Megyn Reveals Her Candace and Erika Backstory, and Disturbing New Rob Reiner Son Details, with Ruthless | Ep. 1214

27:24And it was – we had to go through a tent, and it was actually quite nice. But I think a ballroom would have been even better. Would have been even better. And we'll just do a quick word on that because I wanted to tell you,

27:37we saw a lot of the administration figures. Doug and I went and had a great night in DC. Can I say one thing real quick? Yeah. JD, my invite was lost in the mail. Thanks for it though. Okay. Oh, I'll set my note. It's a sore subject over here. Sorry guys. So, but I will say this. There are a lot of people there, a lot of big names there, There are a lot of big donors there too. And J.D. Vance is just in a class of one. I mean, he is just so at ease among the crowd, like glad handing, but also has the Bill Clinton thing that to make you feel like you're the only one who matters to him when he sees you, like actually he's looking in your eyes and listening to what you're saying and not looking over your shoulder and like with a follow-up.

28:26So it's not like he's just going to make one comment and move on. I'm not even talking about myself. This is me watching him deal with others. He was also like that with my husband, Doug, and me. But he is just so easy with other people, so affable, so clever, naturally clever and funny. He's got it. He's got the it factor. It's one of the many reasons why we call him 48. And I just think, you know, even in this piece, they have a quote from Marco saying if hold on, I've got it.

29:00Quote, this guy, Chris Whipple, writes, will Rubio challenge Vance for the top spot on the 2028 GOP presidential ticket? His answer, Rubio's, if J.D. Vance runs for president, he's going to be our nominee and I will be one of the first people to support him. I think Marco's incredibly talented, too, but he sees what I saw. yeah yeah yeah also that's like the news you know what i mean like we go that's a breaking story and then everyone else is just talking about this random nonsense and you have it right there the question that everyone has been discussing for years and will be discussing for years and you actually have a definitive answer to it right there and then further about jd every time we have spent time with him every time i have seen him there is something to be said about an individual because for the longest time, Americans thought that when we elect a politician, you want someone who went to Harvard and they're fourth generation Harvard and they're all credentialed.

29:55There's something we said about an individual who has survived conditions that so many Americans have struggled and continue to struggle through. And there's a level of realism that they bring and understanding that they bring where it's not like, oh, you know, I sat through a sociology class which described the conditions that you may have seen in the rest. This is someone who understands it Because it's their life story. But I thought when you were talking about suffering under the conditions, you were talking about Yale. I thought that's where you were going. No, no, no. It's the poverty. I want to get to a couple of the other admissions, though, before we really move on from it, because there is a lot that's going to come back.

30:34First of all, a couple of words on this reporter. He says he writes Charlie Crook's assassination in September turbocharged Trump's campaign of revenge and retribution. It did? What do you mean? What happened? Trump was doing the law fair prior to that. Critics have compared this moment to a Reichstag fire, a modern version of Hitler's exploitation of the torching of Berlin's parliament, that Trump is using Charlie's assassination in the way Hitler used the Reichstag fire. This is unbelievable. This guy's really showing us his cards, right? So I'll give you a couple more. We talked about how he quotes her saying Trump's got sort of an alcoholic's personality.

31:18He also includes the detail that back in 2016, Trump berated her in front of a gaggle of cronies. Wiles told him, quote, it was a horrific hour plus at midnight. And I don't think I've seen him that angry since. He was ranting and raving. And I didn't know whether to argue back or whether to be stoic. What I really wanted to do was cry. And then she kind of stood him down. Like, okay, again, I'm sure these aren't like her favorite details to read in print. It is in here that she worked for DeSantis and got him elected governor in 2018. And then he turned on her, denouncing Wiles publicly and badmouthing her privately.

31:55To this day, Wiles doesn't know what triggered the governor's vendetta. Quote, I think he thought I was getting too much attention, which is ironic. I don't ever seek attention, which is true of her. But I mean, 11 interviews with Vanity Fair, you know, kind of cuts against the narrative. By the way, I do know she can't stand Ron DeSantis, cannot stand. Whatever he did to her burned a serious bridge, and he royally effed that up. She would be a much better friend than foe to have. Okay, keep going. Okay, here's more evidence of Chris Whipple's bias and, I'm sorry, but like failure to commit to facts.

32:33He's talking about the January 6th riot. the January 6th, 2021 assault on the Capitol in which nine people ultimately died. Ultimately is doing a lot of work in that sentence. So much work, John. What is that? That is so misleading. Yeah, no, there's definitely a lot of work being done and that word and plenty of other descriptions and like the one that you read about the Reichstag fire. I mean, get out of here. I mean, just weaving Nazi propaganda in there, right? I mean, why not? Yeah, a trans-loving furry murders Charlie Kirk, and that is the Reichstag fire. Are you kidding me? It's amazing the way that their head wipes, you know?

33:17And then here's a couple more. Let's keep going. I got more for you. She's writing about Elon. Wiles described Musk as something akin to a jacked up Nosferatu, which is like a vampire, right? Like a Dracula. The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him, she told me. He's an avowed ketamine user, and he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the executive office building in the daytime, and he's an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it's not helpful, but he is his own person. Then she goes on to say that she was shocked when he eviscerated USAID. There's a long section on this. Not the way I would do it, she says.

34:00Weill says she called Musk on the carpet. You can't just lock people out of their offices. She recalls telling him, we called up Marco and said, you've got to be in charge of USAID. And then she says, but no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody. Now that she's, now she's denying to the New York Times that she said he's an avowed ketamine user. That's the line in response to which the reporter played the audio for the New York Times. So she's ripping on Elon and then kind of denying it. Okay, then I told you what she said about Tish James, but here's a couple of other more consequential pieces.

34:42Okay, she rips on Pam Bondi. And I'm just going to be honest, she speaks for us all. She writes, she says, I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this. She's talking about the social media influencers who she invited to the White House only to embarrass them with those binders full of nothing. She completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this. First, she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her desk. There is no client list and it sure as hell was not on her desk.

