← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Kohberger's Shocking Plea Deal, Diddy Red Flags, and Trump vs. Elon Again, with Arthur Aidala, Matt Murphy, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke | Ep. 1099
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Megyn Kelly
Details. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Wow, there's a lot happening right now. A new feud has just broken out between President Trump and Elon Musk over the so called big beautiful bill. This time, Trump considering deporting Elon. Okay, that's not going to happen. But obviously they're feuding again. Elon really hates the big beautiful bill. But guess what it looks like at this hour noon east on Tuesday afternoon. It looks done scary to say it. It looks like he's got it. John Thune is telling. Well, Chad Pergram of Fox News, who is always right, is reporting that John Thune has the votes. You recall, Rand Paul's not gonna vote for it. Thom Tillis is not gonna vote for it and he's going to retire. And that means the Republicans can lose one more and still get this through because that would bring them if they lost three down to 50, JD Vance would cast the tying vote for 51, which is all you need on what's called reconciliation, which is what they use to get through budget bills. It's much more than a budget bill. It's Trump's entire agenda. It either goes through or doesn't go through. And so they could afford to lose only one more Republican senator. They were looking at, of course, Collins and Murkowski, Maine and Alaska. They spent all night last night trying to persuade Murkowski to come over as a yes, giving her Special little grants for Alaska. But then the Senate parliamentarian struck them down, saying, you can't stuff this stuff in here. It's not straight. It's not part of a budget bill, and I can't approve it as part of this bill if it's not part of a budget. And so she keeps doing that to them. And then Murkowski seemed to be out, and they've spent the morning trying to get her back in. And it looks like they have her back in. Look, the guys from National Review are gonna be here in a minute, and we're gonna get to all of that. This is very, very big deal if this gets through today. And we'll go there. But as we wait for actual news from Capitol Hill, we're gonna start with legal news. All right. We are watching first all of the developments in the trial of Sean Diddy Combs. The jury is deliberating right now. They have been for the past three hours. Today they sent a fifth note to the judge. They started deliberating yesterday at 11:30, and they left at 5. Plus, they had lunch. They hadn't really been in there that often or that long. And they've already sent five notes to the judge. We're gonna break down what it may signal from this jury, but we begin today with a stunning development in the criminal quadruple murder case against Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four college students in Idaho. Late yesterday evening, prosecutors sent a letter to the family members of the victims telling them Kohlberger has accepted a plea deal. According to at least some of the families, they feel blindsided by this deal. Kohlberger's murder trial was set to begin in August, but now it has all come to an abrupt, unexpected end. And I don't blame these families for feeling shocked and disappointed. They actually don't want this. They wanted the death penalty. They think the case is open and shut. They want to see cross examinations and see the case tested and have what happened fully fleshed out in front of a jury in a way that you'll just never get now. You'll just never get. They didn't think they needed his plea to get to a guilty verdict, and they feel like they were not consulted. It is now likely that some of the major questions in this case, like why. Why he did this, will never be fully known. According to the letter sent to the families, Kohlberger will be sentenced to four consecutive life sentences on the murder count's life without the possibility of parole. So he will never see the light of day. But the family of Kaylee Goncalves, they had been pressing prosecutors to pursue the death penalty. They had actually pushed to expand the state's capital punishment rules to allow executions by firing squad. That is the kind of justice they wanted from the very beginning. This was a case that captured the nation's attention in its brutality, its unique. What's the word? Indifference to human life. And this show has been following it from those early days. It is hard to describe just how heinous this crime was, but journalist Howard Bloom, who writes for Airmail, has tried. These are passages from an article he wrote in January 2023, just a few months after the murders that took place in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, in the college town of Moscow, Idaho. Bloom writing, quote, in the heavy quiet of the new Sunday morning, four young corpses, all students, all friends, were found hacked to death in their beds in a pale, clappered house little more than a stone's throw away from the heart of the university campus. There was so much blood it had seeped through the wooden floors and run down the building's gray concrete foundation in jagged red rivulets. And when police arrived, Bloom continued, a cluster of young people, university students presumably, were milling outside the open front door. And yet they were exceptionally quiet. They were not merely subdued. They seemed stunned, as if drained by a deep and intense shock. When the three mystified officers approached the front door, someone in the crowd, it would later be shared, muttered a single plaintiff word, dead. And Bloom wrote about this about the officers who were first to arrive on the scene. Quote, sergeant Shane Gunderson would confess to others he was unprepared for the strong smell of blood that rose up in his nostrils the moment he walked inside. The coroner, who had once been an emergency room nurse in an earlier stage of her life, would describe the scene in press interviews as chaos, lots of blood. Few others would even attempt to put into words what they saw. There are moments, cops will tell you, that are too profound, too unnerving to be experienced in the present. The victims that night were Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, both 21 years old. They were inseparable, best friends since the sixth grade. They died together in the same bed. Also, Zanna Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20 years old. They were girlfriend and boyfriend. According to a recent Dateline special, Ethan Chapin appeared to be the last of the four to be murdered, sources close to the investigation telling NBC he was believed to be asleep in bed before his death and that Kohlberger Carved his lower legs with a blade. Two roommates survived that night. The house had six roommates in all, six sleeping there. And, and they were expected to testify at trial. You remember they did not call the police until the next morning around noon, or they called friends who called the police even though this had happened at 4am and there has been a lot of speculation about what they would testify to, whether they would be helpful or whether they are just so far gone as a result of this whole thing that they wouldn't be of much use. There is no word yet on how they feel about this plea deal, but you can surmise, I'm just going to guess they're both very relieved. According to that Dateline special, which was so explosive it caused the defense to move for the trial to be delayed, saying they just took too much of the prosecution's case has been aired and shared against the gag order. And it's stunning and it's all terrible for Kohlberger, by the way. The judge did not grant that. But the Dateline special had a lot. And according to it, Bryan Kohlberger, in November 2022, this is right around the time of the murder, had searched the Internet for information about infamous serial killer Ted Bundy and made a number of searches for pornography with the keywords drugged, sleeping and passed out. And then after the murders, he took this creepy selfie. Look at this for the listening audience. It's him wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt. It's like identical to an infamous shot of Ted Bundy. He, he looks so creepy. And it, it's, it comes on the heels of another one he took that morning, the morning after the murders where he was in a white button down shirt in front of a shower, looking as pasty and pale as a human being can be while still alive. And this bizarre smile into the camera which seems to, with a thumbs up almost to be telegraphing, I did it. He looks almost proud of himself. And now he says to us all, I did it. I did it. When first arrested, when dragged into court, he refused to say the words not guilty. He refused to speak, which will have the judge enter a plea for you. And the judge said, okay, so it's not guilty. And assent was indicated. And that's what plea was entered. So he has been denying that he did it all along, as you know. And now today we learn he's prepared to walk into court tomorrow, Wednesday, which has also shocked the families because they don't all live right in this area. They need time to get there, to get plane tickets to show up. We'll see if that gets extended and say I did it. I committed quadruple murder. The plea deal requires him to waive his right to appeal. There is a hearing again right now scheduled for tomorrow. But Kaylee Gonsalves, his father, who I believe is the only one to speak out so far, Steve is hoping the judge will not sanction the deal.
- [11:31]
Steve Gonsalves
He's guilty. We all know he's guilty. There's more than enough evidence. But it's tough. It's tough to put a community through this. And it could be bad for reputations and business identities and, and, and there's fallout. But this isn't the will of the victims. I asked your audience if anybody knows Judge Hitler. Reach out to him and ask him to put his foot down and not accept this offer. It doesn't reflect anything in Idaho. This is not justice. We had an outsider come to our community, kill our kids in their sleep while they're getting a college education, doing everything that they should do and we don't have the courage to hold him accountable. No plea deal. Let's go for this guy 100%. Let's do it.
- [12:27]
Megyn Kelly
On News Nation with Ashley Banfield last night. Joining me now to discuss it, Arthur Aidala and Matt Murphy. Arthur's a managing partner at Idalla, Bartuna and Caymans and hosted the Arthur Aydalla power hour on AM 970 in New York. Matt, former homicide prosecutor and author of the book the Book of Murder. Matt has prosecuted several high profile serial killers, including the case of Rodney L. Kala, who was known as the Dating Game Killer. We've talked to Matt about that case before. Tax Network USA is ready to proudly celebrate our nation's birthday 249 years, honoring freedom, resilience and financial independence. To mark the occasion, they are offering 10% off all services through July 4th. If you are dealing with back taxes or you miss the April 15 deadline, don't wait. The IRS is rapidly stepping up enforcement penalties can add up and quickly. Up to 5% a month. Maxing out at 25% of your total tax bill. Just not for filing. That's on top of what you already owe. But there is some good news here. Tax Network USA can still help you turn things around. Whether you are self employed, run a business or your books are a complete mess, their team knows how to cut through the chaos and find solutions that work. Your consultation is always free. And getting ahead of the problem now could help you avoid harsh penalties, wage garnishments or surprise bank levies. Call 800-958-1000 or just visit tnusa.com megan 10% off all services 3 through July 4 as part of their celebration of our nation's birthday. Regain control of your finances with expert help from Tax Network usa. Guys, welcome back to the show. This is grave. I mean, it's pretty shocking, Matt. I mean, you spent your whole career as a prosecutor putting away guys like Brian Kohlberger. What do you make of Steve Gonsalves? Strong statements against this, saying, we weren't told. We found out on Friday that they might be talking to him about a plea. The next thing we got was a letter on Sunday with an email attachment saying it was. It was done. We didn't have meaningful input, and we don't want this.
- [14:39]
Arthur Aidala
Well, it's very sad. First of all, it is a. This should never happen. Frankly, Megan, you should never have such a disconnect with the family. Whether or not you do a plea or not is a separate issue than the family being informed and being afforded an opportunity to come to court and express their views. This is squarely in what's known as Marcy's Law or the Crime victims Bill of Rights. And what you see in California, this is actually enshrined in the Constitution, where victims have a right to be heard and they have a right to be present for all significant proceedings. So. Well, the reasons they give are. Are good. I mean, they're. They're well articulated. They explain the appellate process and how that goes on for years. But the disconnect of the family is. It's a. It's a tragic element to this. Now, what's interesting is only the Gonzalez family is talking, which makes me think maybe the other families were on board, but it seems like such a short period of time. The turnaround is. I'm really kind of surprised by that, that they apparently heard from the defense very recently, like within the last couple of days, and then they turn this thing around and the plea is supposed to get on tomorrow. Well, the Gonzalez family saying that they can't even get up there in time. So they're asking for the court to delay it, which could actually delay it. But I expect that this plea will go through.
