Point put together the agenda. Some were critical of Israel, some were supportive. At the end, I sat with Charlie and members of my team. We discussed the events of the evening. Charlie believed he had identified a number of potential Turning Point ambassadors who could launch open mic events on campus and would then follow up with them. We agreed to keep in touch thereafter. We corresponded by text over the next few weeks. This was not an intervention to blackmail Charlie into adopting certain views on Israel. It was nothing of the sort. Candace did respond in part on X last night saying I know feigning victimhood is kind of an Israeli brand thing, but I was clear that Charlie felt blackmailed by the offer to fund tpusa, which he refused. Meaning from Netanyahu. I think she means here. No one said Bill Ackman blackmailed Charlie. Try to resist the urge to rewrite history. And she goes on saying people in attendance did characterize it as an intervention. Here is where I'm going with it. It. Oh, and by the way, I should. I should mention this is important. Andrew Colvitt, who is Charlie's right hand man at Turning Point, we know him well, wrote the following. I've been asked about this weekend event with Bill Ackman more than a few times now. So I asked our staff who were traveling with Charlie to find out what's true. His team was with him 100% of the time when he went and was not in his hotel room. Here's what they told me. Bill never yelled at Charlie, never pressed him on bb, never gave him a list of Charlie's offenses against Israel. There was concern raised about having Tucker at the student Action Summit. We don't believe this came from Bill. And Charlie's reply was, honestly, people telling me not to have Tucker makes me want to have Tucker. And I am going to lock him in for Amfest too. Charlie personally told me, says Andrew, he had a very cordial relationship with Bill and the event was productive. Those are the facts. Well, here is the reason I am weighing in. I wasn't there and I don't know what happened. But the day Charlie was done with that summit at Ackman's house, he came on my show. It was his last appearance on the Megyn Kelly show on August 6th. And I asked him about his evolving views on Israel and about the criticism we both had come under for. Honestly, like the most milquetoast criticisms of Israel. It was just crazy. I don't think Charlie actually even really did criticize Israel. I think he just hosted his Turning Point event in July in which he had tons of pro Israel people. Tons. But also Dave Smith was there, who's a critic, and Tucker was there, who's become a bit of a critic. A critic. And he got so much shit for this. And Charlie was really frustrated by this and annoyed because no young person, no person under 30 in America supports Israel. They just don't look at the poll. It doesn't matter whether you're conservative or not. Like virtually none of them. And that was Charlie's constituency. And Charlie was hearing from those people that they were not into this and they really weren't into our support for the war in Iran and bombing Iran and all that. And he was trying to find a way of bringing that to President Trump and bringing that to his donors and to everybody else to say, hey, you know, you might be losing some support here. I said the same. And both of us got treated like we are Mehdi Hassan. And we were annoyed. We were both annoyed by that. So we had the conversation. I did not tell Charlie we were gonna discuss it. Usually when guests are coming in the show, we'll give them a heads up, like in case they wanna study up on something, whatever. Like, these are probably generally the 8 to 10 topics we're gonna hit. And we did not give him heads up on this. Cause I didn't even tell my team on it. I just decided to do it. And here is a chunk of how that went. And something's happening though, with this whole debate that is really bothering me. And I wonder if you're feeling it too. My contention here is that some in the pro Israel camp are so knee jerk about calling you anti Semitic or getting deeply offended if you say anything that doesn't align with their narrative that it undermines their own cause. And I have to tell you, I find it very irritating.
- [67:57]
Charlie Kirk
I'm so glad you brought this up up. And I would second that, Megan. I think I have a bulletproof resume showing my defense of Israel both on campus, on social media, to great, you know, let's just say mockery and scorn at times where I. Because I believe it, right? I believe in the scriptural land rights given to Israel. I believe in fulfillment of prophecy. And again, I'm not a theologian, but I'm a Christian. My life was changed in Israel. The spiritual energy is so amazing there. I, I want them to win. I've said that repeatedly. And however, Megan, you're hitting on something very potent and important. Now let me first say I don't want to judge an entire group because there's been many people in the per Israel world that have been very sweet, very kind, very nuanced, very Charlie, you know, you're with us. You don't have to agree all the time. However, and I, and I will say this, the behavior by a lot, both privately and publicly are pushing people like you and me away. Not like we're going to be pro Hamas. Not like we're going to. But we're like, honestly, the way you are treating me is so repulsive. I have text messages, Megan, calling me an anti Semite. I am learning difficult Hebrew and writing a book on the Shabbat. I honor the Shabbat, literally the Jewish Sabbath. I visit Israel and fight for it.