35:24Then she goes on about Epstein to correct Trump. Trump has claimed, writes the author, without evidence that Bill Clinton visited Epstein's infamous private island, Little St. James, supposedly 28 times. Quote, Susie Wiles being quoted, there is no evidence those visits happened. Quote, the president was wrong about that. And then here's the part about J.D. Vance. The people that really appreciated what a big deal this is are Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, she said, because they lived in that world. and the vice president, who's been a conspiracy theorist for a decade. And we go from there. Okay, I mean, like, so she's called J.D.

36:04Vance a conspiracy theorist. She's called Pam Boddy. I already like J.D. She doesn't need to convince me, man. I don't know. So what is happening here? Do you think Susie Wiles, who's, sorry, she's Wiley. She's very clever. She has universally good reviews of what a smart, savvy person she is. That she just got, like, had by the author of this or what? Yeah, you know, I mean, what's interesting is there's never been a chief of staff for President Trump in either his first term or anywhere around him, really, who can get into this situation where immediately the entirety of the organization circles the wagons around.

36:45And that's what you saw all morning this morning, which was everybody from Don Jr., the vice president, and Mark, everybody sort of saying, like, she's the best and shut this down. What gave rise to all of it? I don't know entirely why, you know, you do 11 sit-downs with Vanity Fair when they have a pretty private, you know, internal dialogue about an awful lot of this stuff. But if you remove, at least from my perspective, if you remove like the left-wing fanaticism in terms of the framing and you remove just the kind of hyperbolic soap opera-like working that Vanity Fair is doing, there's some really interesting stuff in there.

37:26Like the USAID thing is fascinating. We talked about it a lot, Megan, on your show and on ours about like, is everybody on the same page with some of this stuff? Because it feels like everybody is sort of in a different place and Elon was sort of marching forward. And, you know, we, I think, had broad agreement about the goals. But like to see that there was some internal discussion about that, like that's valuable news information, right? That's the kind of thing you lead an article about, you know? And so, you know, there's a couple of different pieces of this. And you mentioned the ballroom, but that are newsworthy and interesting and probably good for the public to sort of understand and get underneath the hood.

38:03But it's completely masked by this effort to make her look bad, the administration look bad, Republicans look bad and in chaos, which, you know, according to the Trump administration, they're not having it today. Let me give you a couple more pieces of bias that are obvious on the pages of this profile. They're talking about RFKJ. And he writes that, in Wiles's view, RFK Jr.'s shock treatment of HHS is warranted. Great. He pushes the envelope. Some would say too far, but I say in order to get back to the middle, you have to push it too far. Okay, we like that. But then here's what the author adds.

38:42In December, Kennedy's federal vaccine panel voted to end the decades-long recommendation for newborn vaccinations against hepatitis B, which is highly infectious and causes liver failure. Period. None of the reasons why they said you don't have to get that for your baby if you don't want and the mother isn't hep B positive or has an unknown status of hep B. None of that, none of like, well, there's aluminum in the vaccines. Well, there are too many. Well, maybe we're giving these kids a sexually transmitted disease vaccination a little early in life. Some parents where the mother doesn't have the disease might wait until we give like the HPV vaccine, which is like 12, assuming that kids might become sexually active sometime in their teens and you wanna get ahead of it.

39:32None of that's in there, just it's a highly infectious disease and it causes liver failure. Yeah, so that particular thing is very infuriating for me. I've talked to a lot of folks about this one specifically, especially those who work in health care. The hepatitis B vaccine for expectant mothers and for newborns was specifically for mothers who are prostitutes and are at high risk for STDs and babies who may be exposed to those STDs because their mothers are prostitutes. Or intravenous drug use, right? Yeah. And so they figured, why not give this to every American instead of the small group of people who are doing heroin and are prostitutes?

40:17That seems like, yes, HHS has absolutely gone way too far. That specific vaccine, you talk to the number of mothers who are outraged that they were not told that information, that this is specifically has been designed for mothers who are at risk because they're prostitutes or they're taking heroin. It's unbelievable. And kudos to RFK Jr. for getting on top of that. Well, because two things could be true. Like you could say, I believe in the efficacy of the hep B vaccine. And you can also say, maybe it's not necessary. My newborn gets it immediately. Totally unnecessary. But like in the nuance of that, you lose it, right?

40:54Because no left-wing reporter wants to talk about that because that's way too complicated. You're either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. You know what they were basically trying to do with the hep B vaccine? They were trying to do what they were doing with all of us on the COVID vaccine, which is try to get some sort of herd immunity so that nobody would have hep B. And they wanted to use your baby to make sure that that was the case. But then some of the studies showed that that hep B vaccine that you've given to your baby actually doesn't last. It's not a lifetime vaccine. So by the time, you know, I mean, we're saying like with the HPV, they give it to 12 year olds because let's face it in some countries, you know, whatever.

41:37Sadly, some kids get active very early. But the thing with the hep B vaccine is over the course of decades, it doesn't last. So by the time the average person gets sexually active, which is probably more like college age, it might not even be working. So there's really no reason to be giving it to a baby who wasn't born to a happy, positive mother. None whatsoever. And yet RFKJ still says, if you want to get it for your baby, you can. We just want you to know you don't have to. This shouldn't be on like the we really recommend you do this for people who are perfectly healthy. Yeah, and I think, Megan, what you were just talking about, what these fellows were just talking about, and the lack of critical context in stories like this over the last few decades has led to an inflection point in media that you're living through, that we're living through, that will continue.

42:34In that, the media used to write the first draft of history, and today it's written by those who are making it. And that's why this story doesn't bother me at all. Because I know what Susie Wiles has done for this last year. She has brought order to a second term that did not exist in the first term. And that's what everybody has watched with their own eyes. They don't need to read 35 pages from a guy in Vanity Fair. And you know what? He's a good writer. He's talked to a bunch of chiefs of staff in the past. She's a chief of staff. She's a history maker. What does she have to be afraid of talking to the guy?

43:05So he lies about her in some story that's 35 pages long. Okay. She knows what the truth is. And so does everybody else. And this guy is as talented as he is and as widespread as Vanity Fair is, he doesn't write the truth about Susie Wiles because she is making something very special happen in the White House and nothing can change that. I agree with everything you said. And I admire her, but I don't see what the upside of this was. Like the photography alone evidences the hatred that this magazine has for all of the Trump administration. I'm going to show you a couple of the up close photos. You pose for a photo for Vanity Fair, you know, a headshot.

