Left Losing Meme War, Chelsea Clinton's Pod, and How AI Helps Scammers, with RealClearPolitics Hosts and Eric O'Neill | Ep. 1162

Summary

The Megyn Kelly Show – Ep. 1162

Title: Left Losing Meme War, Chelsea Clinton’s Pod, and How AI Helps Scammers
Guests: Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth (RealClearPolitics)
Special Guest (Segment 2): Eric O’Neill (ex-FBI agent and author)
Date: October 2, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Megyn Kelly welcomes the hosts of the RealClearPolitics podcast—Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth—to break down the political fallout from the ongoing partial government shutdown, the media meme wars, and the Democrats’ messaging struggles. The crew also reacts to Kamala Harris’ new book and Chelsea Clinton’s fact-checking podcast. In the second half, Kelly interviews Eric O’Neill, the ex-FBI spy-catcher, about his new book on cybercrime, deepfakes, and AI-driven scams targeting everyday Americans.

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• [00:00–04:41]: Shutdown drama and Democratic messaging failures
• [04:41–18:57]: The meme war, the Democrats’ media missteps, and the “sombrero” controversy
• [18:57–34:12]: Political implications, predictions on the shutdown’s resolution, and Democratic leadership woes
• [45:36–52:42]: Trump’s focus on crime as a 2025 election issue
• [55:35–64:06]: Kamala Harris’ book success (or lack thereof) and speculation on her political future
• [64:06–74:55]: Chelsea Clinton’s new podcast and broader media critiques
• [76:18–88:09]: Michelle Obama’s podcast and “oversharing” marital gripes
• [94:05–133:32]: Eric O’Neill on AI scams, cybercrime stories, and Robert Hanssen’s case

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Detailed Summary

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1. Government Shutdown: Democrats’ Messaging Problems & the Meme War

[00:00–18:57]

Main Discussion Points:

• Shutdown Blame Game:
  – Democrats tried a YouTube telethon/marathon to blame the Republicans for the government shutdown, featuring House members and influencers.
  – Even liberal outlets like Politico noted the Dem livestream’s low viewership and lackluster energy.
  – Carl Cannon: “The Democrat strategy is a little mystifying… they tried to score cheap points on blaming the Republicans… it interfered with their larger message.” [04:41]

• Confusion on Health Care for Illegals:
  – Debate over who exactly is being covered under new Medicare provisions: legal residents vs. undocumented immigrants.
  – Andrew Walworth explains: “What the GOP is trying to do is exclude some now-lawful immigrants… Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans with Biden-given protected status.” [08:24]
  – Kelly and guests highlight hypocrisy in Democratic messaging—Democrats advocated health care for illegals before but now claim otherwise.
  – Notable Quote: “Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. Everyone’s hand is up.” (Megyn, recalling 2019 debate) [11:15]

• Meme Warfare & the “Sombrero” Gag:
  – Republicans, especially “MAGA” accounts, have deployed memes (e.g. putting sombreros and mustaches on Democrats) mocking Dems’ positions and their indignation.
  – Tom Bevan: “Democrats don’t know how to meme… Republicans… have mastered the art.” [05:50]
  – Democrat and media reaction is to call the memes/AI videos “racist,” but this falls flat with much of the public.
  – Notable Quote: “It’s better to be in on the joke… The Democrat media… are much happier leveling accusations of racism than discussing the truth.” (Kelly, [16:02])

• Media Overreaction:
  – Clips of cable news hosts refusing to play the “offensive” videos, instead describing them as “depraved” or “bigoted.”
  – Tom Bevan: “If it really was racist, they would show it… Their audience might actually laugh at it privately.” [16:21]
  – Carl Cannon: “If you say it’s depraved and filthy, then your watchers on MSNBC think ‘I gotta see this.’” [16:44]

• C Span Call-In Moment:
  – A caller jokes about buying a sombrero for Hakeem Jeffries, highlighting how the meme has bled into mainstream awareness.
  – Andrew Walworth: “It makes me a little nostalgic for when we all bemoaned Twitter ruining discourse… now memes are the heart of political discourse.” [19:25]
  – Panel agrees: the left is losing the meme war, unable to compete with Trumpian social-media energy.

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2. Shutdown Endgame, Political Dynamics, & Democrat Leadership

[18:57–45:36]

Main Discussion Points:

• Shutdown’s Real-World Impact:
  – Despite hype, most services remain open; public not noticing shutdown effects.
  – “A subtle message… is maybe we shouldn’t take these shutdowns so seriously in the future.” (Walworth, [29:24])

• Resolution Predictions:
  – Panelists predict moderate Dems will cave under pressure, possibly just enough to pass a funding bill, but Chuck Schumer will likely remain a “holdout” for political reasons.
  – Key issue: Democrats worried about losing base support or being “Schumer shutdown’d” by rivals like AOC.

• Democratic Party Infighting:
  – Schumer’s hesitancy to cave stems from previous backlash and fear of a primary challenge, especially after polls show AOC outperforming him among Dem voters.
  – Pelosi’s careful “damning with faint praise” response when asked about AOC’s leadership role.
  – AOC on MSNBC: “If that’s the case, my office is open, and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly,” bluntly staking her territory. [38:03]

• Emergence of AOC:
  – Tom Bevan predicts AOC won’t primary Schumer for Senate—she’ll run for president instead.
  – Andrew Walworth: “She’s shown that she is where the future of the Democratic Party is.”

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3. Crime as Trump’s Top Issue & Republican Messaging

[45:36–52:42]

• Memphis crisis: Trump administration sends federal troops to target crime (at the governor’s request), leveraging the issue as the best polling topic for Trump.
• Dramatic Stephen Miller clip: “We will liberate this city from the criminal element that has plagued it for generations… all that bullshit is done. It’s over, it’s finished.” [45:54–46:30]
• Panel agrees “crime is an important issue… the Democrats are losing on this issue because they’re pretending things are fine.” (Carl Cannon)
• Kelly notes: Safety and order in cities could lead to investment—as happened in NYC under Giuliani—and that’s the message Republicans are pushing.

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4. Kamala Harris’ Book Tour and the “Artificial” Hype

[55:35–64:06]

• Kamala Harris is “in a great mood” as book sales soar (350,000 copies), but panelists question the legitimacy: “I find it hard to believe she is selling out all these places.” (Bevan, [58:47])
• Suspicions of astroturfing and bulk sales to inflate popularity, but Andrew Walworth concedes the book could be a hit because people want to hear her “go after” fellow Democrats.
• Panel discusses who is likely to run for president in 2028, with AOC and Gavin Newsom as emerging players.

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5. Chelsea Clinton’s Podcast – Who’s Listening?

[64:06–74:55]

• Clinton Foundation launches “That Can’t Be True,” a podcast billed as taking on “context-confusing headlines” in public health.
• Panel lambastes concept as tone-deaf, with Chelsea presented as an ultimate “nepo baby” lacking medical authority.
• Notable Quote: “She’s basically Hunter Biden in a dress and without the drug addiction.” (Kelly, [68:50])
• Reality check: Produced/funded by Clinton Foundation, and likely just another vanity project for Chelsea.
• Panel jokes about the “Dr.” title claims and recounts newsroom policies on proper “doctor” usage.

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6. Michelle Obama’s Podcast and “Oversharing”

[76:18–88:09]

• Kelly and company critique recent podcast clips in which Michelle Obama repeatedly complains about Barack and her kids.
• Kelly: “She can't do it. She cannot do it. She's desperately trying to be Oprah and she can't be Oprah.” [53:15]
• Panel sees this as emblematic of a wider left-leaning cultural message that’s anti-family, anti-marriage, and negative towards children.
• Tom Bevan: “She seems like she has imposter syndrome… She does make it sound like she's miserable and it’s a struggle.” [82:32]
• Carl Cannon: “We live in an age of oversharing… Are we going to start hearing about farts next?” [83:51]

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7. Interview: Eric O’Neill on AI Scams, Cybercrime, and Cautionary Tales

[94:05–133:32]

Cybercrime Is Booming

• O’Neill: “Cybercrime right now is the biggest growing business on Earth…” [96:36]
• Modern hackers use “social engineering” (phishing, calls, and texts relying on human psychology) more than software exploits.

Deepfakes & AI-Driven Scams

• AI can convincingly clone voices and faces, enabling new fraud tactics (e.g., using loved ones’ voices to demand money in emergencies).
• Kelly recalls how her own family was briefly duped by a scammer impersonating her sister-in-law.
• O’Neill demonstrates how quickly he can create a deepfake promo using Kelly’s image and a synthesized voice. [101:58]

The Dark Web

• O’Neill describes the “dark web” as a massive illicit marketplace: “A little under 5% of the internet is the dark web… it’s the most extreme black market on earth.” [108:57]
• Shocking detail: “You can buy a heart and a shady doctor to transplant it for you… hands, feet… they will literally sell you anything you want.” [109:51]
• FBI and global law enforcement can occasionally disrupt dark web operations (e.g., Silk Road), but platforms quickly reconstitute.

Notorious Spycatching: Robert Hanssen Case

• O’Neill recounts being recruited at age 22 as an undercover “ghost” to surveil and ultimately help trap Hanssen, the worst mole in FBI history.
• Hanssen spied for Russia for over 20 years due to a mix of resentment, need for money, and the thrill of belonging to something bigger.
• O’Neill’s big break: Stealing and duplicating Hanssen’s encrypted Palm Pilot, which held the smoking-gun evidence.
• Emotional toll: Trapped between cover story, law school, and new marriage. He finishes: “I was 100% sure he was going to walk out and shoot me… but just sometimes God looks out for us, and I did [get it back].” [124:09]

How to Protect Yourself

• Take a breath—attackers exploit urgency.
• Always double-check stories and call back loved ones separately if you get emergency requests.
• Establish “sign of life” codes (e.g., a silly poem known only to family) to outsmart impersonators.
• Watch out for out-of-place texts or friendly overtures from unknown numbers; avoid responding.
• Don’t be embarrassed to fall for scams—O’Neill (a pro) nearly was.

Notable Quotes

• “If it can happen to me, and I’m trained, it can happen to you.” (O’Neill, [128:27])
• “You have to have like an interesting personality. You actually do. If you fake it, they’ll know.” (Kelly, on podcasting, [74:55])

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Most Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Meme War Realities:
  – “Republicans… have mastered the art.” (Bevan, [05:50]) – “It’s better to be in on the joke.” (Kelly, [16:02])

• On Democrats' Messaging Confusion:
  – “Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. Everyone’s hand is up.” (Kelly, referencing Dem debate, [11:15]) – “They've gone in six years from bragging about this policy to saying if you say they believe in it, you're a liar.” (Cannon, [11:32])

• On Chelsea Clinton’s Podcast:
  – “She’s basically Hunter Biden in a dress and without the drug addiction.” (Kelly, [68:50])

• On Michelle Obama’s Podcast:
  – “She seems to be oversharing here in exquisite detail about her marriage… If you can’t say something nice, you better not say anything at all.” (Bevan, [81:37])

• On AI and Cybercrime:
  – “Cybercrime right now is the biggest growing business on Earth… attackers aren’t using computers to attack computers. They’re using spycraft to attack us.” (O’Neill, [96:36])

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a lively, no-holds-barred roundtable on the ways Democrats are faltering in modern political communication—especially online meme wars—while Republicans thrive on irreverence and social-media savvy. The RealClearPolitics crew critically examines leadership crises, emerging Democratic stars, and the art of political messaging. Segments on Kamala Harris and Chelsea Clinton provide a lens into the influence-obsessed media landscape and the pitfalls of misspending cultural capital. Finally, Eric O’Neill’s fascinating and cautionary segment is a must-listen for anyone concerned about digital security in the age of AI. The tone remains sharp, candid, and skeptical—a trademark of The Megyn Kelly Show.

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For further details, reference:

• Meme wars and shutdown: [05:50–18:57]
• AOC, Schumer, shutdown endgame: [28:50–34:12]
• Cybercrime and deepfakes: [94:05–133:32]
• Kamala, Chelsea, Michelle Obama segments: [55:35–88:09]

(All times in MM:SS format)

Transcript

[Megyn Kelly]

For 140 years, MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn [e-mail] welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show and how happy Thursday. It's day two of the government shutdown. Is it already backfiring on the Democrats? The White House is warning that mass layoffs in the federal government are imminent. But the Dems seem more concerned about calling Trump's AI videos racist. They really want you to think that he's a racist and his videos are racist. That's, that's the takeaway. That's what they want you to go home with. How's that working? Here now for a reaction to all of today's news. Our buddies from the Real Clear Politics podcast, which you can also Hear here on SiriusXM. Tom Bevin, co founder and president of RealClear Politics. Carl Cannon, Washington Bureau Chief for RealClear and Andrew Walworth, Chief Content Officer. We have to talk about something you will not want to miss out on. For about the price of one streaming service, you can get life insurance coverage you need with select quote. Now, even if this is your first time thinking about life insurance, they're going to make it super simple for you. For over 40 years, SelectQuote has helped more than 2 million Americans secure hundreds of billions in coverage. As a broker, they work for you for free. Comparing policies from trusted top rated companies to match your health, lifestyle and your budget. Some providers even offer same day coverage up to 2 million bucks with no medical exam. And if you've got a pre existing condition, no problem. Selectquote partners with companies that cover people with high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than [e-mail] Megan that's SelectQuote.com Megan Guys, welcome back.

[Carl Cannon]

Great to be with you.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now I just want to give you a little tease. Yesterday we ran a sound bite and my team when we finished the show said oh, we have a longer better version of that sound bite where the this particular person goes on more about the subject. And I said this is perfect because I really wanna save that for Andrew. So just, I'm not even gonna tell you who it is.

[Carl Cannon]

Uh oh.

[Megyn Kelly]

Just know that's coming your way today. Great to have you back. Okay, so let's start with shutdown Arama. I love the, the sombrero thing. It's highly amusing. The Democrats don't know what to do in response and so they decided to do some sort of a marathon on their YouTube channel. Okay, so in the early hours of the shutdown, Hakeem Jeffries put on his YouTube channel a rotating cast of Democrat House members and influencers to try to keep like a marathon going of. It's the Republicans fault, not the Democrats fault. And this is how that went. Politico, which is not exactly averse to Democrats, writes at times just a few dozen viewers were watching on YouTube. Democrats peaked at around 1,000 viewers. The had the feel of a throwback, throwback telethon with none of the charisma or surprise. Jeffries at one point said, y', all, I ain't scared. I'm from Brooklyn. Okay. The live stream featured four frontline Democrats of the 26 who are in competitive districts missing stars on the Dem side like AOC and Jasmine Crockett. A possible tell writes Politico that they see some risk in participating in something like this. Democrats were not able to field live programming for three hours in the middle of the night, despite an internal email desperately seeking participants. The White House meantime, began livestreaming a roughly three minute clip of various congressional Democrats in other times speaking out against previous shutdowns. And the viewership on that absolutely dwarfed Jeffrey's views. So it doesn't seem to be going very well. Carl, I'll start with you thoughts on where it is now 24 hours in.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, the Democrat strategy is a little mystifying. They said that they were closing the government because they wanted to guarantee health care for people, the most vulnerable people. I wouldn't say American citizens, but I don't want to get into that just yet. But the most vulnerable people living in the United States, that's what they said. And then when it happened, they, their messaging was the Republicans shut down the government. And so you know, when people are arguing with your thesis, they don't get to your point because I think swing voters will say, wait a minute, didn't. Weren't you bragging about you wanted to shut it down? Don't. Didn't you? Wasn't there a vote in the Senate and all the Democrats voted to shut the government down. So I think that this trying to score, they trying to score cheap points on blaming the Republicans without which interfered with their larger message of why they were doing it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, Tom, I don't know so far. He's right. Exactly. That, like, they're not getting their message across. What I'm seeing is sombrero and them getting hammered pretty much at every turn on why they're trying to fund healthcare for illegals, why they're cutting federal paychecks in the name of healthcare for illegals.

