← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Fani Willis DQ'ed in Georgia, and Delusional Biden's Cognitive Decline, with VDH, Ashleigh Merchant, Mike Davis, and Phil Holloway | Ep. 970
01:39:29
Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Ashleigh Merchant, Mike Davis and Phil Holloway to discuss the massive legal victory for Trump after Fani Willis was disqualified from the Georgia case against him and his co-defendants, how Merchant helped bring down Willis by surfacing Willis' relationship with Nathan Wade, what happens next in the case, how Fani Willis was exposed as biased and a liar, the biased media coverage protecting her and denying the conflicts of interest, why it was obvious all along, and more. Then Victor Davis Hanson, author of "The End of Everything," joins to discuss how Willis and the media tried to play the race card, why it was a failure and didn't work, new reporting about how Biden’s cognitive decline has been going on for years, the way the biased media covered it up, Kamala Harris blatantly lying about what she saw, Biden’s delusional new comments about integrity, how he's disappeared from the spotlight completely, Trump's best approval rating ever while Bid...
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- [00:00]
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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. Happy Thursday. Christmas came early. It finally happened nearly a year after the shocking allegations against Fulton County DA Fanny Willis first came to light. A Georgia appeals court has officially disqualified her from the Trump election interference case. It happened, you guys. We were all together when this first broke. Remember how the mainstream absolutely crapped on the story as a nothing burger? Well, she's gone. She's gone. She's done. It's over for her and her entire office. And it's official. Another nail in the lawfare coffin against now president elect Donald Trump. The court says the indictment against the president elect and his co defendants still stands. That's not a surprise. They took a shot, tried to get it dumped along with her, but no one really put much stock in that. But the ruling leaves open the question of who the hell is going to take over the case, if anyone, if you're keeping tabs. The Jack Smith cases have been dismissed without prejudice. And in the New York documents case, Judge Merchan denied President elect Trump's bid to dismiss his conviction on the ground of presidential immunity, which was an absolute mistake. That will be one of the many successful grounds of appeal for Mr. Trump. Our friend Andy McCarthy expects Trump will not be sentenced even without a reversal while he's president. Unprecedented situation. But that, that, that trial judge in that case made so many material errors. That thing's getting reversed when it goes up. But for now, we'll just let it stay in purgatory as they're holding the proceedings as Trump assumes, you know, the presidency. Joining me now on the Fannie Willis news, attorney Ashley Merchant, partner at the Merchant law firm. She is the reason that the Fanny Willis disqualification happened. Ashley represents Trump co defendant Michael Roman in that Atlanta, Georgia case and is the attorney who first shined a light on Fanny Willis's and Nathan Wade's inappropriate relationship. They were co counsels, co prosecutors in the case without disclosing it and engaged in all sorts of financial transactions that made it a compromise situation for both of them. We first spoke to ashley on episode 748, which is well worth your time to go back and listen to now that this case has resurfaced. Also with me, legal eagle Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 project. He's been right about almost everything since we started having him on. It's been kind of actually eerie. And our friend Phil Holloway, Georgia based legal analyst who we got to know through this case and host of the Inside the Law YouTube show, don't wait. Shop Cozy Earth now before their most loved gifts sell out this holiday season, what's your favorite Christmas memory? Maybe curling up by the tree, the glow of the lights filling the room, spending time with the family, feeling completely at peace. Cozy Earth helps you recreate that magic by transforming your home into a sanctuary, a haven of calm amidst life's chaos. Their bamboo sheet set is the ultimate in luxury. Designed to be incredibly breathable, it keeps you several degrees cooler for a night of uninterrupted rest. With a durable weave guaranteed to last 10 years, it's a thoughtful gift everyone can enjoy and use every day. And for those slow, cozy holidays, holiday mornings, Cozy Earth's long sleeve bamboo pajama sets are a must have. Luxuriously soft and stylish, they're perfect for lounging in total comfort while making lasting memories with loved ones. Want your Cozy Earth gifts by Christmas? Expedited shipping is available until December 20th. Wrap the ones you love in luxury with Cozy earth. Go to cozyearth.com Megan use my exclusive code, M E G Y N for up to 40% off. That's cozyearth.com SL Megan welcome back, all three of you to the show.
- [04:39]
Ashley Merchant
Thanks so much.
- [04:40]
Mike Davis
Thank you. Great to be here.
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Megyn Kelly
All right, we got to start with you, Ashley. Congratulations. You must be very happy and probably not surprised.
- [04:50]
Ashley Merchant
I'm, you know, I don't know if I'm surprised or not. I mean, when they canceled the oral arguments, I sort of was reading tea leaves and thinking, well, that's going to go well for us because normally they don't cancel oral arguments if they're going to rule against us. So I thought that was probably a good thing. But, you know, it's one of those things you get an email with the docket notice saying, you know, with the opinion and you have no idea and you open it. I mean, it's just like Christmas when, you know, you didn't know Christmas was Actually coming today. It's like the presence appeared under the tree and you didn't even know there was a tree that was happening today. So it's kind of surreal, you know, the impact of it I don't think has quite hit me yet, but I'm very excited, very happy.
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Megyn Kelly
So what does it mean? Can you give a quick 411 for the non lawyer audience of what does this mean?
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Ashley Merchant
Yeah, definitely. So the court of appeals has said that they, they agreed with us that there was an impro, an appearance of impropriety and it was enough that Fani Willis should not be on the case. So she and all of her deputies were disqualified. And so what that means practically is the case will be assigned to what's called pac, it's the prosecuting attorney's counsel, and they'll be the ones that will review it. And I've said from day one, if we had an independent prosecutor, someone who wasn't financially or politically interested in the outcome of this case, it would never see the light of the day. It's not a case that would ever be brought. I mean, there's, you know, hardly probable cause. You could, you could indict just about anything. So you can find probable cause in just about anything. But I think if you had a neutral prosecutor looking at it, they're going to say, no way, this is ridiculous. We have other cases. This case is not, it doesn't rise to the level of a crime, you know, and we just don't think that this is where we should be prosecuting cases. So I think that it will essentially die on the vine once it goes to an independent prosecutor. I don't think Fani Willis is going to go away quietly though. I, I've already got a notice of intent, just got it on email where she plans on appealing to the Supreme Court. So the question will be whether or not they even want to want to touch it. You know, it's a, it's a good opinion. So I don't think the Supreme Court is going to have any interest in, in dabbling in this.
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Megyn Kelly
But we'll see the Georgia Supreme Court, Georgia Fanny Willis, trying to make this case because it resulted in a hearing, of course, at which she embarrassed herself about you and your alleged lies. Watch this.
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Phil Holloway
Adam Abadi, I thought, did an excellent job pointing out how dishonest you were with the court on Monday. And I'm actually surprised that the hearing continued, but since it did, here I am.
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Ashley Merchant
Did you meet with Mr. Wade and talk to him about the motion that I filed?
- [07:18]
Phil Holloway
To disqualify you on January, this first January motion?
- [07:21]
Ashley Merchant
Yes.
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Phil Holloway
I don't know if you can say talked about. I probably had some choice words about some of the things that you said that were dishonest within this motion. But it seems today that a lawyer writes a lie and then it's printed for all of the world to see. When I met him, Judge Reeve introduced us. He handed me his business card. I'm unsure if I handed him my business card, but we exchanged information. He said, if you ever need any help, give me a call. And he walked to the parking lot.
- [07:53]
Ashley Merchant
So after. After that, you started dating shortly thereafter. Correct.
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Megyn Kelly
A lie.
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Phil Holloway
That's one of your lies.
- [08:01]
Megyn Kelly
Well, that's not how really the trial court saw it or the appellate court saw it. And, you know, you tell me whether you think you're going to be getting an apology now from Fanny Willis for publicly accusing you of being a liar.
- [08:15]
Ashley Merchant
I don't think I'll be holding my breath for that, you know, and I don't know that I've ever been called a liar so many times. And, you know, I just kept thinking, like, what is it that you think I'm lying about? Because just about everything that I've alleged has turned out to be true. And if. If something wasn't, it was. It wasn't not true. We fought over the term cohabitate. You know, we fought over the term whether or not you cohabitated. And that was one of her big things, saying, oh, I lied because they didn't live together. And I was using the Georgia definition of cohabitation that we have in the criminal code. If you spend the night together in someone's bed at their house, that's considered cohabitation under Georgia law. So, you know, that was the big, oh, you're lying because we didn't live together. Well, you know, you cohabitated. And so, you know, I think we were just playing with words at that point. But, no, I certainly am not going to be holding my breath for an apology anytime soon, But I can't believe how many times I've been called a liar in the year 2024. I sort of feel like I should. I should try and come up with a New Year's resolution having to do with that.
- [09:11]
Megyn Kelly
I think you're good. You don't need a resolution. You've already gotten a decision that declares effectively what you said was true and it was deeply problem. Phil Holloway, you said it from the beginning as well, that this absolutely is untoward behavior and that you can't have. Just so people are reminded of what the controversy was. You can't have the sitting DA With a financial incentive to make the case go on. Not because of her own job. She has that no matter what, but because she's having an affair with a special prosecutor she brought in who does get paid based on how long the case goes on. He's getting money from the county. If it goes on longer, if it ends, he. And he was taking her all over the world. I said, after that case, I was ready to have an affair with Nathan Wade. I would love to see Belize. I. He takes you everywhere.
- [10:02]
Mike Davis
Oh, Megan, great to be with you. Look, I think Ashley needs to go ahead and legally change her name to Aaron Brockovich, because if it weren't for, you know, her, you know, just unending and undying zealous advocacy for her client, we wouldn't be here right now talking about this. Look, this opinion is absolutely spectacular. I urge everybody to read it. I tweeted out a lot of it, but there's a lot there. And the. The odor of mendacity. That phrase, okay? Which is, of course, the catchphrase. Now, everybody associates with this case that features prominently in this rule. It even went into a footnote and defined.