43:48I think the common understanding would be that you're going to get a three-quarter, like a top third of your body, you know, portrait, like from the chest up. Look at Susie Wiles. Can you see this on your monitor? It is, it's worse than a mugshot. It's, even in the mugshot, they give you a little bit of collarbone. For the listening audience, it's literally from her chin up to her forehead in a facial expression where she looks like shocked. It does look mug shoddy. It's not flattering. And she actually is a beautiful woman. You can easily get a good shot of Susie Wiles. Look at Caroline Levitt.

44:25Stand by.

44:29Yeah. I mean, come on. That is Caroline Levitt. I'm sorry, but it's such an extreme close up. It doesn't even look like her. You can't even tell it's her, but it is. No. It's her, but you can see the little needles from where she clearly had her lips done, which is something a lot of women do. But that is 100 % by design. They wanted to embarrass her. Like, fuck you. So she, you know what? I don't get my lips done, but I do get a bunch of needles in my face so they can inject a bunch of botulism in there and poison my forehead muscles. I don't think I'd appreciate it if that were close up on camera in Vanity Fair.

45:10Megan, my kids would call that a 0.5. and everybody is doing a 0.5 picture of their friends and everybody sees each other's friends in like a less than favorable light. Yeah, it is. It's a setting on your phone. He's up with that now, Megan? Like he's trying to teach us all this stuff. All over here. What I'm telling you is that Vanity Fair can throw their absolute worst at Caroline Levitt and at Susie Wiles and they are going to go to work today and impress everybody in the country. The 77 million people who voted for President Trump are well served by people like them. Yeah, I just kind of think it doesn't matter anymore.

45:47I don't think it does either. I mean, a story like this— How do I get the little numbers to show up? Yeah, you got her on her phone now. I'll FaceTime my daughter. Aspect? Is that it? Careful with that. You don't want to take a lot of direction from Ashbrook about using your phone, Megan. Nothing's happening. I'm just getting the reverse, like the normal selfie. But I have seen that little number on there where you can decide, you know. It's called a.5. It's just going to end in a regrettable place, I'm afraid. I don't get it. Sorry. I tried, but I am listening to you. But the.5 is not flattering.

46:17Look at J.D. Vance. Look at him. I mean, J.D. Vance is pretty much by anybody's measure a handsome man. Look at this. Looks like a serial killer. Like, what is it? Like, with the furrow brows and no smile. He's always smiling. But no, this whole thing reminded me. I think that's a good shot. No, it's not a good shot. I mean, honestly, I've seen him in so many memes at this point. Like, I just see his face everywhere. Yeah, usually they add 100 pounds. True. This reminds me of what they did to Ann Coulter on the cover of Time Magazine, which we pulled too, where they made her look absurd. And Ann Coulter too is a beautiful woman.

46:53And yet look what they did to her. And by the way, she's statuesque. Like she's very tall, very lean, something most people would like to be. And they shot her sitting down in this chair with her legs crossed where they look totally disproportionate to her body, trying to humiliate her. Like, not to mention, this happened to Sarah Palin when she was running as McCain's running mate. Like, it's very dicey for a conservative to sit for a photo shoot with a magazine that hates them. You really are taking a risk. And I feel bad for the administration, because I think they probably trusted Susie that we're going to cooperate with Vanity Fair, we're going to be happy with how this turns out, and there is no way anybody is happy with how this article turned out.

47:35Hey, Megan, I have a question for you because I agree 100 % that like the left and the journos on the left, they save their most visceral hatred for conservative women. Yeah. And I'm wondering if like you've ever felt that way in something that's covered you. Oh, I mean, many times, many times. I mean, just any day of the week, pick up the Daily Beast and you'll see yet another hit piece on me saying like I should be canceled. My career should be over. How'd that work out for you, Daily Beast? Anyway, it's like you just get used to it. So I am of the mind that if you willingly go into the belly of the beast, like I sat with the New York Times six months ago, whenever that was, you got to be ready.

48:17You've got to like fight. You know, you've got to make sure when they're on, when they're bringing you to the thin ice, you know you're there and you don't just sink. Like make sure you get your points in and ideally record it yourself so that you can fight back if the piece drops and think about what the point of doing it is. You know, like I sat with the New York Times because I actually thought it would be valuable for their listeners, their readers to hear what I had to say about the Times and the state of media. Like I actually thought they should listen to me. I can explain a few things to them about why they're so clueless on things like Joe Biden's mental acuity.

48:51But you have to do it eyes open and not thinking this is going to be a nice piece. Here's one more. This biased writer. He writes about how the deportations, many who they've grabbed in these raids have been U.S. citizens or were entitled to be here. Not long after the El Salvador deportation fiasco in Louisiana, ICE agents arrested and deported two mothers along with their children, ages seven, four, and two to Honduras. The children were U.S. citizens and the four-year-old was being treated for cancer. Wiles couldn't explain it. Well, I can. The mothers were illegal. and they said to the mothers, you got to go.

49:32Do you want your kids to stay here with a relative or do you want them to go with you? And the mother said, with me, that's what happened. I'm sorry that the mothers were illegal, but they were. You don't get to stay just because you took advantage of birthright citizenship here and you happen to have an American baby. That's not how it works. So anyway, not a fair author, not a fair piece. I got to take a quick break and there's a lot more coming up on the other side with the fellas after this. If you can make one holiday wish, would you wish to be free from your credit card and other debt? Well, here's why now is the time to make a move.

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51:02The fellas from the Ruthless Variety Program are back with me now. Okay, guys, let's talk about the latest in the Rob Reiner murder, the horrific double murder in which the couple's son, Nick, is in custody. This time yesterday, bail had been set at$4 million, and we criticized that on this show saying that's not going to do it. And sure enough, bail was revoked. There is no bail set for him. He needs to remain in custody where now they are reporting TMZ that he is on suicide watch and in an administrative segregation, they call it, at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in LA. The night before his parents were murdered, Saturday night this past, Nick got into a very loud argument with his father at Conan O 'Brien's Christmas party.