- [69:18]
Megyn Kelly
It's very irritating.
- [69:19]
Charlie Kirk
It's irregular.
- [69:20]
Megyn Kelly
It's been so unfair. They were coming after you after a turning point for, among other things, that you had Dave Smith there. Dave Smith is allowed to criticize Israel. You had both sides. The Israeli side was not allowed, though.
- [69:32]
Charlie Kirk
No, you're not allowed to. It's even worse than that. Again, I just want to repeat for the fifth time, I love Israel. I want Israel to win. But my moral character is now being put into question, Megan, not my decisions. Not like, hey, are you doing this? Is it smart or is it dumb? But no, I am a bad person if I do this. And it's. I could go. I mean, you saw it, Megan. It was trending on Twitter. Thousands of tweets and text messages. And if I were to be charitable and generous, I will say the people that are attacking me are in a hyper paranoid state because they're at war. And war tends to make things black and white. And you're a hammer looking For a nail. So I'm trying to be charitable, Megan. Literally, I'm trying to cut as much slack as I can. Right. They go, okay, what would it be like if all of a sudden I'm starting to see a pattern of behavior similar to what my grandparents saw in 1930s Germany, online, how would I behave? So that's like my charitable kind of over compensation spirit. At the same time, I'm like, but it's not defensible to be dumb, right?
- [70:36]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. And it's offensive. It's offensive to those of us who have been out there defending them in many instances against. Against critics on our own side. And now you have a couple accounts like, well, what about this? Well, has it gone on too long? Like, is it time to wrap it up? And the thing about Epstein is just so bizarre. I don't know who he was an agent for. It might have been Israel or an asset or it might have been nobody. But we're allowed to speculate about that. It's like there's some whole, you can't go there when it comes to Israel.
- [71:04]
Charlie Kirk
Well, you and I believe that we're Americans and Americans first, period, end of story. We are citizens of this nation. Personality types like you, myself, and Tucker. The more that you guys privately and publicly call our character into question, which is not isolated.
- [71:21]
Michael Moynihan
Right.
- [71:21]
Charlie Kirk
I. Megan, it would be one thing if it was 1 text or 2 text. It is dozens of texts.
- [71:26]
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
- [71:27]
Charlie Kirk
Then we start to say, hold the boat here.
- [71:32]
Megyn Kelly
I thought that was very, very well said by Charlie, as usual. And so I. I want to verify that he was feeling frustrated and he was feeling pressured and he was feeling like his character was being assassinated by people publicly and privately who are, I guess, consider themselves more pro Israel than Charlie. And he refused to back off of his criticisms and said they're the. The truth, which is in his case and in mine. The more you tell us we can't do. Talk about something the way we want to talk about it, the more we're likely to do it. And to me, this whole thing is very. It's very frustrating because he was pretty clear both with me and by the way, in a focus group he did with a bunch of young people on Israel and young conservatives, I think, who were feeling the same frustrations. And I got this a long winded way of saying, can I tell you what? Like, I understand Candace's point. It is. It is. It's not okay for him to come out. Just read part of the letter and let that be. That there were. There was an Evolving feeling by Charlie on Israel. That is a lot more complicated than Charlie graciously wrote in that level in that letter. And look, I guess everybody wants to spin it in a way that makes them sound closer to Charlie and make Charlie. Charlie sound closer to their cause because Charlie's so influential right now and so important to us. But, I mean, I also object to the extent he was used to advance a political narrative in that Fox News interview. I see why she's upset. Your thoughts, guys?
- [73:17]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah. I might disagree with you on this one a little bit. That's okay. And a couple of things strike me is that, you know, the turning point, people who gave a very different account of that meeting and, you know, when it comes to Israel and when it comes to Jews, you know, these meetings, people come over for dinner or we come over, we're gonna have a little bowl session about an issue and you want to talk about it. I've been involved in these things when it comes to a million different issues. It becomes conspiratorial when it. When. When Israel's involved and, you know, people who are. It can. You know. And I think that Candace Owens is a. Is a very, very dodgy witness in this, considering she doesn't have a ton of credibility amongst.