- [16:06]
Megyn Kelly
Right, because they don't want to do anything that's going to jeopardize the words I did it coming out of this guy's mouth. Arthur, you used to be a prosecutor. You've spent more recent years as a defense attorney. Is this guy. Is Bryan Kohlberger, when pleading guilty, going to have to allocute in a way that would tell us everything that would answer any of our questions or are we more likely to get a. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. Goodbye.
- [16:35]
Donald Trump
Yeah, I was, Megan. I was just involved in a case where I was representing the victims families and he actually went to trial. And even at the trial they could see on videotape, they could see him doing it, but there's zero motive. Zero motive. And the family asked me and I did go to the prosecutor and to the defense attorney and say, look, if you tell us why this happened, will as the victim family ask for less time than 25 to life, which is the maximum here in New York. And the guy refused to do so. And this family is the anniversary whose death was yesterday. Um, this family is guys in jail. 25 to life. And they have no idea why he was executed. And that may be the hardest thing for the family members. And it's the same thing here. It's obvious that this guy did it, but they want to know why. I will say though, that family members who have to sit through this and both of you know, there are often autopsy pictures that are shown and you hear the description and how people died and that's, you know, when you're a family member, you're sitting there, you're hearing about your 21 year old gorgeous daughter and how she met her death.
- [17:47]
Arthur Aidala
It's horrible.
- [17:49]
Donald Trump
It's absolutely horrible.
- [17:50]
Megyn Kelly
Mm. The. So he's not going to have to go through it bit by bit?
- [17:55]
Donald Trump
No, he'll just, he'll just do, he'll just do the. On this date at this time, were you at this location? Yes. And did you cause the death by this person? Yes. And did you cause the death by using a knife? Yes, I did. And did you intend to cause the death at that time? Yes, that's it.
- [18:10]
Megyn Kelly
But let me ask you this because, Matt, you've dealt with these serial killers before and I mean, I, I think that's, that's fairly, it's fair to say that was the road this guy was on. I mean, he committed four in one night and was obsessed.
- [18:21]
Arthur Aidala
I absolutely think so. Yeah. I mean this is, this is all hallmarks. And he's. Sorry, sorry, Megan, I don't want to step on you.
- [18:27]
Megyn Kelly
No, I was just going to say that these guys, these serial killers, they do like to talk. I mean, historically, they want to be celebrated. I'm sure. This is another problem. The family will have whatever attention he's likely to get for the rest of his life, but on the upside, he might actually explain why he did what he did at some point.
- [18:46]
Arthur Aidala
Well, there's a narcissism to these guys that is off the charts. I mean, this is truly. That's the psychopathic personality. It's almost a spectrum where we all like narcissism or the narcissist is a buzzword these days on social media. But the psychopath is the extreme version of that. The problem is Art is exactly right. Called a factual basis. When you do a plea, you know, it's literally on this time, with unlawful intent, I entered the home and caused the death of. It's very, very sterilized. And part of the power of these guys that you so often see is he's going to get off, I think, on the pain that he's caused those families. And you see that over and over again with serial killers like this. And I think that if I had to, if I had to bet, Megan, I would bet he never says a word because he knows that it's still inflicting some degree of suffering to these, to these, the families of these poor kids, them not knowing. And again, Art is absolutely right. A lot of times the families, they just want to know the answer why. But in a case like this, I don't think any answer that Coburger would, could even give would be satisfactory to anybody. He did it probably because he wanted to do it. And it's one of the great questions in criminal law, like, what makes these guys tick? What makes serial killers want to slaughter innocent people? And I'm with Art. I also do some, some victim representation in California. It's called Marcy's Law. And I've shared that experience with him. Like, Art's exactly right. Families want that answer. But with a guy like Coburger, they're probably just never going to get it outside of a trial, which I don't think we're going to see.
- [20:26]
Donald Trump
But, you know, it's interesting regarding the narcissistic part of it. He really won't be a household name the way, like, Casey Anthony is and was his. Correct me if I'm wrong, Megan, but I believe we were going to cover his trial because it was going to be televised, right? For, like, weeks. So when those cases get televised, Jody Arias and, and comes to mind, obviously OJ Is the biggest one of all time. You know, he would have been much more of a known guy than kind of going off quietly with a quick plea and, and, and, and it will be over. So it does fly in the face of, like, if he really wanted, if this is what he wanted to do would become this famous dude. Going through the trial is a sick thing to say, but it's a really good way to get your name out there. And that now has gone, by the way.
- [21:19]
Megyn Kelly
So something interesting on this front, I'll tell you, Howard Bloom has been doing great work reporting on this from the beginning. Sent me a note this morning saying he's hearing that a large part of the reason Kohlberger cut this deal was to protect his parents. His father would have been called to testify about what was said during that cross country trip they took together. You remember, after the murders, the dad flew out there on, I think it was December 4th. The murders were November 22nd, overnight into the 23rd, and the dad traveled cross country from Washington state back home to the Poconos in Pennsylvania with him. And on top of that, we learned this in the Dateline schedule, that at 6am the morning after the murders, Bryan Kohlberger called his mother and spoke with her for nearly an hour. This is the first time hearing it was the mother I knew. He had called home and spoke with his mom for nearly an hour. He did not want his mother to have to testify about that call or his sister about confronting the father with her suspicions that Brian may have done it. I don't know, Matt. I mean, does a sociopath, a psychopath like this, have feelings for his dad or his mom? Is that possible?
- [22:29]
Arthur Aidala
You know, we hear the term anthrop, anthropomorphizing, which is when people start attributing human emotions to animals. And in a way, a guy like this, I think that what he's really worried about, Megan, is he's in Idaho and he could actually be executed for this. And I agree with Art. The evidence in this case is overwhelming. And especially those little things like those little selfies and things like that. He was going down his defense, he knew he was going down. And I think fundamentally the psychopaths, the one human they actually care about is themselves. And I think that that's what motivated him. I don't think a guy like Coburger actually cares about too many other people. And I think that that's a nice speculative sort of human interpretation of that. I think that he was worried about it literally in the state of Idaho's own neck more than it's what his family would go through. That's my take on it.
- [23:19]
Donald Trump
You know, it's interesting though, and I was thinking about this this morning, preparing to come here. Mom, him. Right. I don't like to equate myself to being him. But I would want to do some investigation as what life is like with life in prison. If it is like it is like with the federal guys like the World Trade center bombers and stuff, where you're just in a cage basically 23 hours a day, and every third day you get to go out, but the rest of the time you're in this still this little cage. And yeah, maybe you get a radio and you get a book. I don't know. At his age, would I want to live the next 50 or 60 years like that, or would I rather prefer euthanasia? It'll take 10 years before they actually put a needle in his arm or shoot him or whatever they're going to do out there. But, you know, living in a cage is for 50 or 60 years. That's rough. I mean, I speak to criminals. No, it's not, right. Exactly. I mean. Well, I don't know. I would like to figure out. I would like to see if I'm him. I want to know, well, what's my life now? He may be going to a facility where there's college education, there's a barbershop, there's a dentist. I mean, prisons are small communities. Right.
- [24:33]
Megyn Kelly
They're raising a very good point. Because what are we debating right now in California? Whether these Menendez brothers should be let out. Oh, they were young when this happened. They had an abusive dad. You know, like now with the, with the benefit of all this hindsight, shouldn't we let them out of prison? And, and you know that when, when there's no death penalty, the odds of us getting in 20 years, Matt. Oh, you know, he was young. He had Autism Spectrum disorder, as if that makes people murder four innocent victims. Cause they're already playing that card on the defense team. You know, he had some disorders where he saw visual snow. Really, we should. There should be some sort of a mercy afforded his way that as long as he's still breathing, that's still out there as a possibility.
- [25:20]
Arthur Aidala
Well, you're absolutely right. You and I have talked about the Menendez brothers before, and that's exactly what we saw there. They received life without possibility of parole, and that turned out not to be life without possibility of parole. Right. So you're absolutely right, Megan. And online on this, there are a lot of conspiracy theorists that the prosecution even noted in their justification letter that they submitted publicly.
- [25:43]
Megyn Kelly
That's so weird.
- [25:44]
Arthur Aidala
That.
- [25:44]
Megyn Kelly
That was very weird.
- [25:46]
Arthur Aidala
And it really is. That's the nightmare for the family. But again, the appellate process and Art touched on this the appellate process, especially going through the Ninth Circuit, which is where my eight death penalty cases are now kind of rumbling through, you never really have any finality for the family. But there is a cathartic aspect, Megan, that a lot of people don't understand. Unless you're in the situation of. Of having a loved one that's been murdered, it's very difficult to really understand their need for justice and need for answers. And for a lot of family members, having the community come in and say, we understand that there's a long appellate process, but your loved one was so valuable, and you, Mr. Defendant, are so terrible that you deserve to die for what you did. Whether you're ever executed or not, being a separate question, that can be really good for families. And it sounds like the Gonzalez family really wanted that. Maybe some of the other family members members didn't or other families didn't. And that's something that you deal with from time to time on death penalty cases. You'll have a family member that's adamantly opposed to the death penalty for whatever reason. But ultimately, it's the prosecution's call. But it should never come as a surprise to the family. They should be in the loop. And I don't know what happened.
- [27:03]
Megyn Kelly
They've been the unofficial spokesman for the families in a way, because we've heard from Steve Gonsalves more than anybody, and also his wife Maddie Mogan's parents have not spoken as much. Ethan Chapin's parents have spoken and seemed. This is just impression, like, they seem like they're in a kinder, gentler place. Not with respect to the defendant, but just they're more focused on their son and who he was and trying to keep who Ethan was in our minds. And Steve Gonsalves, totally understandably, I think I'd be more like him, is, you know, he means business. He wants a conviction of this guy on a death penalty case. And Zanna Kernodle, I haven't heard anything really much from her parents, so I don't know that we will hear much. And then there's the other two witnesses who I know. I mean, the one witness seems to have been kind of a mess. You know, the one Dylan Mortensen, who was there and made eye contact with him and then later kind of was like, I don't know what I saw and didn't call the cops. And they've been, you know, subject of a lot of speculation that's been not flattering because people can't understand what took you eight hours. You were on the Internet. You were on social media. Like any of us can really ever understand what these girls went through. Anyway, the point is, I'm sure there's mixed. Mixed amongst the families. And the prosecution thought, you know, a bird in the hand. I do want to mention the conspiracy thing that Matt just mentioned. The prosecutors cited concerns about conspiracy theorists and supporters of the defendant in their explanatory offerings as to why they did this. That there are, sadly, as many have experienced, there are individuals out there who believe in conspiracy theories about this case, believe the defendant to be innocent, or support the defendant in some way. And this is something the prosecutors. Arthur. Factored in to why they wanted to settle the case.