51:52The shouting match was loud enough that many others could hear it, that Rob and his wife, Nick's mother, Michelle, then left the party. We do not know if Nick left with them, reports TMZ. A source at the party told us Nick looked out of place at the party, mostly keeping to himself. And that was, there was more on that in today's reporting. Then this just broke. Hold on before I move on to this. And there's so much to tell you. Standby. Let's see. Fox News Digital reporting. Nick Reiner was, quote, not medically cleared to appear in court today, which he was supposed to do. His lawyer, Alan Jackson, that's the guy who represented Karen Reed and got an acquittal for her.

52:38he's got a much tougher battle on this one. I say, in quote, he is not medically cleared to be transported to the court. That's an obvious reference to his mental health. Nick 32 did not appear before a judge on Tuesday, the first time he was scheduled to appear since the bodies of Rob and Michelle were discovered. Tuesday's hearing was postponed for another date. Now there's reporting about what happened at his hotel room, how those who checked him in said they didn't see blood all over him or cuts on him. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. But when the police made their way over to his hotel, they found a lot of blood on early Sunday morning in Santa Monica.

53:16He was staying at a place called The Pier Side. And he checked in around 4 a.m. Sunday. So the murder apparently was already done using his credit card. His check-in came hours after the heated argument at Conan O 'Brien's Christmas party. Eyewitnesses said he did seem tweaked out when he checked in, but no visible signs he'd been in a violent confrontation. no blood stains or cuts on his body. The reservation was made for just one day, but he never formally checked out. When the staff came into his room later Sunday morning, they found the shower full of blood, blood on the bed. The window in the room was covered by bed sheets and the cops eventually went and gathered evidence there.

53:56The report on the argument at Conan's party, many people noticed he was behaving strangely. He was, quote, freaking everyone out, acting crazy. He kept asking people if they were famous, a source told People Magazine. Per TMZ, after Rob Reiner and Nick got into a, quote, very loud argument, the director and Michelle left that his behavior at Conan's house alarmed the guests because it was so bizarre. One of the guests recalled Rob Reiner telling his son his behavior was inappropriate. Nick Reiner's behavior looked, he looked anxious. He looked uncomfortable in a way that deeply unsettled one guest and another attendee.

54:38So then you have this from Billy Bush, who of course is a great entertainment reporter in particular, weighing in on the fact that Romy Reiner, who is I think only 19 or 20, she's the one who found her parents with their throats slit and bodies stabbed multiple times. And there's new information in this soundbite. Listen here from Billy Bush. I got this from a friend who lives in the community. I heard that the son, Nick Went into his parents' house Stabbed both mom and dad And that the daughter, I guess, lives on the property Or at the house or in the back house And that she found them And that the mom was still alive And apparently she called the ambulance And went in the ambulance with her mother Michelle died in the ambulance But had enough time to tell her daughter That it was Nick, their son, who stabbed them And that's why they figured it out so quickly and he's in custody.

55:40My God. Romy's 28, FYI, but that's a critical piece of the prosecution's case right there, you guys. If it's called a dying declaration, it comes into court even though it's hearsay because it's an out-of-court statement by someone, but a dying declaration comes in over hearsay objections. So if Romy Reiner is actually going to take the stand and repeat that her mother told her as she lay dying that it was Romy's brother, Nick. Oh my God. He's toast. And what a tragedy all around. Thoughts on these latest developments, guys? Totally. Horrific tragedy, obviously. And another good reminder that nobody is immune to the terrors of drug abuse.

56:31And, you know, anybody who's followed this story has known the troubles that Nick, his son had had for decades. They made a movie about it back in 2015, where the whole Reiner family was sort of involved in trying to get Nick to tell his story. And there's a vignette, I think it was like a Hollywood reporter or something today, wrote about how this reporter who was then at the LA Times was basically begged by Reiner to cover this story because he was trying to show that his son has got a better life here and they're doing this together and what was a troubled relationship and now moving forward.

57:09And he had his own, as a reporter, his own hesitations about all of that. This is the piece in the Hollywood Reporter by Steven Zaitchik. Is that the one? That's it. Yeah, I got it. And we'll go through it a little bit of detail. Keep going. Yeah, I just, I found it fascinating. But I, you know, I also think like, look, Reiner, he's an icon. You don't have to agree or disagree with his politics to understand the impact that he had on movies, on films that we all grew up with, both comedy and drama and all these kind of things. And so it is sort of shocking as a, you know, person in the public, you see something like this happen to.

57:44But again, I think it is a reminder that we've got to take these kind of things seriously. And a reminder, I think of like, you can be born into every privilege in the world and drug addiction can still bring you down. Yep. You know, and that's the scary thing because there are so many Americans who struggle with this that don't have all of the resources of a Reiner family. Which only really does. You have like 20 times. Right. Which only really does emphasize how destructive this is to life of a family. I mean, I have to say, I read a report on page six of the New York Post today that brought up a quote from Nick Reiner from a few years back where he admits that he lost his virginity at age 14 to a prostitute.

58:29Only now you're supposed to call him sex workers, whatever. ever. He called, the report is that he called a sex worker to come over for$200 and lost his virginity to her. And then he got the idea, reports the post, from someone he met who was also in some like post rehab. Like they met in rehab and now they were both post rehab. I thought he only went to rehab for the first time when he was 15. This would put it even earlier at age 14. And I'm sorry, I do have to ask, how does a 14-year-old get so addicted to drugs that at least at 14 or 15, they already have to go into rehab and they're calling sex workers to come to the house in the middle of the night?

59:12He said he borrowed the money from his parents without telling them what it was for. I just have to ask because I'd like to believe that if any of these behaviors were happening in my home, I would know because I am also a very busy professional, but I have a very close eye on my children. I'm not blaming Michelle and Rob, but I do think we have to be honest about the fact that this level of drug addiction at this young an age may involve parents who were focused on the wrong thing, like careers, instead of their kid. And while it looks like Michelle and Rob did everything within their power once they realized their kid was an addict to try to help him, that's not good enough.

59:58You have to head it off at the pass. You have to be totally attuned to your child's behaviors before that demon gets a hold of him. Yeah. Yeah, no question. I mean, look, I deeply troubled young man, obviously, and drug addiction. Probably did the paddling on that, but there's probably some psychological issues there too. I also think like you don't know what the lifestyle is like, you know, I mean, you can watch the Charlie Sheen documentary to find out what it's like to be young and rich in Hollywood and find out. And the Hollywood component of this is what I would say is like, don't raise your kids around Hollywood.