- [74:08]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, but wait. Let me just say. Let me say this in Candace's defense. First of all, she's brilliant. Candace is brilliant. I realize she's controversial, but she is very smart. She's too smart to f around and say that she's got, like, the letter. She seems to have either the letter or recordings that she doesn't have. She just tweeted out. More is going to come out. The truth is inevitable. They're lying. But rest assured, these people were deranged enough to put their anger and demands in writing. Now, I don't. That doesn't mean it's Bill Ackman. I don't know whether Bill Ackman. I mean, I have no reason to doubt Andrew Colvitt, that's for damn sure. Who says? Because Charlie seemed to have a cordial time and didn't. Wasn't threatened at the Bill Ackman summit. But anyway, keep going. Yeah, I interrupted you.
- [74:52]
Michael Moynihan
No, I mean, just. What we do as journalists, though, is we give people's opinions certain weights depending on how credible they are and other things. And, you know, the last thing I saw her talking about was whether or not Brigitte Macron was a member of the Stanford prison experiment and talking about frankists and Stalin being Jewish and the. This singular obsession these days with Israel. You know, we talked earlier about how, you know, when it came to Mumdani, not Mamdani. Jesus Christ.
- [75:21]
Megyn Kelly
Let me just ask you something. Let me ask you something, Moynihan. Okay. And I understand, like we, we did a legal debate on the Macron thing. It's an eight part series that you can watch on Candace's feed. That's what, that's where the references to Brigitte come from. But you don't have to trust her. If Candace is not your cup of tea, that's fine. You know, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. She's not everybody cup of tea. But I just played you a four minute exchange of Charlie saying, oh, no, no.
- [75:48]
Michael Moynihan
So, no, I was getting to that and I want to, I actually want to address that because I think that's totally normal. And as you point out with polling, I just did a show the other day with Alan Dershowitz and I don't think there's anyone on earth who is a bigger and more uncompromising defender of Israel than Alan Dershowitz.
- [76:03]
Megyn Kelly
Totally right.
- [76:04]
Michael Moynihan
I brought this up to him and I said, look, you know, know Israel's losing people on this. And his response was not to say, no, that's not true. He said, you know, look, there's polling in which Israel is the least popular country on earth. Like, you know, in the number one was, I think Germany in Japan. And he made some joke about being them being the axis in Israel. On the other end of that, that's completely normal to have this conversation. But Charlie Kirk says something that is very different than what Candace Owen feels about this stuff. He says during that, that conversation with you that he is a stalwart Zionist. He doesn't like people questioning his commitment to that idea or going so far as to calling him an anti Semite or something. I don't know who these people are, but that is. Look, that is not surprising from conservatives who have been denouncing people rightfully for ending debate by calling people racist for years. So that's just in kind. But I wonder why before Charlie Kirk had been buried, the number of people that were talking about Israel. That's the thing that concerns me about why this is coming up. Why is it about the pet issue that she's been talking about? I think obsessively for every time I tune in to like in these totally crazy ways. I mean, the guy, Ian.
- [77:18]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I don't know if this is true of Candace. Well, obviously some people. No, no, no, but I was just gonna say. But Some people obviously were wondering whether Israel had a hand in this. I mean, that's clearly why it's come up. And there's zero.
- [77:33]
Michael Moynihan
Netanyahu is responding. I mean, I mean, I don't think that in any other circumstance, if this had not kind of taken over like a prairie fire on the Internet. You know, this guy, Ian Carroll, has been on Joe Rogan's show. He was a guest host of. Of Candace's show this summer. You know, was on. On Twitter saying the Israelis did this. And even, you know, you have someone like Dave Smith who has a lot of problems with me, and we disagree on almost everything, but he even he responded. He's like, dude, what are you. You talking about? Where is.
- [77:59]
Megyn Kelly
He said that was crazy talk.
- [78:00]
Michael Moynihan
It's crazy. And like, even Alex Jones was like, guys, all of this conversation about this, why are we having a conversation about Charlie Kirk's commitment to Israel immediately after he was assassinated? Because there's so many ghouls out there who are trying to suggest that maybe because he was wavering on this. And as Charlie said to you, I didn't know the guy. I met him, I think one time.
- [78:22]
Megyn Kelly
Here's what I don't see that he.
- [78:23]
Michael Moynihan
Was wavering on it.
- [78:24]
Camille Foster
He said he didn't.
