JD Vance on 2028, Clancy Juror Dispute, NBA's LA Clippers Hit With Major Penalties: AM Update 9/4

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0:27JD Vance:Wayfair, every style, every home Good morning, everyone. I'm Emily Drashinsky, host of After Party and the Megyn Kelly Wrap-Up Show on SiriusXM Channel 111. It's Friday, September 4th, 2026. This is your AM Update. We also know that Democrats have explicitly promised that they will pack the United States Supreme Court if they're given additional power. Vice President J.D. Vance hosting the first White House briefing since Caroline Levitt's departure, taking questions on 2028, the midterms, and the future of the Supreme Court. The Lindsey Clancy jury returning for a seventh day of deliberations after the judge rejected a defense request to remove one member of the panel.

1:07JD Vance:When Kawhi got the slap on the wrist, the thing the Clippers had been threatening the entire time went away. The NBA dropping the hammer on the Los Angeles Clippers. Five first-round picks gone, a$30 million fine, and owner Steve Ballmer suspended over an alleged kickback style scheme involving Kawhi Leonard. And Gloria Steinem, the journalist and activist who became a defining figure of the modern feminist movement, has died at 92. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

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2:22Just text the letters MK to the number 989898 and get a free info kit and some solid information. The midterms will be here before you know it. Don't wait. Text MK to 989898. Vice President J.D. Vance taking over the White House briefing room yesterday, leading the first press briefing since Caroline Levitt stepped down as press secretary at the end of August. With the White House yet to announce her successor, the vice president fielding questions on everything from data centers and the upcoming midterms to the 25th anniversary of 9-11 and the Supreme Court. Mr. Vance first pressed on the growing backlash against massive data centers, a recent Fox News poll finding 70 % of voters want to slow their construction in their own communities.

3:07The vice president arguing much of that resistance comes from Americans fearing the facilities will drive up electricity costs.

3:14JD Vance:I've seen the same polls that you're talking about, that the political backlash over data centers, a very large chunk of it, not all of it, of course, but a very large chunk of it is that people associate data centers with my neighborhood's going to get worse. In particular, my power bills are going to go up. The way to bridge that gap is for people to do what the president of the United States has enabled. He's made it easier to build a nuclear power plant or any other power plant next to a data center. He's made it easier for people to put power back into the grid as opposed to take it out. And there's a broader and deeper issue.

3:49JD Vance:What the president is really trying to train, frankly, American industry to do is to build again. We cannot be a country that says we're not going to build more power. We're not going to build more rockets. We're not going to do anything because the regulations or the cost or the risk are just too high. The questioning then turning to next week's 25th commemoration of the September 11th attacks. Vice President Vance scheduled to represent the administration at Ground Zero in New York, while President Trump attends the commemoration at the Pentagon. That split, prompting questions about whether heightened security concerns played a role.

4:24JD Vance:I don't think it's a special security concern, though. Actually, I will follow up with Secret Service just to get you an actual answer on that. But that's not what I've heard. I mean, you have a vice president, you have a president. And there are two very, frankly, we'd like to be three or four places on 9-11, but you can't have one person be in multiple locations at the exact same time. And so we just decided as a team that I would go to New York for 9-11. The president would stay here in D.C., of course, to commemorate what happened at the Pentagon, because that was a critical part of the tragedy of 9-11 as well.

4:53The vice president also weighing in after the House considered a Republican-backed constitutional amendment permanently limiting the Supreme Court to nine justices. The measure receiving more votes in favor than against, 212 to 206, but falling far short of the two-thirds majority required for a proposed constitutional amendment with nearly every House Democrat voting against it.

5:14JD Vance:Our commitment in the Trump administration is that we would like to have nine Supreme Court justices. That's the way that it's been for a long time, and we think that's the way that it should stay. We also know that Democrats have explicitly promised that they will pack the United States Supreme Court if they're given additional power. And again, this is why I think that the choice in this election is not between this set of policies that are good and this set of policies that are not so good. The choice in the election really is between crazy people who are trying to rig the game and common sense people that you may have disagreements with from time to time, but at least they're rooted in common sense.