- [28:59]
Donald Trump
Look, Megan, I. You know, it's still fresh in my blood. Right? I mean, we worked to our advantage. But in the Weinstein trial, just now, you know, one of the jurors just said, look, I'm not deliberating. I'm being intimidated by other jurors, and I quit. And that for that one count, now, they had reached a verdict on other counts. That one count went out the window. You just talked about. There's been five notes in the P. Diddy trial. Who knows what's going to go on there? And you and I could. And with Matt, we could rattle off examples of trials that you think are going to go in the right way, and then they go in a different direction or they. They blow up. The. The prosecutors in the Luigi case here in New York are probably wondering that. I mean, this guy got more birthday presents and money, and, I mean, he executed a man in cold blood in the back, and people are supporting him. So as a prosecutor, look, four life sentences, and I understand what you're both saying about it, can still be overturned in 30 or 40 years, but when you have a guarantee, you're able to. And the communication should have been 100 times better than allegedly, it was between prosecutors and the victim's families. When you have a guarantee that this kid is not getting out, even in the best case scenario, for decades and guaranteed. Guaranteed decades and decades and decades. As a prosecutor, I think it's the responsible thing to do, to accept that plea. And I assume the judge is going to do the same thing.
- [30:21]
Arthur Aidala
Yeah. Can I weigh in on that just for a second, Megan? I. I hate that they did that, to be honest with you. I hate that they. That they empowered those. Those fools that think there's a conspiracy. I don't like that at all. And I think that. I don't disagree with what Archer said at all, but you strap this case on, you don't give the. Some conspiracy theorist online behind their keyboard the power to influen influence a freaking plea. That was a mistake. That makes them look terrible. I think that, you know, that may be what was actually going on in their head. But that's why you're a frigging prosecutor. You put the case on and you disprove those people because the evidence in this was truly overwhelming. And I mean, I really, that's what kind of hit me when I read that line that was, they shouldn't have included that the family should have been better informed. Art's absolutely right. This guarantees it. He's also waiving appealing as a part of this deal, which is no small thing. But I just, I, I didn't like that. I, and I, and I, I know it probably struck Art the same way. This is a small, it's a small county. They've only done nine, I think nine death penalty cases. There's nine, eight or nine people on death row in all of Idaho, which means it speaks to a lack of experience on this type of case. And I was really, really, I've been rooting for the prosecution this entire time. I was very disappointed to read that. And I was heartbroken by the Gonzalez consolidate statement. And look, when you're, when you're a pro, that's. You take the heat, you put it on, you win with evidence, you follow the law and you convince everybody to the contrary.
- [31:51]
Megyn Kelly
You know, but the thing is, I.
- [31:52]
Donald Trump
Think what they're afraid of is like having one nut job on the jury. You know, all you need is one, right? And that sneaks on. And you know, that. Look, it's the federal court. There's basically no jury selection. So it looks like, I mean, the first note in that case, I know we're going to go there in a second, was like, there's someone in here who doesn't, can't comprehend, well, wait, we'll.
- [32:11]
Megyn Kelly
Get to Diddy in a second.
- [32:12]
Donald Trump
I know, but that could happen.
- [32:13]
Megyn Kelly
Brian Enten of news that could happen in any case. Who broke this news. He broke this news yesterday and he's been covering this from the beginning, sent out the following. He said, my personal feeling is from the beginning, Idaho has not wanted to deal with this case. To your point, Matt, he says from University of Idaho, taking ownership of the house and tearing it down. Also over some of the family's objections, including Gonsalves, to the initial judge passing the case on, he bounced it over to this other judge to the gag order. Which was very controversial amongst the families. How can they not speak about their loved ones being murdered and constant annoyance with any attention the case gets? And, you know, he seems to be saying that. Just your point, Matt. Yes. They really didn't want to do this. They're not used to doing this. It's not like your big jurisdiction in Los Angeles, in Orange County, I think it was. Right. It's. It's a smaller town. They haven't done a lot of this. They may have felt uncomfortable, and I don't know. You know, they may be cut from a different cloth altogether. You know, it's not like New York, where Arthur practices, where, like, unfortunately, there are a lot of murders and there's a lot of death and destruction. And as a New Yorker, it's not like you don't care, but you get a little immune to it. It's not exactly that way out in Idaho. And I'm sure there was a reluctance if they could get out of this, to go forward anyway.
- [33:33]
Arthur Aidala
Yeah, I mean, look, you're. If you become a fighter pilot, fly the jet and shoot the missiles, you know, you become a doctor, you become a surgeon. You know, you don't shy away from the big operation.
- [33:44]
Charlie Cook
I.
- [33:45]
Arthur Aidala
And I agree with everything you just said, Megan. It's true. And. But Brian makes some great points. He really does. It's. It's. There have been a lot of things that I interpreted as them being very careful because they don't want to screw the case up on appeal. The ninth Circuit is historically very. You know, the appellate scrutiny is intense, especially on death penalty cases. But, you know, I. I was very disappointed by this, to be honest with you, in case I haven't made that obvious at this point.
- [34:15]
Donald Trump
I mean, look, I. I would think, Megan, if. If the Luigi Mangione defense team went into the prosecutors, and he's facing the death penalty here in federal court and said, okay, he'll take life without parole. I'm guessing the U.S. attorney is going to be like, okay. I. Department of justice is going to say, okay. I don't think. I don't think you take that risk with the 12 jurors, and you don't know exactly what they're gonna do.
- [34:37]
Megyn Kelly
Mm. The one thing I wanted to point out is that they revealed that the defense went to the prosecution and said, please make us an offer. It was not the prosecution afraid to go forward. It was good old Ann Taylor, who's been bluffing a good game and trying to get endless delays of this case so her client could live another Day who finally went in there, waved the white flag, as we all knew she had to. They have this guy dead to rights. They have his DNA on the knife sheath that was used to hold the murder weapon. They have him throwing away his garbage in Ziploc baggies that he was depositing in the neighbor's trash back in the Poconos so that his DNA couldn't be easily discovered by cops who were already three steps ahead of him. They have his car circling the murder house in the moments leading up to the murder, his phone going off just for the time that the murder was committed, then going back on, returning to the crime scene the next day. His Internet searches. He looked for the K bar knife to replace the one he had clearly lost after committing the murders. He ordered overalls of the kind he, we now know he had earlier testified would help somebody hide the blood and cover up having committed a crime. I mean, they had him dead to rights. He had no shot. And Ann Taylor did the right thing for him. I think, personally, the only thing that could stop this thing from actually happening tomorrow is Brian Kohlberger himself, because Howard Bloom has been reporting that he has been the holdout on taking a guilty plea, that there might have been a rift developing between attorney and client on this. And there was some rumbling about whether Ann Taylor, the lawyer, was thinking of a maneuver to, like, somehow have him declared incompetent or do something to get around his holding out. And it looks like eventually she got to him. And maybe to Howard's reporting, she at least used the hell that his parents were gonna have to go through, you know, to try to give him a hook out. Go ahead, Matt.
- [36:42]
Arthur Aidala
Yeah, that's all right. Everything you just said is correct, Megan. But ultimately it's the prosecution' so we. We never offered to plead our death cases like, there was one that. That we dealt my James Satori Shipp case, and that was the DA's call. After new mitigating evidence came forward and the DA decided to give to him. Other than that, the defense can't force this, so he can come in and ask for a deal. He can certainly has the right to plead guilty and then go into the penalty phase and determine what the appropriate sentence is. But this is under. This is controlled by the prosecution, and they decided to do it, and the family wasn't on board. So ultimately, it's their call. They don't have to accept that, that offer from the defense. You can plead guilty, but the death determination, or lwop, is something that ultimately it's the prosecution's call to agree to that or not. So this is a deal.
- [37:42]
Donald Trump
I just want to make sure, though, do we know that all family members were not on board or.
- [37:48]
Rich Lowry
No, that one.
- [37:48]
Megyn Kelly
We don't know how the other three feel.
- [37:50]
Donald Trump
Right?
- [37:50]
Arthur Aidala
We know. It's a good point. It's a very good point.
- [37:52]
Donald Trump
I don't mean to step on you, but. And let me just tell you something, though, to your point, earlier, Matt and Meghan in the case I just tried, the prosecutors flew literally all over the world to talk to witnesses, to put somebody in jail. Okay, this is, to me, that rises the same level here. If these prosecutors needed to get on the plane this past Saturday to go speak to the deceased family to let them know, look, you're not making the call. This is the elected prosecutor. They're making the call. But we want to let you know why we're doing it and what our reasoning is and what are they. They deserve. They definitely deserve that. And if that did not happen, we don't know if it did or it didn't, but it sounds like it didn't, at least with one family member, then shame on them. Because when you're making such a big decision, it is their decision. But you got to hold hand. You got to have bedside manner. You should have a psychiatrist or a social worker or someone. I mean, I mean, this is such an enormous traged. You can't just be like, here's. I mean, if they found out via email. That's beyond disgusting. I mean, that is beyond disgusting that you open an email.
- [38:57]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, by the way.
- [38:57]
Donald Trump
Yeah. The death penalty is gone and we're just going to give him life. Bye.
- [39:00]
Rich Lowry
Bye.
- [39:00]
Donald Trump
Come back tomorrow. Yeah, you got 72 hours. I mean, I'm hoping that that is not actually what took place. And there was a lot more personal interaction between the prosecutors.