- [78:25]
Megyn Kelly
I don't understand under that theory. Here's what I don't get under that theory. Like, Candace is very influential. She's got a very popular show. Tucker, same. And obviously neither one is feeling very supportive of Israel in this war. That's for sure in Tucker's case and for sure in Candace's case. And whether it goes beyond that, that's up to other people to decide. I don't listen to their shows every day that, like, those two would have been the obvious targets. You know, I don't. I'm not trying to get them in danger, God knows. I'm just saying, like, I don't understand it. And Tucker did suggest to me that he. He has been under threat. He didn't say from Israel, but he's definitely been under threat. I don't know. I just don't get, like, there. There'd be no incentive. I, I get the logic. Like, Charlie's starting to. We're starting to lose Charlie. So, like, we've got to take him out. If you're really thinking Israel is like, at that level of, you know. But to me, it just seems like you have him running him out there, running around out there, being much more of a proselytizer for Israel than a critic. It doesn't make sense?
- [79:27]
Michael Moynihan
No. And also this is just somebody who has engaged in so much conspiracy theory recently, from 9, 11 to, you know, flat earthers and dinosaurs and Brigitte Macron. And it's just.
- [79:38]
Megyn Kelly
What do you think of Brigitte Macron though? I mean, honestly, like, I think Brigitte.
- [79:42]
Michael Moynihan
Macron is the very, very weird wife of Emmanuel Macron who started hooking up with him when he was like 14. That's weird enough. We can. That kind of stuff is like, Jesus.
- [79:53]
Megyn Kelly
That actually is so crazy. Like, you know, I told the audience when we talked about Candace's series on that I, I did not watch it for the full eight hours, but I did watch a lot about the, her relationship with, with Emmanuel and how it got started, which I did know, but I had forgotten about. She was his teacher. She was I think 39 and he was 14 or 15 at the most. And like he got his parents ejected him from the school because they knew there was something, something inappropriate between them that she always claimed, oh, never until he was, was older. But it seemed to be a lot of smoke there and it was very creepy. The whole thing's very creepy in any.
- [80:25]
Michael Moynihan
Event, so we'll give him credit for that.
- [80:29]
Megyn Kelly
I will say though, I my, my own takeaway from this is Israel needs to wrap up this war and I know they have hostages who are still in the hands of Hamas. But Ben Shapiro and I talked about this at length when he was on they he said they made a mistake from the beginning in saying they're not gonna stop until every hostage is out and that may not be possible and it can't go on forever. And honestly, it's because I do support Israel that I really would like to see them end this. Even without the perfect resolution, which would be getting all the hostages back, they're just losing too much support. America starting to turn on them and that cannot happen. That just cannot happen. They've exacted really appropriate justice in response to what happened to them on 10 7. Hamas is entirely to blame for what happened to Israel on 10 7. And the fact that we're even having to have this discussion as Americans and people on the right tells me this is a crisis for Israel. PR crisis is what I mean. And they need to wrap it up.
- [81:35]
Michael Moynihan
If I can make one final point on this is I had Eli Lake, my dear friend of the dear friend of the three of us on the show and Eli is about as, you know, sort of full throated of a Zionist as you can get. And I asked him about the operation into Gaza and he said, I think it's a terrible idea. And Eli is a very, very strong supporter of Israel. But you also will notice that all of these debates are taking part. People are taking part of them in Israel. They're very controversial in Israel, too. So when Charlie Kirk says, I don't know if I like the way this war is going to, he's not only not alone in that he wouldn't be alone in Israel, he's not alone amongst people on the right who support Israel in America. The wisdom of what Israel is doing is being questioned, and it's good that people question it. Those debates are healthy and they're necessary. When you.
- [82:25]
Megyn Kelly
But you do get called an anti Zionist or an anti Semite, truly, when you do try to debate, trust me.
- [82:32]
Michael Moynihan
I think there's a difference between magicality.
- [82:33]
Megyn Kelly
And totally unbroken universal support for Israel. That was it. I said two things and this shitstorm that rained down on me was unbelievable, which is fucked up. And that's what Charlie was saying, too.
- [82:47]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, I mean, I think the concern is the difference between those things of questioning. And I have no doubt that you've. I mean, if you say it, then it's true that people have come down on you. But there's no doubt that the difference between someone questioning the wisdom of how Netanyahu has been conducting the war and what the end game of that war is, or even the strikes on Iran and America's involvement in those, in where the Trump administration is vis a vis Israel is totally normal. And the conversations that Candace Owens has about this stuff, I don't believe to be normal. I believe them to be completely insane. And they're really, really deep in blood libel in really gross old conspiracy theories.