- [10:44]
Megyn Kelly
Just remind the audience where we got that from.
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Mike Davis
Oh, okay. So, yeah, the. The judge said, look, the. Her testimony that and that of Wade had the, quote, odor of mendacity. And. Which means. And as the court of Appeals defined in a footnote, they said, look, odor of mendacity. Mendacity means, like, dishonesty and falseness, okay? And so this is the type of appearance of conflict of interest. Now, they didn't find an actual conflict, but they said this is the kind of appearance of impropriety, appearance of a conflict of interest that does warrant her removal from the case. And there is no other remedy that will suffice. The judge. The trial judge said, look, we're going to cure this by just making her get rid of Mr. Wade. The court of appeals, I think, correctly said, that's all fine and good, but that doesn't cure what she did in the past. It doesn't cure the conflict of interest or the really egregious appearance of a conflict of interest. And so it was all of that stuff. It was the Nathan Wade stuff. It was the mendacity, the smell, if you will, of her testimony. And then, of course, it was also all these out of court statements that she made where she goes into the well of a church and she slimes the defendants in front of by the way, a pool of potential jurors. Okay. You can't try cases on the courthouse steps, let alone in the well of a church filled with potential jurors on the case. And so it was all of these things put together that I think made this the right opinion. And it's for, just like Ashley said, the Georgia Supreme Court, I predict, is not going to want to touch this. This case is effectively over. It's dead. It's dying. It's not going to be revived by the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, in my view.
- [12:33]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. I mean, that's, that's just huge. I'm going to bring Mike into in a second, but Ashley's got to leave in a minute. So I want to go back to you, Ashley. Did you really believe when you filed this thing initially that it could effectively potentially end the whole case?
- [12:50]
Ashley Merchant
I did. I mean, I thought that it was, it was something that was large enough and something that was deep enough that it could effectively end it. But I knew that it would take some really strong judges to give us, you know, every step. We had to win. We had to win a hearing. That was the first one, you know, so, so when we filed it, and it's crazy because this time last year, I was writing the motion, you know, getting ready. I mean, I spent the holidays preparing it and, you know, editing it with, with my law partner, with my husband, and getting it ready to be filed in early January. And so, you know, we had these. Yeah. Talking to Terence Bradley. Exactly. Talking to Terence Bradley. You know, he was away for the holidays. And I remember waiting until he got back from the holidays to sort of verify all the facts with him. But, you know, so it was a year ago thinking about what's going to happen with this, and I knew that we were going to have to fight, so we're going to have to take every step of the way. We're going to have another fight. We had to make sure that the judge gave us a hearing because we needed that hearing, you know, and then we needed the judge to issue strong, a strong order. And Even though Judge McAfee didn't rule with us, he issued a strong order, and he made factual findings that were really strong. You know, I'd hoped that Fani Willis would do the right thing, but she dug in. She did the expected thing. You know, knowing her, she dug in. But so, you know, I, I, I knew that it had the, the potential to completely derail the case if we won it every step of the way. But I also knew that that was going to be a really long haul. And I knew that it was going to be something where they dug in a lot and fought. I mean, fought vehemently. You've seen how much they wanted to keep this case. But, you know, one thing I want to point out is the more they dug in, the more you could see that they were biased, because these are government employees. If most of the time, if you say a judge is biased or you say a DA's bias, they say, okay, send it to someone else. You know, I mean, that's immediately when you file a motion to recuse someone or disqualify. Normally they're like, bye, because who wants more work? When you're. You know, when you're a government salaried employee, you usually don't want extra work. So normally the normal response would be, disqualify me, let someone else look at it. I feel so strongly about the facts of my case that if you had a neutral and detached prosecutor, they're going to come to the same conclusion. So I don't need to have a personal stake in this case. So when we saw her dig in and not do that, that said all we needed to know, that said, you definitely do have a personal stake in this case.
- [15:06]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. I mean, it could have been that she was seeing the world thanks to Nathan Wade's additional money, and it could have been hatred of Donald Trump. Either way, it's inappropriate. Hatred toward the defendant is not an appropriate motivator for a da. She's supposed to just seek justice. What was your. What was your client's reaction when you told them the news?
- [15:26]
Ashley Merchant
Yeah, so I got to call him this morning, and, you know, getting to make a call like that is pretty exciting. I'm not gonna lie. That's a pretty. That's a pretty special moment. And so we definitely had a special moment. We were. We were teared up over it and in shock, you know, and. And kudos to him, because I couldn't do it without him having the fortitude to fight. I mean, he was offered a misdemeanor reckless conduct plea. He was offered one of the first pleas in this case, and he rejected it. So he could have taken a plea last September, be done with this, and he had the guts to fight, and he. I mean, he had to authorize me doing this, you know, had to authorize that me. I mean, I have autonomy in my job, but I'm also not going to do something like this without my client's approval. And so, you know, really proud of him. For having the guts. Most people wouldn't have the ability to turn down a misdemeanor when they're faced with a RICO charge. And so, you know, I was. I was proud of him, and he was proud of me. So we had a special moment.
- [16:18]
Megyn Kelly
I feel like President Trump owes him a solid. If he hadn't filed that motion. I mean, you. You were onto this when nobody else was onto this. It took a local lawyer with local connections. I mentioned Terence Bradley because he was in practice with Nathan Wade, and they had been very close, and he knew what was going on between the two of them. And before he realized that this would all blow up, he told you about it. Things with he. With Bradley and Wade didn't end well. So he. He was fine ratting out his friend. And then when he took the stand, speaking of odor of mendacity, he just pretended he knew nothing to where the trial court was. Like, I put absolutely no faith in a word that man said, but that's how transparent you were. You were like, here's my entire phone.
- [17:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
Here.
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Megyn Kelly
I'll give you my whole phone. To the prosecuting attorney. You can look at every single text message. I have nothing to hide. But still, you got accused of lying. You didn't lie. You told the truth.
- [17:09]
Ashley Merchant
And I know it was. It was unbelievable, you know, and I'm not tech savvy, so I didn't really know how to turn it over to them, but I'm like, I have nothing to hide here. You know, you can look through that. I wish that. That they had had the same ability to be transparent. You know, we still haven't seen behind the. And there's still a lot of things that we don't know the answers to. You know, but your point where you said that basically this hatred for Donald Trump, you know, I've gotten. I've recently gotten some more open records, which I've just been going through the last couple of days. And the day that Fani Willis hired Nathan Wade, she also purchased a ton of books, all of the books that people had written about Donald Trump and about the 2020 election for her and her team. So, you know, you can just see before they even had these charges, they're reading books to try and figure out this case, trying to figure out how to make the case. And there are books written about hatred, essentially, for Donald Trump and his entire presidency. So, you know, I think that just really shows the motive here.
- [18:04]
Megyn Kelly
I know you got to go. One of the mysteries is whatever happened to Susan? What happened to Susan, right Remember the ada?
- [18:10]
Ashley Merchant
She bailed Bradley.
- [18:13]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. It was Anna. She bailed when that guy took a stand and clearly lied.
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Ashley Merchant
Nobody has seen her again, so. And Anna is a well respected lawyer, so I sort of reading tea leaves there just think that she did what we would call a quiet withdrawal, you know, and just no longer worked on the case, has not appeared since, hasn't filed another writing. So I'm kind of thinking that that means that she knew something was wrong and she didn't want to be involved in it.
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Megyn Kelly
Me too. Anna Cross. That's right. She was an ADA on the case. And once that guy, Terence Bradley took the stand and he should have just confirmed, yes, Nathan did tell me they were having the affair was going on before she selected him. All stuff. And instead he wiggled and wiggled and lied. What I think. And next thing you knew, you know, that One of the DA's lawyers was never seen again. Because we lawyers don't really much like to be in the business of suborning perjury from a witness. Ashley Merchant. Congratulations.
- [19:03]
Ashley Merchant
Thank you.
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Megyn Kelly
Total victory. Good for you.
- [19:06]
Ashley Merchant
Thanks for having me. It's good to see everyone.
- [19:08]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, you too. Mike Davis. Right again. What do you. What's your reaction to the news?
- [19:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
I would say this.
- [19:16]
Guest Speaker
Mike Roman is a warrior. Thank God he pursued this. And thank God he picked Ashley as his attorney. If I'm ever in hot water, I am calling Ashley because she is also a savage. She took Fannie Willis to the mat and she won. I mean, think about what Fannie did here. She hired her dumb, unqualified boyfriend, paid him $700,000 in Fulton county funds. She took illegal kickbacks from this dumb, unqualified boyfriend, Nathan Wade, in the form of these lavish trips around the world. She told us all that she's a grey goose girl. She lied about it in court. She perjured herself and somehow she survived that with the trial court because that Scott McAfee turned himself into a pretzel to let her stay on the case. But kick off Nathan Wade from the case, that the Georgia Court of Appeals did the right thing here by disqualifying Fannie Willis and thus disqualifying the entire office. This case is dead. I agree with Phil. It's not coming back. This is just another part of the Democrat lawfare that backfired and backfired spectacularly. And I would say to Fannie Willis, you better lawyer. Lawyer up, darling. Because I imagine the Trump 47 Justice Department may be looking at federal felony charges against you for honest services, fraud, maybe bribery. There are so Many potential crimes that Fannie Willis could have committed. And as she likes to say, nobody's above the law.