- [39:10]
Megyn Kelly
I don't know this. Steve Gonsalves has been pretty reliable and he's. He's revealed a lot. That's. That's been proven out. I can't imagine he's lying about that. That's poor man. He said we were treated as the opposition from the very beginning. From the very beginning. And this just coming all it says. This is from Brian Enten again, News Nation reporting that Ethan Chapin's family will be in court tomorrow and does support the plea deal. That doesn't surprise me. As I said, that's the one other family that we've heard from a bit. They're very focused on Ethan. And everything I've heard them say has Been trying to get us to remember what their son was like. He was a triplet. And his two other siblings, I think, go to the same university. Can you imagine? Okay, let's move on, because we only have another 10 minutes or so. I want to get to what's happened in Diddy. They've been in there. I mean, we have almost more questions than we have jurors now. Or numbers of deliberation of hours. Five questions. They're very interesting. What the hell's going on with juror 25? Just to as point of clarification, the jurors have their numbers from Wadir. So it's not that they have 25 jurors. Like, they have their numbers. It doesn't mean there's 25 jurors. There are eight jurors, eight men. Sorry, 12 jurors, eight men, four women, and this guy's one of them. And the note out to the judge yesterday was, we have a juror number 25 quoting here. Who we are concerned cannot, cannot follow your honor's instructions. After conferring with the lawyers, the judge sent back in a note saying, do it, do it, do it anyway. Like saying, I reviewed your note. I remind every juror of their duty to deliberate and their obligation to follow my instruction in the law. With that instruction in mind, please continue deliberating. And they did. What does that mean? This guy, veterinarian, 51, Hispanic, PhDs in macroeconomics. And something else. Nuclear molecular biology, I think, has a domestic partner who's male and who is a graphic designer, lives in New York, goes to the opera, watches nature documentaries, argue may or may not be climate change, they said. And I don't know. I don't know what to make of this. He doesn't sound like somebody who can't speak English, who can't understand things. He definitely can follow the instructions. So what do you glean from this, Matt? I'll start with you.
- [41:27]
Arthur Aidala
Well, first of all, it's the worst nightmare for any prosecutor when you've got a comment from the foreperson right away and note to the judge that somebody's not deliberating. My guess, Megan, from a whole bunch of jury trials and a lot of speculation, since they didn't give us anything else, is it sounds like you went back and announced his verdict. If I had to guess, he went back and either said, I don't want to talk, I don't want to deliberate. This guy's guilty, or this guy is, I'm not convicting, no matter what.
- [41:54]
Megyn Kelly
That.
- [41:55]
Arthur Aidala
That'd Be my guess, he came in and very strongly announced an opinion at the very beginning, which prompted the fourth person to say, hey, you got to deliberate, dude. We got to talk about this. That's my guess. And I know, I know getting notes like that. Art and I both probably have PTSD for many years of doing it. From the defense side, that's. You love seeing that. From the prosecution side, you. You have a problem right at the outset. So hopefully they straighten.
- [42:23]
Donald Trump
Well in federal court, unlike in many state courts. In federal where they are as right. It is not as big of a problem as it is in the state court, because the judge has the power. I did all this research yesterday. The judge has the power to call that particular juror out, not ask him about what's going on specifically in the deliberation room. But the judge can make an inquiry. And if the judge determined that this juror cannot be a fair and impartial juror for whatever reason that didn't come out in voir die or I'll give you any other example, he gets deathly ill and can no longer deliberate in federal court. The judge has the jurisdiction to rule that a criminal defendant can have a fair and impartial trial and a verdict with just 11 jurors. He can dismiss this juror for good cause and have 11 jurors deliberate. Trust me, the judge doesn't want that. The prosecutor does not want that because it creates appellate issue. But there are appellate cases on point that says the judge has tremendous leeway at the end of a. A long trial like this where so many resources have been spent. If a juror is unavailable or unable to be a fair and impartial juror, at that point, the judge can dismiss them and 11 jurors can go forward and reach a verdict.
- [43:41]
Arthur Aidala
I think they've got an alternate.
- [43:42]
Megyn Kelly
What do you make of Matt's theory? Because I had the same reaction as Matt did, somebody saying, my mind's made up. There's no point in deliberating. I'm never moving off of insert verdict here. Is that what you're. I mean, like, we have no idea what we're talking about. The audience should know. We are all totally speculating. But that's the fun of wa a jury. That's what we do. Go ahead.
- [44:02]
Donald Trump
I'll just speak for myself. And I'm usually wrong. I mean, I just did this, and we had, I don't know, a dozen notes, 15 notes, and I, you know, where what they're doing. But the juror is allowed to go in there. And say, listen, I listened intently to all the evidence. I don't need any read backs. I focused, I listened to every second. And I think he's not guilty of all counts. And you know, I'll sit here, you guys can talk all you want, but there's nothing you're going to tell me that the witnesses didn't tell me a direct examination or I learned a cross examination, that's going to change my mind. They're allowed to, you know, you're allowed to do that as a juror. You can't say, I'm not going to find him guilty because he's a black man. And I think black men have been so demonized in society. So that's what my verdict is. You can't do that because now you're not finding a verdict based on the evidence, which is what the judge's instructions are. But if you say, I listen to all the evidence and here's my verdict and you know, I'm not going to be threatened or beat up or convinced otherwise, he's allowed to do that. I was afraid when I heard that note that it was someone who didn't have the intellectual capacity. Because in federal court, as you guys.
- [45:09]
Megyn Kelly
Know, that's not this guy's problem.
- [45:11]
Donald Trump
Right. There's not a lot of heavy voir in jury selection. The lawyers don't get to speak to the jurors in jury selection in federal court. So sometimes you don't realize there's a screwball in there based on a questionnaire that they filled out. But yes, it does not sound like he has the background where he can't. And it seems like maybe that ship is sailed. I mean, it's almost, you know, it's the next day and they haven't sent back any notes like this guy's a big guy.
- [45:33]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. Now they're deliberating. But now they, they sent out a question asking if I'm, I don't have the exact wording in front of me, but basically asking if a person has drugs and gives them to another person because the other person asked for them. And is that possession with intent to distribute, which is what he's charged with, is one of the, one of the many predicate acts for the RICO count. It's not a separate charge. I mean, I think we can all agree the answer that is yes. It is. That is your toast. The answer is yes. So substantively, the answer back to the jury is basically good for the prosecution. But they didn't answer back to the jury like that Matt, they just said, the judge is so annoying. I'm sure the jury's feeling it. He just said, oh, you have a question about my instructions, please consult my instructions. And he did not add any other color to it. And then the most interesting note, that's. That to me at least suggests, because if you look at the verdict form, I don't know how they're going after this. If you look at the jury instructions they get, they talk about the predicate acts and they may just be going through the jury instructions. If you look at the verdict form, it starts with rico, guilty or not guilty. And only if they, if they check guilty, do they go on to have to consider each one of the predicate acts, including possession with intent to distribute. So if they're just going off the verdict form, then that might tell us that they're on a guilty for racketeering. But if they're going off the jury instructions, then they might just be kicking around all the predicate acts before they get to guilty or not guilty. Enrico. But anyway, there's some cause for hope from both sides. But then they get to the really interesting one, which was today where they asked about testimony. They want testimony sent back into the jury room. And it's interesting. They wanted. Cassie, hold on, I'm trying to find. I have so many notes on my phone about the big beautiful bill. I'm trying to get back to the relevant texts. They wanted Cassie Ventura's testimony. I can't find it.
- [47:22]
Donald Trump
They wanted Danielle Phillips, sex Wildfire.
- [47:25]
Megyn Kelly
Danielle Phillips, fired, the S3 quad. They wanted information about what happened at the Hotel Intercontinental, which is where she was beaten in the middle of a freak off and dragged back in there. All of that would seem potentially to be good for the prosecution, but again, we don't know. Crapola. Your thoughts on it, guys?
- [47:43]
Donald Trump
Well, I, you know, having just done a two month trial and these notes.
- [47:47]
Megyn Kelly
The Harvey trial, just in case people are wondering. Now, it didn't go Arthur's way, but he did a great job at the.
- [47:53]
Donald Trump
Well, it kind of went my way. We beat the two top counts. We did all right. It's up to the sentencing. We could go. If the judge sentences him the way he should be sentenced, then we went from 23 years to a lot better. And he could see the light at the end of the day, at least in New York anyway. What we ended the day with after all the notes would come in was who the F knows? Like, who the F knows. I mean, I've tried more cases than I can count And I've been so wrong so many times. And then, you know, we get to talk to jurors sometimes afterwards. And when they. When you hear from them why they ask certain questions, you're just like, wow, I really don't know what I'm doing. Like, they're thinking, it's so many. They're looking at things in such a different way than we do as lawyers because they're electricians and school teachers and school bus drivers.
- [48:38]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, but wait, I don't mean to cut you off, but I do want to get to like what they're asking about because I think it's somewhat telling. Okay, the first one is Cassie Ventura's testimony regarding the Internet. Internet intern, whatever, Intercontinental. Her testimony concerning the events at Cannes and those that immediately followed via USA Today. Here was that testimony in part. A former assistant Mia, she had testimony that in 2012, she witnessed a discussion between Combs and Cassie Ventura escalate at the premiere of the Brad Pitt film Killing Them Softly during the Cannes Film Festival. Claimed she saw Combs grit his teeth while digging his nails into Ventura's arm. Eventually insisted that Ventura leave, which she did. At the festival, Ventura testified she got into an argument with Combs. He accused her of taking drugs from him. He kicked her off the boat they were staying on. She testified she returned to the US On a commercial flight, trading seats with another passenger because she didn't want to sit next to him. But he switched to, ended up next to her. At that point, he pulled up the freak off video on his computer, which she thought he deleted. Played them on his laptop while others were around. She worried he was going to embarrass her and release them. I felt trapped. How'd you get out of this? How do you get out of this situation? Ventura testified when they landed in New York, they went to dinner. Combs told her he wanted to have a freak off. So they did. That was that one. Her testimony regarding freak offs with Daniel Phillip. And Daniel Phillip was this escort who said Ventura asked him, forgive me, audience to urinate on her. She was the one who asked me to do it. She asked me if I'd done it before. She told me to do it. I was doing it wrong because they both told me that. Also said he witnessed Combs become violent with Ventura, leading him to experience erectile dysfunction for the first time. Said my thoughts were, this is a man with unlimited power. Even if I went to the police, I might still lose my life. He testified he heard Combs slapping Ventura behind closed doors and her screaming I'm sorry. Before she ran out nude to Philip and jumped in his lap. He said he asked her why she stayed with him despite the real danger of doing so. None of this is really. Is great. This is not great for Sean Combs. Guys, your thoughts?
- [50:46]
Donald Trump
No, you don't want to hear that. When you're the defense attorney and you hear this in the courtroom and you hear some of these read backs, you know, it's. It's not fun. And your instinct is you want to jump up and you want to say something, you want to object, you want to counter argue, and you're not allowed to do anything except just sit there. So it's. Yeah, it's not a good time.
- [51:02]
Arthur Aidala
Yeah. It also sounds, Megan, like they're working through the sex trafficking. And what's interesting, legally on that is, remember, sex trafficking is both a predicate for the RICO charge and also a substantive charge in its own right. But that requires force, fraud, or coercion. So that's. Those are pretty broad terms, and it seems to me that goes right to that, to that issue. Are we talking about force? What is she afraid of? What's he making her do? So, you know, the. I think the encouraging thing for the prosecution in this is it appears like they're taking their task really seriously and they're methodically going through the evidence, which is always something that you want to see after a long case like this.
