← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Revelations Connect Obama to Russiagate Hoax, and Hunter Biden Starts Dem Civil War, with Matt Taibbi and Emily Jashinsky | Ep. 1113
01:59:30
Megyn Kelly is joined by Matt Taibbi, editor of Racket News, to discuss Tulsi Gabbard’s release of explosive documents on Russian interference, why the Obama White House meeting on December 9, 2016 is the key Russiagate “smoking gun,” how Obama Era intel officials changed their assessment after an Obama-directed meeting, what we now know about the apparent collusion between Obama and the press on Russiagate, how the press ignored the Steele dossier until Obama's White House elevated the nonsense, and more. Then Emily Jashinsky, host of "After Party," to discuss how Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewert are acting like whiny has-beens, liberals crying over Colbert’s canceled show despite losing $40 million a year with 200 staffers, Stewart’s profane gospel choir rant trying to recreate his old style, J. Lo's outrageous new dancing and having no class, why she needs to retire her entire act, why all their schticks are tired and old like themselves, Hunter Biden taking aim at George Clooney...
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- [00:01]
Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111, every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. We've got a big show for you today after party host Emily Jashinsky will be here to react to Hunter Biden lashing out and how on everyone in the Democratic establishment in not one, but two lengthy and rather profane interviews. But first, an update to a story we told you about yesterday that's been all over the place, at least on right wing media, but not at all in the mainstream media. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard releasing Russiagate documents Friday evening that she says show, quote, there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials and at the highest level of our government. Now, I want to tell you that she, Matt Taibbi is also reporting. His information is that these documents are also potentially going to ensnare officials all the way up to 2024 in alleged conspiracy problems. So we could be talking about Biden administration officials that could be getting pulled into this and it could get all the way up to President Obama. I mean, having now really read in on this, this case, there's a real question about whether Barack Obama's about to have the same kind of trouble that Jack Smith caused for Donald Trump. Taibbi reporting that Trump's national security team is also looking at evidence that members of, of Trump's 2024 campaign were spied on, too. So the story we're about to bring you is going to touch on Barack Obama's administration and him personally, as well as Joe Biden and his administration, and what they may have been doing both to undermine Trump in general and possibly spying on Trump's campaign the second time around. Matt is here, he's joining me in one second. But I'm just gonna set up the story for you first. Not everyone agrees that there's any there, there. And I teed this up for you yesterday, saying to the audience, this is what Tulsi said. Matt Taibbi is saying the following. And on the opposite side is National Review's Andy McCarthy. And Andy's argument is that Gabbard is placing too much emphasis on the conclusion that Russia. This is, this is confusing. Okay, never mind. Forget this explanation. Please just get right to Matt. Okay? I'm going to explain it to the audience directly. Here's what happened. You had intel officials here. We had intel officials, okay? And they were under Barack Obama, planning a December 9, 2016 presidential daily brief oh, they've brought in. They brought in Matt. Okay, here he is. Hi, Matt, Nice to see you. Matt Taibb is here.
- [03:07]
Matt Taibbi
How's it going?
- [03:08]
Megyn Kelly
Great. All right, so your postings on Racket News over the past few days have really helped me tremendously. And so the audience knows, as I. I've read all of Andy McCarthy's postings as well. I've read your detractors in the mainstream media, and I have to say, you've totally convinced me. You're, you're, as always, you're an honest broker, but you've totally convinced me. This is actually, I think they're in deep shit and it's amazing. But my biggest takeaway is how did Trump 1.0 not find these documents that Tulsi just revealed? Because they really show the story. But let's just gonna walk the audience through it like third graders because it's extremely dense and it, you know, it's taken me time and time again and reading all the materials to get it. So. So the deal was, let's start with back. Let's go back to December of 2016, Barack Obama's president, but Trump has won and is going to be taking over as president in January. And they planned. The intel officials under Barack Obama planned. This is a lot of. This is from Racket news, which everybody should read directly. Matt's group intel officials planned a December 9, 2016 presidential daily brief, which is always from the intel community for the president, letting him know what's happening in the world. They planned a PDB that would say foreign adversaries. Quoting here, foreign adversaries did not use cyber attacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome. And they also plan to say we have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results. Here's the bottom line. What people need to know is Obama's intel community was about to give Obama a presidential daily brief that totally dismissed, downplayed, poo pooed, choose your word, the notion that Russia had meaningfully interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That's true. And by the way, Matt has gone well beyond the language that just speaks to manipulation of election infrastructure and pointed out that if you look at what the intel community had been saying, it went well beyond dismissing. They're not attacking our election infrastructure. They had doubts up and down the board about whether Russia had done anything more in 16 than it had ever done, which was just kind of attempts to be a menace. And so a little bit of chaos. And the intel communications that are released now by Tulsi show that. So while Andy and others are zeroing in on the notion that before they sat with Obama, they were gonna tell him, no attempts to hack our election infrastructure. And Andy will later argue them later coming out and saying, but lots of attempts to interfere in the election in general and totally to help Donald Trump, he's saying that's apples to oranges. Jim Himes, you point out at Racket News, is saying that's apples to oranges. There's no gotcha in Tulsi's big reveals about what was about to happen next because nothing that happened next contradicted that they didn't try to hack our election databases. Okay, so hopefully the audience is with me. So far, what Tulsi revealed was that the intel community was about to issue that statement to President Obama saying they didn't, like, they didn't try to hack our election infrastructure. And there's no evidence that, that they intended to alter the results this way. And what happened was James Comey's FBI said, we're out. We're, we're not joining that. We, we don't agree with that. And we're going to issue our own briefing later. And as a result of the FBI saying that and saying that it was going to draft a dissent, an official from Clapper's office, Clapper, again, at the time he was National Security dni, he was Director of National Intelligence. And by the way, Matt points out, Clapper, of all the intel officials, was probably the least enthusiastic about Russia, Russia, Russia. It was a lot more Brennan over at CIA. But anyway, Clapper's office, okay, said we're axing the PDB because the dni, like Tulsi, now she does the PDB for Trump, whoever runs the intelligence like apparatus does it. And that was Clapper under Obama. So he said, oh, FBI's out. Okay, we're killing it for killing the PDB for the time being. And at that point, a meeting was held. It was called and held, including all of Obama's top people, all of them. And they had a big meeting on this. And the next day, things changed dramatically on the Russia narrative and changed in a way that would support the Russia, Russia, Russia allegations that would go on to undermine the entire foreign first term of Donald J. Trump. And Matt is gonna help us lay out this whole story. And Matt contends, and he's convinced me too, it was not a matter of changing it from apples to oranges, just like pointing out apples and pointing out oranges before and after this critical meeting. It was, they had been saying, there's no apples, there's no apples, there's no apples. And as a result of this meeting, they changed it to say, apples abound. We're in an orchard, they're everywhere. We see nothing but apples. So it's really not an apples to oranges situation. We're going to get into all of this. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends and community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. 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- [09:34]
Matt Taibbi
Well, first of all, I understand and I think you did a great job walking people through everything. I understand the confusion about this. I don't think that the report as it was released did a particularly good job of explaining the what. What exactly the significance of these documents was, but they were very significant. If you remember, before the election, there was a story in the New York Times, for instance, on October 31, 31st, saying, FBI sees no link, you know, between Russia and Trump and the election. This was sort of what officials were telling people in the media. There were a few fringe attempts to kind of work the Steele dossier material, this full on Trump Russia conspiracy narrative into the media. But for the most part, they didn't get there. After the election, it was the same thing until this moment on December 9, 2016, when Barack Obama convened this meeting, ordered a new intelligence assessment. And then immediately that same night, they, there were leaks from the administration telling people that there had been interference by Russia to specifically to help Donald Trump because there were two different.
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Megyn Kelly
Let me stop you right there. Let me just stop you right there. So, so they call this meeting with all the Obama top people and that the no revised PDB has been issued yet. No revised intelligence community assessment has happened yet. The last thing that happened in the intel community was we're going to tell them that there really was no significant Russian interference, at least insofar as election apparatus goes. And FBI said we're out, we're going to issue our own. And then Clapper said, all right, well let's just pause everything. Then everybody gets together. That right after that, before any revised intel happened, before anything happened, they began leaking to the media, WaPo, New York Times, CNN. Saying something diametrically opposed, saying Russia, Russia interfered. And that to you, you described that as the smoking gun that shows there had been a decision to shift the entire messaging around this in a way they thought would undermine Trump. Because why, if that were not the case, wouldn't they have just waited until they had the new and newly ordered intel assessment and then figured out what was what?
- [12:18]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, and that's really the striking document, set of documents is you can see on December 9, there is an order from the Director of National Intelligence Office basically giving out directions on how to put together the a new intelligence community assessment per the President's request. But as they're giving out the assignment, the homework is already published in the New York Times and the Washington Post. In other words, they hadn't even started work yet or group work on this assessment and they were already telling everybody in the, in the media what the conclusion was. So the entire work period of this had to be a sham. Essentially. They pre concluded what was going to be in the assessment and started leaking in advance.
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Megyn Kelly
And there's no question it appears that this was done at the direction of the President of the United States. Than Barack Obama. They, they convened. It was all of his top emissaries. It was John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, Ben Rhodes, Andy McCabe. You point at Richard Legitt from NSA, all of these top emissaries for Obama. I mean these are his top, top top officials when it comes to national security. They get together and they received a group email the next day from Clapper's office. He was DNI again headed potus, meaning President of the United States POTUS tasking on Russia election meddling, asking them to produce an assessment per the President's request. Quoting, quoting there he says the, this, this, the intelligence community is prepared to produce an assessment, quote, per the President's request, that pulls together the information we have on the tools Moscow used and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election. An explanation of why Moscow directed these activities and how Moscow's approach has changed over time, going back to 2008 and 2012 as reference points. And you write in assessing this. In sum, just before Obama was about to receive a briefing that contained no reference to significant Russian interference, that briefing was called off and a high level meeting of White House security officials was convened, after which Obama himself tasked them with a new assessment that would lean toward a more aggressive conclusion. The critical job of divining Russia's motives would be given to the CIA and Brennan. And I think you're suggesting here there's a reason that even though it was technically all under Clapper, who was the dni, it was given to the CIA and Brennan, who all along had been very pro. Russia, Russia, Russia. And they knew full well he would go along to get along.
- [15:21]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah. And this coincides with other information that we already had. Obviously. The CIA director John Ratcliffe a few weeks ago released the note talking about how Brennan overrode the objections of his Deputy Director of analysis and two of his hand picked Russia experts to include Steele dossier material in this assessment. I also did a story last year with Michael Shellenberger about that, about how they suppressed dissent in the ICA that said that Russia was actually hesitant about Trump. They considered him mercurial and unreliable and saw that Hillary Clinton represented continuity and was manageable and they weren't so concerned about her being president. All of this was suppressed and Brennan was the person who was most aggressive in pushing the other line. So the fact that he was in charge of divining Russia's motives and remember, motive is a key thing here. It's not just that Russia interfered, it's that Russia interfered specifically to help Donald Trump. Those, those are too thin. Yeah. And so he was in charge of that second part.