- [21:05]
Megyn Kelly
I'm sorry, I have no problem with that. None whatsoever. This woman would not let go of this case even when she knew she had done wrong. She definitely, in my opinion, took the stand and lied, committed perjury, notwithstanding the fact that she's an officer of the court and so did Nathan Wade. And she should be pursued. She should. She should be pursued with the exact same vigor that she pursued Donald Trump. That is the only way these, these people who went after him with such venom will learn. I mean, Alvin Bragg and Fanny Willis in particular. Here's the moment I remember. And you guys know this. We met you shortly thereafter, Phil, when we started covering this. And you were like, hey, I know a lot about this. This case, when it broke almost a year ago, was dismissed. I was like, this is bullshit. There's just some loser lawyer down in Atlanta who no one's ever heard of trying to question, you know, what is this salacious nonsense about an affair between these two? Like, come on, we're above it. And the New York Times's team over at the had a discussion about that shortly after it did catch fire. As we all knew and predicted from the get go, it would. Listen, if I'm remembering correctly, the feeling that a lot of people had when.
- [22:21]
Mike Davis
This motion was filed was that it.
- [22:23]
Megyn Kelly
Was kind of a Hail Mary.
- [22:26]
Mike Davis
Right.
- [22:26]
Megyn Kelly
And there was not much evidence that.
- [22:28]
Ashley Merchant
It was necessarily even true.
- [22:29]
Mike Davis
Yeah, well, I mean, it was a.
- [22:31]
George Stephanopoulos
Hail Mary in the sense that Michael Roman's lawyer didn't include any evidence to back up her claim, this very salacious claim.
- [22:40]
Victor Davis Hanson
So there was a moment there when.
- [22:42]
George Stephanopoulos
Nobody knew really what to make of it.
- [22:44]
Mike Davis
It was a very uncomfortable moment.
- [22:47]
Megyn Kelly
It was a Hail Mary, you know, that really fell. It's like no one really, no one saw it going anywhere.
- [22:56]
Mike Davis
Yeah, look, and I remember very clearly because I was posting on X or Twitter about it, whatever it was, and other media, we were talking about it here and we got just a lot of people just dismissed. Well, there's no evidence and all this, but I knew better, okay? I knew there was evidence. And even if I didn't know maybe what exactly some of that evidence was, I know Ashley Merchant, we're co counseled together on certain cases, even right now. And if Ashley Merchant says she's got evidence, she has evidence. And there is no doubt about it in my mind. And so we fast forward to the hearing and of course, lo and behold, it all became public record we saw a lot of what her evidence was, and we saw that this thing does have legs. And to be honest with you, some of the best evidence for Ashley and her client in this case was the testimony of Willis. Right. Because if she had not testified the way that she did and made this whole thing into such a outrageous spectacle, it probably would not have caught the attention of the Georgia Court of Appeals the way that it did. Because they pointed out in this opinion, guys, they said, look, normally the mere appearance of a conflict of interest is not going to be enough, but this is the exceptional case. That may be the rule, but this is the exception. And it's the exception because it's so egregious. How did it get so egregious? It got so egregious because of the way she marched herself into that courtroom and for the whole world to see displayed that she has a personal interest in this case. It's personal to her. It's a vendetta almost. And as the Court of Appeals pointed out in this opinion, prosecutors are supposed to serve the public interest, not their own interests, not even their personal egos, if that's what it was. But in this case, there's this odor that all these other things exist in terms of a personal interest, whether it's with her paramour or the fancy trips that he takes her home, or the fact that he gets paid more and more and more the longer this case goes on. All of these things piled up together against Willis. And here we are today. And it's worth noting that Ashley's client, of course, as she mentioned, props to him for having the tenacity to. To allow her to do this. But all the other defendants in the case, even if they didn't participate in her motion, and a lot of them did not join in this motion, this ruling applies to all of them, every single defendant in the case, whether they joined in her motion or not, they benefited from what she has pulled off here. And it's quite remarkable, and it's historic, and it's something that kind of restores a little bit of faith in the Georgia justice system today.
- [25:51]
Megyn Kelly
You know, Mike, as a practical matter, this is just so helpful to Trump, because what he was alleged to have done in this case wasn't all necessarily in his role as official. You know, like, official acts as president, thus falling within the Supreme Court ruling, saying he has immunity for that, you know, the sort of scheme with the electors and some of the stuff after the fact. So it. It might have been tougher to dump this case based on the Supreme Court than it was with the others. So it really, in some ways did come down to this motion by Ashley Merchant. And she did it. And, you know, so the best part of it, because I think we'd be cheering it on either way, because this was just a bullshit made up claim. But what's so great about it is she, Fanny Willis is guilty. Like this actually happened. We all believe that. There was so much testimony. Nathan Wade, he lied under oath in his interrogatory answers in his divorce proceeding where he claimed there was nobody that he'd taken the trips with. He had no receipts from any trips he'd taken with. It was all lies. He'd been all over the world with Fanny. He was a proven liar. And this case came down to his testimony and Fanny's testimony. Neither was credible. They embarrassed themselves on the stand. And really what they showed was that they're not people of good character. And that's. That was really at the heart of. Of the problems behind them bringing this case to begin with.
- [27:17]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I would say this number one, to Mike Roman. To Fanny Willis. You probably don't want to go after the best opposition researcher and lawyer in the Republican party if your own house is not in order. So cheers to Mike Roman. To Ashley. Merchants. What country do you want to go serve as the ambassador under the Trump 47 administration? I think you have the pick. Maybe Napa. You know, you want to, you want to, you want to go have a job at Napa, you want to go be the ambassador to Belize? Whatever, Whatever job you want to take, you'll have to Fanny Willis, I would say this, this is my message to Fannie. You can be dumb, incompetent, arrogant and corrupt. You might. I don't think you're going to be able to get away with all four of those things. Maybe one or two, but not all four.
- [28:10]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Well, tell it to Joy Reid, because remember speaking about Fannie and some of these other Soros appointed DAs, many of whom got their jobs under the, oh, we need more, you know, dei, whatever. Remember this from Joy Reid.
- [28:25]
Joy Reid
I think Fani Willis is a hero. She is a national hero. MAGA could not prove an actual conflict of interest since there was none. But because America is always America, the victory for DA Fani Willis also came with a scolding for a professional black.
- [28:40]
Megyn Kelly
Woman about her judgment.
- [28:42]
Joy Reid
There is something wonderfully poetic. The first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad, the very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Stephen Miller, et cetera, want to never be at Harvard Law School, but he was. And a black woman is doing that same exact thing in Georgia. And a black woman forced you to pay $175 million fine. Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he's trying to dismantle. And for me, there's something poetic and actually wonderful. Go dei, if my deis are bringing it home on.
- [29:27]
Megyn Kelly
What do you make of that, Mike?
- [29:29]
Guest Speaker
Oh, my Lord. This is like the clown car of DEI prosecutors going after President Trump. This blew up in their faces. And I hope and pray that they are on the receiving end of a federal criminal probe under 18 USC section 241, conspiracy against rights, a very serious federal civil rights felony. When you politicize and weaponize intel agencies and law enforcement at every level, federal, state, local, to go after Trump, to go after his supporters, you have, you have committed a very serious federal civil rights felony, 18 USC section 241. So I hope these, these DEI prosecutors lawyer up.
- [30:19]
Megyn Kelly
It already cost them the presidency, it cost them the Senate, and it could cost them a lot more, depending on what the investigations into them, which are undoubted, will likely show. So, Phil, bottom line, you say this is, there won't be another prosecuting, like, if the person has to volunteer to say, I'll do it, and you say there's, there's no one who's going to do that. In all likelihood, yeah, I don't see it.
- [30:41]
Mike Davis
Because, you know, each, each district attorney's office in the state of Georgia, you know, they've got their own problems, they've got their own crime issues. They got murders, they got assaults, they got organized retail theft. They've got all the things that plague the citizens of the state of Georgia and elsewhere around the country, of course. But this, this is the business of what local prosecutors do. They don't have the time nor the inclination to go back and clean up Willis's mess because they would have to start over from the very beginning because she has so tainted this case that even if there were any evidence that anybody committed a crime, it's just not a viable indictment. It will not work. And it's going to have to start over from scratch. And, oh, by the way, even if a prosecutor wanted to take it, they would still have to bring it in Fulton County. So if you're the DA in some other county, you're going to have to pick up your show and take it on the road down to Fulton county for all the proceedings. So for all the reasons that we've been talking about, I just don't see the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia even wanting to transfer it to somebody else. And even if they did, no rational prosecutor, no sane prosecutor in their right mind would want to get involved in.
- [31:54]
Megyn Kelly
This fiasco against the President elect of the United States. One additional question, Phil. What? You know, they filed an appeal, as Ashley mentioned already. Fannie's trying to appeal this up to the Georgia Supreme Court. Do they have to take it? Can they reject it? And if they do take it, how do you like the chances there?
- [32:12]
Mike Davis
So it's a discretionary appeal, and so they don't have to take it. I predict that they won't. Normally they won't grant certiorari to pull up a case where they agree with the lower court's ruling. Okay. It's just like any other appeal that we've seen. Even out of the U.S. supreme Court, the same sort of scenario applies. So I don't see them taking the case. It's a very well worded opinion. I think it's strong. I don't think it's the kind of thing that the Georgia Court of Appeals would reverse. The only reason they might take it is if they too wanted to underscore to all prosecutors throughout the state, do not comport yourself this way. Do not conduct business in the state this way. Conduct your affairs in the public interest and not your own interest. Now that would be a message that I could see the Georgia Supreme Court pulling this case up to just to make that message right there.
- [33:05]
Megyn Kelly
It was a two to one opinion, all three Republican governor appointed, although different Republican governors. One person dissented, who was a Brian Kemp appointee, saying, I think this really is the trial judge's call and that we really don't have the authority to overrule him. The other two said no. An abuse of discretion is reviewable by an appellate court. And we think this one was so egregious that this judge did abuse his discretion by not disqualifying her. And it's our obligation to protect, you know, the law and the system. And this was one of those appearances of impropriety appearances, not actual, but appearance of impropriety that is so great as to demand her dq. Such a great result. Guys, thank you. I'm sure we'll have much more to discuss over the next four years, but what a great way to go into the Christmas season. Great to see you.