- [51:41]
Megyn Kelly
He's. They want to hear the part about him threatening her with the freak off video, the part about the escort hearing Diddy hit her behind closed doors and how scary he was. I mean, I. I'd be worried right now if I were the defense, but again, that's coercion.
- [51:57]
Donald Trump
That goes to. That goes to the coercion Matt was just talking about.
- [52:00]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, we don't. We just don't know. But we'll be going live on our YouTube feed as soon as we have a verdict, and hopefully Arthur and Matt will be with us. Guys, thank you. We'll be right back with Rich Lowry and Charlie Cook. Since President Trump was sworn in, his administration has made enormous progress at a breakneck pace. But don't forget, while they are moving mountains for the good of the nation, you've got your personal savings to worry about. And one of the best ways to look after your savings is through diversification, particularly with gold, like from Birch Gold Group. In the past 12 months, the value of gold has increased by 40%. And Birch was an advertiser on this show 12 months ago. If you had purchased, then you'd be 40% richer today. Now's the time. Central banks continue to bolster demand for gold by burying in record quantities. Global instability and tension is high and Birch Gold makes owning physical gold so easy. Easily convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold or buy some to store in your home Safe. Just text MK to the number 989898 and Birch Gold is going to send you a free info kit on Gold. Look into it, see if it's right for you. There's no obligation, just useful information to help you make a decision with an A rating, with a Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers. Take control of your Savings today. Text MK to 989-898.
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- [54:03]
Megyn Kelly
Big news. The big beautiful bill has passed in the Senate. That is a huge deal. That's music to the ears of President Trump. Three Republican Senators voted no. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, soon to be retired Rand Paul of Kentucky, no surprise there. And Susan Collins of Maine. Okay, Murkowski got on board at the end and Vice President J.D. vance cast the tie breaking vote. The bill will now head back to the House where Speaker Johnson is expected to attempt to pass it by the self imposed July 4th deadline. You remember he was on this show last Wednesday saying they really wanted to deliver that to President Trump by Independence Day so he could sign it on July 4th. That may or may not happen cuz the Senate changed it a fair amount. And the House, there are some more House moderates who may need to be assuaged so they might not be able to move quickly. But this thing's gonna pass. President Trump is gonna get this. I don't know that he gets it by Friday but but he should be heaving a sigh of relief today. Instead he's having some fun touring Alligator Alcatraz, which is a thing now, maybe you've heard of it. It's a new migrant detention center in the Everglades because of course it is. Joining me now to react to all of this and more, Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, and Charles C.W. cook, senior editor and host of the Charles C.W. cook Podcast. Go become an NRPLUS member or you too could be headed to alligator Alcatraz. They have powers you don't even want to know about. Guys, welcome back.
- [55:31]
Charlie Cook
Hi there.
- [55:32]
Megyn Kelly
It's so perfect, right? For the Trump presidency. Of course, we now have an Alligator Alcatraz. Why didn't we think to write that into the script? More on that in a second. Let's start with the big news, Rich. It passed. It got it through the Senate. It's not done, but it's all but done. I mean, it's. Do you disagree? It's getting done.
- [55:51]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, it'll get done. I'm with you. I don't know whether it'll get done by Friday. It's a bit of an artificial deadline. But whether it's Friday or a couple weeks from now, much more rapid timetable than I would have expected. I thought they would have gone through this agonizing for months and we'd be the day before Thanksgiving or whatever. So this is happening sooner, but also the way it's happening. Not surprising. A lot of people not particularly enthused by this. They know it needs to pass. They know it'd be a debacle if they didn't extend these tax cuts and let them expire and be arguably the largest tax increase in American history. Murkowski, who is the final vote they got over the finish line there, says she's not happy with it. She hopes there'll be changes, but exactly the same thing will happen in the House, whether it's exactly this version or it's a version they change some more and send back over the Senate. There'll be three or four holdouts. It'll be on the floor. No one will quite know whether they're going to get it. And Trump will get on the phone with a couple of these members, tell them to jump the cliff. Off the cliff. They will jump off the cliff. Afterwards, they'll say, well, you know, I wasn't happy with everything, but it'll get done. Legislatively, this is basically all that's getting done. But it was an absolutely absolute necessity. Would have been debacle if it failed and it's succeeding.
- [57:02]
Megyn Kelly
And just to reiterate, the Trump tax cuts were for everyone. Everyone, like the lowest earning taxpayer all the way up to the highest earning taxpayer. The left wants to, to say this is all about the rich people Fat cat tax cuts. But. And yes, rich people got tax cuts, too, but if you paid taxes under Trump's tax cuts, you got them. You got your taxes cut. And they were about to go up. So that's what they were trying to stop with this big, beautiful bill, making the tax cuts permanent. Charlie, it's not been without drama because what, what the Republicans need to worry about now is the Democrats are going to spend the next year and a half saying they cut Medicaid, they took health care away from poor, starving Americans to line the pockets of the Elon Musks of the world. You guys have a great piece up on how that's a lie. And there's been a lot of subterfuge with the Medicaid piece of Obamacare right now on National Review, which people should go read. But your thoughts on the political messaging around the Medicaid reforms. The Republicans say these are reforms to stop waste, fraud and abuse.
- [58:16]
Rich Lowry
Well, the first thing I would say is if you go back to 2017, forget this bill for a moment. The Democrats, along with the media, lied about the 2017 bill to such an extent that by 2019, the American public had really been misinformed to an astonishing degree. And the New York Times, which had been complicit in the lie, ran a piece titled, face it, you probably got a tax cut. You can go read that piece. It's still online. And it's just an amazing piece of hackery, because what it says in effect is we've lied for two years about what the bill did, everyone believed us, and now we're going to run a fact check lambasting them for having believed us. So I expect the same thing will happen here. Now, I have a lot of problems with this bill we can talk about if you like, but with the Medicaid part, the word cut really isn't correct. First off, it's a reduction in the rate of growth, which is not the same thing as a cut. Second, if you look at the amount that Medicaid grew from about 2019 onwards, you will see an explosion in spending. So to take the Medicaid expenditures not even back to 2019 levels, but just to slow the rate of growth, the idea that that is going to be some massive cut to the health services that Americans get is crazy. Not to mention that a lot of the reforms that are being looked at here have to do with people who shouldn't be on Medicaid in the first place. And so the people who suffer the most when you fill the roles of Medicaid with those who don't need Medicaid are the people who do need Medicaid. In fact, some of the changes that have been proposed here were endorsed by that right wing fiber, either Barack Obama, 10 years ago. So this is demagoguery. The second side of it, as you mentioned, which is that to pay for the tax cuts for billionaires is also not true. The 2017 tax cuts did obviously cut taxes for rich people, but rich people pay all the taxes, so that seems fair. They also cut taxes for everyone else. What has changed about this bill compared to the 2017 baseline is that Social Security recipients and people who make tips will be paying less in taxes. I don't like either of those provisions, but it's ridiculous to suggest that they benefit billionaires. So we've seen what they did in 2020, 2017. They're going to do it again. I think Republicans just have to hold their noses and push this through for the good of the Treasury.
- [61:01]
Megyn Kelly
The we're just getting a sound of Trump in reacting to the passage in the Senate of his big beautiful bill. Do we have a cut, you guys? It's actually cut or we're just getting it in? Yeah, here it is.
- [61:13]
Peter Doocy
Oh, thank you.
- [61:15]
Donald Trump
Wow.
- [61:17]
Megyn Kelly
He's at Alligator Element Alcatraz.
- [61:20]
Charlie Cook
Of course he is.
- [61:21]
Peter Doocy
You know, I'm waiting listening to these wonderful words and they are music to my ears. But I was also wondering how we doing? Because I know this is prime time. It shows that I care about you because I'm here and I probably should be there. But we do care. Thank you very much.
- [61:37]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so he's got many important things to do. One thing that's different between this version, Charlie, you may not be aware, and the one that was passed in 2017 is they've added back in the salt deduction. I don't know if you've heard about. Charlie hates the salt deduction, which helps people really in the tri State area who have very high state taxes. And he's a Floridian and rightly feels he should not be subsidizing our terrible tax policies by allowing these write offs. But some of them got put back in thanks to some House Republicans whose support they really needed. Was that your least favorite thing about the bill, Charlie, or what's your least favorite?
- [62:17]
Rich Lowry
Well, that is by far and away my least favorite thing about the bill. Yes, I think it's really unfair as a matter of law, but I also think that it is poor conservative policy to pass a big subsidy for profligate blue states. You just Saw this Mamdani guy in New York is probably going to be the next mayor. There's zero reason the people in Florida or Texas or Tennessee or Wyoming or wherever should be paying more for the same federal government purely because blue states can't get their act together. The other part I don't like and I understand the politics of it, but is the Social Security tax reduction. Because we have a huge problem with our entitlements. And mathematically there's no difference between reducing taxes on Social Security recipients and increasing the cost of Social Security. This is however much it costs. 40 billion, 50 billion a year, half a trillion dollars over 10 years. Perhaps that is the equivalent of increasing Social Security payments by that much, which may or may not be a good idea in a vacuum, but we're now spending a trillion dollars a year on debt repayment. I mean, our big problem is entitlement. So I think this is really truly irresponsible. Those two things together I would not have done.