- [16:34]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. And this dovetails with the report that's in the Federalist today entitled by Molly Hemingway. Top intelligence officials contradicted the CIA's Brennan saying there is no intelligence to support this key Russian hoax claim and just not to get too into the weeds, but she too is reporting that at the time. Okay. So leading up to this assessment, CIA Director John Brennan was pushing Russia, Russia, Russia. And that top officials working on this intelligence community analysis about Russia's alleged interference went to him and said we don't have it and we definitely should not be including in this thing the so called key judgment, which is an important intelligence term, that Russia interfered specifically to help Trump. We, we do not have that and you should not put that in there. And her reporting here dovetailing with what you just said and you've reported, the senior intelligence officials pointed out the lack of evidence to substantiate that claim, quote, we have no intelligence to directly support this aspiration point, said one member of the group. The official worried that the inclusion of that claim would, quote, open the intelligence community to a line of very politicized inquiry that is sure to come up when this paper is shared with the Hill, meaning when it goes more public. And the Ratcliffe analysis. So that's Trump's current CIA director. He just last week took a look at all of this and he just concluded that the inclusion of that term, that this was a key judgment that, that Putin was trying to help Trump, saying that the included the inclusion of that noted. He noted the risks of including poorly supported judgments. Since skeptical readers are inclined to reject an entire analysis if a single judgment appears exaggerated, biased or unsupported. It goes on to say, this is from I think this is Molly writing. The experts did not disagree that Russia had continued its practice of attempting to sow chaos in presidential elections. They believe the intel indicated Russia sought to weaken presumptive winner Hillary Clinton. And those efforts may have indirectly helped Trump, but they were concerned about the lack of evidence for the claim that became a cornerstone of the Russia collusion narrative in which Trump was accused of conspiring with Russia to stabilize steal the election. The official who was objecting to all of this wrote in December of 2016, can you really prove Moscow was trying to get Trump elected? And you've written to this too, Matt, that there is a difference between trying to weaken the woman they presumed would win Hillary and trying to help Trump get elected.
- [19:37]
Matt Taibbi
That's right. And that's, that's the key distinction, Megan, is that while a lot of people believe that that was apparent on, that they were expecting that Hillary Clinton was going to be president and, and that they were to some degree comfortable with that, but that there were were engaging in influence activities nonetheless. However, they just did not have concrete evidence that they were trying to help Trump. And the, you know, Molly is quoting security officials. I don't know which from which agency, but I know that they came from all three of the agencies that participated in this intelligence community assessment. Brennan overrode people within the CIA who objected to that conclusion. He overrode people in the Director of National Intelligence Office who could not sign off on that and in the FBI. So there was certainly not unanimous belief, even though they published that at the time.
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Megyn Kelly
Yes, we'll get to the media in one sec.
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Matt Taibbi
Yeah, so this is all very important. They just didn't have it. And the important thing about that is that that's the reason they had to use the Steele dossier stuff is because.
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Megyn Kelly
Wait, hold on. That too. Well, next we'll do Steele dossier and then we'll do what they did with the media. But I just want to read this other little piece from Molly's reporting today. So the. So she's reporting he had underlings coming to him saying, we don't have it. We do not. We cannot say in this briefing that the Russians wanted to help Trump. We don't have that. And she writes that Brennan called the dissenting individuals into his office on December 30, 2016, had a lengthy meeting. Again, this is all post like putting the brakes on that report they were going to give, but being told by Obama, give me a new report. And now Brennan is doing his level best to say exactly what he's been told to say. So he calls in those people into his office, has a lengthy meeting in which they articulated their serious concerns and says, quote, the assessment will stay the same. Which is all I can think of, is the Godfather, the rent stays like before. Nothing will change. So he gives the order, nothing's changing. We're sticking with Russia, Russia, Russia. And then she writes the following. The paper trail about this dispute posed a problem for Brennan, again, CIA director, because his underlings are putting this shit in writing. And he's not really thrilled about that because Brennan had presented the information as being universally held with a high degree of confidence. The CIA review noted that the key judgment that Putin was trying to help Trump was given a higher confidence level than was justified. And it further noted the CIA review. Sorry, that Ratcliffe just did last week. He just know. He just said, hey, when we look back at this, you, you said that was a key judgment and that was giving it a higher confidence level than was justified. There was all this internal dissent. You did not have it. That Putin was trying to help Trump. And it further noted that the intelligence community assessment had been drafted under an unusually rushed timeline. And then she gets into the leaks that that happened before they even finish it off. So before we get to the leaks, now tell me how at this point they're trying to come up with the thing Obama wanted, which is Russia. They were involved. They wanted to help Trump. That's why she lost. And suddenly the Steele dossier, which had already been out there, this is one of Andy's points that he thinks undermines Tulsi, how the Steele dossier became super important. Because what Andy says is they already. They didn't say Russia was extra involved just because Obama told them to they had already relied on the Steele dossier in the fall of 16 to get the ability to spy on Carter Page, where they went into the foreign intelligence surveillance court and they used the Steele dossier to get a warrant to spy on Carter Page. So his point is they were already focused on Russian interference and they used the Steele dossier in the fall of 16. But you're, you're making the point that at this, at this point in the timeline, the Steele dossier became extremely important. Why?
- [24:05]
Matt Taibbi
Well, with all due respect to Andy, for whom I have a lot of respect, I think that actually is kind of an apples to oranges comparison, because the September 2016 issue with the FISA Warren application, that was, I would say, more of an internal mishap within the FBI. This is part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump and Russia. And they were attempting to find someone they could get surveillance. FISA surveillance authority on the initial target was George Papadopoulos, but they threw him out in August of 2016 as not having any credible links to Russia. So they settled on Carter Page and in order to get surveillance authority on Page, they had to use the Steele dossier because there was no other credible intelligence. In fact, he was an informant or he was in good standing with the CIA at the time, which they kept out of that warrant application. So that was just the use of the Steele Dossier earlier in 2016. That was sort of a self contained little thing that happened within the FBI. What, what happens in December of 2016 is a much bigger and more important embrace of the Steele dossier. This is when the entire intelligence community throws its we weight behind this document, which by the way, had been poo pooed previously by the CIA as being Internet rumor. And you know, the other agencies didn't think of it in terribly high regard either until this moment when it became important. So I, I think that's important. And, and it's also important to note that this was why the press was suddenly able to write about this, because everybody had the Steele dossier. Megan, you know this in September and October of 2016, but nobody published it for the very good reason they couldn't confirm it. It wasn't until the Obama administration threw their weight behind it that they could report it.
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Megyn Kelly
They had the permission slip. So now they need the Steele dossier because the boss has told them to get back to him with an assessment that says Russia did interfere and Russia meant to help Trump. And so where do they turn? They don't have it except in the Steele dossier, which we now know was totally made up. It's been entirely discredited. That was the best evidence they had, which you're reporting too. Even at the time they knew was bullshit, but they decided to go with it anyway. So now they start to lean on that. And now we get to the press. This is so interesting. So you write at racket it's suspicious that a presidential daily briefing was postponed to make way for an intelligence community assessment ordered at Obama's request. It's fishier yet that the evidence that Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified annex. It didn't make its way into the principal report because the main intelligence agents objected too much to that, so they stuck it in an annex to the intelligence community assessment. So anyway, fishier yet that the evidence Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified annex containing Steele dossier material. And here we go. But the smoking gun is that these eventual conclusions leaked instantly. Instantly, not one or two weeks after Obama ordered the intelligence community assessment, but the same day before any group work could possibly have been done. And this is you writing on December 9, 2016, the New York Times ran with the headline, quote, Russian hackers acted to aid Trump in election US Says the exact thing it appears Obama wanted and they didn't have. And the lower level intelligence agents were saying we can't include that. That cannot be a key judgment. But got overruled by Brennan. The New York Times has it the next day. It was just the previous day that Comey was like, I'm out, I'm not doing that. And that Brennan or Clapper put a hold on that planned presidential daily brief within 24 hours. The new York Times headline is exactly what Obama wanted. Russian Hackers Acted to aid Trump in election U.S. says. And you say the piece not only led with a full blown Steele dossier saying it that Putin acted to help Trump at Hillary Clinton's expense, but but it followed with aggressive conclusions about Russian hacks of both Democratic and Republican party infrastructure. Also that same day, the Washington Post ran a piece describing a secret assessment that Russia worked to help Trump, even though the group assessment had only just been assigned. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller went on air with PBS to flog the paper's secret assessment story and spoke of Russians having weaponized material in. And not for nothing, Matt, but you point out all these reporters would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting.
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Matt Taibbi
I mean, it's kind of amazing. You know, I look back at this, Megan, at the time I was a Democrat. I, I had voted for Hillary Clinton in that election Cycle. I wasn't particularly a fan of Donald Trump, but all of this material about Trump and Russia, as soon as it came out, my instantaneous reaction was, this doesn't feel right. I remember putting out a column, said something about this stinks. And it was sourced in the same way that the WMD story was sourced, with lots of unnamed officials referring to things that could not be independently verified by other reporters, which is always a big red flag with this serious of a charge. But everybody piled on and it was. I had never seen anything like it in media before. You know, even the WMD story, it took some time for there to be consensus formed here. It happened overnight. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and it was crazy.
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Megyn Kelly
We know why. We know why. Because at least with wmd, they realized printing that was going to get us into a war. And there should be some hesitancy before doing it. But this. The only stakes involved were you would unfairly condemn Donald Trump and maybe not undermine his presidency, which is meaningless to the Washington Post and the New York Times and cnn, which was just as guilty. Those three were the worst. Politico two, those four, the absolute worst. And now we can see completely doing stenography for this dishonest intelligence community.
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Matt Taibbi
Yeah, and again, I think most journalists of the old school, you know, if you interviewed reporters from the 70s and 80s, like the, the frontline investigative reporter types, who would have done that kind of story back then, they were always motivated primarily the. By the fear of getting something big wrong. Right. And this is exactly the kind of story that would worry a good reporter a lot, because you're not able to see the thing at the middle of this big, you know, sort of presentation or what's inside, the sort of Christmas wrapping in your story. You just, you just can't see the evidence. And yet you're going to make this enormous a conclusion on the front page of your newspaper. And if that turns out to be wrong, once upon a time, that was your career. You were never going to work again. But we're in a different world now. You can make those kinds of mistakes and get promoted afterwards.
- [32:01]
Megyn Kelly
Pulitzer Prizes. So here's, here's the next piece of it. So you write from there. From there, officials built the Trump Russia narrative brick by brick. You write, on December 15th, the NSA's Admiral Michael Rogers, who in private refused to upgrade his agency, the NSA's confidence level from moderate to high on this nonsense, gave an interview to the New York Times in which he said, there should be no doubt this was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect. News that the FBI agreed ran the next day. This is exactly like Covid and how Fauci and Collins got all those virologists who had been saying it looks like it came from a lab after a brow beating within 24 hours to completely reverse themselves. And then they were saying it was racist to say it came from a lab. Okay, same thing. But. But, like, very dangerous. Okay. And. And you say this is the process that led to the release of the much discussed January 16, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded Vladimir Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President elect Trump's election chances when possible, by discrediting Secretary Clinton. The very report that magically Washington Post and New York Times knew how it was going to come out before it had even been drafted or before they'd even started working on it. And this dovetails because you say it started brick by brick, the whole narrative about Russiagate and the intel community using these media outlets as their stenographers. And it just happens to track with a clip that went viral this week in the wake of the Colbert cancellation, which shows actress Claire Danes, who of course starred in that great Homeland Security or Homeland series on Showtime. And she talked about how she, in that role playing a spy, meets with or was meeting with spies on the regular during this time frame. It was 2018 under Trump. And as soon as she starts to talk about how cozy the intel community was getting with reporters, Colbert, who is not dumb, though he's a hack, stepped all over her and tried to change the subject. Here's the clip.