- [83:25]
Megyn Kelly
Can I ask you a question on that? Let me just. An honest question for you. An honest question for you on that. Because I see the clips that they share of Candace online and every once in a while I'll go and just kind of check the clip to see if it's, like, real and more than once in her case. And same thing with Tucker, by the way. And many times in his case, when I go back to the original source, I'm like, this was taken out of context. Now I'm a busy person and I don't, I don't have time to do, to listen to every podcast, whatever, if it's not a segment we're going to do on the show. I'm probably not going to go back much of the whole thing. But I have seen Candace taken out of context. Context, many, many Times. And you can, you know, times that by 100 on Tucker. So do you listen to her show? Like, do you actually know that the little clips you've seen online are, Are not taken out of context?
- [84:13]
Michael Moynihan
I think it's an unbelievably important and fair question because I've seen you taken kind of out of context. I've seen myself taken out of context. I've seen Charlie Kirk taken out of contest in the last 24 hours, you know, and say, you know, Karen Attia getting fired and, and literally people saying, well, she just quoted him and the quote was an invention. Half of it is real, the other half isn't. And that other half is exactly right. But I will say on some of this stuff, because I am pretty knowledgeable about some of these conspiracy theories and what people are talking. She's talking about World War II and stuff. So I have watched entire episodes of these things with my jaw on the floor and my eyes rather wide. These ideas of Frank is. And I just, I'm surprised by a lot of it. But I assure you that this stuff isn't taken out of context. And I think what happens with people when they get into conspiracy theories is it's never just one. They take the whole passel of them. So 9 11, you know, if it's 9 11, if it's Israel. Brigitte Macron was a bit of a surprise that that was thrown in there, but there is a bit of a conspiratorial way of thinking. And you see that for sure on that show every day. And I don't listen to it every day. Absolutely not. But I do if I see something that is of interest, and I'm kind of writing something about this bigger stuff now, I've been, I've been watching it to get a sense of what it is.
- [85:30]
Megyn Kelly
She's not here to defend herself. But I will say, like, I have checked more than once, because I see this crazy quote and I know her a little and she's a fighter, she's feisty. I don't. I have never known her to be some nut job. She's very, very smart. And the few times I've been, I've. I've actually checked and gone deep. They've been lies about her. I. I'm just gonna say it. They've been lies. So at this point, look, I'll. I'm interested. Like, I'm a media person. So I, I look at these clips and I think, oh, could that possibly be real? But for whatever it's worth, I've checked personally on some of them and, and they've been lies about her. And once, once you decide you hate somebody online, you can spend your whole life trying to ruin them and people who are like minded with you will jump on board. And that's not to. That's no knock on Israel or anybody else. I just, you know, take it with a grain of salt and people have to make up their own minds. All right, stand by because we have to get to Pam Bondi. We spent too much time on that one, frankly. But I wanted to set the record straight on Charlie and my own exchange. Let's be honest. Afternoons can be rough. Energy fades, cravings kick in and focus goes out the window. Another coffee, that's the quick fix. But it can lead to jitters or a crash later. Peak's Sun Goddess Matcha is another option. Whether it's how the day starts or how it gets back on track, this Matcha is not just a drink. It can be a better daily habit. It gives steady energy and helps you focus without the ups and downs. This is not any Matcha. It's organic, ceremonial grade and grown in Japan's pure volcanic soil far far away from pollution. It is shaded longer for more nutrients and blended by Tea Master. That's how serious they are about quality. The taste is smooth, creamy and rich, not bitter like lower quality Matcha. It packs powerful antioxidants to keep you sharp and steady. Right now you can get up to 20% off for life plus a free rechargeable frother and glass beaker. It's backed by a 90 day money back guarantee. Go to peaklife.comMegan that's P I Q U E life.comMegan to try it for yourself again, that's P I Q U E Life let's be honest, America can still be a dangerous place and you cannot afford to wait for help. Sure you could use a firearm, but in today's America, defending yourself with deadly force could have legal consequences. According to FBI data, 99.9% of all altercations do not require lethal force. And that's exactly why many are turning to Burna. Berna is proudly American. Hand assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana, these less lethal self defense launchers are trusted by hundreds of government agencies, law enforcement departments and private security companies. Over 600,000 burner pistols have been sold, most to private citizens who refuse to be victims. Burner launchers fire rock hard kinetic rounds and powerful tear gas and pepper projectiles capable of stopping a threat from up to 60ft away. No background checks, no waiting periods and Burna can shoot straight to your door. Take responsibility, protect your future. Visit Burna.com right now or your local sportsman's warehouse. That's Burna.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse. Visit now and be prepared to defend I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No are required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.