- [33:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
Merry Christmas. Thank you.
- [33:51]
Mike Davis
Happy New Year, everybody.
- [33:52]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, you too. You too. Merry Christmas. Wow. What a thing, you guys, right? We were all together. I feel like we went through this whole thing together. Nobody else is even covering this. Remember the day Phil came on and we had all the text messages between Ashley and Terrence Bradley and read them all on the air? I was like, such, such a great story, not really for Fanny, but, you know, for us and ultimately for Trump and Michael Roman at all. Okay, up next, VDH is here for the rest of the show. Can't wait to get his reaction to this news and much, much more. Don't go away. This holiday season, millions of families across America will rely on credit card rewards to visit their loved ones. But according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, D.C. politicians are trying to pass a bill that would lead to the end of credit card rewards. What they say the Durbin Marshall credit card bill would mandate credit cards run on alternative networks, not the trusted and stable networks you probably use today. And they say there's no guarantee that the convenience, zero liability fraud protection and rewards programs you know and love will remain. The Electronics Payments Coalition says corporate megastores will make more money while you sacrifice your payment, convenience, rewards and peace of mind. Find out more@guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card and to oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. Learn more for yourselves@guardyourcard.com Gifting is hard.
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- [35:55]
Megyn Kelly
Joining me now, Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the Case for Trump, which was just updated for 2024. That was officially not one of the books that Fanny Willis was reading when she was pursuing when she was pursuing Donald Trump and getting her office psyched up to get him. Vdh, welcome back to the show. Wow. I mean, it's just a complete victory for Trump on this law fair. I mean, not to mention politically, but on this lawfare in particular.
- [36:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, especially given the UVAs and arrogance of Fanny Willis and that whole prosecutor team. You know, you're a lawyer, Megan, but when I review all of these judges, I know the prosecutions in these five criminal and civil cases were weaponized. But when you think of the local and state judges, and I'm thinking of Ngorong, remember him in the league, I think he was alleged James. Then we had Mershawn in the Alvin Bragg case, and then we had this McAfee in the fanny Willis case. And then we had Cohen and Eugene Carroll. And they all were not just biased and really politicized and weaponized their courtrooms, but they were incompetent and they, they were, I think they're all going to be overruled. And I've never seen a level of judicial incompetence. I grew up with a mother who was the second superior court judge in our county or Fresno county, but she was the second woman appellate court judge in California, Stanford graduate, 1946. And I only mentioned that because I, I followed her as a young kid and sat in her courtroom a lot. And I, I, and the judges that were surrounded him, they, they were just a different generation than these weaponized, politicized, media hungry judges that we saw in the law fair conducted against Trump.
- [37:45]
Megyn Kelly
That's the thing. So we played a sound bit of Joy Reid, like, you go my deis. You know, like, I don't know if you heard that, but it's. The problem is not Fanny Willis's race. It's that she was promoted to this role probably in, in part because of her race and her gender. Right, because the left leftist party likes to celebrate those things over merit. It she was not smart enough or competent enough for the job, which this case has proven it was. She wasn't ready to try this RICO case against Trump and these others. And by the way, no one smart would have engaged in this unethical behavior and then taken the witness stand and clearly, in my opinion, lied about it under oath. So the problem is not the election or the elevation of people of color or of women in particular. It's that if you lower the standards of merit and accomplishment and seriousness to promote people like that, you get what you get and you can't get upset. As we say to our toddlers, this is what you're gonna wind up with. Somebody who can't get it done, who makes stupid decisions that foil the case for you.
- [38:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I agree. I think there was a little racial element though, in the animus and the public announcements of Bragg. If you collate Willis, Bragg and James, they all, in the case of James and Bragg, they ran on the idea that Donald Trump was this right wing, illiberal person and they were part of the people. The Dei the retribution, the social justice remedy for people like Trump. And there was a thinly disguised, I think, racial element. I, but I don't think that was the dominant element. But it was there. I mean Jack Smith was in, I think was incompetent and biased as well as well as Eugene Carroll's attorneys that filed a civil suit. But there was something about what Joy Reid was saying. If you look at the flip side of what she was saying, she was basically admitting that she saw this in racial terms. And there were people like Joy Reid, whether or not James or Bragg or Willis encouraged that publicly or not, that did see, this is as a sort of a comeuppance for an old white guy who was biased. And this was the DEI remedy to him. And they did, they did further that.
- [40:08]
Megyn Kelly
They're still saying so.
- [40:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, they did.
- [40:12]
Megyn Kelly
Dean Obadala, former attorney, he's a, he's now at SiriusXM hosting a show. But was, I know, I think from cnn, from msnbc, contributor to the Daily Beast. He, he tweets out as follows or he, no, it wasn't a tweet. It was an op ed that he sent back in well a year ago November. Georgia appeals court disqualifies for. Wait a minute. This, this is today. Sorry, this, it's the earlier he wrote an op ed. He tweeted out today. Georgia appeals court disqualifies Fulton County DA Fanny Willis from prosecuting Trump. The system is working exactly as designed to protect wealthy white men from being held accountable. Is that what happened here?
- [40:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I don't think that works anymore. Whether across the political landscape. If you look at Mayor Johnson and look at his locker city council meetings of average middle class blacks who are angry about his elite idea of immigration, illegal immigration and illegal immigrants being privileged over his own constituents. And then you look at the vote count in these states. I mean Georgia went for Trump and black males, despite the propaganda, despite the pressures within the Black community were 25 to 30% for Trump. And what we're watching is there's a lot of people in the black community that are realizing they have more in common with Latino and white working class people than they do with the Fanny Willis's and the Mayor Johnson's and the Letitia James and the, you know, the Joy reads and they're saying we have the same problem you and the white community and the Latino community have. You have bicoastal elites and others that speak for us and talk down to us. And nothing, no, no one more than those iconic moments in which Barack Obama Came out of one of his four mansions, remember? And he said to those black activists that were working for Fanny Wilson, you don't know it, but I have to inform you that you may be suffering from false consciousness, racism and sexism.
- [42:19]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. That was so offensive. And Fanny Willis too, played the race card openly in this case, which I also think is repulsive to fair minded black Americans who are sick and tired of hearing their race used as a weapon to justify bad behavior by, in this case, a black woman and a black man. They see right through this, too. They know this is bs. When she got in trouble, this came out. Ashley filed her motion. It was clear she'd been having an affair with the special prosecutor she brought in, who was then enhancing her lifestyle lavishly by flying her all over the world in the hotels and so on. And rather than saying that was dumb, I shouldn't have done that and I understand. You know what? For the sake of the case, I'm going to disqualify myself and another prosecutor can take this. She didn't do it. What'd she do? She went out and played the race card saying, oh, why they only come after Nathan Wade? I brought in two other prosecutors who they have no issue with. Well, you're not stopping the other two. Remember this? This was. It was January 2024.
- [43:29]
Phil Holloway
Listen, why does Commissioner Thorne and so many others question my decision in a special counsel? I appointed three special counsel, as is my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate. They only attack one. First thing they say, oh, she gonna play the race card now. But no, God, isn't it them who's playing the race card when they only question, why are they so surprised that a diverse team that I assembled, your child, can accomplish extraordinary things? God, wasn't it them that attacked this lawyer of impeccable credentials? How come, God, the same black man I hired was acceptable when a Republican in another county hired him and paid him twice the rate? Oh, y'all ain't hear me? Why is the white male Republicans judgment good enough, but the black female Democrats not?
- [44:33]
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh, that's a self condemnation. Yeah, that's self condemnation because she basically proved to everybody she's not as good as the other judges. And it was not because she was black. But if she wanted to make that a case, then it's embarrassing. And of course, as you point out, the obvious answer is, well, Nathan Wade was treated differently because you hired him and paid him $700,000 and you were a beneficiary of that money when you knew he was incompetent, and he was even going to the White House and coordinating with the Biden legal counsel and charging them for the pleasure of doing that. So I think that a lot of black males especially, but the black middle class looks at that, and not all of them, the majority probably doesn't, but a growing minority of black males, black females, middle class. People say, do not use us, do not demagogue us, just so you can live this lavish lifestyle. And then when you get caught, claim that it's that you got caught because people don't like us. We're not going to serve for you as a foil for you. And I think that's going to grow. And the irony of this whole conversation is the person that the never Trumpers and the Romney, McCain, Bush wing of the Republican Party said would permanently alienate minorities because he was himself racist. Donald Trump proved in this last election to really be very successful in a way that no Republican dreamed of substituting class interest for race and got a higher percentage of the minority vote than almost anybody in the last 50 years that was a Republican.
- [46:10]
Megyn Kelly
You know, Victor, I've been listening to you and reading you, and you've, you've captured something that I think we were feeling but maybe hadn't given voice to, which is part of what's happening right now. I think, in the groundswell of support behind Trump is Americans love a comeback. They love it, but they also love it when it's been like the most, most epic, historic pile on, or at least one of them. I can't think of one that's worse that we've ever seen against a presidential candidate and a guy who served as president in the nation's history. I mean, Trump got it from all angles, including assassination attempts. But the lawfare, ironically, would prove critical, I think, to his rising again to the respect and the admiration of a lot of people toward him. It was a colossal, colossal mistake for them to do it.