1:00:37I think this is a degenerate place that's full of drugs and prostitution and manipulating young people. And I just can't imagine having to raise a young family in that environment even if you are involved in in movies and film and that sort of thing yeah i just i feel like that is that is the main factor in this is just that town and how i mean make me sound like a provincial bumpkin or something but like under no circumstance would i ever raise a family in los angeles like hell no you never hear any story of like you know my kids started a lemonade stand when they were kids and they're completely normal now we live in brentwood Like you've never heard that story.

1:01:18It's true. Right. But it's also interesting in that, at least in recent years since 2015, they did an enormous amount of things as a family. And I think it was, you know, it seems from the outside looking in, I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but it looks to me like they were trying the four of them with, was it Romy was the daughter's name? Yeah. To basically just try to. And there's another brother too. Yeah. Well, just try to will their way through this whole thing. And like, look, this is a good example. He's at Conan O 'Brien's Christmas party. I can't imagine that Conan O 'Brien was like, hey, I definitely want Nick there.

1:01:53Totally. They brought him. They brought him, right? And so if you see all of this over the last few years where he's just a part of every picture, like they were at a Spinal Tap 2 September premiere that he was at. Now, did he have anything to do with it? No. But he's a part of the family. They were trying to will their way through it. I think to your point, Megan, maybe he's too far gone. obviously at this point, but it is, it's, it's about the lifestyle and it's about, I, I can't blame them, but this is a horrible tragedy. But it's not, it's not about blame. I'm not blaming them either. I have nothing but empathy for Rob and Michelle, God rest them.

1:02:30But I do think we all as parents, we have to take an honest look at where did this thing go sideways? Because yesterday we talked a lot about the yoga instructor who Michelle and Rob brought in to teach young Nick yoga when I think he was as young as 10 because his behavior was so strange. I don't think he was on drugs at age 10. There's something off about him. I think this kid had a mental health issue from a very young age, according to the yoga instructor who said he would scream at that age when he wasn't getting the attention he needed. So I think drugs were sort of a way of addressing what was probably a previous mental health issue.

1:03:11But I also really think, especially if you've got a kid who you know is going to be special needs like that. Yeah, I would get out of a place like Hollywood. I keep thinking of Matthew McConaughey who came on this show. He's from Texas. He was making it big in Hollywood and he and his wife, who's a successful model. I can't remember if she's also an actress, but model for sure. They were like, we're out of here. And they went back to Texas and they have raised good kids. And his son is actually getting into acting now, but seems very together by all rights. But as an adult, as like an 18 or 19 year old, but they raised their kids in Texas because they did not want anything like this to happen to them.

1:03:54And he also put limits on his career, like how much he'd be away from his family. He brought his family. He brought his wife with him, you know, like even, um, oh God, who, who was I just reading about? It was, uh, I think it's Ed Burns and Christy Turlington who have a rule that they won't be away from each other for more than two weeks. And their marriage has lasted. Like there are like the people who make sure like the kids are protected, notwithstanding the huge trappings of wealth, success, and the fast lane that is Hollywood tend to do a lot better. So I, it's not a question of blame. It's just a question of how do we not raise a kid like Nick Reiner?

1:04:32That's frankly what I'm looking at. Yeah. And a series of choices, some which may be very difficult from a career perspective, but choices that, an understanding that the most precious commodity you have in your family are your kids. And the rest of it doesn't matter. If it all ended tomorrow, that's the only thing that you focus on. And I think moms and dads, healthy moms and dads understand that innately, but I think as a culture, we need to embrace that a lot more. The article you mentioned, Holmes, is like chilling. So I want to go through it. It is. because it's worth it. As mentioned, it's in The Hollywood Reporter.

1:05:10It's by Steven Zajic, and it is subtitled, well, it's titled, I sat down to dinner with Rob, Michelle, and Nick Reiner. It was heartwarming and jarring. So he writes about a dinner he had in Toronto with them at a restaurant 10 years ago. And I'm just going to pull out a couple of highlights here. We sat in a corner table. We talked about what it meant to be part of a family with a serious addict, to be a parent, to be a sibling, to be the addict themselves. The meal was a decade ago, but alive in front of me. Directed by Rob and co-written by Nick, being Charlie, they were there to promote their movie that they did together, which we discussed yesterday, focuses on David, an accomplished actor now running for governor, clearly a Rob Reiner stand-in, and his drug-addicted son, who feels like he's being pushed hard to get clean so as not to be an embarrassment to his famous father, clearly a stand-in for Nick.

1:05:59Nick was sober now, the Reiner said, and after some 18 trips to rehab since his teenage years, some of which he spent on the streets. This movie was going to provide the happy ending to all that sadness. Can you believe this boy? Rob said as we sat down, beaming. Nick smiled uncomfortably, saying nothing. From the start, a kind of fatherly pushing was evident. Rob wanted this story told, wanted, not surprisingly for a man steeped in show business, for the movie to succeed where therapy had failed. But he also genuinely felt pride. Nachos, as he said, using the Yiddish word for parental joy. Nick seemed less game, a little almost like he didn't want to fully be there.

1:06:42He goes on to say, it was tough at first to think, am I actually going to do this? Nick said after I prodded a little quote, I really wasn't sure if I wanted to do this. Am I really going to get it out there? Rob jumped in. That's part of being a creative person. You express it. You get it out there. The director looked lovingly at his wife. Everybody's so open, and it's because of Michelle. Everybody is, she said, looking back at her husband, but we didn't set out to do a public good. We had to do it for each other. We ordered, and Nick explained the ineffectiveness of rehab for him. I just couldn't get by in these programs.

1:07:15I had resistance every time they tried to reach me. The Elder Reiners described their own misgivings. The program works for some people, but it can't for everyone, said Rob. job when Nick would tell us it wasn't working for him. We wouldn't listen. We were desperate. And because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son. I looked at Romy, who was also there, the Reiner's daughter. How did she feel? This is my best friend and I was there for all of it, she said, gesturing to her brother two years older. It's weird, but good to see it on screen, she said.