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Hunter Biden
So now one of the things that you do. Do you do this every season where you go get to spend some time with some actual spies?
- [34:28]
Emily Jashinsky
Oh, we do. It's like the coolest part of my job.
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Megyn Kelly
Spy camp for US Producers and writers and.
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Jamie Harrison
Really?
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Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
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Hunter Biden
Is it like, you know.
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Matt Taibbi
Yeah.
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Emily Jashinsky
So we park ourselves in a club.
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Megyn Kelly
In Georgetown and talk to, like, real spooks and, you know, people in the intelligence community and the State Department and journalists and people who really.
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Hunter Biden
What do they tell you that, like, what's the most surprising thing that they've told you about their jobs? You would need to know?
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Megyn Kelly
Well, every year, you did not want to hear that. We've been at it for a while.
- [34:57]
Emily Jashinsky
And the climate has changed, but this.
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Megyn Kelly
Year, it was all about the distrust between the administration and the intelligence world. And the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're.
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Hunter Biden
Where did you start shooting this season?
- [35:15]
Megyn Kelly
How long we started in late August, September. No, didn't happen. Didn't hear it. How long you been shooting the season?
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Matt Taibbi
It's unbelievable, that clip. I mean, I've been on Stephen's show. I liked him, you know, I. But that's very embarrassing. And, you know, all these journalists, they were in bed with these spooks at this time, and they were essentially just printing wholesale these conclusions that they were fed. I mean, just think about it. That story that came out in the New York times and what, December 10th or whatever it is about Russia interfering to help Trump or Putin interfering to help Trump. Think about how quickly they had to put that together. You know, that unless that was somehow in the works with CIA sources early, like from much earlier on, that's doing a story on that scale in 24 hours is just incredible.
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Megyn Kelly
You have not checked what you've been told. You have just been a stenographer. That's what that shows. And now. So now Trump is very interested in this story, understandably, since his entire first term was undermined by this fake narrative. And now for the first time, we're really learning that it really was directed by Barack Obama. I mean, that's what the Tulsi reveal on Friday night shows. That's. You tell me, Matt, because you've been following a lot more closely than I have. The biggest reveal on Friday night was this was all directed by Barack Obama.
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Matt Taibbi
Yeah, so that's absolutely the big reveal. There were a lot of reporters, you know, Aaron Mate, Paul Sperry, even Dan Bongino when he was still in the media, not in the FBI yet. I worked with Michael Shellenberger. We, we all worked on this question. Ray McGovern, by the way, another former intelligence official. Everybody worked on this ica, and we all knew that there had been a big change and that somehow the disagreement about Russia's involvement between the FBI, CIA and NSA had somehow magically resolved around this time. But we all thought this was an intramural process between the agencies. What is new now is that we. We see that it was directed by the White House that there was an order that came on from on high to come up with the new ica, and that this didn't come from the agencies themselves, it came from Obama. Either that or one of the agencies briefed Obama, who in turn gave the order. But, you know, and that's still a mystery, but Obama being in the middle of this is now the story.
- [38:07]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I mean, he clearly gave the order one way or the other because it says, per the President's Request. I mean, that's in writing now. So here is Trump just now. He's. He was just caught on camera saying, well, we'll play both of them in succession. Let her rip.
- [38:23]
Donald Trump
The wood. Shot that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold. Tulsi Gabbard, what they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016, but going up all the way, going up to 2020 and the election. They tried to rig the election and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that. It wasn't lots of people all over the place. It was them, too. But the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for the fact that he gets shielded by the press for his entire life, that's the one they look, he's guilty. It's not a question. You know, I like to say, let's give it time. It's there. He's guilty. They. This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody's ever even imagined. Even in other countries, you've seen some pretty rough countries. This man has seen some pretty rough countries, but you've never seen anything like it. And we have all of the documents, and from what Tulsi told me, she's got thousands of additional documents coming.
- [39:45]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, that there he is on camera saying he thinks Barack Obama is guilty of treason. And that is a word Tulsi used, too. It may be too dramatic, but I don't know. I mean, it certainly is a threat.
- [39:58]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah. I mean, look, the reporter in me always gets nervous when a president is commenting on a potential criminal case and giving the verdict ahead of time. But I understand why he feels strongly about this, this directly. I mean, frankly, this whole caper paralyzed his entire first presidency. And the people who are wondering about the officials in his first term who didn't come up with these documents, I think they have good reason to wonder about that. But this is, this is a. An enormous story in our time. I think it's maybe second to the WMD story in terms of intelligence deceptions, but it might even be a bigger one, given that it. There has not yet been a public reckoning about it. This deception continues to be mainstream opinion in this country, and it's unfortunate that there just has not been a case that would make this clear to the people.
- [41:04]
Megyn Kelly
Well, we had the Durham investigation. So how. What did, what did that do?
- [41:10]
Matt Taibbi
Well, it is the Durham Investigation did establish pretty clearly the manipulation of the FISA warrant by the FBI. They obviously obtained or it led to one conviction of an official name, a lawyer named Kevin Kleinsmith, who, as I mentioned before, omitted the key detail that Carter Page was. Had a relationship and was in good standing with the CIA when they depicted him as an agent of a foreign power. So it did that, but it seemed to miss some other things. Now, I say that the best way I can put this is I think it's. It's a little early to close the book on what Durham found there. You know, there may or may not be more to come from that. We know that there is material that was not released from that investigation, so.
- [42:08]
Megyn Kelly
May still be coming because Tulsi's promising she's going to release more as the week goes on and presumably the weeks. So maybe we'll get that. You seem to be suggesting you think we're going to get that, which. Good. I hope we get that the way. I just want to read one other thing from your writing. You write that the meeting on December 9 that switched out a tepid presidential daily brief for a dramatic narrative about Russian interference to help Trump was hugely meaningful. It positioned Steele dossier conclusions as mainstream news. It set up Trump to be investigated by his own incoming FBI director and made sure the incoming administration did not see. See dissenting intelligence about Russian meddling more to come. And what you mean by that last point is that that discussion about we're going to give him a PDB on December 8 that says the Russians didn't. They did not hack into the election in any meaningful way that would have gone not just to the sitting president, but to the president elect. And you are positing here that another goal of spiking it was so that Mike Flynn, the incoming dni, would not be able to see it.
- [43:35]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah. Oh, I think he was the National Security Advisor, right?
- [43:40]
Megyn Kelly
Sorry. Yes. Yeah, he was National Security Advisor. Yes. But, yeah, Ratcliffe was the dni, right?
- [43:47]
Matt Taibbi
Well, eventually, yes. Yeah. And I wasn't sure about this, you know, but I reached out to Michael Flynn over the weekend and asked him if they had gone forward with this pdb, would you have seen it? And he said, I would have read it. And he said he was already accessing. He was going to a SCIF, which is a secure facility, and regularly accessing the PDBs for. For Trump, who had already, by the way, invoked the displeasure of the intelligence community by saying that he wasn't particularly interested in reading the PDBS every day. But when I asked Fleming if he thought it might have been a factor in holding the pdb. The fact that they knew he was going to see it, he said very likely. So the, you know, that's what he said.
- [44:40]
Megyn Kelly
Why would they want the Trump administration to see anything that was downplaying Russians interference? They knew that that was already being rejected entirely by Team Trump. Now, what if about I mentioned it in the intro before you came on your reporting that this investigation may involve Biden era issues too, that the DoJ to whom Tulsi has referred this case, though we don't know exactly why, we know from reporting that preceded Tulsi's Friday night announcement they've got some sort of investigation going at DOJ into James Comey. We don't know why. And also John Brennan. And we think that's over. Brennan, including the Steele dossier in the annex to this report and the testimony he gave around that process to Congress. I think that's as good a summary as we're going to get, though we don't totally understand the whole thing. Anyway, you're reporting that DOJ is also focusing on conspiracy charges, looking at conduct from 16 through 2024, and also at evidence that members of Trump's campaign may have been spied on in 2024. So what can you please elaborate on either of those points?
- [45:57]
Matt Taibbi
I can't say a whole lot, Megan, other than what what I wrote, but I've heard a couple of different stories. I have one, one source who has a very concrete story about this, but I can't go forward with it yet. But what I can say is that there's a statute of limitations issue with some of these 2016 behaviors that would be solved if they could prove a continuing pattern of conduct. And there were various investigations that took place during the Biden era, some of which the public knows about, some of which they don't know about. And those I think would become tied to a conspiracy charge that would relate to these 2016 behaviors. So I know that's kind of a, you know, know not a very clear answer. But I can tell you that they're, they're looking at investigations from the Biden period and suggesting that the, there's a pattern of conduct, you know, potentially to obtain surveillance authority in one case. Right. That might be established and that that might be how they look at this criminally.
- [47:21]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. And do we know who they're looking at? I mean, you heard President Trump there say Obama committed treason. Obama, somebody was just pointing this out the other day that Obama would not have Immunity for anything that happened once he was out of office. And I wonder whether there's any evidence he did anything once he was out of office. But what about Clapper, Brennan, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice? None of these people has immunity. They were not given any sort of blanket pardon.
- [47:55]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, I heard everybody's in play. Everybody at that meeting is in play. The only thing we've heard concretely though is about Brennan and, and Comey.
- [48:09]
Megyn Kelly
Comey. Yep.
- [48:11]
Matt Taibbi
There was one report that I heard that there had been a referral involving Clapper, but I haven't been able to confirm that yet. So. And it's conspicuous that he's not on that list already that's been released. So that's interesting. But we, you have to think that everybody who is at that meeting is probably lowering up at this moment.
- [48:38]
Megyn Kelly
So in the minute we have left, Matt, just give us the, the big picture perspective on this story, what it is and what it means about, about everything about the intel community and Trump, Obama and the press.
- [48:50]
Matt Taibbi
I think that the, the core thing that people have to remember about this story is that at the center of it, it's about taking a, basically a forgery, a manufactured piece of paid campaign research and making it officially backed policy of the United States government. And they use that to generate a years long investigation that paralyzed the American government. And it's one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on the public by the intelligence community ever. And we've had a lot of them in this country. So it's fascinating to see it finally unwind.
- [49:29]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. And there need to be consequences that they cannot just get away with this. These are villains. Matt Taibbi, thank you as always for your honest, straightforward reporting. Love talking to you.
- [49:40]
Matt Taibbi
Thanks so much, Megan.
- [49:42]
Megyn Kelly
Wow, wow, wow. Coming up, Emily Jashinsky is here. We'll talk about this. And it's Hunter Biden time. We gotta go there. You were on top of your bills and then inflation hit. Groceries, gas, everything shot up. Prices are up 26% from just a few years ago. 26%. Let me share a smarter, faster, far easier way out of debt. It's called done with debt. And they're not like other debt relief companies. They don't push loans or bankruptcy on you. Done with debt. They have negotiators who go head to head with your credit card and load companies. They have one goal, to drastically reduce or eliminate your debt altogether. And unlike others, done with debt can move lightning fast. Most clients need more money in their pocket month one. But a word to the wise, hurry because some of their brilliant debt erasing strategies are time sensitive. Do not make another bill payment until you speak with a Done with debt strategist. It's free. Visit donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com donewithdebt.com the son of former President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden is the Internet's main character today. Amazingly, in the span of two conversations, Hunter Biden went on an expletive filled rant against George Clooney and other key Democratic figures, claimed Ambien is what caused his father's horrific debate performance, speculated crack cocaine is probably safer than alcohol and and says the reason that the Dems lost 2024 is because they did not remain loyal to his dad. Also, he says the cocaine found in the White House is not his. That's just a start. Plus, you would not believe how Stephen Colbert and his buddy John Stewart responded to his cancellation Cry me a river, would you Grow up, you children. Put on your big boy pants and take it like a man.