- [63:29]
Megyn Kelly
Rich, I have to mention this, but Dan Crenshaw tried to get a piece into the BBB defunding any money for trans medical procedures, whether it's for minors or for adults on the federal dollar. Like you can't use Medicaid or Medicare or state funds to fund these procedures. And I love that he tried to do that and I tip my hat to him for trying. He tried hard. It got taken out of the reconciliation bill by the mean awful Senate parliamentarian who gets to strike things from the bill that she doesn't think really are budget related. Okay, so that's what I have to say to her. But she took it out and then he convinced the Republicans to put it back in and forced the Democrats to object to got taken out a half an hour before they voted on it. I think the parliamentarian was back and took it out again. Or at least that's how it appears. But the reason I'm raising all this is to give credit where it's due because we wanted that in there and it was worth trying for. And also because Dan Crenshaw posted about his attempt to do this on X and I was reading the threat and this is just like this is an AI story. Then someone named Pinch Billy, who goes by Pinch Billy, responded, I ain't reading that shit. Because he wrote this long post about what he'd done and then said and then brought in Grok, which is X's AI. It's X's chat GPT. And often if you're concluded confused about a post on X, you Just say, at Grok, what does this mean? And it'll answer you. So he said, at Grok, Summarize this post as a pirate trying to run for Congress. Talk about. Talk about how he lost his eye. I'm sorry, but here's. Oh, I know we love Dan Crenshaw and we don't make fun of that, but I'm just saying this is this guy's version of his ask. He writes, grok writes, I, mateys, I be captain Bill, a pirate running for Congress with a peg leg and a patch over me. I. I'm making him Irish. Lost me I in a fierce cannon blast during a raid on a merchant ship. I a badge o me. Wild days. Now, about that land glubber Crenshaw's post. He's pushing to ban taxpayer gold for transgender treatments, claiming it's a waste. Some say it's fair health care backed by sawbones like the ama, saving lives and coin in the long run. Others cry foul, saying it's experimental and steals from other needs. The House passed a bill in May 2025 to cut Medicaid funding for it. Both sides got points, but I'm skeptical. Or any side claiming absolute truth. Vote for me, and I'll seek the real treasure, fairness. This is incredible. Like, what. What is happening? He. It actually did write a post explaining.
- [66:23]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, it's not fair. Yeah, AI is coming. Maybe not for your job, Megan, you're irreplaceable. But Charlie and I, what we do for a living, right? You know, AI's AI is getting there. I don't know, Maybe. Maybe it's already surpassed. But good for Dan Crenshaw. This is a wholly righteous effort. I mean, there are parliamentary rules about what you can get into these reconciliation bills. But just what Charlie was saying about Medicaid and how it's not really a cut, it's just slightly reducing the heightened levels from Obama and Biden. There's just this ratchet effect that the left always uses. Fiscal matters, cultural matters. They push on all fronts. They radically increase spending, and it's like, why don't we just reduce the rate a little bit? How could you be cutting this federal important priority? Or they do trans surgeries and trans bathrooms and transports. You're just like, maybe guys shouldn't compete against. Why are you waging this culture war? You're Neanderthals, your reactionaries, when they've actually radically advanced their ball. And we're just saying, let's bring it. We'd like to totally reverse it, but let's Bring it back a little bit. And we're haters and reactionaries.
- [67:31]
Megyn Kelly
So you guys, I mentioned this. Rich, have a great piece on NR today. You should go become an NR plus member. It was written by Michael Cannon and it was posted this morning at 6:30. This is how I spent my morning. And it's talking about how Medicaid works since Obamacare. And it's really calling out Thom Tillis, who's like trying to cloak himself in glory. Like, I held the line against Medicaid reforms that are gonna hurt people. And it calls that out as utter nonsense, talking about how states like North Carolina have engaged in a scam against the federal taxpayer on Medicaid for a long time since Obamacare. And he talks about how it's a joint program, Medicaid, not to bore the audience to tears, but basically the state and the feds cooperate on these Medicaid programs and the feds invariably pay far more than the states do. But in North Carolina, he points out that what happened was. I'm trying to get to the actual numbers here. He said, for every $1 a state puts towards Medicaid, Congress matches it with something between $1 and $9. Congress will contribute if the state sacrifices something to fund its own program. Already, he writes, this is a boon to state officials. If they raise taxes by $1, inflicting $1 of political pain, Medicaid lets them hand out 2 to $10 of political goodies. The difference comes from taxpayers in other states. Little wonder Medicaid spending has doubled since 2013. And he writes about how in North Carolina, they came up with a deal to make that $1 also not come from North Carolina taxpayers. Is like this big sort of ruse that they engaged in so that the federal taxpayers from other states were paying all of their Medicaid expenses. And now Tom Till is like, I will hold the line. We will not screw the Medicaid. It's like, why am I paying for the health care in your state, sir?
- [69:26]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, it's another scam just like Salt. And we have entitlements that are driving this country into the debt ditch. And the last thing the federal government should be doing is incentivizing more entitlement spending. But that's exactly what this does. And you know, Elon, obviously he's popped his head back up and is very harsh about this bill. And I think in broad gauge, he's right. This bill does not seriously grapple with the deficit problem or the debt problem. If Republicans had 20 more votes in the House, we might have made much more progress on, on that, but we don't, unfortunately. But at least this is some small step towards reining in an entitlement. And it's been difficult to get even. That's been difficult to get over the finish line.
- [70:08]
Megyn Kelly
I'll get to the Elon thing in one second. But I will say that the reason Thom Tillis is now retiring and the reason everyone came along except for Susan Collins, the Rand Paul thing wasn't a surprise to anybody is the following. I'll give you Harry Enten on CNN earlier.
- [70:27]
Harry Enten
Okay, so we're going to look at the strongly approved numbers. So this isn't just Republicans who like Donald Trump. This is Republicans who love Donald Trump. And he's up like a rocket. Look at this. In July 2017, the strongly approved was 53%. That's pretty good. But look at where he is now. 63% of Republicans strongly approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing about five months into his presidency. Republicans love Donald Trump the way that Americans love Disney World. The bottom line is 63%. That is a huge, huge base. And of course it's just part of a Republican base in which about 90% of them overall approve of him, including the somewhat approves as well.
- [71:08]
Megyn Kelly
That's the thing, Charlie. There was a political reality in that Senate overnight and this morning and now it's going to be staring them in the face in the House that if Trump turns on you, his sway with Republican voters, which of course is what's key, is just too great to meaningfully combat.
- [71:28]
Rich Lowry
Yeah, that's true. I'm not sure that's a particularly good way to run a constitutional republic though, given that the issues here are about the federal budget, not whether we like Donald Trump. And I actually think Thom Tillis is completely wrong on the Medicaid issue like, like you do. But there has to be some room between I like the President and I want to evaluate independently what Congress and the president want to do with legislation. So I think as a general rule, the way that we have begun to turn the president to the Pope is a bad thing. But yeah, Trump has a lot of sway and if he turns on a given member, then that member usually caves. Tillis hasn't. So he's retiring. Thomas Massie in the House hasn't caved either. He's not retiring, but he is being primaried. So I guess we'll see what happens when somebody in the early indications are.
- [72:26]
Megyn Kelly
Not great for him. The early indications are.
- [72:28]
Rich Lowry
No, that's true.
- [72:29]
Megyn Kelly
I'd be interested The Trump back candidate looks Good.
- [72:31]
Rich Lowry
Yeah. Although 52% of people said they were undecided. So I wonder which way they'll break. House districts are also a little bit different than entire states. It's probably easier in some respects to hang on as a House member in an unusual part of the country than it is if you're being elected.
- [72:49]
Megyn Kelly
Let me just interrupt you and get you to a related point that you've been making that I'd love for our audience to hear. And that is what you're saying here is. Okay, yes, Trump is very powerful within the Republican Party, but we do have a constitutional system and people need to live by it. And you've been making a similar point in response to some of these Supreme Court rulings that I know we both like. And I agree with you. Like we talked last week about the ruling on Friday on how these national injunctions that district court after district court, you know, issues have been struck down basically by the Supreme Court saying these are inappropriate. A federal district court judge does not have this power over the executive. And left alone without more, that really does empower the executive branch. And we may feel fine about that, some of us, while President Trump is in there, but he won't be in there forever. You could, God forbid, get a Kamala Harris in there who's super newly empowered, too, by that ruling. And your point is? Maybe now would be a great time for Congress, since GOP controls both branches of it and the White House, to enact a law that reduces the overall power of the president, consistent with the way the founders envisioned this country working.
- [74:06]
Rich Lowry
Yeah. I mean, I think there's a paradox, or what looks like a paradox here, because I think the court largely got the decision you referenced. Right. I also think there are some cases pending about presidential power that ought to be decided in the president's favor, Humphrey's executive, for example. The problem is if the court does that but it doesn't also restore power to Congress, or more reasonably, in the interim, Congress doesn't take power back that it has, then what you've ended up with is a system in which the president's all powerful. If you look through a lot of our laws, this has been true since the New Deal, but it's got worse and worse and worse in the last 30 years. They have lines in them that say things like the secretary shall or in the judgment of the secretary, or in the opinion of the President. That's not really lawmaking. Sometimes that's necessary, but that's not lawmaking. Congress should be filling in those judgments and those opinions, but it isn't. And so my worry with this decision last week is that if the lower courts aren't going to get involved and issue nationwide injunctions, which I think are problematic, and the president's going to make up the law, as we have seen sometimes with Trump, but we saw really week in, week out with Joe Biden, then you end up with a situation in which the President can say, for example, he's going to try and spend half a trillion dollars on student loans that he's not allowed to do, a Congress that doesn't step in and fix that, and a court system that is slow and that case works its way up to the Supreme Court. And in the meantime, maybe The President spent $200 billion without Congress. So. But Congress really does have to get its act together. And I know that this sounds like a partisan point because the Democrats say this when there's a Republican president and the Republicans say this when there's a Democratic president. But if we wanted to, Congress could get together, both parties and just take away a lot of presidential power that it has willingly deferred. It should do that, but it hasn't done that. So I just hope that decision, which I think was right legally, doesn't end up with yet more presidential authority that can't be checked by the other brownies.
- [76:16]
Megyn Kelly
It's not going to happen under President Trump. I think we can all agree, like maybe if you had a John McCain in there and a Democrat controlled Congress, something like that would be possible. But we're on a freight train toward more and more presidential power. And maybe, hopefully that'll cause us to be really careful in selecting the next guy or gal. Okay. Keeping forward, going forward. Elon Musk still hates the bbb. He's not shy about it. He's been saying a lot like, if this thing passes, I'm forming the Save America Party. I think it is the America something party the very next day and also threatening to primary anyone who votes for it, which means every Republican. Rich. I mean, yeah, speaking of riches. He is, but that's a lot of money to primary every single Republican. Hold on, I'm gonna set it up for you.
- [77:07]
Charlie Cook
Yeah.
- [77:08]
Megyn Kelly
And now Trump gets asked about some of the antagonism by Elon and says this at the White House this morning before he went down to Florida.
- [77:19]
Donald Trump
I don't know.
- [77:20]
Peter Doocy
I think we should take a look.
- [77:22]
Megyn Kelly
How are you gonna deport it?
- [77:23]
Peter Doocy
Doge on Elon, you know, you know, Doge is. Doge is the monster that have that might have to go back and eat Elon Musk. That be terrible. He gets a lot of subsidies, Peter. But Elon's very upset that the EV mandate is going to be terminated. And you know what? When you look at it, who wants. Not everybody wants an electric car. I don't want an electric car. I want to have maybe gasoline, maybe electric, maybe a hybrid, maybe someday a hydrogen. If you have a hydrogen car, it has one problem. If it blows up, up, you know, so I'm going to give that one to Peter. Gonna let Peter.