[Andrew Walworth]

I think that's right.

[Tom Bevan]

And one of the most interesting things about politics over the last few years, Megan, is that Democrats don't know how to meme. They can't meme. And Republicans and Trump in particular, and the MAGA folks have mastered the art, and they continue to do it. So they do this sombrero thing, and then Hakeem Jeffries comes out with this indignant, you know, I'll say it to my face or whatever. And then they put a sombrero on that and that it's become a running gag now that everybody is in on it. Seems like, except for the Democrats, who are busy yelling that this is racist. There was just one where they put a sombrero on JD Vance, and he was talking in sort of Spanglish about how he can't compromise, he can't negotiate with the Democrats because they're, quote, retardo. I mean, it's this funny thing that has happened here where the Democrats. And you're right, they tried this, like, they tried this telethon thing. They can't get any views that way. They did this. I don't know if you saw this cringy video of, like, the Republican, Democrat kiddies trying to explain the shutdown. I mean, it was, like, so bad, so bad. And so they really seem to be just sort of flailing about. And the question is, okay, well, how much is this gonna hurt them politically? Or are we just living in two completely different information bubbles where the left thinks the Democrats, they're with them and the right is obviously with Republicans. And so there's very little political damage that can come from this. On the other hand, you know, they're definitely not helping themselves, I don't think. And they are. I think it's clear to everyone that they are the obstacle to opening the government. And so they will pay a political price. But it's just a question of, you know, how much will they pay?

[Megyn Kelly]

Just before we came to air, Andrew, I saw a clip of Jake Tapper cross examining Hakeem Jeffries in a not so friendly, mildly friendly way. But it was all about, here, here's the provision right here that shows this will provide health care for illegals. The thing you're arguing over, like, I know you say it's not true, but here's the provision. So, I mean, even on the left wing channels now, you're getting the right wing narrative because it happens to be true. So any journalist who honestly wants to talk about this is going to have to raise the provision that they're arguing over, which indeed will provide coverage for illegals in health care.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah, it's, you know, it's a complicated topic, obviously. It really comes down, though, to redefining what an illegal is. That's what the real argument is about here. About 6% of the people who are on Medicare are what they call non citizen enrollees. And these are legal residents, but they're not full citizens. So what the GOP is trying to do is they wanted to exclude some of these now lawful immigrants. These are like Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans who have been given protected status under Biden. So Trump wants to revoke that. So that's really what the fight is over. It's over who qualifies as illegal residents. And Dems, they want to keep these groups and let them remain legal residents. The White House wants to reclassify them. So, you know, it is interesting. We sort of have this discussion about the memes and stuff like that, but if you dig a little bit deeper into what they're talking about, it's, it's just a little more complicated.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I mean, what I see is we passed the big, beautiful bill, we had these debates, the Democrats lost, the Republicans won and passed it, President Trump signed it into law, and now the Democrats want to remove a chunk of it in order to find the government.

[Andrew Walworth]

No, I think that's absolutely true. I think, I think the Democrats did vote for this. And, and no, no, but they were. The bill.

[Megyn Kelly]

But they didn't vote for it. But they didn't vote for it.

[Andrew Walworth]

But they voted.

[Megyn Kelly]

There were enough Republican votes that have passed.

[Carl Cannon]

So, Megan, it's not so much that the Democrats are being hypocritical. They're just saying we never signed up for this and we're still going to resist it. Right?

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, but I mean, the law, like how do you hold up funding for the government? By saying, we need to undo your legislation. You have to undo your legislation that you just passed in order for us to just fund the government, which is something you have to do every year.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, you can see why that's not a great talking point. So instead they just say Democrats, they just say Republicans are lying. And this is. Every half the senators have put Out. You know, Sheldon Whitehouse put out a thing. The Democrats, Republicans are just lying about this. And then somebody went on, on Twitter, I, I'm supposed to call it X, I guess, and put, put the provisions from his home state right there next to his statement. And the other thing is that there's two other aspects. One is money is fungible. Medicare is paid by the states. If they're, if the federal government's giving them money for something else and then the states are using it for that, you can't say that no money is going to people who aren't citizens. And the other part of it is that Democrats in 2019. You remember this, Megan? I forget who it was. One of the moderators asked them during the debate and it was this huge cast of characters led by Joe Biden. Do you have it?

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, it was Savannah Guthrie here.

[Carl Cannon]

So I'm remembering this, right? Yeah. And they all raised here it is. All right.

[Megyn Kelly]

Raise your hand if government, if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. Everyone's hand is up. Every single Democrat candidate has raised their hand that their plan would provide cover for illegals coverage.

[Carl Cannon]

My point here is that they've gone in six years from bragging about this policy. And I, I can defend that policy. I could give you a New Testament explanation why it's really good policy. They've gone from six years from saying that's what they believe in to saying if you say that's what they believe in, you're a liar. And it's it. We do need an independent media to point this, that these are not compatible.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, you're right, because this is Al Franken, you know, former comedian, former senator on X. Is JD Vance a liar or just woefully ignorant when claiming that Democrats want to give health benefits to undocumented immigrants? And then you look at that sound bite. How many of you would fund health care for illegals? Literally every hand is up. Every single one. It's just the proof is everywhere. They're not going to convince people on this. Instead they're doing cat memes. Like Tom points out, we should show it just so people can see. This is the Democrats fighting back. This is supposed to reflect, I guess, some level of swagger. It's sat 18.

[Tom Bevan]

Republican and democrat kitties cannot agree on what should be funded. Democrat kitties want you to have health care. Republican kitties do not. Republican kitties control the Senate House and the White House. So they're using that to cut your health care and give money to billionaires. Democrat Kitty tries to negotiate, but Republican kitty keeps running away. He has a vacation to get to. Oh. Suddenly the money you pay for your health insurance has tripled. Thanks, Republicans.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, my God. And then the Republicans response was simply one picture of the Democrat kitty with sombrero, the mustache, and the little. What are they called, that little instrument that you shake? Maraca. It's a maraca. Yeah, little maraca.

[Tom Bevan]

I think they were. I think they were trying to reach their. Their coveted demo of childless cat ladies with that video. That's what that. That explains why they.

[Megyn Kelly]

Taylor Swift.

[Tom Bevan]

No. By the way, just, just for the record, if you remember that primary, every Democrat also raised their hand. And this was a big deal during that primary. Castro, who's running for president, they wanted to decriminalize border crossings. Right? They all. It was a yes or no question. They all raised their hand for that, too. And you remember not too long ago, Bernie Sanders gave an interview where he said, and I posted something on this at the time because it jumped out to me. He was asked a question about illegal immigration. He said, well, nobody wants an open border. That's silly. Democrats have never wanted that. And it's like they're trying to rewrite history here. They absolutely, obviously were for this. Leading into 2020, they were for it. The entire time Joe Biden was president, not a single Democrat stood up and said, alejandro Mayorkas, what you're doing is wrong. Joe Biden, what you're doing is wrong. They just denied it. They said it wasn't happening. They said, you know, all these various things to excuse and allow this policy to continue. And now they won't take accountability, responsibility for it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay, so now what we have is a media that understands those facts as you just laid them out. And so instead of doing more of what we did see Jake Tapper try to do today, to his credit, we're getting a deflection into those memes are racist, that Trump is a racist. Why are we seeing a sombrero? Just not just totally not getting that America has moved on from those days. We are just no longer willing to forget our sense of humor. I speak on behalf in particular of all Irish Americans. There's nothing we like more than making fun of one another. And this is a sampling of what we've been seeing on the airwave. Stop. For what does that shameful man do something that draws a sombrero and a.

[Tom Bevan]

Mustache sombrero, showing this video that Donald.

[Carl Cannon]

Trump put out, this fake video.

[Megyn Kelly]

It is absolutely disgusting.

[Tom Bevan]

Say it to my face.

[Megyn Kelly]

Trump is continuing to Post racist and bizarre AI videos. Not gonna play that.

[Andrew Walworth]

It is the ugliest, possibly the single most demented thing he has ever done on social media. You are not going to play the.

[Tom Bevan]

Whole video because we don't find it meets our standards.

[Megyn Kelly]

So we're the news.

[Tom Bevan]

We're not going to tell you what it is. Hateful, kind of bigoted, doctored image.

[Megyn Kelly]

You'll have a very easy time finding.

[Andrew Walworth]

It, but you won't find it on this program. I am not going to use this power to show that kind of Trump filth and depravity.

[Megyn Kelly]

They don't get it. Like, Tom, it's better to be in on the joke. It's better maybe to give it an eye roll, be like classic Trump. But they're really. The Democrat media is doing this because they're much happier just leveling accusations of racism than getting down to the honest truth about what's in this bill and why the Democrats are objecting to it.

[Tom Bevan]

I think if it really was position, I think if it really was racist, they would show it. I think they know it's not racist and it's. And that it's funny and that their audience might actually. They might actually laugh at it privately or secretly and be like, you know what? That's actually kind of funny. So they just describe it as this depraved. Yeah, I mean, Lawrence o', Donnell, come on, please. The most depraved thing ever Trump's ever done.

[Carl Cannon]

Tom, if you say it's depraved and filthy, then you're read. Then your watchers on Ms. Museum, oh, I got to see this. And they call it up.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's true.

[Carl Cannon]

You're gonna see it may be in bad taste. It's not depraved. It's not filled.

[Megyn Kelly]

The single most demented thing that Donald Trump has ever done.

[Tom Bevan]

You know, when. Who was it that made fun of J.D. vance and he, like, leaned into it and laughed about it?

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Tom Bevan]

And I said earlier, what the Democrats have done here and Hakeem Jeffries and the media, they've allowed. I mean, you just showed four or five of those clips. The Trump war room and some of the MAGA folks, they put sombreros on every single one of them, including they put a sombrero and mustache on the. On the Hispanic congresswoman that was complaining about it being racist. So they've turned this into a running gag that is that most of the country, I think, finds. They may find it in bad taste. They may think it's childish, it's juvenile. But I think most people think it's either pretty funny and they get a laugh out of it or it's kind of harmless. But they certainly don't think, as I don't know what percent of the country lines up with Lawrence o' Donnell and thinks it's the worst thing that's ever happened to the country in the history of, of the, you know, America.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. You don't think it's the single most demented thing that this president or any has ever done? Here, here to your point, and I'll place for you, Andy is a C Span caller calling in. I mean, C Span, it's not exactly known for its levity, but Here we go. Sat 6. I called Akeem Jeffries last night and the Tank left him a voicemail and I wanted to know where he got.

[Eric O'Neill]

The sombrero from because I wanted to.

[Carl Cannon]

Buy one too, because I thought he.

[Eric O'Neill]

Looked good in it.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's just a joke.

[Eric O'Neill]

See, nobody can take a joke no more.

[Megyn Kelly]

This country is so.

[Carl Cannon]

Evil in so.

[Eric O'Neill]

Many ways that nobody can take a joke anymore. You do not think that is funny.

[Carl Cannon]

A mariachi band, Trump playing all those.

[Eric O'Neill]

Instruments and King Jeffries. That is funny. Come on.

[Megyn Kelly]

He speaks for us all, Andrew. But that's a real, like a regular person just calling into C Span to say, would you lighten up? And then it's perfect to see the C Span anchor like, my God, he wants me to laugh at the sombrero. I can't, definitely cannot laugh at the sombrero.

[Andrew Walworth]

I liked that J.D. vance, he said, I will make a solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.

[Tom Bevan]

I think.

[Carl Cannon]

Oh, right.

[Andrew Walworth]

You know that. I do think a couple things. One, it makes me a little nostalgic for the days of when we were all bemoaning the fact that Twitter had ruined political discourse and that, you know, 126 characters or whatever it was. I mean, now we're talking about memes as if that's the heart of political discourse. And I think unfortunately that is sort of at the heart of our political discourse right now. And I think that's kind of sad in a way. But I also think that the Democrats have just. It's like loosing the football. I mean, don't they. Why do they sort of rise to the bait so quickly on something like this? And it sort of deflects them from making arguments that they, you know, that they could be making. I suppose because now they're arguing about this and they look like they a. It looks like they can't take a joke. It. It doesn't advance their argument. You can't beat Trump when it comes to social media. You shouldn't even try. And I haven't seen anybody on the left who comes close to Donald Trump. And in terms of just sort of an understanding of how you use this new medium in this new era. And he, no, they don't have it. You know, he's just redefines what political discourse is. And we may not like it. We may, you know, think, oh, my gosh, I wish we were arguing about over op EDS in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. But we're not. This is where we are. And he's the master of it.

[Megyn Kelly]

So it's like they're very upset that he's exploiting Mexican culture in order to make his political point. But, you know, I am old enough to remember taco trucks everywhere, which they said was an acronym that stood for Trump always Chickens out. That was before we bombed Iran. But that's what they wanted to say, that he would always chicken out on his threats. And they love to see the little taco trucks show up everywhere. I think we have a little montage of that. Democrats trolling Trump with the Taco truck. The DNC parking this truck outside the Republican National Committee in D.C. to taunt Trump with his new Wall street nickname, Taco, which means Trump always chickens out. A reference to the many times that he has retreated from his trade war through threats. Right. Promising something and then lowering them without a negotiation. The truck obviously featuring an image of Trump as a chicken. This is the White House says Trump has sent out letters to major U.S. trading partners and they have demanded their quote, unquote, best offers by the end of the day tomorrow. Credit once again to Western Lensman, who finds the best stuff. But this is all over the place. They thought that this is wonderful, a wonderful thing to do. Carl, back when it was making fun of Trump, but now that it's making fun of a Democrat, it's racist.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, you know, this is, though I once told this to George Stephanopoulos when he was working for Bill Clinton in another context. Megan. But the difference between someone who laughs at his enemies and a person who laughs at himself is the difference between a bully and a person with a sense of humor. And, you know, we talk about people on the left aren't funny anymore, but that wasn't always true. I mean, the funniest guy on the left was Al Franken, who you mentioned earlier. Then he decided he was going to run for Congress. And Al Franken spoke at the White House Correspondent's Dinner twice. And the first time, he was really funny. He was not in politics. Then he poked more fun at Republicans, but also some at Democrats. Then he decided he was going to get into politics. He later ran for Senate in Minnesota. And the second time, he wasn't funny at all. Hyper partisanship is almost by definition not funny. And so there's a certain this thing where JD Vance retweets the things, making fun of him, of the memes, poking fun at him. That's actually an essential point here. You know, we're in baseball playoffs. Megan, are you a Yankee fan? Because I hesitate to bring up this sport. Okay, well, I'm not, but let's argue about that another time.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I mean, I have no choice because the Mets didn't really have a great year. That was my dad's team. But I know enough to know they stunk up the joint this year.