5:49JD Vance:The Democrats are saying, they're actively bragging that they don't like the rules of the game. Mr. Vance also facing another creatively worded question about his potential presidential ambitions. The vice president asked whether he could support Senator Ted Cruz or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in 2028, amid reporting that Mr. Cruz is testing the waters for another campaign and a separate report about Mr. Hegseth's possible interest. That's an innovative way to ask the question, but I'm still not going to take the bait. Let me look. First of all, I'd encourage any Republican, if you care about the country, and I think all of us do, you should be focused not on a job a few years from now.

6:28JD Vance:You should be focused on the midterms. And that's the approach that I've taken. I think people sometimes don't believe me because they assume you're the vice president. You must think about this all the time. What I'm focused on, man, is trying to get as many Republicans as elected as possible so that we can do as much good as possible for the second two years of the Trump administration. That's a long time. I mean, Pete is a great guy. And yeah, I could see myself supporting a whole host of people. And on Ted Cruz, I mean, look, man, he's just clearly Ted is a very authentic and likable guy, and I'm sure he'll do great.

6:59With the midterms now roughly two months away, Mr. Vance then asked to give voters his elevator pitch for electing a Republican Congress.

7:07JD Vance:My elevator pitch is actually, it's very simple. Do you want to live in a country that has safety and security and prosperity? If the answer is yes, and I think most Americans do, then vote for congressional Republicans over congressional Democrats. On every single issue, the Democrats have taken the side of fraudsters, of criminals, and of far-left interest groups over the side of the American people. The Lindsay Clancy murder trial now entering a seventh day of jury deliberations after her attorney unsuccessfully tried to have one juror removed from the panel. The jury already telling Judge William Sullivan twice this week that it could not reach a unanimous decision, prompting the judge Wednesday to deliver a so-called dynamite charge and urge the panel to keep working.

7:54Yesterday afternoon, the foreperson reporting that one member of the panel was not following the court's instructions on reasonable doubt. Judge Sullivan immediately calling the attorneys to the bench, defense attorney Kevin Reddington reportedly appearing visibly frustrated during the private discussion. The judge then privately questioning each juror one by one. After 20 minutes, the sidebar ending, the judge bringing the full panel back into the courtroom, reminding jurors that they are required to follow his instructions on the law, and again explaining the prosecution's burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

8:28Judge Sullivan then sending the jury back to continue deliberating, the judge immediately calling the attorneys to another sidebar, where Reddington could be seen shaking his head and arguing animatedly. Once that discussion ended, Reddington formally moving to remove one juror, saying the foreperson had reported that the person, quote, refuses to listen to the law on reasonable doubt. Prosecutors opposing the request, Judge Sullivan declining to remove the juror, saying he had already asked each member of the panel whether they could follow his instructions and did not believe it was proper for him to take either side in the jury's internal disagreement.

9:02The juror soon thereafter, dismissed for the day, scheduled to return at 9 this morning. Reddington later telling reporters the juror has now been identified and that he expects the judge to question that person further this morning. Coming up, the NBA uncovering an alleged scheme to funnel extra money to Kawhi Leonard through outside companies now hitting the Clippers with major penalties, and feminist activist Gloria Steiner dead at 92 after a public career spanning more than six decades.

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10:20Find out more at guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card. The NBA handing the Los Angeles Clippers a massive punishment over what the league says was an effort to funnel extra compensation to star player Kawhi Leonard outside his official contract in violation of the league's salary cap. The Clippers now losing five first-round draft picks, one in every draft from 2029 through 2033, while also paying a record$30 million fine. Team owner Steve Ballmer suspended from all NBA and Clippers activities for one year. The punishment following a nearly year-long investigation conducted by the outside firm Wachtall Lipton Rosen and Katz, finding what the NBA describes as a pattern of misconduct and repeated efforts to evade the league's salary cap rules.

11:11Those rules limiting how much teams can pay their players and preventing teams from getting around those limits by arranging money or other benefits through outside companies. According to the investigator's report, the Clippers helped Leonard obtain endorsement deals with four companies doing business with the team, then allegedly offering or providing those companies valuable Clippers business as an incentive to make the deals. The allegations first surfacing last September when journalist Pablo Torre revealed Leonard's four-year$28 million endorsement agreement with the now-bankrupt sustainability company Aspiration.