1:07:47She struck me as someone deeply admiring of her brother, but also perhaps a little tired of explaining his behavior. to her parents, to everyone. Rob, who'd been eating, put down his fork. What got us through was two books, tweaked and beautiful boy, citing addiction memoirs. Something poignant, even sad, abided. Unable to access the mind of his own son, he turned to the words of strangers to let him in. And then just a couple more. For all the talk about catharsis and success, something felt unsuccessful. I later checked in with their publicist. She thought everything was fine, but it didn't feel fine.

1:08:21It felt like things were better, but far from resolved. Like the last pile of living room mess before company arrives. The family at dinner turned its attention to a line Rob insisted make it into the film. Quote, I'd rather have you alive and hating me than dead on the streets. Rob really, really wanted it in. It explained his actions, justified them, even though he was now apologizing for thinking that way. For being so hard on his son, I looked at Nick. He didn't seem so happy to have that line in the film. It was perhaps too excusing of the kind of parental pushing he didn't want to excuse.

1:08:56The proposition was also based on a flawed assumption. Hate did not automatically mean recovery. I asked Nick what he thought. What could his father have done? But Nick had no answer. Not at a dinner, maybe not ever. Maybe there was nothing Rob could do. Maybe the whole movie, I thought, was Rob coming to terms with that inescapable fact and all the cheer and the pride, well-earned as it was, could simply not illuminate that darker, more severe reality. Man, this is it. He had done everything he could do to help his son. He had even set in motion the Hollywood machine to help his son. And yet there was nothing he could do to fully help his son.

1:09:41Some things are beyond our greatest effort. That's heartbreaking. That's tough. yeah it's tough because as a parent well as a parent you you know everybody runs into this at some point with a child where you want to will things to be true right that you think you can command things to happen uh and you can't and the most uh insecure you'll feel the most vulnerable you'll feel as a parent is knowing there are some things that are outside of your control. Totally. Which is terrifying. Yeah. And this is obviously just a confluence of events, right? That started at a young age. But Rob Reiner didn't give up.

1:10:31I mean, he kept going. It ended in absolute tragedy. But I mean, the effort was clearly that you can see it. And that piece, by the way, beautifully written, and I think just got to the absolute heart of the issue is that they were willing something to happen that was not going to happen. And they knew it at some level. Rob Reiner knew it and so did Nick and probably Michelle and Romy and Jake, the other brother too. But even when you see these clips of them promoting that movie, some of which we played yesterday, they don't seem close. There does seem to be a lot of damage between them. They do seem almost like he writes to trying to will this into existence.

1:11:10Like this is our happy ending. And then the bit about using the Hollywood machine, like, which is, that's a tool that Rob Reiner was very familiar with that he used all his life to bring stories to us, to bring healing to other people in some instances, like Stand By Me, and try to use it on his own family. You know, like the power of putting something cathartic on the big screen, he would help his son do that with his own story. But he knew, I think he knew. here's more that I wanted to get to. He writes, he writes, um, okay. Hold on. Okay. Speaking of Rob, he turned back to the table. It was very hard.

1:11:55The number one job of any parent is to keep their child safe. And I hadn't done that. He was almost tearing up. And now here, I have done that. I kept him safe. He came out alive. And the writer adds, here in 2025, the words kept ricocheting through my brain. Yes, Nick had come out alive. It was Rob that hadn't. Oh, my God. Tough. Tough. The final bit writes as follows, reads as follows. Reiner was all about sorting through the complexity of parents and offspring and coming out okay on the other side. He's the one who taught us how hard it was, but that we could get through it just as he did with his own famous father, with whom he had bonded over baseball.

1:12:41He just couldn't enact the lesson with his own son. At the dinner, we pushed back our chairs and stood up. Rob looked at me. He took my hand and clasped it. Thank you, Steve. Perhaps I imagined it, but in his eyes, I saw a pleading, an ask, not to conceal anything, more the opposite. it. He wanted this story written in a way that willed the best outcome into being. I clasped his hand back as he held my gaze an extra twinkly plaintive second. It was the last interaction we had. I still feel my palm squeezed. That business about he wanted the story written in a way that willed the best outcome into being.

1:13:23That's what I'm talking about, you guys. You know, that movie, like that's what he was trying to do, to use the best and most familiar tool he had, movie making, to will that outcome into being. And one does wonder like now as the sun is clearly on suicide watch and now facing a massive legal trial, will he be able to use Rob Reiner's fortune to defend himself with this very fancy lawyer against charges that he killed his own dad? Did Rob and Michelle keep him in their will? So many parents who have a drug-addled child will remove the child from the will and tell the child that for their own preservation.

1:14:14And also the thought of poor Rob and Michelle in the moments right before they died, knowing it had come to this. They didn't die with a bullet to the back of the head. They knew. Clearly, if the Billy Bush reporting is right, Michelle knew and told. And you would both know. And you get stabbed to death. You know exactly who's doing it. Well, and imagine being his sister at a time like this and having to live through this trial that's going to happen. Talk about the actual victim here. You know, talk – I mean, it's the most horrific, unthinkable thing you'd have to deal with in life. Yeah. It's almost Shakespearean in some way.

1:15:00I mean, this is a bizarre drama. I mean, look, I think if there's a piece, a silver lining, a productivity of a conversation that you can have publicly about any of this, We don't know the circumstances of any of their relationships with each other or what led him to drug abuse or, you know, if he was relapsing and back onto it. But spend time with your kids, you know? Yes. I mean, this is a perfect example. Yeah. Like early. Do it early. Yeah. Like now. They've got to know when you're there. Like our kids are 16, 14, and 12. And we've been doing this our whole lives. But like have dinner with your children ideally seven nights a week.

1:15:41No, I'm not kidding. Don't commit them to a sport that makes that impossible. Like at least five nights a week, sit with them, drive them to school, like spend the time. When they're my kids' ages, it gets harder and harder because their commitments get bigger and bigger and just their studying gets to the point where it's gonna remove them from you for several hours. The dinners are a must. The breakfasts are a must. The weekend time is a must. You are more important than anything. Time with you, the parents, the family, more important than friends, more important than sports, more important than academics.