- [51:29]
Hunter Biden
This.
- [51:29]
Megyn Kelly
This is absurd. Many of us have had very public cancellations and some were absolutely fucking brutal. And we didn't invite all our friends to come cry on the set and say, poor, poor her. Poor, poor him. American democracy will not be the same. Some of us took it like professionals, then picked it. Our picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and moved on with life. Is this how it's going to be for the next year? Watching this crybaby try to play the victim that his show got canceled? Grow up. It's called television, you toddler. Here to discuss it, one of our EJ's bear Emily Jasinsky, host of After Party on the MK Media Podcast Network. Thank God this will never happen to you, Emily Jasinsky on the MK Media Podcast Network. But I'm sure that's what we did. You wouldn't take it like an infant in the crib. This is absurd.
- [52:26]
Emily Jashinsky
This man hiring a gospel choir. Did you see Jon Stewart? He hired like a gospel choir to sing behind him and said F you to Donald Trump. Or like f off to Donald Trump because they think they're the outpouring of Democrats saying thank you to Stephen Colbert for, quote, like, standing up to power or speaking truth to power. There were like more than five Democratic politicians posting that in unison. Funny how that happens over the last several days. And hilariously, they see themselves genuinely as the, like, protagonists of the story. As though Stephen Colbert wasn't, according to puck news, losing $40 million a year. That show was apparently losing $40 million a year. And you can see how the math doesn't. Math for the cold, for the. I was gonna say the Colbert Report, but for the show. Because, I mean, you can't have overhead like an old late night show in 2025. It just, it doesn't make sense with when you're getting 3 million people a night. It's, it's an absurd equation and it's not there. No. And to act like this is all because Paramount has a merger in front of Donald Trump, which, true, they do. The Trump administration is looking at the Paramount Skydance merger. But to act like that's why they pulled the plug on Colbert, it's insane. They're actually getting rid of the entire franchise, not just the host.
- [53:42]
Megyn Kelly
Right. Why wouldn't you just replace the host? And by the way, if Trump were in there bargaining for the, you know, summary firing of people on CBS airwaves who are terrible to him and don't like him, there'd be no one left, literally, who would be left. Norah o' Donnell would have to go entirely. So would that Margaret Brennan, so would Gayle King. I mean, if really, if Trump were in there bargaining for like, these are the people have to go. Colbert is an antagonist, but, you know, is he any worse than these others I've named? Margaret Brennan is out there trying to skewer ineffectively though his top administration officials. Every week she tried to tank a vice presidential debate in favor of the Dems, as did Nora o'. Donnell. So it's like, I don't know, there'd be a lot of targets that I probably want to take care of before I got rid of this loser in late night who nobody's watching, by the way. So they say his, his show caused that it was. He was losing $40 million a year. Can I tell you something? The Kelly File, this is back in 20, you know, 14 through 17. And they have 100 employees on this thing. For 100 employees, they lose $40 million a year on the Kelly file. We had nine producers, that's it. And maybe a handful of tech staff, maybe five. So let's call it 15 roundup. And we made $100 million a year on that show. Just the Kelly file brought in $100 million a year in revenue. This guy has 100 employees, so almost 10 times what I had. And he's losing 40 million. That's what gets you fired, you loser. It's unbelievable that they kept him on the air at all based on this. Like, as long as they have, then they're like, oh, I was number one in late night. Okay, you were number one by 1,000, you were beating Jimmy Kimmel in the overall number. By 1000, you were losing in the advertiser key demo from 18 to 49 year olds to Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon is no longer on the board. He might, he might no longer be with us for as long as I know. Because literally, as Roger Ailes once said about Paula Zahn, you could put a dead raccoon in his chair and get the same ratings Jimmy that Jimmy Fallon's getting. Okay, but. But there was. He wasn't number one in the key advertiser friendly demo. And irrespective of that, all the numbers had fallen almost 50% just since 2018. No one's watching late night television anymore. It's a failed business model.
- [56:03]
Emily Jashinsky
Right. And that's why they're getting rid of the whole franchise. So for Colbert and Stewart to slot themselves into these roles as protagonists against the big bad corporate overlord and the administration is just like, is completely laughable. And for Democrats to do the same. It was completely laughable. I mean, laughable. It's obviously cynical, but at the same time it's just like, give me a break. They're getting rid of the entire show, not just Colbert. There are all kinds of different people at CBS who are bad, but Colbert is even losing on digital. I mean, he can be the number one on late night even if he's like losing in the demo. But like Fallon does better than him on digital, according to reports. Like, he's, he's. Of all the late night hosts, the one that does most poorly on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and those platforms, which not surprising at all because my new theory on why we have all of these like Gen X politicians flocking to Colbert's defense on the left. You know, your Chris Murphy, Hakeem Jeffries. It's because Elizabeth Warren, yeah, she might be a boomer, I don't know. But they Boomers counting this too. But Colbert and Stewart remind them of this time period when people felt like they were. They had this, this moral energy around resistance to the Bush administration. And there was something really edgy about tuning into ComEd Central late night back in like 2009 or 2007, that it just makes them. It's this wave of nostalgia to look like you're standing up and standing by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, who are.
- [57:31]
Megyn Kelly
Honestly, you missed it. There's like these losers who go out there and like march on Harvard's campus. You missed the civil Rights era. Sorry you weren't around for it. You're cosplaying now. No one's believing you. You're not making any sort of a difference. Steve Krakauer corrects me. There are 200 employees on Colbert's show. 200 literally. We had nine producers to produce the highest rated show in all of cable news. In the key Advertiser Friendly demo 25 to 54 on cable news with the Kelly File. I had nine producers and like I say, just a handful of texts it for $100 million a year. That show netted. This show's losing 40 million a year with 200 employees. It's a loser. What you call that in the kids talk is a loser. It's a hard loser and he can't accept it. And just one other thing. Jon Stewart, I, I love to talk about this. Okay. What a pathetic has been. He had his role during the heyday. He was very relevant for a time. That time has passed. And all of his ratings support my statement. Okay. Some of us were able to reinvent ourselves after we left the cable news universe and some of us weren't. So he came back still thinking he'd be the king of the cool kids. And he's had absolutely middling ratings. Nobody's watching him. And so he decided to bring back some of his old tricks. Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of his little gospel choir. He's done more hit pieces on me than anybody I can think of that has attacked me time and time again. When I had just had my babies, I'd be nursing them on my couch and he would drop in another hip piece on me because I was a threat on Fox News and he was afraid of me. He didn't want my message getting out there. He wanted to, you know, to diminish me and my shows in their crib that failed too. Anyway, so there was speculation yesterday in the podcast universe Bill Simmons had on Matthew Bellamy of Puck News, formerly Hollywood Reporter. And they openly wondered whether when Jon Stewart went on the air Monday night, he would quit because he was so outraged over the wrong, the deep wrong that had been done to his good friend Stephen Colbert, you know, clearly fired over politics. And so there was some anticipation. They both said they were going to watch Stewart live that night to see whether he would quit and make a point that this was deeply immoral. So much so that he would sacrifice the millions and the fame air quotes that he's getting from his reappearance on Mondays on the Daily Show. And instead this is what we got. This ain't the time to shrink. Not the time. This is the time to fight.
- [60:26]
Emily Jashinsky
Listen.
- [60:26]
Megyn Kelly
The time to rise up.
- [60:29]
Matt Taibbi
You're afraid and you protect your bottom line.
- [60:33]
Megyn Kelly
I've got but one thing to say, just one little phrase.
- [60:39]
Emily Jashinsky
You tell them, go yourself.
- [60:51]
Megyn Kelly
Yourself. Just go yourself, everybody. So it was a no. He did not forego his millions of dollars or his ridiculous do nothing post on the Daily Show. Instead, he chose himself and he chose to go with a profanity laced rant against the company that owns Comedy Central, Paramount, with whom this merger's happened. They also own cbs. And this came as no surprise to me because he's always been all about himself. However, I did not expect that he would really kind of embrace the same mistakes Oprah Winfrey has embraced that have made her an official has been too. Where they take their old shtick that worked 20 years ago, try to revive it in their older bodies with their gray hair, and think in the modern day media environment, which you know better than anybody, Emily, doesn't work. You cannot as a 60 year old dude, whatever Jon Stewart is, he's around there, or In Oprah's case, 70 something come out and still pull off the I am shouting at people. I will be heard. You look old and weird and it's too jarring. It no longer works. And so it's not surprising to me, because I don't watch his show, that he too is failing and that he felt the need to hold on to his one little loser show a week because who else would hire that?
- [62:32]
Jamie Harrison
You just.
- [62:32]
Emily Jashinsky
That's kind of interesting because his pod, the podcast version of Jon Stewart, is different than that. And so to have that actually be in his life and him not sort of understand the distinctions, I think is pretty interesting. The other thing I'll add on that is what you just described and what we just watched, unfortunately, is obviously also tiresome. But it's also the type of thing that people saw as really avant garde in again, like 2007, because you had someone on this cable network speaking to younger Americans. He was doing the kind of anti network late night show thing, like the anti Tonight show type of thing over on Comedy Central. And he was, you know, using profanity. He was being much more directly political than the late night hosts were. And that felt at the time novel and fresh and edgy. And now it feels like another shtick instead of something that's honest and authentic. It feels like this overproduced, like to act like you're speaking truth to corporate Power on a corporate. Corporate platform by doing the same shtick you've been doing for 20 years. It obviously does not have any of the same edge or novelty that it had back then, but he doesn't realize it. I think that is actually really interesting.
- [63:49]
Megyn Kelly
You're so right. It's so true. He would have been so much better off if he had just opened up with just him at the desk, looking at the camera and just speaking extemporaneously. Like, I'm really distressed over this. This is why. This is what I think. These are the things. I've known this guy for this long. Here's my own experience and what parallels, like, people would have watched that. It would have been gripping. People, you know, on his side at least, would have found it really interesting. But he. He went back to the gospel choir is one of his favorite tools. He just looks like a fool now. He's 62, jumping and dancing and screaming at us in front of it. He looks old, dare I say elderly. And like he's trying to hold on to his golden years, like his youth years. It's not that far afield from what JLO is on stage doing right now with her fake sex simulations, you know, Might as well just show it. I mean, there's a lot to go over in this next hour. JLo's out on tour in the middle of nowhere. I don't. I don't know where she. No one's listening to JLo. Her tours have been a mess. Her songs are unpopular. Here's a man with his face in her crotch for the listening audience. We see Heiney with a thong, and a man looks like he's giving her oral sex, like his face is in her crotch. Now she bends over, and then for the next several minutes, she simulates actual sex acts. Like, you know, there. She's doing actual sex acts, though she's clothed with a bunch of men wearing just pants and corsets, I guess. I don't. I don't know what they're wearing. Yeah, like doggy style, missionary. Her sitting up on them and writhing and grinding. She's 55 years old, and she hasn't come to grips with the fact that she's not a sex symbol anymore. I'm sorry. I can say this because I'll be 55 in November. We're not sex symbols. We could look great for our age. We could rock a bikini in the right setting, that's terrific. Good for us. But asking the American public to look at you and be like, I want to have sex. When I look at her, that ship has sailed. I'm sorry, it's sailed. With menopause and a post menopausal woman out there bumping and grinding against 30 year old men. It just makes us think about how old you are. Try to have some class instead of embracing life as a now soft porn actress. These are the same people in different bodies. Stuart and Lopez.