[Carl Cannon]

All right, well, but here's. Now we're in baseball players. There's a phrase in baseball, it's really apropos of this. It's called rabbit ears. You have rabbit ears. And it means. Is when somebody's ragging on you, you get mad, you get red in the face.

[Megyn Kelly]

You.

[Carl Cannon]

You can see it bothers you. Well, if you do that in baseball, if you show you have rabbit ears, you will subject yourself to unmerciful teasing and hazing. And, and, and so people tend to be stoic or laugh along with it. This is. I, I saw Hakeem Jeffries sort of showed that he had rabbit ears. And I don't mean that in any kind of.

[Tom Bevan]

You're in trouble now, Carl.

[Carl Cannon]

I'm just talking about this baseball phrase. And, and, and so he assured that they would keep doing it. And I just, you know, that's such an elemental thing. You think he'd know that. Can I make one more comment before I. I don't mean a monopolist, but you showed that C SPAN clip that. That guy not laughing is John McArdle. He's a great young journalist. He has a terrific sense of humor. But at C Span, they were taught by Brian Lamb they can't laugh at stuff like this. And I found this out myself when Brian had me on his show, his book show, to. About my book. And he's. It was a book about presidents. And he said, you know, you say good things about presidents in this. Every president in this book. And I said, yeah, but you'll notice, Nick Richard Nixon's not in there. And it's supposed to be a laugh line. You're in a studio alone with the guy and he doesn't even crack a smile. He's poker face. And I finally had to say, Brian, that's a joke. And he still didn't laugh. He goes, yes, I see. So that's, that's the C span way.

[Megyn Kelly]

I wanted to C span ratings.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, I wanted to make sure you.

[Megyn Kelly]

Give the audience absolutely nothing to connect to. That's what's most important is that you showed zero humanity.

[Carl Cannon]

That's our position I'm trying to defend.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sticking to it as long as we're on the subject of TV programming. Back to the telethon over on Hakeem's YouTube channel. Tom, by 9:55pm they had Don Lamond on there. This is how desperate they got for anyone. So Don Lamond gets on there and asks what's next? The former CNN host. Again, this is political writing turned independent creator asked of Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, how can the people watching, what can they do? Politico finishes with just 122 people are watching. So you've got Don Lamond sitting there with a member of the squad. And they garnered. This isn't at 4 in the morning either. This is at 9:55pm they garnered less than 130 people in their effort to turn the narrative. I would say this if I were advising Hakeem Jeffries. I don't know exactly how to land it, but I think the next move should definitely be him at a Mexican restaurant actually wearing a sombrero, maybe doing a dance and then at the end saying like one line that he wants people to remember about what this dispute is really about. Like it's all in good fun. I'll be the first to make fun of myself. I think I look good in this hat. I'm not sure about the mustache, but what I don't look good in is being surrounded by people who don't have their healthcare. And that's actually what I'm fighting for. Something like that.

[Andrew Walworth]

That's a good ad. I like that.

[Tom Bevan]

I think it's too late for that. I think if he had done that originally, but he's already been into overdrive and so to do that now would be almost seen as capitulation and that he had lost. But if he had done it proactively, I agree with you. Megan, can I just say one other thing which, which your. Your lead in brought to mind. It is. And I Rag on the media quite a bit on our show.

[Megyn Kelly]

Listeners, though, that's one of my favorite parts of your show, which I, I know it's the rare podcast I don't miss.

[Tom Bevan]

I appreciate that. And we are kindred spirits in that way. And so you'll appreciate this line. It is one of the most satisfying things about the new era that we're in here is that so many of the media grandstanders and scolds, and I'm thinking of Don Lamond, I'm thinking of Jim Acosta, I'm thinking of Joey Reid, are now in their basements getting like 50 people viewing their shows when they used to be, you know, Jim Acosta used to be, you know, grandstanding in the White House press briefing. Remember you ripped that microphone out of that young intern's hand in the East Room. I mean, this guy was the biggest asshole who ever lived. And now he's in his basement doing, you know, a show to 10 people. So that is ultimately, I mean, that, that is just very, very satisfying. And what you mentioned, you know, Don Lamont being on with like five people watching, trying to help the Democrats out.

[Megyn Kelly]

What can people do? 100 people watching. Do we give them their marching orders? Representative Presley, I feel like that's how bad things have gotten, that she's not even one of the stars of the squad. She's like third tier squad. And so look, they don't know what to do and I don't. So how does this end, you guys? You know, I mean, who waves the white flag first? What will it take? Because now they're saying technically, if, if things go forward without any change on October 15, the troops are going to lose their paychecks. And then gets real. So what, what happens, Andy, do you think, to bring this to a close?

[Andrew Walworth]

Oh, I think the Democrats cave. I think it's, there's no doubt in my mind that at some point they'll have to, there'll be, there'll be some sort of negotiation worked out where they're going to discuss this between now and the end of the year. But they'll say that, you know, we've, we've got enough concession, good faith concessions from Republican leadership that we're going to continue these discussions and a couple of the Democratic senators will hive off. I don't think that Chuck Schumer will vote for this bill, though. I think he will be a holdout.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's under a lot of pressure.

[Andrew Walworth]

Under a lot of pressure. But they'll, they'll, they'll find the votes what is it, like six votes, Tom, that they need something like that? So that's what I think happens. The one thing that I'll say about this shutdown too is it's the most. It's the strangest shutdown. It is a partial government shutdown. We should, we should say that. But everything is open. I mean, they didn't close the Smithsonian, they didn't close the national parks. The VA is open. Social Security checks are going out. The post office works. So, you know, a subtle message of this shutdown, I think, to the American people is, hey, maybe, you know, maybe we shouldn't take these shutdowns so seriously in the future. I personally and I said this on the program the other day. I'm so tired of covering shutdowns.

[Megyn Kelly]

Hate shutdown coverage. Hate it.

[Andrew Walworth]

It goes and goes and goes and. And only rarely do they actually get to the point where they shut it down. So at least, at least this time we've got a shutdown to talk about.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, some drama.

[Andrew Walworth]

There's some drama, but even the drama is, Is kind of a non drama because I think for the average American person, you know, they're not feeling it affect them. I'm checking the one place, the one place where it is being felt is at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh yeah, that. That one guy, one dude sitting there.

[Tom Bevan]

By himself, not producing. Right? What if that one guy produced better.

[Carl Cannon]

Numbers, Andy, than the whole deal?

[Megyn Kelly]

Can't you see him there? I guarantee you that guy is there by himself going da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Why do I have that song stuck in my head all day these days? He's got nothing to do. Yes, I agree with you. I think. Wait a. Correct me, I'm wrong, but I think they need five, right? Because they had three Dems cross over to help, but they lost Rand Paul. So once they lost Rand Paul, that left Republicans with 52, then three Dems came second, 55. So they need five more Dems to join to vote on this in order to get it.

[Andrew Walworth]

You could be right.

[Carl Cannon]

Because.

[Andrew Walworth]

Because, because you're right. Rand Paul says he won't vote for it, so yeah, he won't vote for it, that's for sure.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, so that's what I think. I see your point, but I think the Schumer thing, the Schumer thing is very interesting to me because he was the one who caved the last time. Then he took all this guff for caving and he caved for good reasons. I mean, he saw that President Trump was going to exploit the shutdown, as he's now threatening to do. He's saying, I'm going to lay off a bunch of people. I'm going to stop funding already. This is like the today's story of the shutdown. But he's already saying we're withholding 18 billion in funds from New York's New York City's Second Avenue subway and Gateway tunnel projects, the latter of which connects New Jersey and New York. New York area lawmakers are very, very angry at that. He's canceling nearly 8 billion in funding for energy programs that he characterized as part of the left's climate agenda. The cuts will impact 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris. He's, this is like funding for energy infrastructure projects in places like New York, California, elsewhere. So this, this is not going to be good for Democrats. This is not going to be good for blue state voters. He's not going to lose many Republican voters with these moves. So like he's ratcheting up the pressure. And that brings me back to Chuck Schumer, who I think is normally somebody who understands he needs to behave rationally, that those results are going to hurt Dems more than they're going to hurt Republicans. But he can't do it because this is already being put on him and he's worried about the AOC polls. Like there was just a poll last time around that showed her absolutely crushing him. Trying to see if I have it in front of me. It was showing her crushing him in a head to head matchup. And yeah, she had 55%, he had 36%. This is back in March when it comes to the 2028 Democratic Party primary for U.S. senate. So he's really got to worry because the, his, you know, do the Democrats want him to cave or don't they? They're trying to label this the Schumer shutdown, which he doesn't like. What, what does Schumer do?

[Tom Bevan]

Well, you can see him just imagine the, the caucus meeting where he gathers all these Democrats because he, you're right, Megan. He's a rational guy. He knows. But he's like, okay, we need a few Democrats, but I can't be one of them. So you guys are going to have to vote for this and help me out because there's no way that, that, that he can do it. I agree with Andy. I think eventually, and we didn't even mention the fact that, you know, Russ vote at omb. I mean, they're about to Start firing people and that's going to I think enrage the Democrats and also. So, so I think, I think there will be enough Democrats that are going to, they're going to come up with some sort of try face saving maneuver and open the government back up and claim that they won when they actually didn't and hope their base buys it and move on.

[Megyn Kelly]

I show you this one sound bite of Chuck Schumer on cnn. He was on with John Berman who asked him about the Schumer shutdown and look what happened.

[Tom Bevan]

Every Republican who's gone on TV the last 12 hours or so has called this the Schumer shutdown. What do you say about that name? Senator Schumer, can you hear me? I can't hear Senator Schumer.

[Eric O'Neill]

Can you hear me?

[Tom Bevan]

I don't think Senator Schumer can hear me right now. Maybe the government shut down audio on.

[Eric O'Neill]

Capitol Hill or could he tried and.

[Tom Bevan]

True method of avoiding a. I've got technical difficulties.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, Mike Johnson was touching your earpiece. Mike Johnson was blunt about it. He said that Schumer had shut down. He thought it was irresponsible to shut down the government because of personal considerations. And he was saying that because of what you're saying, Megan, because he expects to be challenged in a primary. He, he went along with this and it, it begs the question, so if he's not really the Democrats leader in the Senate. Reminds me of that old cartoon. I think it was Pogo. Maybe someone will remember. The crowd is marching by and the guy says, oh, there they go. I must follow them for I am their leader. And it makes you wonder, so who. Yeah, so who is the Democrats leader in the Senate then? If it's aoc? She's not even a senator. That would be kind of a new wrinkle in American politics.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh well, listen to this. So Pelosi gave an interview on Capitol Hill and AOC came up. It's always interesting to me to watch Nancy Pelosi talk about AOC because you know, underneath she can't stand her. So she's always got a maneuver. She's very deft at maneuvering. So you get like, how does she maneuver? Here's how that went.

[Eric O'Neill]

Zot12 was a thought from the Republicans.

[Megyn Kelly]

That AOC is directing this.

[Eric O'Neill]

And she said that senators are welcome.

[Megyn Kelly]

To go to her office directly. Is she, is she driving that? Why are you saying such a ridiculous thing? I'm just quoting what AOC said. She said go to her office directly. Do you think there's any credibility to that. Directing that. She's wonderful. She's a real team player. And the rest of that, you started by saying, Republicans saying that she's directing this. She is not. Hakeem Jeffries is. And this takes a lot of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus in terms of the point of view. And that's what this is. She's an articulate spokesperson for her point of view. Oh, boy. First of all, you're not allowed to refer to a black or brown person as articulate. We learned this. That's considered racist. So somebody needs to tell me.

[Carl Cannon]

And she's over 80. She gets a pass.

[Megyn Kelly]

And what. It was an interesting dodge. And we. What? Like what? What? It's not. I mean, she's. She's fine. She's talented in her own way.

[Tom Bevan]

She's a real team player.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. To be exactly the opposite of what Nancy Pelosi actually thinks.

[Carl Cannon]

But wait a minute. Did you miss that, though? She said that Hakeem Jeffries is the Senate Majority Leader. The Senate Minority Leader, not Chuck Schumer.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Well, and also, who's directing this? Do we really want to pin this on Hakeem Jeffries? Hakeem Jeffries is directing this. Like, great, Great to have the admission it's you guys, and it's at Hakeem's direction. Now we know exactly who to blame in the next primary. AOC was on MSNBC. Ms. Now. Ms. Now, guys. And what's her messaging? Right. Because this is all a proxy fight for the next political election. So everybody's trying to stake out their territory. And that piece of it I am enjoying. I think I speak for all of us there. Here's that with Chris Hayes, and I.

[Tom Bevan]

Want to just ask you straight up, like, are you planning to primary challenge him? Do you think that's why he's doing this?

[Megyn Kelly]

This is so not about me in this moment. This is about people being able to insure their children. And I will say, because I saw some senators speculating about this and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, oh, well, if we have this shutdown, it's because of aoc. Well, if that's the case, my office is open, and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly, because what I'm not going to do is tolerate what, 4 million uninsured Americans, because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying because they don't have access to insurance. I'm in charge. That's what she was saying there. Nancy Pelosi doesn't know shit. I am running this thing. Come right in my door.

[Tom Bevan]

I love that. I thought it was great. I mean, my door is open. You come negotiate directly with me. Forget all these other folks. Honestly, I don't think she's gonna primary Chuck Schumer. I think she's gonna run for president.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you really?

[Tom Bevan]

I do. I do. I think she's going to be. She's gonna give it a good, hard look and.

[Carl Cannon]

Is she old enough, Tom?

[Tom Bevan]

She will be.

[Megyn Kelly]

Jazz. She will be. Yeah. Yeah, she'll be. Just barely. I mean, it makes me sad because I think about how young she is, and like, Charlie. Charlie was 31 when he was killed. We all knew Charlie Kirk was gonna be president one day. He. He actually only had another four years to wait before he could have even tried for it. I mean, he's. He absolutely would have been more skilled than aoc, Not. Not as legislatively experienced, but more experienced in life. And when I think of somebody as young as that actually going for it, it makes me miss Charlie even. Even more, because, you know, what an. What an opportunity that would have been. How fun would it have been to watch, like, two young guns like that go at it in the debate? Oh, my God, it's so sad. It will never be. Sorry, I took a side turn there, but it is interesting to see AOC stepping into a leadership position there, guys.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah. No, and I think you saw there in that clip why she's effective. I mean, she doesn't take the Trump bait. She sort of went directly to the issues she cares about or talks about, framed it in this extreme way, and said, come to my office and talk to me. It was pretty forceful. So people should not underestimate aoc. I think. I think that, yes, she's young and she's brash, but I think she's shown that she is where the future of the Democratic Party is. It's her and Mamdani. I mean, that all the energy in the party is on the left. And I think that. I'm not so sure Schumer will want to run again. I mean, it may be that the fear of being primaried is so great that he may. He may retire. That. That's my.