- [89:25]
Michael Moynihan
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and.
- [89:30]
Megyn Kelly
Get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free.
- [89:37]
Charlie Kirk
Offer details applying.
- [89:44]
Megyn Kelly
Our friends from the Fifth Column are with me. Two news items I wanted to get to number one, there's a man named George Zinn who falsely told police that he shot Charlie Kirk moments after the attack. He's now been charged, according to tmz, with possessing child pornography. So there's that. And then separately, I believe he's the one who it broke about this morning, who came out and said he was happy. Yeah, right, it was him, Deb, that he was happy that he helped the gunman escape by distracting police on the spot. Remember, he's the one who was in cuffs and originally we thought maybe this was the man. And if TMZ's reporting is right, he is a disgusting pervert. If not correct, I'm sure he'll let us know. We are continuing to await the charging documents against the man accused of shooting Charlie. That should come in in a matter of hours, less than, I think an hour. We're gonna have a presser on it and then we'll have a full breakdown of that for you tomorrow. And then secondly, in unrelated news, I do want to bring this to you because it's just kind of fun. Fanny Willis is officially toast on her criminal case against Donald Trump, which, by the way, has not been thrown out. I mean, amazingly, people think that one's been thrown. It was not thrown out. She was thrown off the case because of her Inability to keep it in the pants. And then she appealed to an appellate court saying I was unfairly removed. And they said, eh, we don't think so. And then she appealed to the Georgia High Court and they said, we don't want anything to do with this. They said what most of us said. We looked at Fannie Willis, which was, we don't want anything to do with it. And they rejected the appeal. So she's officially removed. And right now that case is dead because it has no prosecutor attached to it. And Phil Holloway's been explaining to us for a couple years now, none is likely to be. So by all intents and purposes, that case is dead. It's another win for Trump. Like Kamala Harris, we'll miss Fanny. Now that she's officially gone, I look forward to her career as an MSNBC contributor because she could be kind of interesting to follow. Megan Ms. Now you're right. I'm sorry. My bad. And speaking of prosecutors who say or do dumb things and get themselves in trouble, we gotta discuss Pam Bondi. All the guys are shaking their heads no right now for the listening audience because none of us can believe this actually happened. But it did happen, and therefore we must discuss it. It. Pam Bondi said one of the dumbest things you can say as an attorney general. Do we have here? I'm looking on my SOT list. Yeah, here it is.
- [92:26]
Camille Foster
Just said several very dumb things.
- [92:28]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, several. Several. Because she went on Fox News and she went on this podcast with someone named Katie Miller, and it, it's unbelievable. There was absolutely no pushback. But here is what, here's what Pam said in side 18. There's free speech and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie in our society. Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people? So we show them that some action is better than no action. We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything. And that's across the aisle. Okay, so that is Stephen Miller's wife, my team reminds me. And while her husband. She might be some sort of plant.
- [93:19]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah.
- [93:19]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, honestly, while her husband fully understands the law and has been behind the most critical policies of the Trump administration that have been very successful, she clearly doesn't. And she doesn't understand the conservative movement or she would not have asked that question. What kind of a question is that? It was completely teed up in a way that sounds like a lefty Are you going to crack down on hate speech? What the fuck? That's not. That is not a question that a conservative would ask. I don't understand what's happening there. And then for Pam Bondi to not say, whoa, whoa sister, we on the right do not crack down on hate speech. We don't believe in that nonsense. There's this pesky document called the Constitution that doesn't allow it, but we don't even agree with it in principle. Was kind of extraordinary. And I actually tweeted out this morning, there's no way Pam Bom does not know that hate speech is protected it under our Constitution. She must have meant like, because given what Stephen Miller said to J.D. vance when he was subbing on Charlie's show yesterday, Stephen Miller was talking about how we've got to crack down on these groups around people like the assassin who encourage it or know about it or who like are part of it but don't actually pull the trigger. My supposition on Twitter was X. Maybe she's talking about conspirators, you know, people who are part of the conspiracy but don't actually do the act. But you would need to take at least one overt act which would potentially make your speech part of a crime. I gave her too much credit. That's not what she was talking about because she came out with an ex post this morning, Pam Bondi, and tried to say this hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is not protected by the First Amendment. Now that is another dodge because all she needed to write was threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment. Okay, now we're closer to an actual.
- [95:04]
Michael Moynihan
Statement of the law that even threats of violence.