- [66:10]
Emily Jashinsky
Holy shit. That's so funny. I didn't know where that was gonna go and it just, it landed perfectly. But truly there's something interesting about that. Because with JLo, if you are trying to impress people by looking good for your age, baked into that is still people thinking about your age, which is not what people think. When you're actually 25 and you look like you're 25, you're drawing attention to your age. So if you want people to be thinking, yes, this woman is beautiful for her age, then by all means, but we know that what, here I go. Jon Stewart and Jennifer Lopez, as both want people to think, is that they're actually still at the top of their edginess and their novelty. And that doesn't work at this point in their careers. And there is something culturally going on right now. Part of it just has to do with our technological abilities to tweak our appearances and keep looking younger and younger. That has an element of arrested development to it. Like this is a serious thing that's happening of like adults flocking to Disney World alone and in mass apparently. Like this is a thing that's really happening across the culture. And, and part of it is probably people being able to tweak their appearances, getting married later, buying houses later. And there's all kinds of stuff going on here. But it is, I think like getting us stuck in this, this loop of just tired, tired culture. But people are now starting to reject it because the gatekeepers are losing their power. And that's where you see JLO failing to sell tickets.
- [67:50]
Megyn Kelly
See that the thing is, is like you can look sexy as an older woman. Absolutely. You know, hello, Tina Turner was the goddess of this into her 80s and she would wear a tight dress or a short dress and she would show off those unbelievable legs and arms and everything in between. But with class, she never, you never saw Tina Turner shoving her vag in some 30 year old dancer's face and then simulating ever. Like it was like reading the Kama Sutra watching that JLO performance sim. She wasn't desperate for attention. She was, yes, always a sex symbol in a way, just because she was so sexy and strong and talented. But JLo's crossed over to actually trying to be like a porn star. That's what she's, she's closer to somebody you'd see on only Fans. That's where it falls apart. You know, you look at a lot of these. Look at, look at Celine Dion. I mean, as Celine's now having some health problems, but like she's always had this very thin body, but she wears these totally glamorous gowns. She's never had to do this because her talent reigns supreme. You know it as soon as your ear hears it. And she has a world famous talent and voice. JLo doesn't. And she's tried to make up the gap with her with, by being a sex symbol, by being like a sex pot, a sex kitten for her entire career. And when you are 29, it's great. Even 39, you can pull it off, my friend. At 55, you need to retire that act, put on a great dress and try, try to sing like I'm sorry. That's the point at which you found yourself. This thing is not working. Okay, back to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The Colbert meltdown has reached epic proportions. There were actual protests outside of his studio last night in New York. Like people are gathering to chant something like down with Trump, up with Colbert. Or like kill Trump, save Colbert, whatever it is. And in his show, Colbert show, because they're leaving him on the air. Steve, is it through the end of next year? Is it like through the, through May of 2026. So they've got how many, almost not quite a year left of these nine months of these shows? I'm going to tell you right now that's not going to happen. They're going to pull the plug at least if he continues with this nonsense. He brings in all these Hollywood and late night and related stars to try to, I guess make us cry about his cancellation. And here's how that looked. Look at those guys. Anderson Cooper, Andy Cooper, Andy Cohen, kissing. Oh, nice. Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers. Seth Meyers, complete loser, can't stand him. Adam Sandler, Love him. Shame on you for appearancing appearing in this. Stuart and what's his name, John Oliver. Like a couple of teenage girls in the audience overacting a cartoon version of Trump. Stop. Sorry.
- [71:00]
Hunter Biden
Stop, stop, stop playing. I'm sorry.
- [71:02]
Megyn Kelly
I'm sorry.
- [71:04]
Hunter Biden
Corporate weird.
- [71:05]
Megyn Kelly
Alex, what's going on?
- [71:05]
Hunter Biden
Hold on, give me a sec. Your song has been canceled.
- [71:08]
Megyn Kelly
What?
- [71:09]
Jamie Harrison
Why?
- [71:09]
Emily Jashinsky
Why?
- [71:10]
Hunter Biden
I don't know. Hold on. It says here this is A purely financial decision.
- [71:15]
Megyn Kelly
What does that mean?
- [71:16]
Hunter Biden
I think it means money.
- [71:17]
Megyn Kelly
Well, yeah, but what money?
- [71:20]
Hunter Biden
I don't. Hold on. It says here that since you started playing that song, the network has lost. And I don't know how this is possible. 40 to $50 million.
- [71:33]
Megyn Kelly
I. He just looks so out of touch, Emily. Like it's the same thing as Kamala Harris parading out those celebrities to try to save her campaign. It didn't work on Democrats. That's who he's trying to appeal to. Didn't work on Democrats for her, and it doesn't work on his Democrat audience for him. It only makes him look like the elitist, out of touch, rich snob that.
- [71:55]
Emily Jashinsky
He is in this is. We were talking about this actually an after party last night. There's this difference between macroculture after party.
- [72:02]
Megyn Kelly
It's on at 10pm on Mondays and Wednesdays on YouTube live with Emily Jashinsky. You should totally tune in. It's super hot. Keep going.
- [72:10]
Emily Jashinsky
That's right. We're having fun. We're live. And so Colbert is doing this thing where he's like, still pretending that he's Johnny Carson, even though what he's doing is for a really niche audience of educated, affluent, coastal, Coastal liberals. The types of people who watch John Oliver and Jon Stewart and really like those weird Trump jokes that he does that are more like uncomfortable than they are funny. And so this is the problem is he's still acting. Part of the reason he sees himself as a martyr and a victim is because he's acting like they canceled Johnny Carson for saying something mean about Ronald Reagan. And that's not what's happening. He's trying to do micro culture versus macro monoculture, but he's trying to do it on a macro monoculture culture budget with a 200 person staff losing 40 million people a year. $40 million a year. And I forget, I wish I could credit the person who said this is so smart. But it was basically, his show was basically affirmative action for anti Trump, like coastal elitism because it was losing all of that money. And yet CBS had to be careful with it because they don't want to look like they're getting rid of, you know, this political opponent of the president. They don't want to upset all of the other people in the industry who they know are going to jump to Colber defense and frame it sympathetically. And Colbert genuinely was funny at a point. That's why he has some like, genuinely funny friends like Adam Sandler. But he, it's, it's the Same thing. I'm gonna do this one more time, Megan. I'm gonna go back to this. Well, one more time. It is JLO esque, right? It's our culture doing the Steve Buscemi meme where he says, hello, fellow kids with the skateboard over his shoulder in perpetuity. Because JLO was a dancer. She was famous for being a. Her talent was in dance. Her talent was being really hot and a really good dancer. Colbert and their talents were being these like young, edgy, anti establishment comedians. And you can't be a young, edgy, anti establishment comedian or an incredible dancer when you're not young anymore. And they haven't adapted.
- [74:13]
Megyn Kelly
This is why I like being in news, because getting older in news is actually a bonus. It gives you a lot of wisdom from your years of covering the news. It's not a deal breaker. You don't have to be fired. It's not like your vagina looks different. So you can't, you can't be on air anymore.
- [74:30]
Emily Jashinsky
Yes, yes, yes. It's been great for Leslie Stahl.
- [74:36]
Megyn Kelly
I just, I love, I love that they're trying to do the same shtick they did 20 years ago. And I, they're just all getting terrible results. Matt Taibbi was on the first hour, as you know, and in watching one of their shows, they were talking about this, he and Walter Kern, and they revived this clip because this is Colbert. This is the reason Colbert failed. He took a great franchise, the Late show, great franchise. You know, David Letterman used to be there and absolutely fucking ruined it by segments like this where he went to Russia, to the Ritz Carlton presidential suite, where the alleged Trump pee tape from the Steele dossier was said to have happened with the prostitutes. So he could do on scene reporting. Look at this.
- [75:29]
Hunter Biden
Hello. Join me, won't you, in the bedroom of the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow. The room we've heard so much about and yet no one has come to check it out. I don't know why when you're in this room, you don't, I don't know how to describe it. It's soaked in history. It just, it just washes over you. I mean, it's not even like it's in the past. You're in history, you're in it. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying the pee pee tape supposedly took place on that bed is what I'm saying. The dossier alleges that President Trump was somewhere in this room. We don't know where he Sat down. It could have been on this bench down here, though I doubt it, because that's in what's called the splash zone. You're gonna want to wear a poncho. Could have been on the couch over there. But what would that look like? Join us when my investigative journalism continues. Peep, peep, tape. Beep, beep, tape. You know, when you've imagined something for so long and then when you finally see it, it just doesn't match what you pictured in your head? That's not this feeling at all.
- [76:50]
Megyn Kelly
It's amazing to me, Emily, how every single one of those laughs was laugh track, because he wasn't funny. The whole thing wasn't funny. And by the way, even his side has now had to admit the steel tape has been totally discredited, and it was all a lie. That's how you fail in television.
- [77:07]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, well, you know what would have been funny is if that entire shtick. Well, first of all, if the jokes were funny, but if the entire shtick was satirizing the political establishment cooking up a conspiracy hoax and making fun of this idea that there was a dossier that had legitimate, credible information because Christopher Steele stitched it together from all of these different sources was really one primary source. Subsource all of that. The idea that this suggested that Donald Trump really credibly had colluded with the Russian government making fun of the CIA and the FBI and the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign for cooking up such a hilarious hoax that would have been funny. And by the way, that's exactly what Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were standing up against the excesses of the intelligence community during the Bush administration. And it reminds me one person who has adapted really well. I was thinking about this while you were talking to Matt is the great Matt Taibi, because he mentioned he'd been on Colbert show and he used to like Colbert. And I'm like, you know what? Taibi is one of the people who was anti establishment when those guys were anti establishment. And Taibbi has remained consistent with and he has adapted instead of just hook, line, and sinker buying what the Intelligence Committee community is selling because they happen to be on your sort of ideological side at any given moment. That's actually. That's right, Glenn. Yep. That's actually edgy. That's why they're actually interesting, compelling people. And. And Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart look so hollowed out and sad and are just going back to these same shticks over and over again for like 10 years, years now, in a way. That is only funny to like 5% of the country that is still reliving the, the moral energy they had in 2007 because they were laughing at Jon Stewart for taking down the Bush administration. And it just, it's not the same anymore. It doesn't work anymore.