[Megyn Kelly]

She. She is T minus two minutes from getting a sombrero.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yes. You know, it would be interesting to see how she. How she would react to that. I would be. Because she's herself.

[Tom Bevan]

I don't think she'd laugh at herself. I don't think she'd take it well.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah, probably not.

[Carl Cannon]

She Listens to this contrast.

[Megyn Kelly]

Abuelita online, because of her extra. She put on a few pounds.

[Carl Cannon]

People say, I think she looks better now.

[Andrew Walworth]

Actually, I'm not going to touch that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Good Lord. That was not the special thing we had saved for you. And. Okay, that comes later. Well, all right, so what do you see, Tom? Andy says it will. It will end with the Democrats caving and soon. Is that your prediction? Let me just get sooner. In the distant future.

[Tom Bevan]

No, soon. Soon, I think. When, When. When they start firing federal employees. Yeah, I think it's going to come soon. Sooner rather than later.

[Carl Cannon]

Last time was 30. Last time was 35 days. And I don't think the Justice Department people, military, I think after two weeks, they don't get paid. I don't think asking, you know, a million Americans to work without pay is gonna. Is gonna go down in either party. I think that the Trump administration will give a little bit, enough for the Democrats to be able to say, okay, we'll do a clean cr and we'll push this down the road. I'm. I'm thinking. Right. Not 35 days. Between two and three weeks, maybe by.

[Megyn Kelly]

Columbus Day, something like that. Which.

[Carl Cannon]

Or Native Indigenous Peoples Day. Whatever. Whatever holidays.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you know if my dog, when she was in fifth grade, I think it. Or was it. No, seventh grade? Seventh grade, they asked the kids to argue whether we should keep Columbus Day or change it to Indigenous Peoples Day. My daughter was the only person who said we should keep it. And the teacher sided against her. Unbelievable.

[Carl Cannon]

Do you remember when they tore the statue down in Baltimore, like, Christopher Columbus, like, threw it into the Baltimore Chesapeake Bay, into the harbor, And Nancy Pelosi was asked about it, and she said, oh, well, you know, people do things that, you know, it happens. And. But I found that her brother was, like, when he was mayor, was at the inauguration of that statue and spoke very highly of it, and she grew up in the county, so. So, you know, sometimes nobody has a sense of history anymore.

[Megyn Kelly]

Have you guys seen the new statue of Tina Turner?

[Tom Bevan]

Ooh, no, I did see a thing of that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Terrible. We'll drop it in for the YouTube audience. But I don't even know where they put it up, but they put it. I mean, I appreciate the goal, you know, to honor Tina, which. Yes, right on. We should. Like one of the great diva icons of all time here in America and worldwide. But it was so bad. It took, like, her hair. I don't know what they did to her hair. They tried to get that great hair she had on the COVID of what's Love Got To do with it was kind of spiky and cool and they made it just terrible and kind of flat and weird. I. It was, it did not do her justice. It wasn't quite as bad or phallic as the MLK Memorial thing with the arms and the hugging. We didn't go to that place. Wasn't R rated, but it was just a fail on every level. Okay, now I want to shift gears, though, because we're talking about sort of what the fight between the Dems and the Republicans. And is it a proxy for, you know, the next election or at least the Democrats primary race. And I want to look at Team gop, because what's happening right now is Trump is advancing his placement on his number one issue, the issue on which he is polling the best, and that is crime. That New York Times Sienna poll that came out earlier this week showed crime is his number one issue. And that's post, the saber rattling about sending troops in places, the actual sending in troops to Washington, D.C. and to a lesser extent, la, to support ICE. And now he's sending troops to support ICE in Portland, Oregon, and he's sending a bunch of troops down to Memphis. Memphis, Tennessee, that's allowed. And, and that's the biggest we've seen yet because it was invited by the Republican governor. And that's, that's how, you know, the system works. It's fine for him to send troops if requested by the state governor. And so this Republican governor did it. They're worried about Memphis, which is Democrat run. And Stephen Miller, who just throws the best fastball, went down. They all went down there. Pam Bondi was down there. Stephen Miller was down there. Pete Hegseth was down there. They were like, we've got you, Memphis. This is on. It's a partnership. We love you. We're going to make sure there will be no block on which residents feel uncomfortable or unsafe to walk. Here's a little bit of Stephen Miller.

[Eric O'Neill]

All we ask from you is to show up at roll call every single night with your brothers and sisters in.

[Tom Bevan]

The federal government and to go out.

[Eric O'Neill]

And get the criminals off the street. And if you do that, I pledge.

[Tom Bevan]

To you, we will liberate this city.

[Eric O'Neill]

From the criminal element that has plagued it for generations.

[Tom Bevan]

This is not just a strategy shift. This is an attitude shift.

[Eric O'Neill]

We are not going to live in an environment anywhere where there is a street that belongs to a criminal, where there is a neighborhood that belongs to a gang, where there is any physical.

[Tom Bevan]

Space anywhere that belongs to anyone other than the law abiding citizens and families of Memphis.

[Eric O'Neill]

The idea that there is a square inch of block in this city where a citizen doesn't feel safe is unacceptable.

[Megyn Kelly]

This is Memphis.

[Tom Bevan]

This is the United States of America.

[Eric O'Neill]

And all that bullshit is done.

[Tom Bevan]

It's over, it's finished.

[Megyn Kelly]

So good. I have to think, you know, the. Your average voter is feeling these shoot it into my veins in response. Like, who would be against that? Seriously, Tom, who would be like, I prefer the murderers?

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, Look, I think crime is an important issue. It's one, it was part of the last election. It's going to be part of the coming elections. And I think you mentioned Trump. It's one of his best issues. Now, I think Stephen Miller, he may not be the best messenger, I think, because he's one of the big bogeymen on the left for. So you know that. I know you like him, Meghan, but. But I think the message itself is. Is hard to disagree with. The question is how you go about doing it. Right? And we've had this discussion in Chicago and other places is like, is it sending in the troops? Is it sending in the National Guard, or is it, you know, letting local law enforcement do their job and supporting them and helping them? And there is some nuance in the polling data on that, but there's no question that this idea. Democrats are losing on the idea that in Chicago, for example, that everything's just fine and we should tolerate a certain level of crime and homicide and lawlessness. We know perfection's unattainable, but that doesn't mean we have to let 500 people get murdered every year in the city of Chicago or 300 or whatever the number is, even though it's downshot at. Yeah. When it's gone down from where it was a couple of years ago, that still doesn't mean it's acceptable or that we, we should be accepting of that. And I think that is a very common sense message that does resonate pretty wide and pretty deep.

[Megyn Kelly]

What do you make of it, Carl?

[Carl Cannon]

Well, I think breaking the cycle of crime in these cities is a noble goal. I just. But when I hear, first of all, Stephen Miller and on one side and J.B. pritzker on the other, I haven't heard anybody say an idea that will help, you know, the Democrats, Tom's point out, the Democrats are losing on this issue because they're pretending that if you're, if you have 700 people killed in your town and then the next year you have 690 that you're doing good work. That's just. Yeah, people think that's insane. The Democrats actually sound like they're defending violent crime. But when Trump just says, we're going to send the National Guard and clean up these streets, well, okay, but then what? How long do you keep people incarceration? Do you build new prisons? How do you break the cycle where people in some of these neighborhoods would rather join a gang than join a church? It's a very complicated problem. And it seems to me Democrats and Republicans need to work together to solve it and not just hurl empty, goofy talking points at each other.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, Stephen Miller was predicting that businesses quoting here and investments are going to pour in and Memphis will be richer than ever before. That could happen. That could happen, happen in New York after Rudy Giuliani cleaned it up with Bill Bratton. If you bring safety to a town, you are increasing the likelihood of investment and businesses popping up. And if they can get that going in the, in the time that they've agreed to have the troops there, which remains unclear to me as of now, that that actually could begin to turn Memphis around. And once you show the people how they could be living as opposed to how they were living, that the standard is raised, you know, the demands are going to be higher for how they have to continue on. So this is a glimpse and it could be a really valuable one. All right, stand by. We got to take a quick break. We will be right back with the guys from Real Clear Politics. Let's get real about what you're snacking on. Did you know that until the 1990s all chips and fries were cooked in beef tallow? Then big corporations swapped that out for cheap processed seed oils. Well, today those oils make up 20% of the average American's daily calories. And recent studies link them to metabolic issues and inflammation. And that's not all. We had a nutritionist on who was explaining seed oils give you like, bad fat that wants to stay on your body. Who wants that? It's a wake up call. And this is why I love Vandy Crisps. These are delicious potato chips, crack crafted with just three ingredients. Heirloom potatoes, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. No seed oils, no nonsense. And that tallow isn't just for flavor. It's packed with nutrients that support your skin, brain and hormones. 100% American made. Plus that tallow makes them so satiating, you're not going to binge and then still feel hungry. Are you ready to give Vandy a try? Sometimes you need a salty snack. Go to vandycrisps.com mk and use the code MK for 25 off your first order. Don't feel like ordering online? That's fine. Vandy is now available nationwide at your local sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they're all gone. Can a home security system really call itself security if it only responds once somebody's already inside your home? With SimpleLife, it's different. AI powered cameras detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents immediately. These agents take action before anyone breaks in. They confront the intruder, let them know they're being watched, they call the police and if needed, they sound a siren or trigger a spotlight. That's real security. Imagine these guys on your lawn like, ah, oh my God. The spotlight, the siren and somebody yelling at them over a speaker. Great. Simplisafe's monitoring agents have your back talking to intruders even when you're not at home. There are no long term contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel anytime with a 60 day money back guarantee. You can try it risk free. Enjoy the peace of mind it provides whether you are home or away. The cameras, the app and the rapid response make it feel dependable and Smart. Right now, save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at SimpliSafe.com Megan simply spelled S I M P L I safe.com Megan there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Tom Bevan]

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[Tom Bevan]

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[Megyn Kelly]

I need a coffee.

[Tom Bevan]

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[Megyn Kelly]

We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever to cower, to hide, to go silent is not the answer. And all I can tell you is there is no, no fucking way I am canceling one stop on this tour. Not one stop. I'm going, I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're making it safe for me. We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you we're going coast to coast and do something really important, which is say what's true and what's real to honor him. I really, now, more than ever, would love to see you all face to face. God, I would love to see you face to face. I need to see you face to face. I am doing this tour and I would love for you to join me, MeganKelly.com for the tickets. Back with me now, Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth of Real Clear Politics. So Kamala Harris is having her moment in the sun. I heard you guys talking about this on your show, and she's in a great mood and she actually has reason to be. Her books are selling fast like wildfire. 350,000 copies sold so far, which is actually really good. I actually can't wait to see when she hits the New York Times bestseller list if she has the little asterisk next to her number, which not everybody knows means that you used bulk sales to get there. Bulk sales are basically a way of saying, here's $50,000, go buy my book. And some very prominent authors. Not my husband, but authors you would know, do this. Always look for the asterisks to see whether they've done that. But in any event, obviously she's got a lot of book sales. And here's just a little sampling of how she's sounding these days. This is her on TikTok Tuesday evening. Her big event was Monday, but this was posted on Tuesday. 30. It's not 30. I have had the experience, many people have had or will have had this experience of walking into a room and being the only one that looks like you or has had your life experience. And my request of you is that when you walk in that room, you walk in that room, chin up and shoulders back, knowing that we are all in that room with you and you are not alone. And you carry the voice of so many people who are proud that you are in that room and expect your voice to be strong. She can't do it. She cannot do it. She's desperately trying to be Oprah and she can't be Oprah. And as it turns out, Oprah is kind of a psychopath. I'm going to do a piece on this at some point. Honestly, we were raised by wolves. Those of us who watch that show religiously, I figured it out at 54. In any event, Kamala Harris is not even as good as the fake Oprah, nevermind the real one. And I don't know you guys. You seem to be very bullish on her newfound confidence and think that this, the sales number is going to encourage her to actually run again. I mean, I'll start with you on that, Andrew. Do you believe that?

[Andrew Walworth]

Yes, I do, absolutely.

[Megyn Kelly]

Why? I mean, I love it, I want it. But why?

[Andrew Walworth]

I think, well, all politicians operate inside a bubble and in her bubble, this is reinforces the view that, you know, she's. She's still anointed and she will go forward and I think she will run again. I think the Washington Post, though, had a great. They said her book tour is even less compelling than her campaign, I think sort of describes it. It's been a shock to me. I will say this. I have not read the book. I've read the excerpts that were in the Atlantic and I've read about it, and it does seem there's some juicy tidbits in the book and maybe it's a better book than we expected in that regard. It doesn't seem like it's a great campaign book. So I do expect a second book before she runs, especially because this one's been such a hit. So, yeah, no, I think she's running. I think the campus campaign's on and I think she's gunning for those people who will be on the dais with her in the first debate right now in the book, she goes after them, you know, sort of one by one.

[Megyn Kelly]

I don't think Republicans could ask for more because you have this terrible candidate who now has this artificially inflated sense of self because whoever wrote that book for her managed to make it juicy enough that people want to buy it. Even people who don't like her are buying it because they want to hear her, you know, sling all the mud at these other Democrats. So this has inflated her to the point where she actually thinks she can do this, which she definitely cannot. Puts her back in the primary, which now we're going to get to see the infight. Now we're really going to get to see them go after each other. Pete Buttigieg is going to be like, how gay am I, Kamala? You know, you're. You're the bigot, right? Everybody she took aim at Josh Shapiro, all of them. Tim Walls. Who knows who's going to be up there next door. Aoc and it's going to be the free for all that we've wanted and got. I mean, I don't think I'm a good enough person for God to actually make her the nominee again and for us to have that race, but I might be. I Don't. I mean, I'm pretty good. So I don't know. Tom, Crawl, what do you guys think?

[Tom Bevan]

Can you imagine? They're going to be on. On the debate stage and Pete Buttigieg is going to say, you know, that little boy was me. Kamala. He's going to be doing. It would be awesome. Look, I do think this is. And by the way, you know, I do think this is somewhat. I just. I find it hard to believe that she is selling out all these places. I mean, again, she's coming to Chicago. I said this on our program the other day. She's coming to our show or coming to Chicago, I think the 11th of October. And I was like, oh, it's on a Saturday. I'll go check the tickets. You could barely get in the door for over a hundred dollars and people were paying. The average ticket price was like five or six hundred dollars if you want to set up. It was like three grand or something. I mean, it was like, what? Who are all these people? I think there's a certain level of astroturfing going on here. It is bulk sales of the book, I think.

[Carl Cannon]

Tom, you are obligated to go see her. And here's why. I'm going to remind Megan. She listens to our social. She'll remember this. You said the tickets cost more to see Kamala Harris than to go to the Cubs game.

[Tom Bevan]

Yes.

[Carl Cannon]

Somebody took you to the Cubs Padres game yesterday, so now you have to go to.

[Tom Bevan]

That's true. That is for all of us.

[Carl Cannon]

Money in your pocket. And you know what, Tom, you can put on your expense account.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, well, thank you, Carl.

[Megyn Kelly]

I appreciate that. Bust out your iPhone, get one of those expensive tickets, sit up by the front, bust out your iPhone, and if you could shout out a question, that would be amazing. Like, I don't know, ask her to do one of her accents.