- [78:07]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. Even Charlie's laughing at that one. He's funny.
- [78:10]
Rich Lowry
He's funny. He's the funniest president we've ever had. It's just true. I don't know why people who don't like him can't admit this. He's hilarious.
- [78:18]
Charlie Cook
So Rich, yes, of course. Asks about deporting Elon. He's gonna say, yeah, we're looking at it, right?
- [78:25]
Megyn Kelly
We're kicking it around.
- [78:27]
Charlie Cook
Says about everything. He's not going to deport Elon. And look, Elon is a genius. He's just not a genius of politics. And there are a lot of reasons for having a man crush on Donald Trump, the way he professed to have to be very enthusiastic about electing him last year to be jumping on stage and bearing his midriff, all that. But one of them was not the conviction that Donald Trump would deal with the debt or seriously reform entitlements, which is a necessary step to dealing with. With the debt. He just occasionally mentions he's going to do it, but it's clearly not a priority. And he's been very explicit that he's not going to touch entitlements, which makes it impossible, a fiscal impossibility, mathematical impossibility, to deal with the debt. So Elon shouldn't be surprised by what happened here. Maybe he's going to form a party. But the idea that they're just a bunch of people on the sidelines who are really into entitlement reform and deficit reduction, they're gonna go out and primary all these guys and put the fear of God in them is never gonna happen. He does not have anything like the political clout that Donald Trump does. And going back to the Harry Entin point about how popular Trump is among Republicans, there have been other Republican presidents who are popular among Republicans, although there might be a unique bond here. But what's different is if you're Thom Tillis and you cross some conventional Republican president in the past, that president might be PO'd at you might in private let it be known that he's upset with you. He might put his political consultants to work to defeat you in a primary in a year or two. What's different with Trump, he instantly wields his power. He blasts you in public. A lot of the Trump friendly media picks up on it. They'll blast you as well. And you'll go to a town hall the next day, like the next day and like two thirds of your voters will hate you.
- [80:12]
Megyn Kelly
Right? Yeah.
- [80:13]
Charlie Cook
Who wants to deal with that? No one wants to deal with that. And maybe if you're unique and have John McCain may have been this Susan Collins certainly is where you're kind of in a non red state and have a real distinct brand and different political base, you can survive that Trump onslaught. Otherwise you're not, you're just not. So you can do what Tillis did, vote against it, but you are either going to have to be, you will likely be defeated in a primary or take the easy way out and retire. So this is a unique form of, of presidential power which goes to the hold he has among Republicans and his willingness to wield it in a blunt force manner immediately.
- [80:53]
Megyn Kelly
There is a bug in my studio that's been harassing me the entire. I apologize. It's like if you can't, I'm not having a fit on the air. I'm trying to get. Yeah, you're exactly right about all of that. And I think, you know, eventually Elon will come to terms with the fact that this is going to pass. It has to pass. Trump's entire presidency depends on this passing. But I understand his frustration because he got sent in there to go dojify the federal government and he really couldn't. He tried, but there were so many roadblocks with, given the way our administrative law works and you know how you're really kind of not allowed to fire certain people or touch certain things. It was incredibly frustrating for those of us who were rooting for him. We had dinner last night with a friend of ours from Argentina and he was telling us how much Argentinians love Javier Malay and how, you know, inflation was out of control. He was saying in Argentina, you'd go to a store, it'd be closed on a random Wednesday at 2 o' clock in the afternoon and you'd say, why are you closed when they open back up? And they say, because we didn't know what the inflation would be today or whether we could afford to like be in business today selling goods with the, with the Prices as they are.
- [82:01]
Charlie Cook
That's how Argentina, Germany stuff.
- [82:04]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. So he. They love Javier Millet and he was able to go in there with his chainsaw and start slashing all these government agencies in a way you just can't do here, given the way we're set up and how many layers of bureaucracy there are between you and meaningful cuts. And I think, Charlie, when I look at Elon's comments today, because one of his comments in response to that Trump sot was something like, I'm going to restrain myself right now. I am restraining myself from responding. So that's good he's doing that. But you can feel his frustration. I think his determination to actually make real cuts to government spending is real and it's next to impossible.
- [82:47]
Rich Lowry
Yes, Elon Musk is a genius. He's a genius in the great American tradition of genius. He is extremely strange, which is usual among geniuses. In fact, many American geniuses, especially in the invention realm, are also awful people, which I'm not sure Elon is. But he is a very strange, brilliant, eccentric American genius. And his genius is not in politics. It's in other things. And in fact, it's in things that very often make understanding politics quite difficult. One of the famous stories I was taught in college about American politics was Jimmy Carter with an energy bill. Jimmy Carter had some expertise in energy, and he thought when the time for the energy bill to be written came up, that he would just look at the country and its energy needs and they would all sit around as experts and they would work out what to do, and then they would go to Congress and everyone would say, wow, what a brilliant bill. And they pass it. But of course, that's not how it worked. People had different political opinions. Some people were irrational. Others didn't want this or that plant in their state. Energy prices had fluctuated in one part of the country and not another part. There were things going on in the Middle east, and Carter became very, very frustrated by this because fundamentally he didn't understand politics. And I think that's true of Elon Musk as well. It is simply not the case. I wish desperately that it were, but it is simply not the case that there is this great massac of people in the American middle who are desperate to reform entitlements or fix the budget. They might tell you, if asked, that they are worried about the deficits and they are worried about the debt, as they should be. But then you have to do the what to do about it part. Some of them want to cut taxes, some of them want to raise taxes. Some of them want to cut spending. A lot of them might say they want to cut spending, but then it's what gets cut. Oh, could we not cut foreign aid? Well, actually, foreign aid is not too much of the budget. Okay, what is? Well, defense is some of it. Let's cut that also. You don't want us to be as strong as we are now. Actually, on second thoughts. Well, let's cut Social Security. Not that Medicaid. Not that Medicaid. We just cut. We'll slow the rate of growth. Now. We don't want to do that.
- [85:05]
Megyn Kelly
Is something.
- [85:05]
Rich Lowry
We abolish the Department of Education. No, we don't want to do that because that school's right. And then what happens is you get back into exactly the same political fight that we've all been having for 50 years. You can't just create a third party that's going to solve this. The reason that we have our two parties and are full of people who have different views within them, the reason there's a left wing of the Democratic Party and a more moderate wing of the Democratic Party, the reason that there is a MAGA wing of the Republican Party and then the ME wing, which is cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, is that Americans have strong political opinions. They can't agree among themselves. So Musk can't solve this in the way that he can solve, say, a rocket trajectory where he sits with the most brilliant people he knows, and they do all the math and physics on a piece of paper. It's just not how politics works. It's how a lot of very smart people think politics ought to work. But it's not how politics does work. So, no, he's not going to do this. What he should do if he wants to change politics, is invest. And this will take 20 years and a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of frustration. He should invest in persuading people within the Republican Party that they should side with him. And success would look like another 10, 15% of Republicans being open to Elon Musk's ideas over 20 years. That's how slow this sort of thing occurs. But third party, it's not gonna do it. Cause you can't circumvent our political realities.
- [86:35]
Megyn Kelly
It really is fair to say he's a genius in quite a few lanes, but not the political lane. And who would expect, you know, it's like, I know all about news. I know a lot about news. I know how to deliver news in a compelling way. I can't Find my way without a map or a GPS to save my life. Literally. I had and also had to Google how to boil an egg. So some of us have our distinguished gifts in certain lanes, and it doesn't necessarily mean it translates. Rich.
- [87:03]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, there's a Winston Churchill story where he told his wife once that he was going to boil an egg. And she's like, winston, you can't do that. And he said, well, I've seen it done. And he ended up not being able to do it. But the thing that's different, we talked about this on the Editors a while ago, is I think if you told the average political consultant, I want you to run Tesla or I want you to run SpaceX, they say, I can't do that. I got to find someone who really knows it, and I'll get that person to do it. Whereas successful business people very often think they can just jump in and address the deficit, which Elon was going to do with Doge. They can fix politics. They can have this genius workaround idea just having no idea what they don't know. And I share your. I was rooting for Elon. The way you were on Doge. Share your frustration. Wasn't more successful, but the obstacles were all predictable. Charlie just outlined a lot of them. There are things we've all known about and dealt with our entire adult lives. To Carola about this, and he just seemed totally unaware of it. Right? And you know, it's like, well, how.
- [88:03]
Megyn Kelly
Do you figure out Rich? Where like, you know, you need the dreamer, right? You need the dreamer to come in and say, we're trying something new, we're good, we're not giving up, we can do it. You can't get rid of those people. Those people are important to change, but same result, different day.
- [88:19]
Charlie Cook
You need unreasonable people to change things. That's certainly true, but it was just clear that his skills and how he works, which have been extremely effective. I mean world historical, I mean interplanetary historical. Right. He really could get us to Mars. Just we're not transferable because everyone else gets a vote.
- [88:42]
Rich Lowry
And this is the reality of living in a democracy. I know we live in a republic, but it has democratic components at the end of the day. And you need unreasonable people. Unreasonable people can fix a company. They can fix maybe the Defense Department, if they're appointed within it, they can fix a Winter Olympic budget. But when it comes to the elementary budgetary questions of the federal government, the rest of the country gets a vote. And that's the bit that Elon never Seemed to understand it's not going to happen.
- [89:18]
Megyn Kelly
But I got to ask you quickly, Charlie. You're a Supreme Court watcher and you read the opinions. Did you see the piece in Ketanji Brown Jackson's Dissent, where she had the phrase as if they're Martians from another planet?
- [89:30]
Rich Lowry
You know what happened there? I don't know if you agree with me on this. She wrote alien from another planet, right? And then one of her clerks said to her, that's offensive because of the way aliens use immigration. And then she changed it to Martian. And so it didn't make any sense because Martians aren't from other planets, they're from Mars. I'm sure that's what happened.