- [79:02]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I've been on Colbert show multiple times. I've been on Kimmel show, I've been on Fallon show, I've been on Seth Meyers, I've been on all of them. I was on Jay Leno, all of them. And I can affirmatively tell you that Stephen Colbert is not funny. He's not funny behind the scenes, he's not funny on camera. And the only reason he really wanted me is because back when I went on, they would occasionally book journalists. Just ask Brian Williams was his downfall. It's because all of them would occasionally do like news and. But it would be like a smattering, you know, we would be like a sprinkle on top of the cake, which the cake was always real celebrities, like actual Hollywood A listers who would go and be the first two acts. Then you'd come on as a news person, like as the C team, which is fine, you're a news person, you're not expecting to be the lead act. But they completely lost their mission. And we talked about this when Colbert got canceled last week and the news broke. His lead guest of the night he got canceled was Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff, I gotta read you part of what Charles C.W. cook wrote in National Review about Colbert. Because it's so good, he writes. Since the news of promulgated entertainment, analysts have been busy looking for the murder weapon. Some have suggested it was Trump. Others have pointed to political climate, the state of the TV market, the economics of producing a spectacle in contemporary New York. My choice is less complex. The executioner was Stephen Colbert. As the host of the Late Show, Stephen Colbert was annoying in a direct and palpable sense. He hectored, he sneered, he gatekept for a narrow, pious worldview. And above all else, all else, he sacrificed jocosity, meaning being funny, for ideology. A trade that never ever pays. Under Colbert's inadequate leadership, the program came to resemble the sort of bedeviled mutt that one might expect if one were to instruct artificial intelligence to produce a chat show, having trained it solely on old episodes of the View. Not only did the product fail to look like America, its architects neither knew what America looked like nor wanted to know. It was insular, smug and self serious. And worst of all, it routinely committed the only mortal sin in show business. It was boring. Last but not least, most of this was directly Colbert's fault. The rest was indirectly his fault. Many of the postmortems have noted correctly that Colbert was obsessed with a particular strand of American politics. And that in addition to giving the show a dull Manichean tone, this obsession led him to offer up a surfeit that means excessive amount of left leaning politicians as his guests. Right on. What has received less attention is that his non political invitees were also habitually dreary. Why? Because in the environment that the Stephen Colbert of the world have created, they had no choice but to be so. It is indeed true, he writes, that the death of the movie star system has made late shows more difficult to stage. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a red herring. A media universe that was engineered by the likes of Stephen Colbert was always destined to be a media universe in which interesting people, sedulously that means constantly avoided saying anything of consequence and in which those who tried to say compelling things were swiftly cut off at the pass. Ultimately the problem was of demand, not of supply. And he goes on from there. It's a great piece. Charles is so smart with his fancy words, but I get it. I think we get it. And he's not wrong. I'll give you the last word, Emily.
- [82:21]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, I was gonna say, I don't know how Charlie had time to watch so much Colbert when he was nose deep in his thesaurus, apparently, but he's right. I mean, it was, it was just for a tiny slice of the public and it was operating on a budget that couldn't possibly sustain that. And it took, you know, I think, a big corporation like Paramount, CBS a long time to reconcile with the death of monoculture. They just, they can't do it anymore. And they're not. It doesn't make Colbert a martyr in any way, but we can expect them to be.
- [82:50]
Megyn Kelly
They're all dinosaurs, they're all getting canceled. Trump actually just posted on Truth Social that he hears Jimmy Kimmel is going to be canceled next. That could be. Trump actually does have very good sources in television across the board. So he could be right. Kimmel's numbers are also terrible. Fallon's literally are. I mean, in the bottom of the barrel. You can't even see Fallon, he's so far behind the other two. And the other two are already losers. So they're not gonna be around in five years. None of them will be around. They're too expensive for too little. Return the day of the Late night Talk show host and the late night talk show has passed. It had its heyday. Carson, Leno 2 was great. Letterman awesome. It's over. Accept it, move on, cut your losses. CBS was the first, it won't be the last. Emily stays with me and we have a fun announcement coming about the other EJ in a moment. That plus Hunter Biden Shopping, planning and cooking really can be simple. Imagine your weekly grocery cart filled for you and your meals already planned. I want to tell you about Hungry Root. Hungry Root fills your cart with personalized picks and plans your meals getting smarter with every order. With over 15,000 recipes and a wide grocery selection like smoothies, kid snacks, sweets, salad kits, ready to eat meals and supplements, it's easy to find options that fit your family's tastes and nutrition goals. Whether you are gluten free, dairy free, high protein or focused on gut health, hungryroot helps you eat well and reach your goals. Their best price program offers great value and you'll get a free item in every box for life. Take advantage of this exclusive offer offer for a limited time get 40 off your first box plus get a free item in every box for Life. Go to hungryroot.com mk and use code mk that's hungryroot.com mk code mk to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Here with me today, Emily Jashinski, host of After Party on the MK Media Podcast Network. Just go to wherever you get your podcast. Type in afterparty or Emily Josh Shinsky J A S H It starts and you will find her show, follow on podcast and watch live on YouTube on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10pm and you can have a beer with Emily. Not everybody gets to do that. Okay, so.
- [85:07]
Emily Jashinsky
Or Margarita courtesy of Megan and Doug.
- [85:10]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. I didn't know that. You didn't. You can't drink tequila so we had a last minute substitution on your. On your margarita. What? That's a terrible affliction by the way.
- [85:20]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, it's really embarrassing, actually. I'm deeply embarrassed by it.
- [85:24]
Megyn Kelly
It's like an allergy.
- [85:26]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, it's. And I don't know why. I'm not allergic to anything. I'm sure I'm gonna get all kinds of comments from doctors being like it's this, it's that or it's nothing. But truly, trust me, I've. I've experimented many times. It's.
- [85:36]
Megyn Kelly
It looks horrible the first time you found that out the hard way.
- [85:39]
Emily Jashinsky
It was. And I was in a Tequila phase of my life. And I found out, even just like a little sip, it doesn't matter. It'll. It doesn't work. It doesn't work anymore.
- [85:48]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, no. Did like, like Hitch, like Will Smith in the movie Hitch? With like this one? Everything?
- [85:56]
Emily Jashinsky
No, I didn't. Not quite that bad, but bad enough that I can't keep doing it.
- [86:01]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. Okay, good. Well, got it. The problem was rectified before I served you anything dangerous and I'm thrilled it worked out. Okay, see, this is all the fun you're missing if you're not watching after party with E.J. hunter Biden. I'm going to kick it off with this comfortably smug of ruthless. Such a great guy. He tweeted the following and he's not wrong. Hunter Biden is the Joe Rogan of the left. I wonder if they will realize it. Put Hunter in front of a mic. That's how you save the Democrat Party.
- [86:30]
Emily Jashinsky
Kind of true.
- [86:31]
Megyn Kelly
He's joking. But he was highly entertaining. I mean, a little misguided on pointing the finger at others, many others for doing things that he himself has done Exactly n times 10. But fine, it was very entertaining to see him break out the machine gun, the rhetorical machine gun, and go after every prominent Democrat who's been in the news lately. Maybe we have that SOT. Let's see, I don't know. Sat 12. Let's start with Sat 12.
- [87:01]
Jamie Harrison
Fuck him. Fuck him, Fuck him and everybody around him turn out to be fucking nice. Number one. I agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking George Clooney is not a fucking actor. He is a fucking like, I don't know what he is. He's a brand.
- [87:17]
Megyn Kelly
Fuck you.
- [87:18]
Jamie Harrison
What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why do I have to fucking listen to you? We, me and James Carville, who hasn't run a race in 40 fucking years, and David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life and that was Barack Obama. And that was because of Barack Obama, not because of fucking David Axelrod and David Plouffe and all of these guys and the Pod Save America guys who were junior fucking speechwriters on Barack Obama Senate staff, who have been dining out on the relationship with him for years, making millions of dollars. The Anita Dunns of the world, who's made 40, 50 million dollars off the Democratic Party. They're all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out unlike anybody else how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever won. What influence does Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience on cable news. And beyond that, I think that the book is right now on Amazon that he put out. I mean his ratings just went to shit after he put the book out. You know, they did a two week infomercial for it. I mean it was such a money grab.
- [88:23]
Megyn Kelly
You know, you feel like you might like him if you had dinner with him. You know, I like maybe just a drink, like a short. Well, maybe he can't. Maybe if he had, he did his crack and you had your non tequila drink, you know, you could have an interesting conversation for 10 minutes. Other. Well, he's not wrong about what anything he said there.
- [88:39]
Emily Jashinsky
No, this is the thing. Like there's something very serious in what Smug said because right now Jamie Harrison, former head of the dnc, his first guest on his new podcast was Hunter Biden. But it was, it was a much different conversation than Hunter had with Callahan. And in, in this conversation, what you see is a man who, he's completely wrong to frame himself as a victim of the political establishment like that is absolutely laughable. It is true that Jake Tapper and others in the political establishment decided to aim their fire at Hunter Biden as soon as it was clear the Biden family was no longer going to be in a position of power. So yes, it's true that there was this big book by a major CNN anchor that was going after the family. Of course it only happened after they were out of power. But what Hunter Biden is doing there is attacking the Democratic establishment. He is actually believably, even though he's wrong about like 90% of the stuff that just came out of his mouth, he's believable in his sentiments and he comes across as like authentically angry. And by the way, he was spitting some facts about the pod save bros like he was, he was cooking. Those guys do live in their like Hollywood mansions and then tell the Democratic party what it needs to do to regain the trust of voters based on their experience in Washington ten plus years ago at this point. So he's not entirely wrong about that. But I think what the truth, truth, the kernel of truth, I should say in Smug's point is that what Jamie Harrison is never ever, ever going to do is sincerely attack the political establishment. And that's why people like Joe Rogan, period.
- [90:13]
Megyn Kelly
God, that's so right. That's so right. So. So by the way, this other guy, Jamie, needs to understand that the first rule of news is when you make news, put out the news. Don't sit on the news. Don't wait months to release the news. You will get scooped on the news. So there is your news lesson of the day from a news person, Jamie. He had Hunter Biden long before this YouTuber Callahan had him. And he didn't put out the news. And the news was very interesting. It was Hunter Biden trying to tell us what actually happened between George Clooney and Joe Biden at that LA fundraiser. And it's a very different story than the one George Clooney and Jake Tapper have been telling us.
- [90:55]
Jamie Harrison
Here it is George Clooney before that event. And it literally threatened to pull out of the event. How many times? Five, six times, over and over again, saying that he was so upset because my dad refused to recognize the arrest warrant warrant for Netanyahu and would not commit to not allowing Netanyahu to enter the country after the ICC warrant went out for his arrest. And the reason is, is George wife Clooney, as if we were supposed to know. This is because his wife was one of the principal architects of that, of that warrant. Anytime they're doing these pictures, as you know, there is somebody standing next to the President, Mr. President, says Mr. President.
- [91:42]
Megyn Kelly
Jamie Harrison chair George Clooney, right?
- [91:45]
Jamie Harrison
Not because my dad didn't know who George Clooney, because I was literally whispering, literally I was whispering in his ear saying, dad, fuck him. And he claims in his arrogance that my dad, the President of the United States, didn't know who the actor was. And to say something that is so patently untrue in order to justify what you did afterwards is cowardly is weak.