[Tom Bevan]

No, but I do think one of the. One of the side effects of this, especially if it is not all organic and there isn't this sort of, you know, groundswell of support for Kamala Harris, which I. I really do doubt that. But one of the. One of the side effects of that is going to be it is reinforcing this idea among her and her team that, my gosh, people really do want to hear from Kamala. They do still like her and want to see her run again. And so I think that may end up being one of the practices. I don't think, by the way, even if she does run, she's not going to win the primary I just don't see how she could possibly do that.

[Carl Cannon]

You already have. Your candidate said it's aoc. You said she's gonna run.

[Tom Bevan]

I think she's gonna run to. I think 28. I think 2028 is going to be a free for all on the Democratic side. I think you've got.

[Megyn Kelly]

Can I ask you too, Carl, when. When does 2028 get started? Not January 1, 2028, but, like, when does it get started?

[Carl Cannon]

The rate started. It started a month ago when Gavin Newsom said he was running. It's on.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah.

[Carl Cannon]

Right now.

[Tom Bevan]

There's a shadow and shadow primary that's going on right now, and she went. Is in it.

[Carl Cannon]

And she went back into her book and we. I think I'm making this up, so. And put that thing about Gavin Newsom texting her when she asked for his endorsement, and Gavin held a press conference about it and said kind of puckishly, well, I'm. I was one of the first people to endorse her. I endorsed her within hours of that text. I'm sure that's in the book, too. Well, he knew it wasn't, as Andy pointed out. So it's on right now.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're running that. I actually thought that was the most respect I've had for Gavin Newsom, where he didn't call her back just for the listening audience who hadn't heard. She said when in that period after Biden passed the baton to her, she was trying to garner support so that nobody else pushed for an open primary. It was just gonna be hers to run with. She was calling all these Dems, like, back me, back me, endorse me. And she said with Gavin Newsom, she called him and she got a responsive text that just said, hiking.

[Carl Cannon]

We'll call back.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, he was. He was one of the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Several hours.

[Tom Bevan]

He was one of the first to come out and back Joe Biden to the hilt immediately when this whole thing after. After the debate happened, because he knew that if he didn't, it was. It was his best chance of. Of winning and becoming the next nominee if Kamala Harris did, you know, she's his ultimate rival. And so he was. He was pretty clear about which side he was on right from the. From the jump.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah. The ultimate tell that she's running will be when she starts her podcast. That seems to be the thing you have to do. Right.

[Carl Cannon]

So is Megan running for president?

[Megyn Kelly]

No, I. Megan, you should run. I'm a better person than I thought I was because there's no way God would give me These gifts. Otherwise, if Kamala Harris starts a podcast, I promise to personally promote it every day. I will personally. We will be on that like white on rice. We will be making sure we monitor every word she says.

[Tom Bevan]

She can title it Unburdened.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yes. Perfect. There you have it.

[Megyn Kelly]

She could do all in depth specials on her school bus fetish, her Venn diagrams.

[Tom Bevan]

Venn diagrams, yeah. Don't forget the Venn diagram.

[Megyn Kelly]

The duality.

[Carl Cannon]

Yeah. Maybe underestimating her. She sell. Listen, the. The alchemy here is. And I'd like. And I like your theory on it, Megan. We don't have one. These halls that she's selling out. If she had announced previously to this book that you could come here for free, they wouldn't have been sold out. So now people are paying exorbitant amount of money. So what. What is going on?

[Megyn Kelly]

How is that. Yeah. Or are they getting paid to go there? Is there some donation being made to some group they belong to, and then they're being sent over there? I mean, that campaign had $2 billion, and they're. They're used to finding a way to fill seats with people who didn't otherwise want to be there.

[Tom Bevan]

Same idea as bulk book sales, right? You buy a bunch of tickets and hand them out.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah. Look, guys, I want to. I will entertain that possibility. However, I will say this. That book is on track to be one of the 10 bestsellers of the year. I don't think you can do that all through sales like this. I mean, if these trends continue, it's going to be a legitimate bestseller.

[Tom Bevan]

Andy, you're so naive.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, you. He might be right, because Steve Krakauer is telling me that, at least on. On week one, she didn't have the asterisks. So either they are legit individual sales, or she found a way around it, which also, I don't put past her team. I mean, they've. They've found you would have to have a way of showing fake popularity if you're running Kamala Harris's campaign. And let's not forget, this is the same team, largely, that ran Joe Biden's campaign and actually tried to make him look alive. I mean, an even greater challenge four years earlier and then again when he ran for reelection. So, like, these are, you know, they're talented people. They couldn't get the ball over the end zone. But, like, they are talented people. All right, but now you raise the issue of starting a podcast, Carl. And that leads me to my next two subjects. We're gonna get to Michelle Obama. That's for you, Andy. But first, we're gonna start with Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea Clinton. Oh, excuse me. Dr. Chelsea Clinton. Yes, she's pulling a Jill Biden and insisting that we call her Dr. Chelsea Clinton now because she has her Ph.D. in, like, international studies or something. But her podcast is not about that at all. It's. It's about taking down the Maha movement to put it in a much sexier way than she did. She's. She's sick of the lies. And so Dr. Chelsea Clinton is starting a podcast called that Can't Be True. Here is the trailer. Stop 37. Is it just me or are things actually really weird right now? In the world of public health, every day brings another context. Confusing headline or far fetched claim. Not to mention the cuts to cancer research, to women's health research, to brain research, to the dismantling of the suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ kids. People's lives are at risk. Welcome to that Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on issues impacting our health. I'm Chelsea Clinton, an advocate, author, investor, teacher, and. And most importantly, mom, navigating this insane time right alongside you. I hope you'll join me and a group of trusted experts as we shine a light on what's real, what's not, and why it matters. Who in the world is going to listen to this? Who is saying, I need more Chelsea Clinton in my life? If only Chelsea Clinton would advise me on the day's news, especially the Maha movement. What? She has zero expertise that will help her advise on this. She's not a real doctor, and really, she's the ultimate Nepo baby, which people can't stand. So explain to me why this is.

[Carl Cannon]

Being born before I do that. Megan, I'm not going to embarrass this reporter by mentioning his name on air today. He works for me, but he once referred to Jill Biden as Dr. Biden in a story.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's Philip Wegman, isn't it? I pulled him.

[Carl Cannon]

I pulled him into my office and I said. He said, why am I here? I said, we're going to talk about Dr. Jill. He said, okay. I said, let me ask you something. If you're having a stomachache and you needed, would you let her take your appendix out? This is an old newsroom thing from my youth. He said, no. I said, then she's not a doctor.

[Megyn Kelly]

Her. Right on.

[Carl Cannon]

And honestly, I'm not. I'm not going to run down Chelsea Clinton. I covered her parents. I love her dad She's. I. I knew her when she was 13, but she's not Dr. Chelsea. That's not happening in our pages. If you're listening, Phil Wegman. I'm sorry.

[Megyn Kelly]

God bless you. I knew it was Phil. I knew it. I could tell. He's so respectful of everybody. It's what we love and hate about him. I do find this very annoying, and I do think Chelsea Clinton's time in the national spotlight has come and gone. She is one of the most annoying people on X. She's constantly defending the Clinton foundation like it's, you know, the squeaky clean organization. Her parents lied to us that it was, and she took over this whole graft. And we're supposed to look at her and pretend, Tom, like she's some sort of an authority. Why? Again, why? Like, she's basically Hunter Biden in a. In a dress and without the drug addiction.

[Tom Bevan]

Well, listen, the idea that she's going to use trusted experts to fact check information about all the, you know, handle all the misinformation that's out there, particularly as it pertains to public health, is just. It's like she's. She's swimming in the wrong direction, I think. And clearly, had she launched this podcast, you know, five years ago, is there any question about what she would have said about masks and vaccines and shutting down schools for the benefit of those kids? And, you know, I mean, it's like, come on. I think this will appeal to a small section of, you know, the Democratic Party or people who are Violet Affleck or whatever. But beyond that, I just don't understand the appeal of this at all.

[Megyn Kelly]

I mean, is it lost on anyone that her mother is all over the news right now for having launched the plan to take down the Trump presidency and the Trump campaign before he was president by falsely alleging that he was a Russian stooge, that her mother was the OG inventor of disinformation to advance her own political career. And now Chelsea Clinton wants to be underdog to save the day by combating disinformation being put out by the Trump administration and in particular, the Maha strain. Please. I've got a great subject for you to start with, Chelsea. It's very close to home, I can guarantee you get the exclusive. I mean, it's like the elephant in the living room, Andy.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah, well, it's. It's being produced by the Clinton foundation, too. We should point that out. When you say, who wants to listen to this? It doesn't really matter because basically, this is a vanity project. It is funded almost, I think, if it isn't entirely funded by the Clinton foundation, it's the Clinton foundation is claiming is the producer for it. You know, she has a master's degree from Columbia in public health. So just to give her some. Some, you know, credence in this, you know, to talk about this issue, I don't hold it against her that she's not a doctor, that she wants to talk about this. I do think she shouldn't call herself a doctor if she's talking about medical issues. I find that really misleading. And, you know, I would. I would. I would urge her to stop doing that because I think hurts her credibility to the extent she has any on the topic. She did have a podcast earlier. It was called. Well, I forget the name of it, but she tried this once before that podcast ended. So we'll see what happens with this one. She's tried a lot of things in life. She's been, you know, a network investor and, yeah, remember, she's been an investor. She's on the board of a couple media companies. She's on the board of the Clinton Foundation. So, you know, this is just the latest career for her. And, you know, maybe this will work out as well as the other ones did. Nothing seems to last more than a couple years.

[Carl Cannon]

Do you dare me to tell a heartwarming story about Chelsea Clinton?

[Megyn Kelly]

No. I have no desire to hear. I can't stand her. But I was enjoying listening to Andy trying to, like, definitely navigate. Not saying anything too negative about her. No, I think she's a very, as Trump would say, nasty lady. I really can't stand Chelsea Clinton, and there's a reason she's failed at all those things you listed. She really isn't an attractive person in any way. I'm not speaking of her outside, though. I mean, I've got thoughts on that, too, but she's not an attractive person. I think she's ugly on the inside and it projects.

[Carl Cannon]

Actually, Megan, that really leads perfectly into my story. I'll make it brief.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right.

[Carl Cannon]

Okay. So I was doing pool duty, and when Clinton was. Bill Clinton was present. We were at Martha's Vineyard. We went to a party. He had a party for the press on the last day and to bring your family. So I brought my kids, and my daughter Kelly was 10. And Rush Limbaugh said something nasty about Chelsea, that she was ugly. She was 13 or 14, you know, and had braces and was kind of awkward the way teenagers are. And even for Rush Limbaugh's fans, it was Too much. Anyway, she sweeps into the party, and my daughter Kelly turns and looks at her. Her and says, that's Chelsea. And then she says, I had no idea she was so beautiful. And I put that in my pool report. And Clinton called me, said, I appreciate what you wrote, and he should have. That's my story.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's. That's a nice story about your daughter. Your daughter's very generous in her approach to other people, unlike your host of this particular podcast that you're on right now. She's a nasty person. I'm sorry, but she is. I mean, she's pretty hateful. I can see directly where she gets it. And there's a reason she's failed at everything. And I have to say, like, you can't just launch a podcast and expect people to come. Like, you actually have to have done something. The reason you guys have a successful podcast is because you have spent your lives immersed in politics. You actually have expertise, and you know everything about the subject that you speak about all day. I've spent the past 30 years of my life either practicing law or in journalism, too, which is why I cover politics and law the way I do. So people understand that when they listen to you. Like, really, what is she going to talk about? Her husband's investments? The graft at the Clinton Foundation? Her one year on the Today show. That was a nightmare. Her master's degree, which, as far as I can tell, is the only experience she's had with public health. Good luck. And here's the other thing. In order to resonate in the podcast world, you have to have, like, an interesting personality. You actually do. You either have to be, like, clever or nice or controversial or something. You know what? Just naturally. Because if you fake it, they'll know that, too. She's none of those things. She's a bore. She's a snobby, snotty, nasty bore. That's how I feel. And so it's not going to go well.

[Tom Bevan]

Okay, how do you really feel, Megan?

[Megyn Kelly]

Sometimes you really find exactly the words that you want to describe what you're describing. Okay, that leads me to Michelle Obama. Okay. We ran this sound bite of her yesterday, guys, speaking of people who are on podcasts that are failing. And it was this pod. It was this sound bite all about how she can't stand Barack Obama. It's like every soundbite from her is about how little she likes him and can stand him. And she was talking about how she was talking to a relationship therapist on her show and was like, I have to save my commentary during the day, if we see each other at lunch, because we don't do anything now. And so when I see him, you know, we can't talk over lunch. I'm like, save it for dinner, because otherwise, we'll have nothing to talk about when we get to dinner. So we get to dinner, and all I'm really thinking as I sit there looking at him is, I can't stand the way you chew. Drives me crazy, the way, like this, there's, like, true contempt for the guy, and you wind up feeling really sorry for Barack Obama. You know, like, you can see why the guy is afraid of her. Anyway, my team informed me that there's more and that we needed to play, and I think it's sat 31. Lauren, you correct me if I'm wrong, but here we go.

[Michelle Obama]

You really go there.

[Megyn Kelly]

And then do you really.

[Michelle Obama]

Because how many times do somebody asks, what are you thinking about? And you're like, well, let me make up a thing, because I don't want to actually say what I was thinking about, which was like, the way you're chewing makes me want to smack you upside.

[Tom Bevan]

That's why, guys.

[Megyn Kelly]

That would be an edge. That would be really interesting.

[Michelle Obama]

You could, like, open something up there.

[Megyn Kelly]

In a big way.

[Michelle Obama]

Why you're chewing annoy me so much.

[Megyn Kelly]

Hearing another person chewing is. You're hearing the essence of who they are, their otherness, their bodily functions.

[Michelle Obama]

That's good to know, because the girls and I are very irritated with the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Way Barack chews, so the girls, too. Everyone hates him at the table. This poor man sits down every night to nothing but contempt. And somehow Michelle Obama thinks this is gonna make her super relatable by always talking about how much she loathes her life partner and husband, the former President of the United States, Barack Obama. So you tell me whether we were sold a bag of goods by a media that for years wanted us to buy them as, like, America's it couple and, like, the example of modern love and how it can be done and you can have it all. And we all want to be Michelle and Barack.

[Andrew Walworth]

Well, empty nesting is hard. I think that's. That's one thing you can take away from this. Right? You know, and she. She talks about this. Her kids aren't there, so they've got nothing else to talk about. So I. You know, I. I'm afraid to say.

[Tom Bevan]

I bet that's a little bit more.

[Andrew Walworth]

Relatable than you think. I think that there are a lot of wives who feel that way about their Husbands and hate the way they chew. I always think of it this way. I think that everything that your spouse does that drives you crazy, you are doing at least the same to them. So that's just part of the, the, the equation of being married. I think the other thing I'd say is that if they don't, if they.