- [95:08]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right. It takes a lot. It takes a lot for a threat to elevate itself into a threat that you can actually utter in the United States of America. But prefacing that line with hate speech that crosses the line into threats is another fucked up thing to say. It it's a cover for her erroneous statement earlier. Right. It's her not being willing to admit she totally said the wrong thing as a moral principle, as an American principle and as a legal principle. And this is like a long winded way to try to like make herself sound like she was more right than she was, which was not right at all. I'll give you guys the floor and then we'll talk about what she said on Hannity. Who would like to take it? Well, we should hear from Matt Welch, who hasn't spoken in an hour. Yeah.
- [95:52]
Matt Welch
When Matt Welch and Matt Walsh on something, then Matt Walsh was, was correct in saying also, what the fuck? Well, that's not a direct.
- [96:04]
Megyn Kelly
He said she should be fired today.
- [96:06]
Michael Moynihan
She fired.
- [96:07]
Matt Welch
Which is pretty, pretty strong. She should be fired. She's the Attorney General of the United States. Hate speech is not a legal category. Your job is as the top law enforcement person in the country and you've just been asked a question about putting people in cuffs to show them a lesson. No, that is not how we do it here.
- [96:23]
Megyn Kelly
It's a sign that we're getting ahead of ourselves. Okay, I did it wrong. I should play the Pam Bondi sot on Hannity because you just referenced it and that's. And this sot is the reason Matt Walsh says she should be fired. Here it is. And employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things and they shouldn't be working with you. Businesses cannot discriminate. If you want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures on them for a individual, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have Harmeet Dillon right now in our civil rights unit looking at that immediately. That Office Depot had done that. We're looking at that. Keep going, Matt.
- [97:00]
Matt Welch
So Office Depot fired the person or like suspended them. They took their appropriate action for Office Depot. That's not a civil rights issue. The federal government is supposed to be enforcing civil rights. That's not it. You don't have a legal obligation as a, a, as a company to print that flyer.
- [97:16]
Michael Moynihan
I think no flyer.
- [97:18]
Megyn Kelly
What are you doing, cake baker in Colorado?
- [97:22]
Matt Welch
What are we even doing here? There's all these things adjudicated at the Supreme Court over and over again. And these are nine nothing issues. And they will be nine nothing issues. As our friend Charlie Cook rightly pointed out in a very good column of National Review today.
- [97:34]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, it was great. It's garbage.
- [97:36]
Matt Welch
And I'm heartened because Republicans, conservatives in the, the Trump era have spent a lot of time backtracking against or just sort of like repudiating their previously held positions on a lot of things, especially in economics. But not only a lot of different ways they have done this. It's been heartening to watch you, to watch basically everybody Matt Walsh say, what are you talking about? Pam Bondi hate speech isn't a thing. This isn't embarrassing. You should go. They are right. And she should go ahead, Camille.
- [98:06]
Camille Foster
Well, Jonathan Karl, though, asked the president about this a little earlier this morning.
- [98:11]
Megyn Kelly
And so not everybody is. What you can tell me the President was not perfect? We do. Here it is. Here it is.
- [98:21]
Michael Moynihan
The question wasn't perfect. Pam Bondi saying she's gonna go after hate speech. Is that. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech. She's probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come after ABC. Well, ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech. Right. Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech. So maybe they'll have to go after you. Look, we want everything to be fair. It hasn't been fair. And the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country.
- [98:56]
Megyn Kelly
That. That is the most genuine laugh I've had in a week.
- [99:00]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, me too.
- [99:02]
Camille Foster
I think in fairness, like Jonathan Karl's question was not very good. Like, to the extent the President's allies and people beyond that orbit who say like hate speech, this is a problematic concept. It's not that we say that hate speech is free speech. We say hate speech is the nonsense concept in the United States. There are no prohibitions against hate speech in this country. It isn't a thing. To the extent it was. It would be a totally subjective category. And this is why it's a problem.
- [99:25]
Megyn Kelly
Problem.
- [99:26]
Camille Foster
It's separate from incitement. We can talk about that differently. And I think the President's preamble, in which he referred to, like various media coverage as hate speech, categorically, I think it's safe to say he was joking. But I wish that the answer, because I think this is a more serious answer, came afterwards. We want to be fair.
- [99:44]
Megyn Kelly
But it is. He's.
- [99:45]
Camille Foster
I'm going to try to.
- [99:46]
Megyn Kelly
All over the airwaves calling him a Nazi and a fascist. That is hate speech. And it's lawful to the extent.