- [92:12]
Megyn Kelly
Very interesting. He's saying that his dad. And if you hear the longer clip, he's saying, of course Joe Biden knew who George Clooney was, A, because he's George Clooney, but B, because there had been this ongoing threat by Clooney not to attend the fundraiser, including four or five emails and exchanges just in the days leading up to the fundraiser because he was so angry that Joe Biden wasn't going to enforce the arrest Warrant from the ICC that Amal Clooney orchestrated working for the U.N. you know, she's supposed to be this human rights lawyer. So she wanted to see Netanyahu arrested. She wanted Joe Biden to do, which she said he had to do, and Biden wasn't doing it. And Hunter says George Clooney made this a big thing. He actually tried to use it as leverage, like his appearance at the fundraiser, try to use that as leverage to make him do the arrest of Netanyahu. So Hunter's overall point is, of course he knew who George Clooney was. Was. This is bullshit. And George Clooney just had his stupid star nose in a out of joint because his sweet mall didn't get her way. Very interesting stuff.
- [93:15]
Emily Jashinsky
It is really interesting. I mean, it's a completely different story and it's one that's super newsy because it also, as you just outlined, involves the President of the United States being threatened by a donor and Hollywood celebrity over this arrest warrant for a ostensibly an ally of the United States of America, somebody who Biden was aligning himself with. So it's a much more interesting, much more newsy story this way. And it makes you wonder who the source is in the Tapper book, because it now sounds like it probably came from Clooney's camp, given that Clooney, clearly.
- [93:48]
Megyn Kelly
George Clooney, and Clooney, if he's being.
- [93:52]
Emily Jashinsky
Honest, has been around these lines, these, these, you know, meet and greet lines. It should have been more than a meet and greet because it was probably a smaller group if he was the big headliner in this fundraiser. But he knows that you have, you know, Gary from Veep whispering in the President's ear, George Cloo. So if he, if he leaked that, it's pretty interesting because he knows that if they're saying Mr. President, George Clooney, they're not saying Mr. President, don't you know, this is George Clooney. They're just, they're just kind of at the same time. Should you really have to say Mr. President, George Clooney? Probably not. Maybe Biden had that very familiar vacant.
- [94:28]
Megyn Kelly
Look in his eyes, but I get that. But what, what Hunter seems to be saying here is that Clooney had a motive to lie. He was pissed at Joe Biden, and he had a motive on top of, you know, just his eyes and ears and what he saw with Joe Biden to bring him down. He was pissed off about the Amal thing, and not only did he lie in his op ed, but he lied when he obviously talked to Jake Tapper and maybe Alex Thompson in the working of that book. And honestly, it would have been valuable for Hunter to come out before now. I don't think he could have saved his father. But it's very interesting to hear him. He's obviously a smart man. He's articulate and he's smart. You can hear him putting, you know, his thoughts together in a persuasive way. It's probably less compelling when he uses it here in Sat 16, but I'll let you be the judge.
- [95:15]
Jamie Harrison
The only difference between crack cocaine and cocaine is sodium b carbonate and water and heat. Literally.
- [95:22]
Megyn Kelly
That's it.
- [95:22]
Jamie Harrison
That's it.
- [95:23]
Megyn Kelly
And those things are pretty much free. If you go to, like, a science.
- [95:26]
Jamie Harrison
Store, this is free. You can go to your neighborhood convenience store and just get. Anyway, I don't want to tell people how to make crack cocaine, but it literally is a mayonnaise jar. Cocaine and baking soda.
- [95:40]
Megyn Kelly
How different is the experience?
- [95:42]
Jamie Harrison
Vastly, vastly different. And, like, for real, I feel really reluctant to kind of have some euphoric discussion. I know you're not asking me to do that, but have some euphoric discussion about crack cocaine.
- [95:55]
Megyn Kelly
I think this might be kind of the opposite here.
- [95:56]
Jamie Harrison
Okay? No, it's the exact opposite. I'm saying I don't want to have the experience of some euphoric recognition. That's how powerful crack cocaine is. Does crack cocaine make you act any differently? No. Is it safer than alcohol? Probably. People think of crack as being dirty. It's the exact opposite. When you make crack, what you're doing is you're burning off all the impurities so that it combines with the sodium bicarbonate, which makes it smokable. That's all.
- [96:26]
Megyn Kelly
I'm now sending you crack at tomorrow's afterparty. I think we've said rattled. We're done with the tequila. We're moving on to crack cocaine.
- [96:36]
Emily Jashinsky
It's got to be clean, Megan. So that's actually sounds like a good plan. Crack is the new maha. That's. That's where the public health conversation needs to go. Someone. I'm cribbing from Twitter again. This was so funny, and I wish I could give credit to whoever said this, but they were like. That was like watching LeBron James talk about basketball, listening to Hunter Biden talking about crack. And I will say, some of their conversation about addiction I found to be genuinely compelling and moving. And Hunter Biden is clearly very smart, and he has had a hell of a life, starting with that crazy car accident and all of the things that his family has been through. Awful, crazy stuff, wild stuff. But it is sort of. This is a really hot take. What the Democratic Party needs in a way that reminds me of when it. I know it's apples and oranges, but there's. There is something here with. With Donald Trump coming down the golden escalator in 2015 and calling bullshit on everything that Jeb Bush and these establishment Republicans were saying in front of the public and kind of hashing out, forcing them to confront the. The problems that had been brewing and had gone unaddressed. I mean, the 2012 Republican autopsy after Mitt Romney lost was basically a prescription of what not to do, but everyone here in D.C. thought it was exactly what. And so Hunter Biden coming in and kind of, you know, spearing some of the sacred cows in the Democratic Party, it actually might help jostle something better loose, as crazy as that sounds, it might be kind of. It's like crack. It's what the doctor ordered, Megan.
- [98:14]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, it's. The problem is when you really delve into it, you know, what he's criticizing is, like, people like Anita Dunn, who made $40 million off the Democrat Party party. Hello. Hello, McFly. What. What have you been doing for your entire adult life? Do we have to talk about what was on that laptop and how he was just a grifter off of his dad's name and, you know, the Biden corruption. All right, last but not least, I've got to get this in before we go. The other ej, Eliana Johnson, has been off because she had a baby. She's had a new baby boy. His name is Luke. He's six weeks old. And here she is with little Lewis and older sister Ariel. God bless them. Good luck to them. Beautiful and growing family. So happy for her.
- [99:00]
Emily Jashinsky
He's so cute.
- [99:02]
Megyn Kelly
I know. So hopefully she'll be. I didn't even know she was pregnant. I never get to see her, you know? Cause I only get to see the top half of you gals, and it's very rare to see her. But she was pregnant and she had a baby, and I'm so excited for her.
- [99:12]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, she's a hard worker. You never know.
- [99:15]
Megyn Kelly
I know. She's nose to the grindstone. All right, Emily's gonna stick around. We're gonna continue this discussion because obviously we're not done with Hunter. There's so much other goodness in there. I've been talking a lot about Riverbend Ranch steaks lately, and for good reason. The ranch is just a few miles from West Yellowstone, Montana, and their steaks are incredibly flavorful and surprisingly tender. Listeners have shared similar awesome feedback. Riverbend Ranch raises Angus cattle, but they've taken it further. For 35 years, more than three days, the owner has selectively bred Angus cattle with superior genetics for marbling and tenderness, creating a herd that truly stands out. Their beef is born, raised, and processed entirely in the US without artificial growth hormones or antibiotics. And it's shipped directly from the ranch to your door. Riverbend Ranch is not just another beef company. It's a legacy of quality care and craftsmanship that you can taste in every bite. Order from Riverbendranch.com use the promo code Megan for 20 bucks off your first check order and let me know what you think. Riverbendranch.com promo code Megan Sasha hated sand, the way it stuck to things for weeks. So when Maddie shared a surf trip on Expedia Trip Planner, he hesitated. Then he added a hotel with a cliffside pool to the plan and they both spent the week in the water. You were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find our place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub and, of course, a great shower. Expedia Made to travel. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today, you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No 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.
- [101:30]
Jamie Harrison
Go to SiriusXM.com MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free.
- [101:42]
Megyn Kelly
Offer details apply.
- [101:45]
Jamie Harrison
And I'll tell you what, I know exactly what happened in that debate. He flew around the world, basically. And the mileage that he could have flown around the world three times. Yeah, he's 81 years old, cold, he's tired as they give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights. And it feeds into every story that anybody wants to tell. And Jake Tapper with literally how many anonymous sources. If this was a conspiracy, Andrew, you know this. Somehow the entirety of a White House in which you literally living on top of each other has kept their mouth shut, apparently about, you know, like what? In which conspiracy. Yeah, that Joe Biden got old. Yeah, he got old. He got old before our eyes.
- [102:29]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so the news that Biden was on Ambien heading into that debate is new. No one knew that. And many people are asking how much Ambien he was on because the debate took place two weeks after he had returned stateside from that international trip. Trip. He'd been hauled up at Camp David. So, you know, the Internet asking how much Ambien had he possibly taken. My God, this sort of hangover effect. I will give you one he rips on Pod Save America and I'll get to them in a second. But there was a funny response to the whole thing from Tommy Vitor, who's on that podcast, as follows. It's good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward and hold himself accountable for how his family's insular, dare I say arrogant at times approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we're all now living with.
- [103:18]
Jamie Harrison
With.
- [103:19]
Emily Jashinsky
Good. It was good.
- [103:21]
Megyn Kelly
Your thoughts on the news that it was the Ambien, Emily? It was the Ambien.
- [103:25]
Emily Jashinsky
You know, Sam Stein, he actually is at the Bulwark now. Pointed out the timeline here is crazy because the Europe trip, I think, was over by a week plus before the actual debate itself. Biden had. Everyone remembers this because it was so bizarre at the time, which was. Was bizarrely only a year ago. But he had been holed up at Camp David for the week before the debate. And everyone was thinking, what is going on? He needs a week to do debate prep at Camp David. Like, he's not even at the White House. This is very strange. He's clearly taking this seriously. But he needs a full week. And the idea that that had.
- [104:06]
Megyn Kelly
He was. He had been back for 13 days. He had been back from Europe for 13 days. He'd been at Camp David for seven days.
- [104:12]
Emily Jashinsky
I mean, so again, this is just an argument against him being the president of the United States. If he needs that level of a drug cocktail to recover for two weeks after a trip to Europe, where you're representing, you are not just representing, you are governing on behalf of the American people. Like, that's not just an argument for poor debate performance. Although I think politically, just to go back to this comparison we're drawing between Hunter and Donald Trump, if Hunter at the time had come out and been like, hey, my dad was on Ambien, everyone would have been like, oh, yeah, that makes way more sense. Please stop trying to tell us he had a cold. Like, there's something to just like getting rid of this faux. Like, it's just a scripted Democratic Party talking point bullshit that Trump kind of got rid of in the Republican Party and Now Dems have this handicap because they still, nobody has forced them to get rid of it yet. And it's why they're so bad on shows like Rogan.
- [105:06]
Megyn Kelly
You're so right. It's so interesting to hear a Democrat saying, saying what he thinks is the truth. And I believe him that Biden was on Ambien. And I realize he's using it as an excuse and a crutch, but still, it is interesting to hear a Democrat just completely saying, like all that stuff he said about Anita Dunn and the pod save guys and George Clooney. You know, it's true. I mean, he had a good point. Like, who is this to tell Joe Biden who'd been in service for 52 years in the public eye when it's time to step down? Like, that would have been a great response at the time. He should have brought that howitzer out this time last year. It was literally a year ago yesterday that Biden stepped down.