[Megyn Kelly]

Have nothing to talk about, maybe I'm lucky once. But nothing my husband does drives me crazy. Literally nothing. Like I really enjoy him. Oh, yes, he's a pleasure to spend time with. He's good looking, smart. I sit across the table from him, kind of dreamy eyed. And we've been married almost 18 years now. So I think Michelle Obama's. And it's fine if you have an occasional complaint, of course, that's human. But all she does is complain. It's so bad Andrew Walworth that I did a whole spoof on her, which we labeled Megan O. And, and I think I nailed it here. We pulled that back up just in case you missed it with your busy schedule. Here it is. People ask me all the time. They want, they want my advice. And so they ask me, what, what is marriage? What does it mean? And I tell them it's. It's about misery.

[Michelle Obama]

I tell people. And folks think that this is harsh. It's like you're gonna have a bad decade.

[Megyn Kelly]

And, and when you had a bad decade or two, what you need to remember is it's not you, it's your husband or your children. That's who's to blame.

[Michelle Obama]

If you choose to have a traditional marriage and you have kids, let me tell you, the years of 1 to 13 will be bad.

[Megyn Kelly]

And don't be surprised. People say, oh, it's a bad week. It's a bad day. No, we're talking decades now of bad marriage that you definitely need to blame on someone else. Nailed it.

[Tom Bevan]

Pretty good.

[Andrew Walworth]

It's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Biking the ball in the end zone. I have one for you, Tom Bevin, before you get too comfortable, stop.32.

[Tom Bevan]

Okay.

[Michelle Obama]

I'd get into the how do you put up with men? And let me tell you what Barack did. And you know, and she'd always say, you know, no one's perfect. She used that example. She said every year it was almost like she had to renew her faith in her marriage. So I think that helped me not walk into my marriage with completely unrealistic expectations that this man that I was gonna marry was gonna be my all and everything forever and ever. Amen. That's just not you know, the way it works. That's one of the reasons why I try to be honest. People look at our marriage as the ideal, you know, because in an Instagram world, you know, you see two loving people doing a hard thing in the world, you know, always on stage, giving each other a hug after a big.

[Eric O'Neill]

Speech and making it look easy and.

[Michelle Obama]

Making it look easy. And a lot of young people could look at that and go, I want a marriage like Michelle and Barack, right? And it's like, well, let me, you know, let me talk about what marriage is, you know? Cause it's. Even when it looks good, even when it's great, it's hard. You know, it's very easy to quit on a marriage.

[Megyn Kelly]

She's so unhappy. She's never said a nice thing about. Like, she gives 30 terrible comments, and then 31, she'll remember she needs to say something mildly complimentary because she's making them look bad, but she defaults almost immediately back to how miserable they are tomorrow.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, I mean, there are two thoughts that I have. One is we live in an age of oversharing, and she seems to be oversharing here in exquisite detail about her marriage issues, which. Especially someone of her stature and who has the sort of status that she has. If you can't say something nice, you better not say anything at all. I would say, number one. Number two, she seems like she has a little bit of imposter syndrome, feels bad that her marriage is portrayed as this ideal when it's not. And so she feels guilty about that, it seems like. And she wants people to know. And look, marriage is hard. I mean, that's sort of obvious to everyone. But it shouldn't be as hard as she makes it sound. I mean, she does make it sound like she's miserable and it's a struggle.

[Megyn Kelly]

And.

[Tom Bevan]

You know, while people have their difficulties in marriage, this seems like something. Something a little bit more than that to me.

[Megyn Kelly]

This plays right in to leftist narrative, Carl, that we've been hearing more and more. J.D. vance tried to get to get at it, perhaps not as articulately as he would have hoped the childless cat lady's comment. But the Democrats have been leaning in to marriage sucks and children suck, and staying a straight single lady is really the best way. You're not burdened by a man. You're not burdened by these annoying children who the entire 1 through 13 period will be miserable raising. I mean, that's like. That's the other thing. Like, can you imagine, like, saying that about your children? 1 through 13 was terrible. It was off. Like, I've heard mothers say that, like, you know, the first year was rough or age 2, that, you know, they were kind of a terrorist. 1 through 13. That's basically the whole thing other than high school. Anyway. So this is like we've been featuring, we've been featuring on the show, like articles. There was one in New York magazine about my husband sucks and he smells bad and I can't stand him and marriage blows and, you know, we're still married, but I'm not enjoying. I think she thinks it's kind of cool to talk this way about her partner.

[Carl Cannon]

You know, you may be right, but you also may be giving her too much credit. This doesn't look like a lot of thought went into it. She seems to be just unburdening herself, to use a word, just sort of venting about things. I mean, bodily functions. Are she going to start talking about farts next? I mean, I don't, I don't understand what she's doing and I understand why she's doing it. You know, in, you know, Miller's Crossing, my favorite gangster movie, the Gabriel Byrne character says, people do things for a reason. But what is her reason here? And you're, you're giving her a reason. You know, the politics of the modern Democratic Party, but that this seems more emotive than that and less thought.

[Megyn Kelly]

Or maybe it's just a worldview, right? Maybe it's just a worldview like. Yeah, something that's built in, like her worldview that happens to align with what's happening on the Democratic side where it's just, you're, you're negative. Negative about the things that make you happy, that should make you happy.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, that's like that old bumper sticker, you know, annoy a liberal, work hard and be happy.

[Eric O'Neill]

What.

[Carl Cannon]

But what's the source here? What is the real source of her resentment? This guy seems actually from a distance, we don't, you know, you don't know. He seemed pretty easy to. Easy to get along with. No problem. Obama, pretty easy guy, doesn't yell, nor.

[Megyn Kelly]

Would we even know her name if she didn't marry this guy.

[Andrew Walworth]

I was going to say, I mean, she's got the house in Hawaii, the house on Martha's Vineyard, the house in Chicago. I mean, they, they seems like if they really didn't like each other, they wouldn't have to spend this much time together. There we go to their separate houses. Right?

[Megyn Kelly]

There's the Walworth we've been waiting for. He always drops in with the hammer, he's got the velvet glove. And then the hammer drops eventually. Go ahead, Tom.

[Tom Bevan]

But Megan, I think you pointed out the most interesting thing about that clip was, was what she said about kids. Like, she did not enjoy being a mother for the vast majority of her kids lifetime.

[Megyn Kelly]

She hated the White House. She hates her marriage and her children.

[Tom Bevan]

Doesn't sound like she enjoys being married at all. And, you know, I've got five kids and my wife and I talk about this because our youngest now is a freshman in high school, which was a real problem. You know, we're like, where did our babies go? But every stage has wonderful moments and wonderful aspects to it. For her to be able to look at her two kids and say, yeah, 1 through 13 is terrible. I mean, that, that really is revealing. And it does reveal a lot about her, her worldview and, and how she views what happiness looks like to her. And it clearly doesn't look like having kids and it clearly doesn't look like this particular marriage that she's in. Maybe it's another marriage, but it ain't this one.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, how about I haven't heard her talk about what she loves. Like, she spent a little time practicing law, right? I've never heard her be like that. That was it for me. I loved being up there, making an argument or being a junior associate or whatever. Nothing like there's. She never talks about, like, that one period of her life where she was really happy. I think she had a miserable childhood. She clearly wasn't raised to, like, understand that happiness really can be a choice. You know, looking on the bright side, finding a way to laugh at life's challenges. And like, she's so. She's sort of like, who's the character in Peanuts? Pig Pen who's got the cloud over him all the time? Like, she's just of kind walking around with that dark cloud. And yet she's chosen to launch a podcast that's supposed to be about, like, life and life's issues and getting Michelle Obama to, like, give you life advice. And in promoting it, she went on, I think it was Amy Schumer's podcast. And she was like, people line up to hear from me. They wait in line to hear what I have to say. And this is what they get. Like, dower, Debbie Downer, Dower, Michelle. I don't have a tail and I. My husband smells bad. Carl.

[Carl Cannon]

Well, how about, how about she 1 to 13? How can you not love four year olds now? We've all had them. Four year old is the perfect age.

[Megyn Kelly]

Perfect.

[Andrew Walworth]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

I would give anything to be able to go back and do it over again.

[Carl Cannon]

Me too.

[Andrew Walworth]

But the other thing is, I mean, the idea that at 13, things get better. Most people at 13, I have three daughters. They were great throughout and I would not trade a day of any of it. But you know, about 13, 14, that's when, that's when it gets challenging.

[Carl Cannon]

I mean, you know, and she didn't even have 13.

[Andrew Walworth]

It was a cakewalk. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know what she was talking about? You know, when they turn 14, that's when they really start to get independent. So that's when they needed her less and, and therefore were not as annoying to her. It's like maybe motherhood wasn't for you. I like, I'm. I'm not sure. But the. The veil is getting dropped inadvertently or advertently by her on the this podcast every day. And the pictures, not so pretty. All right, guys, a pleasure. I love getting to know you this way. It's always interesting. And love the pod.

[Tom Bevan]

Thanks, Ben.

[Andrew Walworth]

Thank you.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, we'll do it all over again soon. Okay, we got something interesting for you. Up next, a guy who caught the biggest spy in modern American history. A guy who is spying for the Russians. And my next guest was like the guy who went undercover working under him to nab him. And he's got a warning for all of us on our online activities. Let's be honest. America can still be a dangerous place, and you cannot afford to wait for help. Sure, you could use a firearm, but in today's America, defending yourself with deadly force could have legal consequences. According to FBI data, 99.9% of all altercations do not require lethal force. And that's exactly why many are turning to Burna. Byrna is proudly American hand assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana. These less lethal self defense launchers are trusted by hundreds of government agencies, law enforcement departments, and private security companies too. Over 600,000 burner pistols have been sold, most to private citizens who just refuse to be victims. Burner launchers fire rock hard kinetic rounds. Right. So that's one option. Rock hard kinetic rounds that like, hurt and stop the perp. And they also fire these powerful tear gas and pepper projectiles, which is sort of like pepper spray on steroids that incapacitates the bad guy. Like where they are capable of stopping a threat from up to 60ft away. No background checks, no waiting periods, and Burna can ship straight to your door. By the way, the pistol looks very realistic. Take responsibility, protect your Future visit Burna.com right now or your local sponsor, Sportsman's Warehouse. That's by r n a.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse. Visit now and be prepared to defend I've been talking a lot about Riverbend Ranch lately because I love their steaks. Riverbend Ranch has taken Black Angus beef to a whole new level. For the last 35 years, Riverbend Ranch has been creating a very elite Angus herd by using ultrasound to select genetically superior cattle with a focus on flavor and tenderness. When you purchase from Riverbend Ranch, you're not only supporting the 64 Cowboys and Cowgirls and their families who work on the ranch, you're also supporting over 260 other US ranches and the hundreds of American families who work on them. It's born in the USA, raised in the USA and processed in the USA too. This beef is aged to perfection for 21 days and then shipped directly from the ranch to your ranch home. This is not your average Black Angus beef, so order from Riverbend Ranch.com use the promo code Megan to get 20 bucks off your first order and let me know what you think. Riverbend Ranch.com promo code Megan can a home security system really call itself security if it only responds once somebody's already inside your home? With SimpleLife it's different. AI powered cameras detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents. And immediately these agents take action before anyone breaks in. They confront the intruder, let them know they're being watched, they call the police and if needed they sound a siren or trigger a spotlight. That's real security. Imagine these guys on your lawn like ah. Oh my God. The spotlight, the siren and somebody yelling at them over a speaker. It's great. Simply saves monitoring. Agents have your back talking to intruders even when you're not at home. There are no long term contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel anytime with a 60 day money back guarantee. You can try it risk free. Enjoy the peace of mind it provides whether you are home or away. The cameras, the app and the rapid response make it feel dependable and smart. Right now, save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at simplisafe.com Megan simply spelled S I M P L I safe.com Megan there's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Michelle Obama]

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[Megyn Kelly]

We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever.

[Eric O'Neill]

This fall, Megyn Kelly is taking her.

[Tom Bevan]

Show live to cities nationwide.

[Megyn Kelly]

To go silent is not the answer. I'm going, I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're going to make it safe for me. We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you and do something really important which is say what's true and what's real. And I would love for you to join me. Megan Kelly.com for the tickets. You can stream the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM 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.

[Tom Bevan]

Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free offer details apply.

[Megyn Kelly]

Joining me now is a national security strategist and former FBI counterintelligence operative who wants to warn all of us on the dangers of seeing cybercrime and how we can protect ourselves. Eric o' Neal began his career in FBI counterintelligence as an undercover operative. He's best known for his role in capturing the notorious spy Robert Hansen. In 2001, O' Neal helped capture Hansen, who was an FBI agent at the time, spying for the Soviet and Russian intelligence for over 20 years. The case was such a massive story, it turned into a Hollywood movie. Of course. Actor Ryan Philippe starred as O' Neal in the 2007 thriller called Breach Watch. I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for.

[Eric O'Neill]

The guy doesn't drink, goes to church every day.

[Carl Cannon]

Faith, family, country, those are the things that matter.

[Megyn Kelly]

Come to admire him?

[Eric O'Neill]

I say yes, respect him.

[Carl Cannon]

I never cared about making headlines, wanted to make history.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's a traitor. Eric started spying for the Russians in 1985. Good news is you're in the middle of the biggest case we've ever run. The damage he's done to the US Government is in the billions. Might be years before we truly know how many deaths he's been responsible for. Why don't we just arrest him?

[Eric O'Neill]

Can't do that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Director wants him caught in the act.

[Carl Cannon]

What if he's smarter than I am?

[Megyn Kelly]

He spent the last 20 years out thinking Russian spies. He's smarter than all of us. So good. He has spent years in national security and cyber security, but even he fell for a scam disguised as a reputable speaking engagement. Well, he's now out with a new book. It's called Spies, Lies and Cybercrime Security Tactics. Cyber Security Tactics to Outsmart Hackers and Disarm Scammers, which you can pre order right now. Eric, welcome to the show. This is the book Spies, Lies and Cyber Crime. Get yours right now so you can have the best of the best advise you on how not to be a victim. And it's sad because these criminals can get right into our homes. They. Right, they get. They can get right into the palm of our hand thanks to our iPhone, when we think we're just doing something innocent, like responding to an email or making a purchase, and before you know it, you're interacting with a dark web criminal.

[Eric O'Neill]

You're exactly right, Megan. And first of all, it is wonderful to be on the show with you, and I can't imagine a better place to launch this book. And it looked really good in your hands, by the way. The colors are just right.

[Megyn Kelly]

They really are.

[Eric O'Neill]

Yes, you are exactly right. See, the big misconception about this massive growing crime. I mean, cybercrime right now is the biggest growing business on Earth is that attackers aren't using some sort of computer to get into your computer. What they're doing is they're using what's called social engineering to attack us, you and me. And that's spycraft. That's traditional espionage in a modern environment to come after our data.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like what? Explain social engineering.