- [47:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
And they did it repeatedly in five different arenas. And you can see how out of touch Joy Reid was because she had no idea that when Donald Trump had that mug shot and people knew that was unfair and he looked defiant, a lot of people who had felt that they had been on the wrong end of an indictment, they empathized with him. Even the ones who didn't said, this is not fair. And look at it. He's not weepy, he's not crying, he's defiant, just like he was after the assassination offense. And you wanted to tell these people, get out of your Bubble. Do you realize that when you impeach him twice and you try him as a private citizen, and then you spend two and a half times more than he does on a campaign, you try to get him off 16 state ballots, you wage five indictments, 91 indictments or 93 against him, and you fail on every occasion. It's not just neutral. You don't start back to square one. You lose your credibility incrementally each time. And they didn't understand that. They just kept it up. And finally he made a mockery of them with the McDonald's. You know, when she said, I worked at McDonald's, and he said, no, you didn't. And they all rallied to her side. And then he went to McDonald's. And that iconic moment when somebody drove in, I think he was Indian American. And he said to Trump, he kind of got startled, and he said, well, I'm just ordinary. And Trump said, you're not ordinary. And his wife said, you took a bullet. And Trump, the old Trump might have said, yes, I did. But he kind of stopped for a minute and he got reflective and he said, I guess I did. And you could see that all of this stuff that it was doing to him, the only way he could survive was to fight back. But he also got really philosophical. It was almost like he had a animal cunning that he knew what they were doing in the long run. If he survived one more indictment, one more day, it was all going to boomerang on him. And he had a marvelous staff. And when they started to stage these moments at a garbage truck, McDonald's going into Madison Square Garden, it was just, I don't think the elite left has ever is going to recover for a long time. And then it was a cultural phenomenon. When people, you know, and we were talking, Megan, just two years ago, we would be talking about the absurdity of taking the knee and that whole BLM phenomenon fad hysteria. And then we had people in the NFL who had taken a knee. They were doing this YMCA dance. I'd never seen anything like it. It was a cultural. It was a cultural counter revolution. And people finally just said, stop it. We're sick of you. We want a border. We don't want people looting as if and shoplifting of this normal. There is really only two sections. Don't push that down our throat. That humiliation in Afghanistan was the worst we've ever seen. It was just a rejection on all economic, political, social, cultural front. And Trump sort of spearheaded this counter revolution. It was the greatest comeback in America, much even more impressive than Harry Truman or Richard Nixon or Andrew Jackson. It was just amazing.
- [50:15]
Megyn Kelly
The yeah, the shift in what used to be considered aggressive like it was it's a little aggressive to wear your MAGA hat. Back in 16 I had so many people say that to you've got kids, including my own openly wanting Trump T shirts and they'll wear them wherever they want to without shame. They'll proudly wear them. They they already wore MAGA hats. I mean it's just there's been something remarkable. There's absolutely no shame around it now. People are proud. It's actually cool. And it's all honestly, it's due to, well, I guess two things. The Trump and and the Democrats tactic tactics against him. But how he handled them has been an example in how to fight Stand by Victor Moore right after this quick break.
- [50:59]
George Stephanopoulos
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- [52:03]
Megyn Kelly
Now as Kamala Harris has lost and no one's done the in depth think piece other than us on how problematic she was. She was forget the team around her and their decision making. Yes, that, that too. But she it's been hands off of her. We now get the press turning on Joe Biden. So it's like now they're getting really honest about Joe Biden. Okay, yes, fine. But still nothing on her pod. Save America going after Biden and the Wall Street Journal. Yes, they went after him before, but they have done yet another relatively in depth piece on his failing mental acuity. By the way, he's still president. Just for those of you keeping track at home on how he cabinet members were not able to speak to him. They just kept getting stiff armed and came to understand speaking to the president was just not a possibility. On how all of his aides ran cover for him and acted more like they were the president. On how they had to bring in a voice coach that they got through Jeffrey Katzenberg to help him try to sound more robust. On how in 2020, this is 2020, not 2024, Jill Biden was out there seeing more counties in Iowa, far more than Joe Biden could or was able to see to the point where his aides has had to chastise hers to say stop telling people that it doesn't make us look good. On and on it goes. And Charles C.W. cook raises a good point over at National Review today, saying, you know, where's the accountability? Forget the press in Morning Joe. Best Joe Biden ever. For Kamala Harris, who peddled this lie just as much as anyone and yet remains in an article every other day as the front runner for the 2028 presidential nomination on the Dem side, a.
- [54:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Really good point, but even I think even a better one is where is he questioning her right now? Because she in a hundred day period of her campaign refuted almost every position that she'd held. She had used it. She used to demonstrate for deportation. She said she for against deportation. She said in 100 days I will have to deport people. And then she said she was for fracking. And then she said she was tough prosecutor and she wanted to prosecute people in a way that she had. She was on record in California for defunding the police and on and on. So now she's the election's over. And what Kamala Harris is it, is it the old Kamala Harris is going to run on this, her prior record for California governor? Or was it the new Kamala Harris that tried to fool and fake her way into the presidency for 100 days? And no one is asking her those questions. Not one reporter is saying, carmelo, what do you believe about fracking right now? Is it what you said, 100 days for 100 days, or is it what you said prior to that? And they could ask that along lines, you know, 10 or 12 topics and they won't do it. The other thing that's really disturbing is I can't believe the Wall Street Journal didn't have people leaking this story for the last four years. And I know that they didn't want to influence the election, but they could have at least had a little bit more honest reporting. Now it's, it's a pattern here, Megan. Now that it's all over, they're basically saying to the country, we kept things from you that we can now tell you. And we're sorry that people called you all crazy conspiracy theorists when you said that Joe Biden was demented or had problems. But now we can kind of agree with you. Same thing they did on the border. New York Times wrote an article not long ago. Wow, this is the greatest influx of illegal aliens we've ever seen. This is the greatest number of foreign born we've ever seen. This is the greatest number of percentage of people who were residents of the country that were not born in the United States. They knew that the whole time. Now they're telling us same thing about Kamala Harris's campaign. Now all of a sudden we're told by the Obama advisors, well, we kind of lied about the momentum. And we were kind of surprised about these polls that were trying. They were kind of fake in our favor and we would, we would kind of look at each other and say, wow, New York Times, Washington Post says she's ahead. They really believe we had momentum. We told everybody we did. But not one of our internal polls show that she was ever winning. And it's kind of, you know, it's, it really makes long term. It destroys your confidence if you had any left. And this mainstream media as well is Kamala Harris.
- [56:53]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. The Wall Street Journal did do an article on Biden's mental acuity before the election, before his implosion, I should say. And so, but this one goes more in depth. And what's interesting is now more and more people are talking right now, people on the inside of the administration are ready to own up to the fact that he couldn't speak with cabinet members. And Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat, moderate Democrat in Washington, he's been on the show, he's on the record here saying he sought to talk to Biden to share his insights about Afghanistan and couldn't get on the phone with him. You know, Joe, Ron Klain, his then White House chief of staff, was running interference with everybody. Just like Trump. They had to keep all negative news out of Biden's press briefings, except during Trump. You saw that story everywhere. Trump's so thin skinned, he can't read bad polls. He can't read negative coverage, which is all the coverage for Trump. Same for Biden. They reveal in this report that they had to pull news clips and they had to make sure that it excluded negative stories. And on speaking of the Robert, her investigation into Joe Biden's retention of classified documents, unlike Trump from when he was not in a position to have them at his home or anywhere. Right. It was a senator. You're supposed to review them in a skiff, a secure room. You can't take them outside of the office. Which he did anyway. They said that they took these press sessions with him and that they took three hours a day for a week. But Joe Biden couldn't recall the lines that his team had previously discussed with him. And then it came out that in that her interview, he couldn't remember when his son Beau died. And Robert her said, I can't prosecute this guy. He's a well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. That's what a jury will see. And here's what Kamala Harris said after that.
- [58:46]
Ashley Merchant
The comments that were made by that prosecutor, gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate. The way that the, the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated. That when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw.
- [59:21]
Megyn Kelly
Victor, those lies cost the Democrats, the White House. They cost them. Will there be no accountability for her?
- [59:27]
Victor Davis Hanson
None. No. That was the most asinine thing she said of many acid things. She didn't even realize that had he not said that that was in the, that was to the benefit of her and Joe Biden, had he not said, and I thought he was almost inappropriate, because the role of a prosecutor is to present the evidence, not necessarily to determine the, the cognitive status of the person who's being might be charged. That's up for a jury and a judge to adjudicate. I mean, there's a lot of people who would say to a prosecutor, I'm old and I, I can't remember. And the irs, to take one example, is not very sympathetic to that. So what Kamala Harris was basically saying was, I wish Robert Hara had not given the excuse of not prosecuting him since apparently the evidence was there, that he could have presented it to a jury. But he gave us the benefit of the doubt by saying Joe was confused, but he's not confused. Ergo, they should have prosecuted him for removing documents in a felonious fashion to four different locations over 30 years and then having a ghostwriter where he disclosed classified information to the ghost writer who then destroyed the tapes of it under subpoena, which is a felony. And then he said to Robert Her, I only did that because I was afraid they'd be hacked act and her gave them the benefit of the doubt all the way in those decisions. He said, well I'm not going to prosecute the speechwriter for destroying evidence and I'm not going to prosecute Joe Biden for disclosing classified information. And that was one of the things Jack Smith pointed out that allegedly Trump had done to an individual without a security clearance. So Harris didn't realize or she knew that Biden was the beneficiary prosecutor discretion. And yet here she is damning him for the very reason that let Joe Biden get off the hook. And she's done kill here. That speech she gave the other day was. She just gave a speech, you may have recalled that where she, she, it was almost as if she was intoxicated. She couldn't form a sentence. She laughed, she was incoherent. She tried to make fun of this obscure language and pseudo philosophy that she espoused. It was just, just the idea that she came close to the presidency is really scary.