- [99:51]
Michael Moynihan
It could be any.
- [99:52]
Camille Foster
It could certainly be the case that we could categorize as that. But it is totally lawful, as you put it. And I think that that's the point. But what the President isn't a lawyer is the most important point. And we know that he's many things, but he's.
- [100:03]
Megyn Kelly
Can we watch the beginning of that again? I don't want to see the whole. I need to see the beginning. This is why. Let's rewrap it.
- [100:08]
Michael Moynihan
Pam Bondi think she's going to go after hate speech. Is that. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of Your allies say hate speech is free speech. You probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly and say you have a lot of hate in your heart.
- [100:23]
Megyn Kelly
This is vintage Trump.
- [100:25]
Matt Welch
I love that he wasn't doing the New York Times again this morning.
- [100:30]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, okay, but listen, he can do no other. You know, when asked a question like that by ABC News, he can do no other. Who could blame him for saying that? I think that was actually quite very funny. Go ahead. One hand.
- [100:42]
Michael Moynihan
Funny. I would say one thing about this is that we have this creeping concept of what of speech like, you know, is hateful speech, it becomes hate speech. Why does it become hate speech? Because it's a category in other countries and it's why certain people that I know in other countries envy the United States. It is the most American thing is to have a First Amendment and to zealously protect it even for the worst, shittiest ideas. That's why we have it. It's not for my ideas or your ideas. It's for those who have the really shitty ideas. So I don't love that that we're using the phrase at all because where it comes from is I think that we. It's also very problematic and for a really, For a reason that really depresses me. I don't even. Can't even quite put my finger on it. We never have a conversation about the absurdity of hate crimes laws because it's usually, you know, adding a Little Extra flavor 5, 10 years because of the thoughts that were going through somebody's head when they were committing a crime that was already on the books as a crime, that once we accepted that idea, it's a pretty easy navigation to say, well, there is hate speech.
- [101:46]
Megyn Kelly
And, you know, but she, she, as a Republican, I'm not. No, she should know better. Yeah, it's like this.
- [101:53]
Michael Moynihan
She should resign.
- [101:55]
Megyn Kelly
Jack Phillips is the cake baker who said, I'm not going to bake that gay wedding cake because it doesn't align with my values. I'll bake you a cake, but not. I'm not going to put like the grooms on the front of it, you know, and I'll. And you can have any other pastry from my shop, but I can't be forced to endorse something that I don't endorse. And the Supreme Court said he's right. And they just reiterated that in 303Creative two sessions ago. So she absolutely should know all of this. I'm concerned that they're talking this way and I will be the first to criticize the Trump administration, if it trusts, tries to actually crack down on, quote, hate speech. Now, having said all that, I have zero sympathy for the people who are getting fired because of their inhumanity in response to Charlie's assassination. Fire them all. I'm thrilled to see them getting their asses fired. You celebrate any political assassination, you're fireable as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean it's a crime, doesn't mean that the federal government should get involved. And if those losers in the Office Depot who were fired by Office Depot, who didn't want to print flyers with Charlie's photo on them, should be publicly shamed and they should be fired, I think that's fine. But they shouldn't be prosecuted. Like, we have to know where our lines are anyway. That's. I guess I stole the last word. Anyone want to weigh in? Anyone?
- [103:22]
Camille Foster
I don't like the false positives. There are people who are being punished and sanctioned professionally and in these. These online mob for saying things that.
- [103:32]
Megyn Kelly
Are pretty Charlie lame. Yeah, yeah. If you're just saying negative things about Charlie, that's. That doesn't show very good character. And the man is even buried.
- [103:40]
Matt Welch
Your wife is saying negative things about him, and you're losing your job because.
- [103:43]
Camille Foster
Of it, which, yeah, that's a problem.
- [103:45]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's not right. But if you are celebrating his death, I'm all for the firings. All for if you were.
- [103:51]
Michael Moynihan
If you were for my company. And you are so stupid to put your online for everyone.
- [103:57]
Megyn Kelly
Want to see? Kidding me?
- [103:59]
Michael Moynihan
You get fired for being that dumb? Not for your speech, just for you being an idiot. Keep bad, shitty ideas to yourself and, you know, say them over a glass of wine. Don't say for everyone.
- [104:10]
Megyn Kelly
I'm so glad we could end on that note of harmony. Love you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'll see you soon in person. And by the way, if you guys want to get tickets to the tour, go to Megan Kelly dot com. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.