[Eric O'Neill]

Right, so social engineering. So many people think someone's using some sort of malware, and it's computer to computer, but instead, what they're doing is they're using texts, email, DMS on social media now in order to fool you into doing something you shouldn't. So, for example. And you set this up. When I was almost compromised by this cybercrime gang, they sent me an email inviting me to speak at this exceptional speaking event in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Hillsong Megachurch. And it was this incredibly carefully designed scheme to get me to trust and to get me to do something I shouldn't do, which was literally just send the money. And they almost got me at the last Minute I realized this is too good to be true and did a little bit of double checking which I should have done in the beginning and it would have saved me a lot of pain.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wow. I know that you are pointing out that they're getting very sophisticated now and trying to fool us by using AI too to like mimic voices if they have access to them. Of your loved ones. I couldn't help but think of the time we were almost scammed and we ran this as an episode of one year. We did a whole week on fraud. And what happened was just briefly my mother in law, God rest her, we lost her. This year she received a phone call from someone claiming to be her daughter. My sister in law claiming to have just been in a car accident where she'd been arrested because she allegedly got in a fight with the cops and her and her partner got in a fight with the cops and they were going to jail and they needed to be bailed out and they needed her to wire money to the courthouse right away and then gave her a courthouse number. So it sounded like legit. But here is a clip of my mother in law telling that story. She said that she was in jail on a drunk driving charge and that she we I needed to get talk to somebody that she had a telephone number.

[Eric O'Neill]

She just said, I'm so scared, I'm terrified.

[Megyn Kelly]

And I asked her where Brad was and she said, well, he's in jail too. The sophistication of this whole thing, Eric, was downright disturbing. We caught it at the last minute, same as you.

[Eric O'Neill]

I've seen that scam many different times. It's used in a number of different ways. So that's one of them. There's a car accident, I'm in jail, you need to pay my bail. And normally what happens is the next person you talk to is the public defender, right. Who's saying if you don't pay, they don't get out. There's another one though that happened which is. Yeah, exactly. The public defender. And then the idea there is, they want to put pressure on you. And what they'll say is, if I hang up the phone, then your daughter will spend the next week in jail. If you can't pay right away, I can't get her out. Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's what they said. They did it on a Friday. They're like, we're going into the weekend, she's going to be stuck there.

[Eric O'Neill]

Exactly. So that pressure causes you to not think, to not take a step back and think, wait, could this be real? Because what they don't want you to do is say, hold on a minute and then try to call your loved one and see if it's real or not. The other way that this scam works very often is you get a call from a family member and what they'll do is they'll actually look at social media to find out when that person is on vacation. And then they'll use AI to clone their voice. And it just takes five seconds of some clip off social media to clone the voice. And what they'll do is they'll call as your family member and say, mom, I'm in Panama or I'm wherever they're on vacation. And I was mugged. I lost my wallet, my phone. I'm using somebody's phone at the hotel. I can't even pay my hotel. I need you to quickly wire me a thousand dollars or they're going to kick me out on the street. And this next level, everyone I know.

[Megyn Kelly]

So many people in this scam. It was somebody pretending to be my sister in law and just she said she broke her nose and that's why she sounded a little different. She didn't explain why she sounded different, but she did lay the foundation just in case Jackie had any questions. But you're saying now people are taking your voice from your Insta or your online posts. You're running it through an AI machine and making it say things like I'm stranded because they've seen that you're in Panama versus on your socials. And they use that against, let's face it, it's usually an unsuspecting grandparent or elderly person who has zero clue this is even possible. Now my team tells me you guys have put together a this technology with a deep fake of yours truly promoting spies, lies and cybercrime. Let's take a look.

[Eric O'Neill]

Right?

[Megyn Kelly]

Spies, Lies and Cybercrime is the only book you need to read to keep yourself safe from every kind of cyber attack. Okay, that did not fool me at all.

[Eric O'Neill]

But it could have been that deepfake right there. Took me about two minutes. I just grabbed the first image of you that popped up in the red dress because it goes with the book. And then what I did is I just ran it through a suite of software that animates your image. And I didn't clone your voice. I just picked a stock voice that was close to yours. I didn't want to clone your voice without asking permission, but you can see how fast you could do something like that and pull some people online. And this has been used in order by disinformation campaigns. Joe Biden's voice was cloned. They've cloned Trump's voice. They've had pictures of Trump. If you remember when he was going through all those court cases in orange jumpsuits and people thought that he had been arrested. AI can cause a lot of chaos if it's in the wrong hands.

[Megyn Kelly]

So how on earth are people supposed to protect against this? And then we have to talk about the dark web too, because that's scary.

[Eric O'Neill]

Oh, certainly. So how do you protect against this? Well, AI, as you saw with that video, it's choppy. That's not a good one. There are much better ones if you take some time. Like I have cloned myself and used it on stage where I came across and then had an argument with myself. And it really scared people in the audience because they're like, which is the real Eric?

[Megyn Kelly]

And. And.

[Eric O'Neill]

You can do a few things. One, you have to be able to take a step back and take a breath. Sometimes before you take an act, the attacker is going to try to make you do something that you don't feel right doing, like send a wire for $1,000 or a quick payment. They put pressure on you even when they use AI, so you need to not succumb to the pressure and take a breath. I know it sounds terrible, but one of the easiest things to do is hang up and call back if you feel like your daughter's been kidnapped. Your son, because this is a huge scheme. I've kidnapped your child. And this actually happened to a mother in Arizona. And I outline it in the book. I tell the story and she was so sure it was her daughter's voice saying, mom, I'm in trouble. And then this angry voice who said, I'm going to pump your daughter full of drugs and leave her in a ditch in Mexico if you don't pay. She was so scared, but she had the peace of mind to keep him on the phone and then have her friends start calling and calling until they actually reached the daughter. What I do in my thing, believe.

[Megyn Kelly]

It or not, when this happened to us, we did not even think to call my sister in law and her partner Brad. We didn't. It was so dumb. We were believing she was in jail.

[Eric O'Neill]

Yeah, it's psychology though. They're putting that pressure on you. They put you in a pressure situation and we don't unless you're trained for it. And I know that you're good at pressure situations. But you know, for this kind of scam you. You want to act to save someone. You want to act to help. And you don't take that moment to think. And the criminals understand that psychology. They've studied it. They've even hired intelligence officers from Russia and China and Iran to come work for them to help inform these scams.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's crazy. That is like, downright scary. I want to tell the audience that episode is number 818 in our feed. Our feed. 818. And in there, it has a very fun conclusion because before we sent any money to this guy, we finally did figure it out. Like we finally did catch on that this might be a scam. And I tape recorded the conversation in which I knew at this point, I knew and I still had him on the line. And it has a very interesting ending. It's great. I love this tape. We love it so much. So we played it out in full in episode 818. People should check it out. We have a piece of that deepfake of you warning about AI avatars with yourself in an AI avatar role. Let's watch it. SOT19B.

[Eric O'Neill]

Hold on there, Megan. I'm the real Eric. Don't listen to this other guy. You think you're listening to Eric o', Neill, but what if you're not? I look like him, I sound like him, I even move like him. For all you know, I could be the real Eric and the one sitting there is just another fake. That's the trick with AI avatars like that other guy. They don't have to be perfect. They just have to make you doubt what's real. One moment of hesitation, one click, and it's too late.

[Megyn Kelly]

That is very creepy.

[Eric O'Neill]

That's a little better. So with that defake, I actually recorded about two minutes of me speaking and uploaded it to the software. And then it is animating, fully animating and saying what I type. So I just type the script and it says it. And imagine if you're a dark web attacker who has, you know, found Eric o' Neill and then downloaded one of my speaking events. Right. Or YouTube videos and uses it to create that and then uses.

[Megyn Kelly]

Then you've got a ton to work with. Give us some examples of some of the other stories in the book. There was one with a woman named Jennifer. That was pretty disturbing.

[Eric O'Neill]

Yes. DiStefano said that story right there happened in April of 2023. This is the mother in Arizona who gets a call from her daughter. Now, it turned out not to be her daughter, but she was sure it was her Daughter. And the daughter just said, mom, I'm in trouble. Actually, she testified in front of Congress about deep fakes and said that a mother knows her daughter's voice and I was 100% certain it was her. And then the next voice, of course, comes across and says that I'm going to kill your daughter if you don't pay me. And as they're going forward and negotiating, she's negotiating with the kidnapper, who ended up being just a cybercrime gang. They're saying, we're going to send a car to your house to collect the money. Which can happen sometimes. This can move from cyber to physical. Now Jennifer had the peace of mind to get her friends to start calling her husband her daughter and finally connected with her daughter, I think her youngest daughter. They were at a dance class, connected with the older daughter who was away on a trip with her husband, a ski trip. And the criminals were clever enough to monitor the family's social media and spy talk. We call that reconnaissance. And strike when the daughter and the husband were away on this trip. So it was going to be hard to contact them. It just so happened they got a little lucky because the mother and the father and daughter, the daughter had gotten sick. So they were in the hotel and not skiing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Because you usually don't have your phone with you or even on while you're on the mountain. So I mean, tell me more about how these criminals can come from the so called dark web. I don't understand the dark web, but just in reading up on your book, you were talking about people go there for organ purchases.

[Eric O'Neill]

There's the, yeah, the body's bizarre purchases.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like what, what?

[Eric O'Neill]

So the dark web to understand, here's the, like really fast one minute primer on the dark web. The right now the Internet, just, just the amount of data on the Internet is a, is almost 100 zettabytes of data. A zettabyte is. There would be so much paper in a zettabyte. If I stacked it from my feet as high as it would go, it would go past the Andromeda galaxy. So we have 180 of those in the Internet, which is astronomical. A little under 5% of that is the dark web. And that's the underbelly of the Internet. It's a group of anonymous servers. And unless you have the right equipment and know how, you can't get there. But there is a marketplace for everything. It is the most extreme black market on earth. In fact, I have a friend who goes down into the dark web to look for these scams before they hit us. He calls it depravity at the touch of a button. And it is. You mentioned the body parts bazaar, where you can buy a heart and a shady doctor to transplant it for you. That's around $200,000. You can buy eyes, which can also be transplanted. The corneas, that's 2,000 hands, feet are $500. I don't know why you would want that other than who's buying the best Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. Why would you buy a hand? I don't know. But people are creepy and weird, and if there's something you want, you can buy it. But it's also the biggest arms trademark, the biggest drug trade on earth. They will literally sell you anything you want. They, they put it in packages, in coffee bags and then send it through U.S. mail to you.

[Megyn Kelly]

And unfortunately, people feel comfortable doing this. Aren't there good guys like you, you know, when you were at the FBI, monitoring all of this and then swooping in when a deal like that is made?

[Eric O'Neill]

The FBI tries its best to monitor the very good. Sometimes they go in and they, they kill the servers for the cybercrime gangs. But the problem is that they have backup servers and they just come right back. Most of the dark web sits in places that are don't have cybercrime laws and countries that don't have extradition to the U.S. they also will take partitions of parts of legitimate servers in countries all over the world. And when they get cut off, they just restore. And so just the cost of cybercrime in the dark web, and this is the most sobering statistic, I think I quote in the book. The cost of cybercrime right now is almost $14 trillion. So forget the drugs and the human trafficking and the weapons. Just cybercrime moving through the dark web is $14 trillion. So to give you an example of how much that is, right now, the GDP of the US is 28 trillion. The GDP of China is only 18. By next year, the dark web will surpass 18 trillion, which would make it the second largest economy on earth by gdp. Right now, it's number three. And it's more than Germany and Japan put together.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now, are those people messing with us or are they just running their own criminal underworld for people who want to buy body parts? And I don't. I mean, I'm sure they traffic children, like, but are they.

[Eric O'Neill]

Yes, it's the biggest. Human trafficking. I take my readers in one chapter. I take my readers over My shoulder as I go down into the Dark Web to the deepest, most depraved places with my friend. And he showed me horrible sites where you can. I mean, this is gonna. I mean, the kids cover your ears. But you can buy a young girl that you can decide what hotel they're gonna deliver her to, and they send you a PDF, instructions to build your basement dungeon. It's absolutely terrifying, absolutely horrifying.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, my God. I can't believe that law enforcement isn't all over this. But I guess they're not always as clever as the bad guys. And knowing where to find them, they try and.

[Eric O'Neill]

And they do a good job. The biggest drug trade on earth was called the Silk Road by this guy named the Dread Pirate Roberts. That was his online moniker. They were able to take him down by going from the distribution, the drugs that were landing in people's hands, and backtracking all the way up to the source who had set up these online marketplaces. And then about a year later, it all came right back. Somebody else just took up, took it up. So it's very hard to stop the. The Dark Web because of how it's designed. And in the book, I explain exactly what the Dark Web is. Its oranges, its origin, origins, and kind of what you can do to avoid a lot of these Dark Web cybercrime attacks.

[Megyn Kelly]

Can we talk about the Robert Hanson case for a minute? Because it's just so interesting. So you were just a young cub at the FBI when you got put on what would become really the biggest espionage case in modern American history. So what happened? You were like 26 or so, right around there. You get a job working for the FBI, and how did you connected, get connected with this? And what did they tell you the operation was?

[Eric O'Neill]

I started working for the FBI when I was 22, so I was pretty young. I was an FBI ghost, which people still don't really understand what that is. It's an investigative specialist, part of the Special Surveillance Group. We would. Any given day, I would hunt a spy or a terrorist primarily around Washington, D.C. so these undercover investigations. I was fully undercover for five years, and then suddenly I got asked in the strangest way possible by my boss, a supervisory special agent named Gene McClellan, to work on a case that was the most unique case the FBI had ever run. And he shows up at my house early on a Sunday morning, wakes me up and asked me to come outside. You know your boss in government never comes to you, right? You always go to them. So I thought I was getting arrested and I walk outside and he grins at me because he knows, you know, how law enforcement, you're always joking around. But he. He knows that I'm concerned. And he says, have you ever heard of a guy named Robert Hanson? And I hadn't. And he said, good, we want you to go undercover and catch him. And now I was mad at him because I said, why did you come here to tell me that? He said, because my next meeting is with the director of the FBI. That was willie free. And I have to tell them whether you're in or out. In or out. And I knew it was going to be incredibly disruptive that day. I think I had been married three months, you know, newlywed with my wife. I was also in law school. But, you know, that was an opportunity and some. A chance to do something really incredible. So I said yes. And I could have never. I could have never expected what I was getting into. It was you.

[Megyn Kelly]

You go to work for him undercover. They created, like, a fake bureau for him to work at. They suspected he might be the one. They knew somebody was leaking to the Soviets, but they didn't know who. And then over 20 years, he was just in the right place too many times that they started to think maybe, maybe this guy was very well respected. Very well respected. And they created, I guess, a fake bureau that they wanted him to oversee. And you went to work for him there, like, ostensibly as an underling, Right?

[Eric O'Neill]

Precisely. What they. The issue with Hansen and. And what I didn't know going into this case was he wasn't just a spy. He was the spy. He was the. The legendary spy that everyone in the entire intelligence community, FBI, CIA, nsa, you have. It was after a guy that is only known as the code name Gray Suit. And I didn't know that going into the case, but we had been after him for two decades. Entire careers had been broken trying to catch him. And at one point, the FBI went to the top Soviet analyst in the FBI, Supervisory Special Agent, and asked him to help them catch this legendary spy, Gray Suit. That was Robert Hanssen. So he was so good at this, they asked him to catch himself. And then they built a mousetrap for him, an office at the FBI. They put him in charge of information assurance, which today would be called cybersecurity, gave him access to data, hoping he would steal and drop it under a footbridge in Vienna, Virginia, and we would catch him ahead of time. And I was put in there undercover to make sure he didn't get away with was the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

[Megyn Kelly]

Did we find out why he was doing it? Was it for money or why?