- [61:43]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, it's genuinely terrifying. Well, Joe Biden also came close to retaining the presidency and serving a second term. If he hadn't had that meltdown, those senior moments at that June debate, who knows what would have happened. He gave an interview today. This is to the Midas Touch guy which is a popular left wing podcast. And would you listen to him talk about the goals he had coming into office and how he did sought 31.
- [62:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
When I ran I said I was going to try to do three things. Resource some integrity of the office, bring back a sense of focus on the needs of ordinary people and try to unite the country. And so that's what I've done. I've tried to do in four years. We've accomplished a lot. I mean.
- [62:40]
Megyn Kelly
That'S what he's done.
- [62:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
Those were the three things he most egregiously failed at. He didn't bring integrity. He allowed his son. He tried to fix his son sentencing when with a sweetheart deal from the DOJ that would have gone through had not courageous people you had on your show. The IRS whistleblowers stopped it. And then he pardoned his son after he said six times that he wouldn't. He just pardoned 1500 miscreants. He doesn't even know what they did. His staff probably did it for him and got it by them. He did not unite the country. That's the one thing he, he was at pains not to do. The only time he was coherent in four years is when he got angry. And when he gave that Phantom of the Opera, semi fascist, ultra mega speech, it was just dripping with hatred.
- [63:28]
Ashley Merchant
It.
- [63:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
And he did that even in the State of the Union addresses. He, he went after the people, not just Trump, but the people who, who voted for him. And he did not, and he did not help the middle class when he got through after four years, real wages were stagnant, if not declining. And more importantly, the cumulative inflation rate from the day he entered office to the day he left on staple goods, food, gas, rent, insurance, power was about 25 to 30% higher. And he really made it almost impossible for a middle class person to survive under him. So it was a complete disaster. And don't listen to me. These were what the polls showed, that in retrospect, the economy, the economy, the economy showed that no voters had confidence in him. He was pulling 40% approval rate on the economy, 40% on the border down the line. And, you know, they all said that this was not a referendum or on Biden or it was not a blowout for Trump or it was not a landslide victory. It was in a way, because Donald Trump won the popular vote for the first time for Republican in 20 years. He won the Electoral College. He now has, you could say the Republicans, for the first time in my memory, control the White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and more importantly, they had issues, every one of them, foreign policy and deterrence, crime, energy, the transgender issue, the border, etc. That the majority of the people were behind. So I don't think they get it yet. I don't. Joe Biden, if anybody adheres to what he just said, is delusional. I don't think anybody.
- [65:14]
Megyn Kelly
His, his approval rating right now is 39. There's another poll having him at 34. He's going down dayto day as. I don't know if people are forgetting, you know, they think he's gone already, but he's. It's going down right now. Trump is going up. Trump's approval rating right now, his favorability rating is at 49%, which is amazing. That's. We haven't seen those kinds of numbers for Trump. This time in 2016, it was at 42% and he had a 53% unfavorable. Right now it's 47% unfavorable. So Trump's unfavorables have shrunk considerably. His favorability has gone up considerably, and he is between 10 and 15 points higher than Joe Biden in favorability. How, how does Hitler, fascist Dictator on day one do that, Victor?
- [66:16]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, he's popular for a variety of reasons. You pointed out some. One of them is he was defiant and he went through things that would have destroyed any other person, as we talked about. But also he's, he's a very different 78 than almost anybody. You see when he gets, he gave those merit. He outworked everybody. He gave those marathon thoughts talks. He gave an hour long press conference. And even his critics the other day said this is so needed and that's such in contrast that he'll talk about anything to anybody, anywhere, anytime, in a way that Joe Biden, we've never seen him do it. He had 30 cabinet meetings, 19 one year total cabinet meetings was four times the number of Joe Biden. So he was a very rigorous, undaunted, indomitable figure. In addition to that, he's coming into office after we saw four years. It's almost as if fate is saying we had to take the country through this nightmare and we had to almost destroy Donald Trump. To show you what the left will do if you turn over the powers of government, the Senate and the House to them. They will destroy the border. They will inflict on you and infuse on you these crazy ideas about gender reassignment surgeries and abortion into the ninth month at the moment of delivery and withdrawing from Afghanistan, leaving $50 billion. They're capable of that. But you don't believe it. Well, we'll show you. And that's what we saw for four years. And Donald Trump had a record this time. So he was saying to everybody, look at the prior four years and then look at what followed my four years. And that that really helped him. The other thing was, and I think this is on the first day is very important. A lot of people criticize his appointments because he's privileged loyalty. But for every appointment, the proper way to ascertain their suitability is to ask what is the alternative? Last time when he was there. So we have Kash Patel and he's qualified by any measure, but he's compared to what James Comey, who was there. James Comey and Andrew McCabe, his interim successor as well. They did everything in their power to destroy their commander in chief. Andrew McCabe lied four times to a federal investigator. James Comey claimed he couldn't remember 245 times into a House intelligence committee while under oath. You say look at Cash Patel and then you look at Lloyd Austin. Whatever. I mean, I have regard. He's a colleague of mine, General Mattis and who the people who followed him, but they were not there to help further and empower the Trump MAGA agenda. They were not. And Jeff Session, maybe he was, but he was in ca. He's not going to do what Pam Bondi and the people at the NIH and others, they were not there to mitigate the economic, social, cultural effects of the lockdown. And the whole controversies God complex of.
- [69:22]
Megyn Kelly
Anthony Fauci, they played right into that. Never mind Francis Collins.
- [69:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
Francis Collins as well. So what I'm getting at is he's coming into office with people that he can trust in the sense that when he says something, they will say to the president, that's what I will do. And I have some ideas how I can even make it more quickly and more effectively in power. And the other people's attitude was his own cabinet members, for the most part, if he said something to a John Bolton or to a Jeff Sessions or to Christopher Wray or any of these people, they would have said, ah, that's Donald Trump. Now he just has crazy ideas. I'm Mark Milley. I've just psychoanalyzed him. I am going to call up my Chinese counterpart and tell him that my commander in chief is crazy. And don't worry, I won't obey an order. That's the type of people he had to deal with. And he came into office without any support from the Republican Party, opposition from the Democratic Party, and he was told, these are the people who are the professional class and you need them. And he followed that advice for two or three years. He's not going to do that now. And he only came to that realization after all the damage that they did to him and the ensuing four years where many of these people in his own party said he got what he deserved. And so I think he's coming in now.
- [70:46]
Megyn Kelly
They came in, they, they forgot that he was the reason they had those jobs that they had.
- [70:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
I was just those positions.
- [70:52]
Megyn Kelly
They had him to thank for them.
- [70:54]
Victor Davis Hanson
That was. That's such a good point. When I saw all of the things that John Bolton has said recently and all the things he said during the, the impeachment, when he was kind of winking and nodding and saying, I have a memoir coming out. I'm not going to say anything, but wait till my memoir comes out. And then you think, where were you, John Bolton? You could never, under any imaginable circumstances, return to government. Even George Bush could not appoint you to the UN Ambassadorship unless he had a recess appointment. And what did you do when Donald Trump brought You into a position where you didn't have to be confirmed with the National Security Advisor. You immediately started leaking and telling people that he was an idiot and you had ways to circumvent and you never thanked him. And to this day, you, you've libeled almost every one of his appointees and you want us to believe that Comey McCabe, Ray Mattis, all of these people that had a chance yourself were wonderful public servants and efficient and really did a great job. And that's, it's not true. And people know it. And these people are very bitter because not only did they fail to destroy Donald Trump, but their very venom directed at him has helped fuel his comeback because they don't have any idea how disliked they are by the American public. And you saw, you know, Donald Trump reached out to RFK and to Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk. These people were liked. Whatever you thought about them, they were liked when they tried to emulate that and brought in never Trumpers, but especially people like Liz Cheney. She was dour, she was mean spirited. She had tried to destroy Donald Trump. And the idea that you were going to parade around with her and that was going to get you Republican or any support, it was just ludicrous.
- [72:48]
Megyn Kelly
Right?
- [72:48]
Victor Davis Hanson
The people.
- [72:48]
Megyn Kelly
Liz Cheney has no constituency.
- [72:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
No constituency. She's bitter, she's angry. And Donald Trump, I mean, she voted 93% with him the first term. So he had a unique ability to, I know, and create animosity. But these people got so obsessed with him that they really revealed who they are. The only existential question we have is are they where they are, that they always want to be there, or was it only their hatred of Trump that, I don't know, diluted them or turned them into crazy people? Maybe, I don't know what the never Trump or the Lincoln Project, the John Bolton Bill, Chris, of where they are now, but they're nowhere. And I don't know whether that's nowhere is what the political wilderness is where they want to be, or whether they were just crushed by Donald Trump. But they're pathetic figures now.
- [73:38]
Megyn Kelly
The TDS just completely blinded them. They could never get their eyes clear again. And that's why all their predictions were wrong, their, their opinions were wrong. They've completely different, discredited themselves. Back on Team Biden, I did want to play you this just on the subject of his infirmity because I know most of the media want to just move on. Forget it. Nevermind that massive fraud we perpetrated on America but it is interesting to go back to Pod Save America to hear those guys, those are Obama guys now talking about it. And there's one guy, Favreau, another guy, love it. And they're talking about how Biden is gone. Like, where is he? He is the incredibly incredible shrinking president right now. I mean, I'm fine with it because I definitely don't want to see her elevated. I really did think he should go, but now we're so close to the end. Just, that's fine. As long as he stays alive through January 20th, I'm okay with it. But it really does feel more like Trump is president. A point they were making as well. Listen to Sat 18.
- [74:36]
John Favreau
It was more or less a standard presidential policy announcement. The main difference being Trump isn't president yet. A fact that's getting easier and easier to forget as Joe Biden seems to be disappearing from the public stage as his term comes to an end. Has Joe Biden stepped out of the spotlight or has the spotlight just moved away from Joe Biden?