- [89:49]
Megyn Kelly
You're very generous. So instead, the clerk made her look like an idiot as opposed to somebody who's offensive. Okay, that was the wrong choice. All right, stand by, guys, because we got to do Alligator Alcatraz. And we'll do that next. Are you numb to it yet? This spastic economy we're living through, where AI is reshaping entire industries and tariffs and taxes are shifting under our feet, markets bouncing like a yo yo up one day and down the next. If you're like most of us in our 30s, 40s, and 50s, you've probably realized no one can really come and save you. You're out here, and I am, too, building our safety nets on our own. But there's one smart move that often gets overlooked. Life insurance. Consider your options with Select Quote. Because life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. And the younger and healthier you are, the more affordable it is. Waiting even a few years could double your rate. Select Quote has helped out over 2 million Americans in getting the right coverage. Over $700 billion. Insured? It's not an insurance company. They're a broker that shops top rated insurers on your behalf. And their agents work for you for free. They make it easy. So get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com Megan that's SelectQuote.com Megan. These days, it feels like everyone has an agenda. The media, big tech. But let me tell you about Ground News. They do not filter the news. They show how stories are being shaped, spun, or ignored entirely. So you can decide what to believe. Ground News is an independent app and website built to give users control over their news feed. It aggregates coverage from across the political spectrum and breaks down how each outlet is framing the story, including bias, ownership and what key details might be missing. If you're tired of being told what matters or what doesn't, it might be time to take the power back. Ground News is offering 40% off their unlimited Access Vantage plan for a limited time. This offer is available exclusively at groundnews.com Megan that's ground G R-O-U-N-Dnews N E W-COM Megan don't let anyone else decide what you get to see. Take back control of your news feed today.
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- [92:28]
Megyn Kelly
I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your host for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.
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Megyn Kelly
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- [93:31]
Megyn Kelly
Alligator Alcatraz is an immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades. Your neighbor Charlie surrounded by alligators and it was put up quickly by Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis to cooperate with the Feds who need places to put the illegals that Tom Homan is rounding up. It's surrounded. It's got 5,000 beds. It will process and deport illegals. And they say there's only one road leading in and the only way out is a one way flight. It's not only surrounded by alligators, but by pythons and a ton of mosquitoes, which sounds like A whore. I'd rather stay in the prison, but this seems like a good idea to me. President Trump went down there this morning and here's the little quip that he offered on the spot. Sod 18.
- [94:25]
Donald Trump
I think our viewers at home should.
- [94:27]
Arthur Aidala
Note that this is air conditioned facility. So if any of the news claims.
- [94:31]
Donald Trump
Are keeping them out in hot, humid.
- [94:32]
Megyn Kelly
South Florida, that is wrong.
- [94:33]
Donald Trump
It's probably 62 degrees here, to be honest.
- [94:36]
Peter Doocy
Hey, Biden wanted me in here, okay? He wanted didn't to want work out that way, but he wanted me in here.
- [94:46]
Megyn Kelly
He's not wrong. Biden did want him locked up forever. Like. Like a criminal. Anyway, Good old Ron DeSantis. Charlie coming up with solutions to our problems.
- [94:57]
Rich Lowry
Yeah, there's nothing that prevents the states from helping the federal government enforce immigration law. Florida has a lot of laws of its own to that effect. And really, most of the criticisms of this seem overblown to me. They seem to revolve around the name, which is funny. And they seem to be premised upon the idea that it's really awful to be in Florida. Because if you look at the objections that, well, there are swamps and mosquitoes and alligators and it's really hot. Well, it's not hot inside. I'm glad they said that. It's air conditioned. It's hot if you try to escape. But that's also true of the prison that's 20 miles away from me. So unless the idea here is that we shouldn't build facilities in the south or build them in remote areas or build them in a manner that makes it difficult for those who've been put in them to escape, then I'm a little lost as to what's so horrible about this. Of course, that is the objection, isn't it? The people who object to this being constructed are not actually upset that it's 15 miles from an Indian burial ground or that it's too close to the Everglades or that somebody once saw a swan there. They're worried that there are any deportations whatsoever. They are people who have abolished ICE T shirts and who go to protests and who think that there is something intrinsically wrong with our having borders in the first place. So the objections seem overblown to me.
- [96:41]
Megyn Kelly
I have a legit question for you, Rich. If you had to choose running through a field of alligators or running through a field of pythons, which one would you choose?
- [96:54]
Charlie Cook
Pythons. I think they're less likely to get you. Really? Yeah. But Trump has just been at his funniest on this. He was asked about it, was it yesterday, I think. And someone. Mr. President, do you want reptiles to eat the, the illegal immigrants they try to escape?
- [97:09]
Arthur Aidala
It's like.
- [97:09]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, I think, I think that's the concept. And they said like, the snakes are really fast. And then he, you know, said, you have to do the zigzag thing to run away.
- [97:16]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, wait, I have that part. We have that. Let's. Let's play that one. That's. Where is it? Hold on. 20. Yeah, saw 20.
- [97:26]
Rich Lowry
It's the idea.
- [97:32]
Peter Doocy
I guess that's the concept.
- [97:34]
Donald Trump
This is not a nice business.
- [97:36]
Peter Doocy
I guess that's the concept. If you, you know, snakes are fast, but alligators, we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator. Okay. If they escape prison, how to run away. Don't run in a straight line. Run like this and you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.
- [97:55]
Donald Trump
Okay.
- [97:55]
Rich Lowry
Not a good.
- [97:59]
Megyn Kelly
Serpentine. That's what you're supposed to do, serpentine.
- [98:01]
Charlie Cook
If an alligator's chasing, apparently you're not. I was listening to a Washington Post piece about this. Charlie's the expert. But I was listening to Washington Post piece. I was extremely derisive about the whole thing, of course. And one of its fact checks of the course of the piece is, he's wrong. This is outdated advice. You should run straight when you're being chased by an alligator. But look, this is so funny. The alliteration is great. Serves the administration's purposes a little bit in two ways. One, just creating a deterrent effect. Right. They want to get the message out. Why don't you just go home on your own? We'll give you a thousand dollar credit, whatever it is, to help you get home on your own rather than dealing with these alligators. And two, they seriously need detention space. I mean, this is a serious limit on what they're doing. The lack of detention space. So good on Desantis are doing this. Other Republican governors should do something similar. Then it also serves the catastrophic purposes of right, the left and the media. Oh, my God. You know, when I just first heard of this idea and got a little bit of a notion of it from reading headlines and just hearing it half discussed on tv, I thought, oh, they're dredging the Everglades to create this new facility. Maybe that is a problem. But of course, it already exists. The facility, they're just building it up.
- [99:11]
Megyn Kelly
It was an airfield.
- [99:12]
Charlie Cook
Yeah. On this unused airfield. But as Charlie says, at the end of the day, their objection is not the environment or anything. Else it's like, like they don't like deportations. And it makes it much harder to do deportations if you don't have this kind of space.
- [99:26]
Megyn Kelly
I look forward to seeing AOC down there in like a beekeeper soon.
- [99:30]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weeping her eyes out.
- [99:34]
Megyn Kelly
Right? So sad about the alligator risks. I will say something jumped out at me in the reporting, which was that.
- [99:41]
Charlie Cook
Brad, Brad Blender will go down there and get attacked by an alligator.
- [99:46]
Megyn Kelly
We'll make a whole series out of it.
- [99:47]
Charlie Cook
Yeah, that.
- [99:48]
Megyn Kelly
We've had a record high number of detentions totaling. This is, per the AP, more than 56,000 as of June. That's the most since 2019. That's depressing. We've only gotten rid of 56,000, Charlie. And that's under Trump and Homan. I mean, we're on pace to get what, a hundred thousand this year? Maybe, maybe if we're lucky, half a million in the Trump presidency out of the what, 10, 12, 20, even possibly illegals who came in just under Biden, nevermind those that were here before. It's like I, I'm all for alligator Alcatraz and all that. It's just these are teaspoons in the ocean.
- [100:35]
Rich Lowry
They are, and it is depressing. But I would add a couple of caveats. The first thing is because there are not many people coming in and that's a huge achievement. The border is secure in a way that it never was under Biden. Second, it is quite difficult in a free country like the United States. It is much freer than pretty much everywhere else to stage mass deportations because we have a lot of constitutional rights. I'm not talking about the rights of people who are illegal who can be deported with limited due process. I just mean as a general rule, we don't run everything we do past the government. And that makes it more difficult to get rid of the people who are here illegally. And the third thing is that the deterrent effect should, over time, especially if it is accompanied by changes to the law. For example, the implementation of E VERIFY would be a good idea. Encourage people who are here illegally to go home without us having to put them in alligator Alcatraz or put them on a plane that we're paying for. One of the other things that Biden and the Democratic Party has done other than leave the border open is give all sorts of services to illegal immigrants and make it quite easy to be an illegal immigrant in the United States. And the Republicans ought to prioritize reversing that. I'm not talking about being mean to people. But if you are here illegally, it should be more difficult than it is to get a job. It should be more difficult than it is to enroll your kids in school or to use social services. So those sorts of changes can do a lot of the work for the government without them having to physically put people on government planes.
- [102:19]
Charlie Cook
It's just mind boggling to me, Megan, that 10 years now being such a harsh immigration hawk, Trump has not endorsed a robust E verify system that would be mandatory because of the Chamber of Commerce Republicans. Yeah, so the problem is he's of two minds on this. Right. He wants to deport illegal immigrants, but he also has a lot of sympathy for these employers, especially in the hospitality business. Right. Something he knows a lot about that will be squeezed if it's harder to employ illegal immigrants. So you got to decide one way or the other. And the only way to get there, get the numbers up big, is to have more self, self deportations. Because the rifle shot approach, it is teaspoons in the ocean, as you say, very resource intensive, where someone just decides to go home. You don't have to touch them, you don't have to detain them, you don't have to send them to alligator Alcatraz. They just do it on their own the same way they came in.
- [103:11]
Megyn Kelly
So just to update my numbers, my trustee producers point out that 56,000 immigrants detained. That was actually just for June. So that's good. But we've only gotten about 139,000 total out, which is less good. But notwithstanding an effort unlike we've only seen before, FYI, pythons can kill you primarily through constriction, which seems like it would take longer than for an alligator to eat you. So you have to, that's why I.
- [103:38]
Charlie Cook
Assume you can just run, run past the pythons and it's just more if they slowly get a grip on your, your ankle. But I, I still trust my speed to get, get through this field of pythons.
- [103:48]
Megyn Kelly
Python prison. As the, as the guys at Real Clear Politics said, that's, that's less lethal than Alligator Alcatraz. I'm glad we settled it. Thanks, guys.
- [103:56]
Charlie Cook
Thank you.
- [103:57]
Megyn Kelly
All right, we're on Diddy Verdict Watch and we'll go live on YouTube just as soon as we have that for you. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.
- [104:21]
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