1:16:16Like there's so much pressure on these kids. This has to be prevented before the drug problem and the 15 or 18 rehabs. Like at that point, and I've talked to so many parents of like seriously drug addled kids. I don't know how to say this without sounding really brutal. But like at that point, the kid becomes like a nightmare. Like you're saddled with them because they're yours and they're not capable of supporting themselves and they're out there in society and you can't just say they're society's problem. You have some obligation to society to do something to protect society from them and make sure that they're not just, you know, in a tent on the street that you walk past.

1:17:01But a lot of these parents know they're dangerous. They're actually, if not just suicidal, homicidal. And this is not minority report. You cannot have them arrested before they've committed a crime. And yet you know they're likely to, and you know your family may be the first victims. It's a nightmare. This has to be headed off early. And with mental illness, it's even more, far more complicated. Oh, totally. And I'll say, I don't know how many of your, I imagine a fair number of your listeners know, But, I mean, you really are a role model in this regard, you and Doug. And we've met your kids, well-adjusted young people who understand family dynamic and have access to their family.

1:17:44And, you know, we've looked at that. And anybody in this line of work, there is always somebody asking for something. But for a lot of your listeners, it doesn't matter what line of work you're in, somebody's always asking for something. There's always something else you can do. and you have to rattle around the opportunity cost of each time you go to dinner or each time you go away or what does this get me, what does it not? Just remember that whatever cost you've associated with your family, it is much higher. Yes, it's just, I don't know. That's another problem with Hollywood is like as talented as Rob Reiner was and made so many movies that we all love.

1:18:24Now I look back and I wonder who paid the price for all the time he spent on those films that I loved. You know, where was Nick during those years? You know, how much time was he putting it at home? I'm not, again, not blaming him, but I think it's a fair inquiry to say, all of us, all of us should be reminded now of the cost, the potential cost to not putting the hours in and raising our kids. And while they seem to have done Herculean work later in life when they realized he was really struggling, it's really hard to stop that addiction train once it started so hard. I wanna keep going, but I'm gonna take a quick break, not on Reiner, but I do wanna get to what's happening at Brown University, you guys.

1:19:08It's going from bad to worse there. I'm sorry to use the overused Keystone thing, but it is starting to feel like Keystone cops there with dismay. Stand by, more with the fellas right after this. The holidays are here, which means family time, great food, lots of travel, and of course, a few too many germs. This is why I love All Family Pharmacy. They make it simple to stay healthy like me. I'm on the mend. It's just my voice won't come back and prepared. Just go to allfamilypharmacy.com slash Megan, place your order online, and then a licensed physician will review it, provide a prescription if necessary, and once it's approved, your medication ships right to your door fast and secure.

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1:22:01The fellas from Ruthless are back with me now. So I want to go now to Brown University where there is still a killer on the loose and one does not take any comfort from what's happening with the local authorities. I want to give you what Mayor Brett Smiley said on an interview with Good Morning America. Hold on a second. Let's just make sure I've, yeah, this is what he's talking about. He's talking about whether the suspect who was in custody, the person of interest, but then he got released. He's talking about whether that person of interest has been fully cleared. Here he is on GMA. Watch this.

1:22:44So you're absolutely convinced the person of interest said nothing to do with this? We're not saying that definitively. What we're saying is that after a review of the evidence that was gathered, it was determined that the person of interest needed to be released. Okay, so that's him yesterday morning saying we are not saying definitively that that person of interest is fully cleared. Later that day, yesterday, the attorney general, this is the mayor, the attorney general, Peter Nirona of Rhode Island, reiterated that the person who was detained and released yesterday is no longer a person of interest.

1:23:19quote, he has been cleared. He has been cleared. But the mayor, when asked whether the suspect had been fully cleared, quote, we're not saying that. Indeed, you are saying that through your attorney general, you idiot. Like, how are they not on the same page with that, you guys? I think it should be at least a conference call, right? Maybe just a heads up that we're all, we think something about this grisly situation hey i'm about to go on national television yeah you know make sure to book the national television and then not then give an answer that shitty right right that's the problem with so many of these politicians they're like hey this is my chance for fame rather than here is a terrible thing that's happened in my community i need to get to the bottom of it and let somebody else talk to the national press you know what i mean like this is this is a terrible trend in our politics and national media only feeds it and i mean And who cared?

1:24:16Like the mayor on Good Morning America, the ratings aren't what they used to be on Good Morning America. The guy needs to do his job and help this community who he was elected to serve. Yeah. You know why he can't, Ashbrook? He explained. He explained why he can't do his job that easily. He's got some issues. And I think, hold on a second. I want to make sure. Here it is. Here are some of his issues. This is from a Monday afternoon presser, SOT11. everyone you see behind us we've all been working for now 49 hours we're tired we're serious about the task at hand i know all of you have been working very hard and i suspect all of you are just as tired um no one cares you're tired i would i would get up and let him have a piece of my mind we got mayor mccheese i mean with the population of this town this guy thinks he's like the president What are you talking about?

1:25:08You're tired, 49 hours? You don't even get your facts straight. What is your job, first of all? Like, what is the responsibilities you have? Because keeping your people safe and everyone on the same page, you haven't done that. I think that's like the basic job of any elected office, right? How did no one get up and just slap him? Boy, they've slid a long way since Buddy Cianci, haven't they? Buddy would have had that guy cuffed and stuffed. The former Providence mayor. Oh, God. How do you know the former mayor of Providence? Oh, this guy. Yeah, Buddy Cianci used to be a wonderful mob town. Yeah, exactly.

1:25:45Raymond Patriarcha. Oh, this is, no, you got to get up on this. There's a crime town. Yeah, crime town. It's a good podcast. It's a good podcast. You should check it out. But it examines the rule of Buddy Cianci. It holds Italians accountable, but I don't know if you're going to be fine. But of which I can promise you that in Buddy Cianci's providence, none of this would be an issue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now we've got Mayor Smiley, who's super smiley and tired, really tired. It's very hard to track down a killer. No one feels sorry for you. I don't know why on earth he would say such a thing. But yeah, he did say such a thing.