- [74:55]
Megyn Kelly
Joe Biden believes in tradition and institutions, and we should only have one president at a time.
- [74:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
And I think it's a surprising choice.
- [75:00]
Megyn Kelly
To allow it to be Donald Trump.
- [75:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
But if that's what his plan is.
- [75:03]
Megyn Kelly
I think it's about his long term.
- [75:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
Respect for our kind of our basic mores.
- [75:07]
John Favreau
Remember during the Obama transition, how many times Barack Obama said the words while he was announcing cabinet appointees and staff, which was the only time he really went out. One president at a time. One president at a time. That was like the whole. That was the whole theme.
- [75:22]
Megyn Kelly
And just one more for you.
- [75:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [75:24]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, you like that?
- [75:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'd like to correct both of them and remind you that Barack Obama said, when asked what he would like a third term, he said, I'd only like a third term if the person that was president had an earpiece and I could phone in all my directives to him. And if rumors are correct, Barack Obama helped engineer the ascendance of Joe Biden after he lost the first three caucuses and primaries. And the Obama and his coterie looked around and they said, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders are not viable candidates are too far left. This guy as crazy as he is. And, and don't ever underestimate the ability, as Obama said, for Joe Biden to eff it up. We will use him as a facade and we will have a hard left agenda and they will go for it because Jill and he always want to be in the spotlight. And that's what we've suffered through for four years. And the idea that Obama thought there was one present in time, I would suggest both of them. If they're worried about having only one president, why don't they invoke the Logan Act?
- [76:28]
Megyn Kelly
Act.
- [76:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
And the Logan act says that no private citizen can conduct foreign policy while there's a government in power. Why don't they do what they did to Michael Flynn? He made a phone call, supposedly with the Russians, and they were ready to put him in jail, not just for being disingenuous about it, but for the very fact he talked to somebody before he was officially national security advice. Donald Trump, in their own view, has violated the Logan Act. But the reason they're not talking, they don't mention the Logan act. One moment. Is if they did, they would be shouted down by about 150 million Americans now. And they know that, right?
- [77:05]
Megyn Kelly
Exactly. We need somebody.
- [77:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes. And they. The reason that they're not saying the Logan act is they're basically saying to themselves, kind of, I can't take it anymore. We've lied for four years about this guy. We always knew he was not up to the job. We always knew the border was a disaster. We understand why people now don't like it. We understand that Afghanistan, the whole thing was a mess. Just take it away. Let us regroup and let this guy come in Trump. We're not going to fight it anymore. We're not going to call him all these names. We're not going to riot on inauguration. Madonna is not going to come out there and say she wants to blow up the White House in four weeks. We're not going to do that because we've had our chance and we look at ourselves and we were absolutely incompetent. I think that's the subtext. Not that they won't be vicious and attack Trump within another three or four weeks, but right now they should be. If they were typical opposition, you know, pundits, they would be saying, we've got to regroup. Joe Biden's got to get out there every day.
- [78:07]
Mike Davis
We.
- [78:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
He's got to end with a flourish. They don't even want. They don't even make that case. They just, well, he's just. He's not there and he's not there for what reason? They don't tell us that he's been declining geometrically every day. Every day is much. Not just worse than the day before, but twice as bad. And he can. He can't really function anymore. It's very sad. And they know that if he was out there the last 30 days and was going to the Notre Dame Cathedral and on this historic event he would walk a different way or he would mispronounce somebody's name or he'd forget where he was or somebody would have to shuffle him around. And they understand that. And, and they know that every time Jill, Jill Biden shows up like she did on that occasion by herself, or every time somebody like Kamala Harris says bit as a fiddle, they know that that only accentuates the idea that he is not able to be president. And if I was a, I mean, just for, so, for, I don't know, divine justice. They're lucky that Joe Biden like Donald Trump, a week before Donald Trump left office, they impeached him a second time, historically so, and then they tried him. They should think about impeaching Joe Biden for, I don't know, not serving his oath of office because he's not there, he's just gone. And he's lucky he, he was never impeached. Forget about the parties and all of the Biden corruption, but he got off pretty scot free. And I don't think the pardon, by the way, are ended anyway. I think the Biden family will be the beneficiary of last pardon as well.
- [79:45]
Megyn Kelly
Meanwhile, Joe Biden seems to be actively doing his best to undermine the Trump agenda that was voted for by our democratic Republic, you know, democracy. They wanted, among other things, the wall, which Trump of course ran on and mentioned many times. He's selling off the border part, the border wall, what's left of it, for parts. Right now Elon and Trump have been saying one of the things that they want to do is get federal workers back into the office. They're saying either that or we should sell all these federal buildings because they're costing us billions of dollars a year and nobody's working. These federal government employees have cut these deals where they get to work from home like two, like three, four, sometimes five days a week and have all sorts of ways of making it look like they're on their computer when they're not really on their computer. And absolutely no accountability for whether they're actually working for the 2 and $300,000 a year that some of them are getting. And now he's also. So he signed this long term Biden deal with Social Security workers so that they can continue working from home through 2029. And he's hiring all these DEI hires for roles. This is reported by the Daily Wire the other day. For roles to head up, you know, DEI investigations and agencies and so on that Trump's undoubtedly not even going to pursue. Now, he can undo that last one a little bit more easily than he can undo the first two. But Trump was saying on the wall parts, this is going to cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. Why? We own them. You know, Biden seems as, oh, they're worthless. Well, why don't you let Trump be the judge of that? If they are, he'll sell them off. Don't start selling off the border wall like you've been doing for the past four years. They're doing what they can to sabotage his presidency.
- [81:34]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, maybe Kamala Harris, remember she said finally in the campaign that she was for the wall. Maybe she'll intervene as vice president and say, wait a minute. Yeah, you're, you're. That was one of my new positions. Let's save the wall. As I've campaigned on. I think if we boil down what you said, Megan, you could kind of summarize it, but Joe Biden hates Donald Trump more than he respects or likes the American people. He knows that all of the American people wanted to change whether they voted for Trump or not. Even the people who voted for him. I think polls on a particular issues don't agree with him. So he understands that he's promoting positions that have no popular support, and he's doing so over the wishes of the American people who just voiced them on election day. And he's doing them to hurt the ability of Donald Trump to enact changes which most people want. And he's a very bitter person. You know, there's, I know this sounds kind of cruel, but if you take away the cognitive problems of Joe Biden and you look at his career going back as a senator, whether he was a plagiarist or whether his law school problems, his student, or how he demagogue Clarence Thomas or how he kind of sucked up to Southern segregationists or the things he said about race. First black candidate was articulate in the case of Obama, or you ain't black or you're a terrorist or he called too of his African American A's. Hey, boy, the cold corn pop. He's not a nice person. He never was. He was a very vicious politician. He, he demagogued and really destroyed the truck driver who was not culpable and slandered him for years, saying that he was drunk and he was in that tragic accident with his first wife. So all this cognitive problems that he's been experiencing and have been accelerating have accentuated all of those traits. So, you know, I never bought into. He's good old Joe Biden from Scranton. He's a nice old guy. He's a uniter. He wants to bring us. I can't remember any case in which he tried to unite people together. He never did. And he always demagogue issue. He was never ecumenical. He always had a.
- [83:59]
Megyn Kelly
Not to mention what they did, he and his wife to little Navy Biden putting up the stockings of all the other grandchildren, but not hers, and having nothing to do with her, not even acknowledging her existence.
- [84:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
What was he doing as vice president when Hunter was referring to him as Mr. 10% and the big guy and paying his power, cashing the checks. Yeah. Loan repayment check, all of that stuff. And then he has the gall to say that he brought integrity back to the White House.
- [84:31]
Megyn Kelly
Right. And unity. He did great job. Heck of a job, Brownie. All right, stand by because there is an update in the George Stephanopoulos debacle over at ABC News. We discussed this at length the other day on what were the producers saying in his ear, you know, and I talked about how my producers, when I say something wrong, they save me. Often they'll say, no, it was this. And sometimes I correct myself, sometimes they correct me. But the point is, we do our best to bring you guys correct information. And one of the questions we asked was when he was doing that disastrous segment that just cost ABC News $16 million. Were his producer saying, george, not rape? No, Trump wasn't found liable for rape. Were they trying to help him, you know, avoid this defamation suit? Or were they as dumb and reckless as he was? Well, it appears we have the answer. That's next.
- [85:23]
George Stephanopoulos
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- [86:24]
Megyn Kelly
I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provide 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 car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM 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.
- [87:09]
Mike Davis
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free offer.
- [87:21]
Megyn Kelly
Details applied the news breaking this morning in the New York Post that according to them, George Stephanopoulos was warned by his executive producer not to use the word rape in describing what a jury had found Trump civilly liable for that his producer had said to him it it was not rape, rape, don't call it rape. And it appears he ignored that advice. Now here's what's I mean, this is very interesting because to me it just shows the depths of hatred like Fanny Willis that George Stephanopoulos has for Trump. They're their flagship anchor. I mean, he and David Muir, whom we'll saw his performance at the debate, are the two main guys over there. And so here's what the Post reports in an exclusive. Okay, Stephanopoulos was repeatedly told by his executive producer not to use the word rape before going on air. But the ABC News anchor ignored the warning. This week's producer, because he said this on his Sunday show, said don't use the word rape. That's in quotes. Before the segment started, a network source told the Post the EP said it quote so many times. A second source at the show, listen to this, confirmed via a text message viewed by the Post that Stephanopoulos was warned not to say rape. So this post has seen some sort of text message in which a second source somehow confirms that George was told not to say rape. Could it be they saw a text message to George, you know, confirming it? Or could they? The EP somebody wrote down, understanding this was problematic, that they had made a record, they Told George not to do this. He did it. Now you've got an ABC spokesperson saying to CNN oh that's not true. It's absolutely not true that he was warned. Well, these spokespeople lie through their teeth all the time. You can't believe one word any of them say at Fox, at NBC and at abc. Trust me, not to mention cnn. But it's very interesting to me that they're saying they've got it confirmed by two separate sources inside ABC that he was told. And honestly Victor, if that's true, I don't want to hear one more word from anybody about why did ABC News settle? You know, people think they had a shot at winning. First of all they didn't because it's very clear he wasn't found civilly liable for rape. But second of all, you've got the EP saying I told him not to do it. And he insisted on doing it 10 times in one segment. What do you make of it?