[Eric O'Neill]

That's a great question, and a question everybody wants to know because he has steadfastly. He died in 2023. So now we'll never exist. Precisely, no. But he steadfastly refused to ever answer that question. But I'm pretty sure I know because we had so many discussions. And in fact, at the end of the day, it turned out he was recruiting me to take over for him when he left. He began at the FBI hoping to be a spy hunter. And they ended up making him, in his mind, what he thought was a librarian. He was a brilliant analyst. He wasn't really good at operations, and he was mad. So now he's a disgruntled employee. At the same time he's having all these children. He's a Catholic in Opus dei, and I'm a Catholic, too. He would call me a junior varsity Catholic. And he's having all these kids and he can't afford his life. And you add that. Angry at your employer. Need money desperately. And he chose to spy. And once he was promoted enough that I don't think he needed to spy anymore, he could make ends meet. He continued to do it because it's what made him belong to something bigger than him. And everybody wants that. And to Hansen, he couldn't give it up. It was the most exciting part of his life. And so he continued, and not only continued, he seemed hell bent to make sure that he was going to be the best damn spy in history. He just gave up just some of the most horrible secrets that have ever been given to Russia or any foreign power, including the lives of people who were our spies, undercover operatives. And he didn't take a lot of money for it. He made under $2 million.

[Megyn Kelly]

Did he confess?

[Eric O'Neill]

At the end of the day, I was able to find the information that was. I mean, you're an attorney. I found the smoking gun in the case. It was such a perfect piece of evidence. He had actually on his Palm Pilot, which for anyone who's younger than Gen X, is a personal data system. It was a big, clunky thing that you would open up and then you'd stab it with a plastic stick to get the data in. But basically it was just a big digital calendar. He had all of the information we needed to catch him encrypted on that palm palette. And I was able to steal it from him, copy it and get it back before he was aware it was gone. So we had a slam dunk case. He pled guilty and then spent years being interrogated by the FBI so we could understand what he broke and fix it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Was there a moment, Eric? And by the way, we're talking to Eric o' Neill about his book, Spies, Lies and Cybercrime. And many of these details are in here, Eric's backstory and why he got interested in this. Was there a moment where, like, do you remember the moment when you realized it's true? Because there had to be a beginning, you know, the beginning. They weren't. They thought maybe him, but you were sent in there to figure out whether this is the guy? Like, was there the moment where you were like, oh, my God, it's him?

[Eric O'Neill]

Yeah, I had. I had captured some information from him earlier. And of course, when you're undercover, they tell you as little as they possibly can because they don't want to put too much in your head that you could mistakenly reveal. And now the whole thing falls apart. And in fact, the FBI was saying, was telling me literally, I mean, I'm going undercover to do this way to build my confidence. You're probably going to be the one who screws this up. You know, my first job was don't make the mistake. Right? But there was a moment when I was just done with this. I was trying to get to law school. I was trying to keep my marriage together. I was constantly in this office. And I went to the special agent, a woman named Kate, who's played by Laura Linney in the movie, and I said, I just want out. I really can't do this anymore. This is really disrupting my life, and I don't think we're finding anything. And she looked at me and she said, first of all, you can't get out. You're in, and there's no walking out of here anymore. But second of all, that information you just found, I'm going to show it to you. And. And we realized that he. He wasn't just a spy who had spied, but the legendary one that we've been trying to capture since the early 80s. Someone who had. Who had. Who had given up information that led to the death of every single spy we had in the Soviet Union between 84 and 85. He shares that with a CIA spy named Alder Games. So he was. And then I felt like, oh, man, now I'm. Now I'm going full bore. I'm going to do everything I can to try to find the evidence that puts him away.

[Megyn Kelly]

What was it like when you Saw him arrested.

[Eric O'Neill]

I wasn't there at the arrest because I was still undercover at the time. They didn't want him to know that I had found any of this information. I was actually driving home, and I got the call. And I remember I got the call, and they said, it's done. We got him. And I looked over at my wife. We were driving home, I think, from the Eastern Shore, and we lived right in Washington, D.C. and I asked Kate, I said, can I tell Juliana? And she said, just your wife. We're still trying to get the IO. We don't want any of this out. And I literally pulled off the highway and just looked at her and I said, I got to tell you something, because I've been lying to her for this entire investigation.

[Megyn Kelly]

Really.

[Eric O'Neill]

I thought she was just going to get out, get a cab, and that was going to be it. But she looked at me and she said, now I understand it. Gave me a hug, and I was like, I'm keeping her forever. This is if she can.

[Megyn Kelly]

What have you been telling her?

[Eric O'Neill]

Anything I'd been tell. I told her that I got promoted to a computer job at FBI headquarters that was going to let me go to law school and not miss classes at night anymore, that I wasn't going to be working undercover anymore, and I couldn't tell her anything else. I was told to lie. I wasn't allowed to tell her what I was doing.

[Megyn Kelly]

So meanwhile, you're working on the Robert Hansen case the whole time. How long was it.

[Eric O'Neill]

So it took. It took me about three months to find the evidence that put Hansen away. And that was on that Palm Pilot. Right. Of trying to catch him.

[Megyn Kelly]

How was it? Was it a situation like an iPhone? I don't. I mean, I remember the Palm Pilot, but I never owned one. Did you have to get in with a password? Like, how. How. How did you get into his.

[Eric O'Neill]

Right. So it's. You know, if you read my. The book Before Spies Lies in Cybercrime, Gray Day, I actually go through this, the pivotal scene of this case, also in the movie, we tricked him into going down to the shooting range in the sub basement. We were on the room 9930 and the ninth floor. And while he was away shooting, and we did it with a pretext, I brought in a section chief and a assistant director that he absolutely hated and caught him off guard. And for the first time, he didn't reach into his bag and grab his Palm Pilot. And so as he left with them to go shoot, I knew it was there, and I grabbed it ran down three flights of steps to where we had a tech team waiting, and they copied it, encryption and all, and then broke the encryption later. And then within two weeks of that, we caught him. Now, the scary thing was he goes down to the shooting range, he takes a few shots, and then he goes. He comes right back up. I think he realized he left his Palm Pilot, and I had seconds to get it back before him. Wasn't sure if I had the right pocket. And the scary thing about that moment, and I. I recovered from PTSD. From this moment, I was 100% sure he's going to walk out of his office and shoot me. There was no way I got it right, but just sometimes God looks out for us, and I did.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's incredible. So now you've devoted the rest of your life to helping the rest of us not fall victim to professional liars. Really? I mean, that's kind of what a spy is, and it's what these cyber thieves are. And is it something. You know, I always think it's, you know, how you get the little alerts on your phone saying, like, this charge went through or that charge went through. And half the time I'm like, I don't know what that is, but I just assume I authorized it somehow. But that's another way they get you. Like, they just get into your bank account, and they just take $1 a month from Megan Kelly, $1 a month from Eric O', Neill, $1 a month from all these people. Like, you wouldn't even notice it. But what are some of the other clever ways that they get at us that we might not even be thinking of?

[Eric O'Neill]

Let's talk about phones, right? Since you mentioned texts, have you ever gotten that text that just goes, hey, or I'll meet you at the. I'll meet you at the cookout later. Or, are you picking me up? Right. And you think this is stupid. This is a number I don't recognize, and you delete it. Well, some people don't. A lot of people don't. A lot of people are very polite, and they'll respond and say, you must have the wrong number. I'm not invited to a cookout. Or, I don't. Whoever is picking you up, you might want to get the number. Right. These are phishing expeditions by cyber criminals who have these dark web call centers where literally, people who are chained to desks, they're kidnapped, and they're chained to a desk, and they have to work off their commission to be set free. And what they do is they send out these texts on these big lists that the attackers buy off the dark web, and they just try to see if someone replies and they're polite, and then they start these long courtships. So they can use something called romance fraud to get you to fall in love with them, or finance fraud or something we call pig butchering. And they might take weeks to become your friend before they say something like, I need money, I'm harmed. And if they've gotten you to fall in love with them, you might send them money. Or the other scam we see all the time that I advise people and I talk about in the book, and I tell a story about a grandfather who lost his whole pension to. This is. Is. Hi, I'm. You know, now that you're my new best friend, let me tell you about my job. And I do this. This special kind of investment with cryptocurrency. And then you invest a thousand, you give them a thousand. I'm going to help my friend. And they show you a website that looks really slick where you're $1,000 has just turned into, you know, $3,000 in a week. And you're like, how is this possible? And they said, cryptocurrency is different. And then you invest all your money with them and you think it's legitimate until you say, I would like to withdraw something, and they disappear. In cyber crime, we call that pig butchering because it's based on this old Chinese art of fattening a pig up as big and big and big as you can get it and then butchering it for as much meat as possible. And that's literally what they're doing to people. So when you get that text that just says, hey, be super, super careful.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you ever mess with these people when you get these on your phone?

[Eric O'Neill]

All the time, what do you do? I've dragged out people for months, you know, just wasting their time. And what I. What I'll ultimately try to do is figure out who they are. And that story about the. The scammers who almost got me, and a little backstory. They sent me this. This brilliant scam that I was going to go speak in Cape Town and. And they were going to fly me first class. So I was going to fly in the pod. It was going to be the first time I ever did that. And it was going to be my full speaker's fee. And I looked at the church. It seats like 10,000. So I was really excited. I bought the first class ticket for $10,000. And that's how they hook you, because once you're in for 10, you really want it to be true. There's something called confirmation bias, and the more they can make you want it to be true, the more you'll do dumb things. Then I get a call from an administrative person who works with the church, but also the South African government that says, we need you to pay for your work permit, your visa, and your. Your repatriation fee. And it was all to the tune of, like, a thousand dollars. And. And apparently what they do is once you pay that, it's more and more and more. That's what got me to start thinking to, whoa, whoa, whoa, this must not be true. And. And there were like a. A cast of five characters calling me and talking to me and emailing me.

[Megyn Kelly]

I called this so sophisticated.

[Eric O'Neill]

I called the South African embassy. It's incredibly sophisticated. And they said, we don't have anything like that. And then I knew it was fake. But, you know, to get back to your original question, don't use your personal cell phones with somebody who runs a company that does cyber security and competitive intelligence. I was able to identify each of the threat actors, the bad guys in this cyber crime ring, and get them all arrested downtown. Yeah. And I felt so good. And I did some things before that that I don't want to talk about because I don't want to get in trouble just to make sure I turn the screws. But then I got them all arrested, and so I got the last laugh. But I tell that story on stage, and I tell it right up front in the book because I want to be able to say that these attackers are so clever. And if it can happen to me, and I'm trained, it can also happen to you. So we really need to work hard to defend against it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes. I mean, I told the stories, too, just about us almost being scammed, because I think people would be shocked that we were so gullible, and my audience was shocked. But they. It's like one thing leads to another, and with us, we believed it because Doug's mom called him and said she spoke to Diane. Diane had this terrible thing happen to her, and Diane needed our help. We weren't like, patient zero in the. In the chain of events. So we just had to believe Doug's mom. Doug's mom was the one who had to believe the scammer, who, of course, is. She was elderly and so on, and we had never heard of such a scam before. So no alarm bells whatsoever went off for us. So you can be Fooled. You know, that's why we told the jury story, because the more people who hear your story and my story, the less are going to fall for it. And I just like, that was the first I knew that they've gotten so sophisticated, same as yours. We had multiple actors on this scam and multiple phone numbers devoted to, like, now you can call the court, and here's the case file. Now here's the criminal defense attorney. You can talk to him like they. They knew exactly what we would be doing, and they were prepared for it. And I'm embarrassed to add that they actually wanted the payment in crypto. And we still didn't totally know that was the beginning of the end, though.

[Eric O'Neill]

You know, you shouldn't feel embarrassed because this happens to everyone. I have friends, and I never name anyone in the book who it happened to who are brilliant engineers. You know, one thing you can do to protect against this, especially deepfakes when they're cloning people, when they're cloning voices, is have what we called in the FBI sign of life. I work counterterror. And there was also always going to be a chance that some terrorist group grabbed you and kidnapped you. And what I would do before I deployed was in an envelope. I would write military does this too, write the answers to three questions no one knew the answer to. It was sealed in the envelope. And then if I was kidnapped, they would open the envelope and ask me the question or ask the kidnapper the question. If they couldn't answer, they knew I was dead and they were just going to try to ransom back a body. You can do something like that with your family as well? A little easier for me, with my family, my children, my wife, we use the first line of a silly poem that no one's going to guess. So if your kid is kidnapped, they can work some of the poem in and you know it's real. And if they don't, then, you know, it might be a deepfake.

[Megyn Kelly]

But you would say to the kidnapper, ask her what the poem is like. Ask her what our family code word is, or whatever. And if they can't repeat that back, then you know you're being scammed.

[Eric O'Neill]

Or if you're looking at a deepfake, because deepfake can be video, too. You played the video, right? The bad video of you, the good video of me, and you just type whatever you want it to say. Ask that person, if you're talking to your daughter, you're talking to your husband, and you think it might be a deep fake Ask something they would only know, like, what's the book you asked me to read the other day? Yeah, the CEO.

[Megyn Kelly]

Because this person's only word, this fake version is only working off of data that they called about this person from the Internet.

[Eric O'Neill]

Exactly. So something intimate. I know. Don't go too intimate. But you know the book we read? What movie did we watch last week? Then the attacker's not going to know that. They'll get very flustered, and they won't know what to say.

[Megyn Kelly]

They'll probably just hang up. Yeah, exactly. Wow, this is so interesting. There's so many things we need to do to protect ourselves. It's in Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime by Eric o'. Neill. You guys have got to buy the book. You're ready. It does look very nice against my background. I'm so grateful that you came by. This is fascinating, Eric.

[Eric O'Neill]

Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful discussion, and I hope we can do it again.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. I want to have you back on one of our crime weeks and have you tell me this story in all full detail and walk the audience through how it all went. What a great, great crime story.

[Eric O'Neill]

Definitely. You know, I listened to your whole crime week. My wife and I listened to your podcast. Actually, we love your. We call it Megan in the Morning. That's how we start our day. And I had listened to that crime week, and when I was listening, I'm like, I should be on there. And when I was talking to my team, I said, this is the. This is the podcast that I really want to do more than any other.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, consider yourself booked. We've got nothing says Christmas like crime. So we always do a week of crime when we go off for Christmas, and people love it. It's become something people look forward to. So let's get into this with it in granular detail exactly how we got this basket. All the best to you, Eric. Good luck with it.

[Eric O'Neill]

Thank you, Megan.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Don't forget spies, lies, and cybercrime support, Eric. And buy this. This would be a great gift for speaking of Christmas, for, like, anybody in your life going into Christmas who doesn't want to read about this, like, interesting spy stories and how to protect yourself and what they're doing on the dark web. It's one of the big questions of mankind in 2025. Speaking of crime, back tomorrow with Kelly's Court. And guess what's happening? Did Katie gets sentenced? Don't miss that. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda. And no fear.

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