- [105:45]
Emily Jashinsky
Can I say that's actually also interesting because it reminds me a little bit of how Republican candidates were with Fox News back in 2015 and Trump. Like, why would nobody else say what Hunter Biden just said about the pod save guys? It's because they want to, at least in the sort of Democratic Party establishment is because they don't want the pod safe guys with a very popular podcast to go after them. They want to be able to go on the show. They want to not get criticized by these guys. And it does remind me again a little bit of what Trump just blew up on the right back in 2015. He went after Fox News, like right away. Motivations for doing. Yeah, I'm sure you do. He had his own motivations for doing it, but that sort of created a permission structure where everyone just got freer and looser and it ended up being better for the Republican Party in terms of like, sharpening its policy positions and, and leveling with voters, at least more than it had been before. And that's an interesting.
- [106:40]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, you're so spot on here. We've been teasing it. Here's him slamming the pod save guys. He went on. But here's part of it. Sat 14.
- [106:49]
Jamie Harrison
For some reason, the intelligentsia of the Democratic Party with 2020 hindsight believes that Joe Biden should have considered not running again because of their perception that he was too old. And so then the drumbeat began and the New York Post wrote, I mean, the New York Times on a near daily basis, egged on by the pod save America saviors of the Democratic Party. With what? Four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with, with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly fucking Hills, telling the rest of the world what black voters in South Carolina really want. They're trying to take South Carolina away as the first primary state, the first time in history that the heart and soul of the Democratic party gets to have its voice heard first. After 50 years of Iowa and New Hampshire with 3% black population states, I thought it was less, less than that.
- [108:04]
Megyn Kelly
New Hampshire's gotta be closer to one.
- [108:06]
Jamie Harrison
Closer to one. I saw a few blacks in the states finally. And you know what? You know what you have, you have the pod save America motherfuckers saying, you know, I don't think South Carolina, that's only. Was only there because of Joe Biden and Joe Biden and that's what he did to save his own self, his cell. Why should South Carolina have the.
- [108:21]
Megyn Kelly
What the fuck?
- [108:22]
Jamie Harrison
I mean, are they out of their fucking minds?
- [108:25]
Megyn Kelly
He's a lawyer. I hope he wasn't like this in court. Court that doesn't work as well with the judge. What the fuck? Your honor.
- [108:32]
Emily Jashinsky
I mean, he's like, this is Hunter's moment and he knows it. America is ready for Hunter Biden. I genuinely think that that's true because Democrats are right now like in political playbook. This morning Democrats were talking about what a disaster Hunter Biden was because they felt like they had energy, talking about Trump and the Epstein Epstein story, that there was all this momentum ball was in the Democrats court going after, hammering Trump on the Epstein stuff. And Hunter comes in and starts sucking up a bunch of oxygen with this unnecessary three hour interview with Andrew Callahan. But actually there's something interesting about that, which is they don't. I mean, of course it's bad for the Democrats, the centrist Democrats who are leaking to playbook because their power is threatened by Hunter Biden. As silly as that sounds, Hunter Biden now has nothing to lose because he knows that his family is not like completely is out of power. There is no more Biden dynasty or aspirations for a Biden dynasty. James Biden, Frank Biden, Valerie Biden. They don't have power in the lobbying world anymore because they can't trade on their name in the same way they used to be able to. So he's now sort of unfettered and free to go out there and say whatever he wants. That is free to the dumb establishment.
- [109:45]
Megyn Kelly
Free things that Pardon. Free. Thanks. That pardon his dad gave him before he left office, the blanket pardon. So Emily what you're saying is that I should reach out to him about joining the MK Media podcast network. Is that what you're doing? That's I hear.
- [109:58]
Emily Jashinsky
I mean that's. That's my advice. But I have to imagine. Megan, you think that's a good idea too?
- [110:02]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I'm sure people would watch it. I. I'm gonna. I feel like it's not on Brand, but I bet he would do well if he came over.
- [110:10]
Emily Jashinsky
Hunter Biden.
- [110:14]
Megyn Kelly
Not gonna lie. Probably. Listen, I'd probably download it at least for a time. Emily, thank you. A pleasure. See you soon.
- [110:20]
Emily Jashinsky
Thanks, Megan.
- [110:21]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so she had to run because she's got a lot of work to do.
- [110:24]
Jamie Harrison
She.
- [110:24]
Megyn Kelly
She's got another show and she's got a couple of other shows. But we're going to keep going here because we do have, for example, a response from the Pod Save America guys to the attack that the foul mouth Hunter Biden launched on them. And here's that in SOP 14B. It must be just so hard for Hunter Biden to watch all these people dining out on somebody's name.
- [110:44]
Hunter Biden
You are on the board of Burisma.
- [110:46]
Megyn Kelly
Because of who your dad is. And that is what people hate about Washington. And it was part of the problem. One thing we know is that Hunter Biden throughout Joe Biden's presidency was a terrible liability for him. You should be ashamed of the ways in which you made your father's political life worse. And like the idea that we're going to listen to you now, like give me a fucking brace. Ridiculous. I know you're angry personally, but you're not the fucking victim here. We're all living with what happened in this election.
- [111:17]
Matt Taibbi
You got a party Harden. You're fine.
- [111:18]
Megyn Kelly
It's just utter lack of self awareness. It's the shamelessness that really. That really gets you in the end. So there. He won't be welcomed with open arms by the more establishment type Dems. You can see the war unfolding over there on the left. And it's interesting. I mean it's very interesting. I don't. It doesn't seem to me like Hunter Biden's done talking. He's welcome to do some of that talking right here. Here. I think we'd have a very interesting conversation anytime. Come on, we'll give you a fair shot. Okay, moving on. Not from Hunter. I want to get play a couple more. Here he is with thoughts on why we should keep illegals in the country. Stop 15.
- [111:59]
Jamie Harrison
All these Democrats say you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about illegal immigration. You. How do you think your hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you have food on your table? Who do you think washes your dishes? Who do you think does your garden? Who do you think is here by the sheer, just grit and will, that they figured out a way to get here because they thought that they could give theirselves and their family a better chance. And he's somehow convinced all of us that these people are the criminals.
- [112:35]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so once again, it's a leftist. How many of them have we seen exposing his racism on camera in defending illegals that every single time. Remember we saw the one Dem saying, who's gonna wipe your ass? Actually on camera? Who's gonna wipe your ass? Like when you're older and you need help? This guy. Who, who's gonna. Who's gonna clean your hotel room? They're all illegals. Like, who's gonna tend your garden? I mean, I've got gardeners that they're legal. Legal. We make sure that the people who come on our property are legal, are here legally for many reasons. Morally, it's right. Legally it's right. And I'm a public figure and I don't need that bullshit coming into my life. Honestly, like Abby will tell you, she's our first screener for anybody who wants to work for me. And you know, in the home context, we make sure that everybody who comes here is legal. What? How about you, Hunter? Who have you been having working on the Biden family estate? A bunch of illegals. Because I'm going to send Tom home and to come back visit you. This isn't going to help me my quest to get an interview with him. But in any event, it's amazing. This is where the Democrats always go that every Hispanic who's here is like some absolute low life who's wiping ass and working in like the hotel janitorial. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they can't envision a Hispanic person who came to the United States, legally or otherwise, ascending to anything higher than menial labor. That's how they view them. That's how they talk about them. And I think it's really truly their own racism because just because you're here illegally doesn't mean you're not capable of more than that. It's tough. But there are plenty of left wing employers who will employ you and give you a shot. But in the minds of these Dems, they never ascend above the bottom rung of American labor and they use this as a tool to try to stop the deportation. I'm sorry. Some of these folks actually come here as doctors from their home countries. And then, yes, rightfully, we make it a little difficult for them to get jobs and ascend to that same post here. But go back home. The answer is to go back home where your medical degree counts, not to stay here. Okay, last but not least, he's got thoughts on why the Democrats lost the election. And I'll play that. This is from a different interview. The one we were watching was from Andrew Callahan, who's got a YouTube channel called Channel 5. And I played you one from the podcast with the former head of the dnc, Jamie Harrison, who just launched his podcast. The Democrats have decided that this guy Harrison is their new Joe Rogan. He literally has 400 followers. 400. At his YouTube channel. So it's not going that well because he's interviewed Hunter and. Who else did he have? Somebody else. Tim Walsh. Okay. And with all. All that, he's gotten 400 followers. In any event, here is Hunter telling Jamie Harrison why he thinks the Dems lost the presidential election in Sat.18.
- [115:26]
Jamie Harrison
And I will tell you why. We lost the last election. We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That's my position. We had the advantage of incumbency. We had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration. And the Democratic Party literally melted down and. Or portions of it. Portions of it.
- [115:52]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. This is just revisionist history. Joe Biden, no matter what he says, ambient or not, lost his ability to run for reelection. The night of that debate, it had been building in the news for quite some time. The entire news media and Democratic established establishment was running cover for Joe Biden to try to tell us not to believe our lying eyes. We had seen the whole public. Nearly 80% had been polled, and they saw that he was too old. That was the nice way of putting it. To run for reelection. It is a joke to suggest that that man had another four years in him as the President of the United States. So while Hunter Biden may be speaking some truths to Democratic power, he is not speaking the truth there. They did not lose the election. Election because they abandoned Joe Biden. They lost it because they didn't have a primary and find some actual vibrant candidate to run. Anyone with a pulse, for that matter. They kept him in too long, and then they replaced him with a completely banal, uninteresting, rather stupid, empty candidate who had absolutely no authenticity. That's why they lost. Simple. That's the truth, not what he just said. All right, last but not least, Epstein. Emily mentioned Epstein at the tail end of our conversation. There's news on that today, and this is real news. We've been talking about how the DOJ says it's going to move and has moved now to unseal the grand jury transcripts from the Epstein indictment in 2019 and the Ghislaine Maxwell indictment that happened a couple of years thereafter. And. And no one's expecting any real bombshells to come out of that. But, you know, okay, it's something. It's more. Feels more like a fig leaf, frankly. But now the number two guy, Todd Blanch at doj has announced that Pam Bondi and he, I believe, have, are going to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell. They're meeting with her and they are giving her the chance. They're using the word testify, so I'm not sure what that means. There's no active proceeding that's open. She's got an appeal present. But one would not testify in context of an appeal. So perhaps simply as a deposition or while under oath about Epstein to tell, you know, the full story. Now we're talking. That could get interesting. And of course, you could put it on pay per view and fund Trump's presidential library with the proceeds. You could fund pretty much anything. We could pay probably the national debt with what people would pay to hear that. So that's something that's real. That really could pay dividends. I don't know whether it will, but the administration is doing a much better job of doing the kinds of things that should. I don't know if they will, but that should satisfy the Epstein skeptics, and they're not conspiracy theorists, the ones who genuinely have questions about what. We're not there. So, anyway, thumbs up for that development and we'll continue to monitor, monitor how and when and if that actually happens. She also sent out a tweet her lawyer did, saying something to the effect of she looks forward to working with the administration, like, to make sure justice is done. Something like that. It definitely sounded like she's fishing for a pardon. I don't really care what her motivation is. Like, I don't know. I guess we do care about her punishment, but, like, is it more important to you that she sits in jail for the next 20 years or that she tell the full scoop on Epstein? There'd have to be a proffer if she was going to get any sort of a pardon based on telling the full truth. Like, we'd have to see what she's going to say because you can't give her immunity and then have her give up nothing. But things are getting more interesting on the Jeffrey Epstein front, and I'll leave it at that. We'll see you tomorrow for Kelly's court. Bryan Kohlberger gets sent. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.