- [90:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, they settled because they probably had internal. They all anytime these big corporations settle like that in a controversial case, they do it because they don't want their internal communications as you know, subpoenaed. And there was probably back and forth text emails that were incriminating both through Stephanopoulos and abc. But the question is, I have is if you really believe that you had warned him that and that you had textual documentation of that and you might even have more under upon discoveries, why didn't you just fire him and say, you know what, we're not responsible. And the answer is they just gave him a $20 million multi year contract. So what they're basically saying we would rather have this pathological liar be a representative because we don't have anybody el in the morning and he gets us ratings. So we're willing to pay, we pay him $20 million, we'll pay the 15 million. It's small cash for Disney Corporation and we don't really, we don't really care that he goes on there and says it. He probably will do it again and we will pay as long as it's not too much. And I think that's their the cynical attitude that's really true because look at.
- [91:21]
Megyn Kelly
Look at the David Muir and Lindsay Davis suffered absolutely no consequences as a result of that disastrous debate. Martha Raditz of ABC is the one who was the Venezuelan gangs have only invaded a couple of apartment buildings. No problem. She's fine with them. This is a Bob Iger problem. Obviously the man who's transing Disney right now.
- [91:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
There's also another strain. I think it's really important is that they're angry about him. Not for the sentiment. They agree with the cinema. They deep down the side, they don't care whether the jury or the judge or whatever the actual terminology was that he was. They hate Donald Trump. So they're not saying to George Stephanopoulos, how dare you accuse somebody falsely of raping when after a lengthy trial and civil suit, it showed that he didn't. They don't care about that because they probably would do the same thing privately. What they're. The only animus they have is we kind of warned you that there was legal exposure in your efforts to destroy this guy, that we also like you to. That we would like you to destroy. But we just disagreed with your tactics. So we're going to kind of slap you on the hand and be more discreet, George. But don't change your attitude about Trump because that's coming from the top. We despise him. And we want you. We want you people, whether you're moderating debates or whether you're presenting the news, we want you to be prejudicial. That's who are that what are branded. And then the other thing is, we'll.
- [92:51]
Megyn Kelly
Just throw money at this problem.
- [92:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. When you look at the e. Jean Carroll case, that was of all the five criminal, I think, think and civil suits was the most egregious because she came, she had to get a special sympathetic New York legislature to pass a law that suspended for one year the statute of limitations on supposed sexual assault. Then she refiled it. And then when she refiled it, she was asked, what year did it take place. She didn't know the year. Then she tried to adjudicate the year by saying, I had this designer dress. Then people came out and said that dress was not in existence. When you cited that, then she gave these weird details. And by the way, she had said in text messages that Donald Trump and the Apprentice, that that was a celebrity that she liked. But she gave details that she said she couldn't remember. But they were, they were eerily very similar to a Law and Order episode in which one of the people in that episode, and I watched it, is in the same department store and then invites a celebrity into the dressing room. And he said, she said transpire. And then she's in a courtroom up against the celebrity. And I'm not suggesting that she just made it all up, but there's. She might have had embroidered a lot of those details. So. And then the judge himself. And I think this is one of the reasons that Stephanopoulos was emboldened about the cases. You remember, he said he mentioned the word rape once and somebody corrected him, and they said, no, it's a matter of sexual assault. And he said, well, they're kind of similar. And no. And I, that's one reason I think that, you know, Donald Trump, I don't know what the. Was the ruling, $73 million for this, you know, this very bogus civil.
- [94:39]
Megyn Kelly
It was over.
- [94:40]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [94:40]
Megyn Kelly
No, but it was very clear. And that that was based on his defamation because he continued to say, no, she's a nut case, that it was 5 million for the alleged sexual assault. But here's what's crazy. Like, it's, it's crystal clear that the jury said no on rape. They said no. They said yes on sexual abuse. And yet here's what you get there. Here's Joy Reid, you know, the Albert Einstein of MSNBC, weighing in with her legal opinion. Sat 23.
- [95:16]
Joy Reid
For a man who has tried to claim that he is not interested in retribution, Donald Trump sure has an odd way of showing it. Just this week, he settled a defamation suit against ABC News for $15 million based on anchor George Stephanopoulos using imprecise language to describe what the jury found that Donald Trump actually did to E. Jean Carroll, namely sexual abuse and defamation.
- [95:43]
Megyn Kelly
Imprecise. She doesn't point out. He said 10 times that a jury found him civilly liable for rape. For rape. For rape. And I'm looking at the jury form right here. Question number one. Did Ms. Carroll prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll? No. Question two, that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carol. Yes. It's right there, black and white. It is not imprecise. It is. What's the word? Oh, yeah. Wrong. And actually defamatory when it's repeated another nine times. On top of that, with the executive, the producer of the show, saying, George, stop that it's wrong.
- [96:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
Especially when you. And I think the statute requires knowing intent. When the intent. Intent, when you look at that tape, was to hurt Donald Trump. And he knowingly, as you said, he knowingly lied, but he did so with the intent, not just. It wasn't that he was just sloppy and he kept repeating a mem that he didn't really think about. He did it deliberately, precisely, emphatically, for the purpose of defaming Donald Trump. And he did it because he felt that the people who hired him would maybe disagree with, as I said, with the language but the overall gist of what he was saying, they agreed with. And when he looked at the political landscape in which he and he inhabits, he understood that it would be acceptable, if not commendable, that type of venom. And that's what happened with the whole media. And again, getting back, I think the Shorenstein center said at one point, 95%, 90% of all the media coverage is anti Trump. And yet he survived it. And then that was another thing that was really wonderful about the election, that all the traditional barometers of what supposedly makes a candidate win or lose, overwhelming media, positive coverage, two and a half times more packed and campaign money, all the proper celebrity endorsement, they meant nothing. Nothing. Trump got free publicity and the millions of dollars with his stunts. He brilliantly got people like Joe Rogan and Dana White. When he walked into the Medicine Square Garden with that menagerie of Dana White and Kid Rock and Joe Rogan and RFK and Hulk Hogan and Speaker Johnson, that was the most eclectic group of people and from all different classes and all different audiences. And that was worth 10 times more publicity than a neon sign in Las Vegas they paid for or an endorsement from a multi billionaire like Oprah or Obama jetting in from one of his four mansions and talking down to people. And that was what I think one of the real lessons of the campaign was.
- [98:44]
Megyn Kelly
What do you think is going to happen with Hegseth, RFKJ and Tulsi?
- [98:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think they're going to get confirmed because I think Donald Trump is going to tell the senators, the ones that will vote or that he's worried about. He's going to say it's going to be politically unsustainable for you to vote against these people when you voted for Mayorkas and you voted for Austin. So you're going to go back to your constituency and you're going to go back to me and you're going to say that you voted for the worst Homeland Security person in history that destroyed the border and you considered him fit. But you don't consider a decorated veteran in a combat zone, Pete Hegseth, author of four books, you don't consider him qualified. So I think they're going to play hardball. I think Hexef and Cash Patel will get confirmed. The problem that RFK will have with Tulsi Gabbard is I don't think it's going to come from the right so much. It's going to come from the Democrats are going to really try to gin up popular support because. Because they view them as Apostates that were turncoats and that they should. They were once liberal people and now they join the detestable Donald Trump. And so they're really going to put, they're going to put most of their effort and money smearing them. And they already have. They've called her a Russian asset, almost as if she's traitorous. And I do think they're going to get confirmed because if RFK can stay away from that one kryptonite issue of, of childhood measles, polio vaccinations and just concentrate on the issues that pull positively nutritious food additives, dyes in the food, questions about the MRNA vaccination, things like that. If they steer him and say to him, these are off limits, we appointed you, but you're not going to question whether people should have the polio or smallpox vaccination, things like that. I think you'll be, you know, it's good.
- [100:49]
Megyn Kelly
You know what's good, Victor? I mean, we talked about this on the show the other day. The. Even Trump is saying, I'm not into banning, I'm not talking about banning vaccines, but I do think we should look into them. That's all. And that story about the polio vaccine was of course misrepresented. His lawyer pushed to question one strain. I think there are eight total of the polio vaccines. Just, just one. That's it. He, he didn't even. The lawyer for RFKJ never pushed to ban the polio vaccine and neither did rfkj. And Trump is already on record saying, we're not banning the polio vaccine. Like, you know, but you're right. His, his belly is exposed on the vaccines because that really, I think he can handle it.
- [101:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
But he, all those other issues he's talked about, obesity, nutrition, food, the people both are overwhelmingly in favor of that. And he'll be a very, very popular, he'll be a populous hero if he just sticks to those and takes on Big Pharma and Big Ag and, and process food and, and Tulsi Gabbard.
- [101:50]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I hope you're right. No, I gotta, I gotta run because we're gonna, we're gonna get cut off by the computer. And I don't want to be too unceremonious to you, my friend, but thank you. Thanks so much for being here. And Victor, Merry Christmas.
- [102:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
Merry Christmas, Megan.
- [102:01]
Megyn Kelly
Lots of love. Thanks for everything this year. Tomorrow be before we go, the two Bs, Steve Bannon and Doug Brunt. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show no bs, no agenda and no fear.