11:47Torre reporting the deal was never publicly announced and allegedly paid Leonard millions, despite him providing no services. The NBA investigation eventually expanding beyond aspiration, with investigators finding similar arrangements involving three other Clippers business partners. The league now accusing Mr. Balmer of knowingly helping Leonard pursue outside income and personally approving a Clippers business deal he allegedly knew was a condition for aspiration moving forward with Leonard's endorsement contract. Leonard's former business manager and uncle, Dennis Robertson, also accused of repeatedly pressuring the team to generate outside income for Leonard.

12:26The NBA finding Leonard responsible for Mr. Robertson's conduct on his behalf, ordering the player to pay$700 ,000 and banning Mr. Robertson from doing business with NBA teams for five years. The punishment also reaching the Clippers front office, with business operations president Jillian Zucker suspended without pay for one year and basketball operations president Lawrence Frank suspended without pay for six months. The entire organization now facing five years of NBA compliance monitoring. Mr. Ballmer and the Clippers strongly denying the allegations throughout the investigation, the team now calling the findings heavily biased and promising to pursue every available legal remedy.

13:06Leonard also denying knowingly participating in any effort to evade the salary cap, saying he entered the agreements in good faith while accepting responsibility for what he describes as lapses in judgment by members of his inner circle. The Clippers promising to fight, though the NBA says an agreement with the players' union makes the penalties final and binding. Pablo Torre, who's reporting first exposed the alleged scheme, explaining yesterday on MS Now why Leonard's decision to accept his own punishment may have eliminated the arbitration route Mr. Ballmer had repeatedly threatened to use.

13:39JD Vance:I will say there's that moment in Christopher Nolan's Batman when Bain says they expect one of us in the records brother. And Kawhi kind of parachuted out of this. And what's fascinating, right, Balmer initially, when this report came out, said we are going to go to arbitration. But what has become clear is that arbitration, this is very in the weeds, but bear with me, arbitration is only activated by the player and the union. And when Kawhi settled via the union and said, oh, a slap on the wrist, $700 ,000 and I can go to Toronto. What the Clippers maybe didn't realize, even as of yesterday, today was that that arbitration option evaporated.

14:16JD Vance:And so now all Feebbaumer has left to do is, if he wants, sue the NBA, sue Adam Silver, sue Wachtell Lipton for a raft now of documentation. And so we will see if he does that. But when Kawhi got the slap on the wrist, the thing the Clippers had been threatening the entire time went away. And were they aware of that? And who decided to maybe parachute out first? The Clippers now reportedly left to decide whether to take their fight outside the league and into court. Gloria Steinem, one of the most recognizable leaders of the modern feminist movement, has died at 92. Steinem dying yesterday at her home in New York City following a period of declining health.

15:00A statement posted to her social media account saying she was surrounded by loved ones. For more than 60 years, Steinem serving as an author, journalist, and political organizer, advocating for women in the workplace, the Equal Rights Amendment, and legal abortion, while also supporting a range of other liberal causes, including the anti-war movement. Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1934, Steinem going on to graduate from Smith College before moving to New York in the early 1960s, entering a journalism industry then dominated almost entirely by men. Steinem first attracting widespread attention in 1963 after working undercover as a cocktail waitress at the Playboy Club in New York.

15:40Her subsequent exposé describing the pay, workplace restrictions, and treatment of the women employed there. Steinem later moving increasingly from journalism into political organizing. In a widely discussed 1969 essay for New York magazine, she argued that the women's movement should make race and economic class part of its broader political agenda. The following year, Steinem testifying before the Senate in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit the government and the states from denying equal legal rights on the basis of sex. In 1971, she helped establish the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit and elect more women to public office.

16:19One year later, Steinem co-founding Miss Magazine, which became one of the country's most prominent feminist publications and remains in circulation today. Steinem also spending decades advocating for legal abortion. She had undergone an abortion in London at the age of 22 and later spoke publicly about the experience as part of that advocacy. Steinem frequently criticizing marriage as an institution she believed reinforced unequal roles for men and women, though she eventually married entrepreneur David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale, well in her 60s. Steinem had also recently completed another memoir, which is set to be released this fall.

16:58That'll do it for your AM Update. I'm Emily Drosinski, host of Afterparty. Go and check out more at afterpartyemily.com. Catch the Megyn Kelly show later today, live on SiriusXM's, the Megyn Kelly channel, 111 at noon east on youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly and all podcast platforms.

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