1:26:24And by the way, just in case you're feeling confident about the attorney general, who apparently set the record straight by saying, oh, no, no, the guy has been cleared. We have moved on. He's the same attorney general who put this woman on leave but then kept employed. His assistant attorney general named Devin Hogan Flanagan, who you may remember from a couple of months ago. He's one of our favorites. Right. Who was boozing it up at a Newport restaurant, very drunk and started to play the I'm an AG, I'm an AG, I'm an AG card. Here she is in SOT 12. I want you to turn your body off. The protocol is that you turn it off as a citizen request.

1:27:06So they want you guys to leave? Yes, exactly. Let's just leave. Let's just make it easy, okay? We're going to leave. We're going to make it easy. We're going to leave. We're going to make it easy. Do you guys just want them out? Do you want them trespassed? Anything we can do. Trespass, yeah. I just need them. Trespass, get them out. Please. So you're trespassed, so we've got to leave now. Unless you want to be in hand. We're not trespassing. You haven't notified us, so we're trespassing. Number one, number two. What did I just say to you? You're trespassing. You're trespassing. Number one, number two.

1:27:29What did I just say? You're not going to arrest us. So let's leave. We got to go. We got to go. Let's go. Let's go. I think this is where she shows us the world. So she knows. Well, that's lawyer stuff, so that's not true. So we got to go. No. It is. That's law. I'm an AG. I'm an AG. Good for you. You're so fancy. Let's go. Good for you. I'm glad you ended that clip where I did. It got a little racy. Is this the first time a Flanagan got too many Guinness deep and started troubling Providence? Now we're supposed to be a Saturday night. A lot of bashing of the Irish, all right? Hold, hold, hold, slow your roll.

1:28:03There, smug. But yeah, she's still gainfully employed. And for all we know, working on this case, who the hell knows? Here's another one for you. This is Colonel Oscar Perez. What's his role in this? He was at the presser Monday afternoons. This is the police chief. And listen, listen to this, because the reporter asked the question that we all want to know the answer to. We've all heard the reports about this shooter allegedly, allegedly yelling Allahu Akbar before the shooting. Unconfirmed. The reporter phrases it a little differently, but listen to this non-answer. Sadi. There's a report the shooter yelled something right before his shot came in.

1:28:48Can you tell us what that was? Yeah, it's part of the investigation, John. moved yeah the only reason i asked that though is for instance like with the unabomber his brother recognized the writing so is it it's possible a friend or family member might recognize if the person said something that was significant correct that's why you know other than the nine millimeter is there anything else inside that auditorium that you could tell us no that's correct and listen Like I said earlier, investigations will bring us to evidence that we need to collect in order to be able to prosecute. But with that being said, with that being said, we're going to continue to collect evidence.

1:29:32And if he leads us to something to that nature, that's going to be extremely helpful. I'm going to go and say he didn't he didn't shout Merry Christmas. OK, I think that's probably, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And also, what is it with that reporter, you know, somehow tying this to the Unabomber? like maybe we're going to discern something. These two words the guy said. He was extremely scared to ask the obvious question. The obvious question. Correct. Did he say Allah Akbar? We had 35 years of terrorist attacks in this country since the Unabomber. And it kind of had some similarities. I don't know if anybody's paying attention.

1:30:08But Nor, as a reporter, do you have to justify your question, especially at a presser? We only get one shot. Just did he yell any, what did he yell? There are reports it was Allahu Akbar. bar. Can you confirm? That's it. Get up and down on your question. Don't give me a history lesson. No one cares about Ted Kaczynski in this moment. We have a killer to find. My God, like the ineptitude. So now yesterday they did release additional pictures. They're going to other houses now because since apparently of the hundreds of security cameras across Brown University, they don't have one on this building and they don't have one showing the suspect in any way that's clear.

1:30:43So now they're going to area houses asking for like their ring cam video. And they've put out, let's air them. I mean, it's a little tough. All we know is this guy is husky. He's husky. And they're saying he might be around 5 '8". And not a thin guy. Looks like an overeater. He doesn't just look big bone to me. This is the best we have? Yeah. This is what your Ivy League tuition goes to? Let's hope the neighbors got ring cameras? Well, the civil libertarians know where to move, huh? I mean, this is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. How are we going to catch this guy like this, you guys? It's not like Luigi, where at least when he was on the run, remember he had gone to like that.

1:31:20This is the best one right here. Luigi had gone to like some soup kitchen or something, and he had pulled down his mask when he was looking at that girl. And so we did have a picture of his face, which is how they found him in that McDonald's. This guy, so far, nothing. And here we are now. It's Tuesday. This happens Saturday. We don't know where he is. And the mayor is still saying everyone should send their kids to school. Would you send your kids to school this week in Providence, Rhode Island? Hell no. I think I'd move out of Providence altogether if I saw that this was the extent of the law.

1:31:51I mean, Keystone Cops is right. This is unbelievable. Look at this. This is what they're getting from the local authorities. I couldn't believe they put that out. There is clearer pictures of Bigfoot than there are in that situation. It looks like a tree. It blends into the background. Literally, there is better evidence of Bigfoot than that. You cannot see anything. This does not instill any sort of confidence whatsoever. It's like, if they didn't have cameras on Brown University, yeah, like, why not? Why wouldn't you? Like, what are the crime fighting methods at the university? Like, I don't get it.

1:32:30Um, I'm, I'm very concerned because no one knows where he's going next. No one knows whether there is a list. And then there's this reporting by our own Mark Halperin, who's part of the MK media network who reported as follows. Watch this. The people are telling me that the family of Ella cook, the Alabama, a young woman who was a sophomore, uh, has been told that she was the target of, of what happened at Brad. I have no idea whether that's true. there's other theories about why the person did what they did. But now that we don't know who the assailant is, it's going to be harder to say. He admits this is not something he would put in the New York Times if he worked there.

1:33:11He doesn't feel the reporting is shorn up to the level of like you'd put it in print in a major newspaper, although we can debate what the standards are at the New York Times. But in any event, he's saying that he is being told by a reliable source that that's what Ella Cook's family has been told. She was the vice president of the college Republicans on campus. The other man who was killed was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Uzbekistan who had dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon who, I mean, for what it's worth, appears to have brown skin and didn't match like the same profile as the young white Ella Cook, who was the college Republican, just for what it's worth.

1:33:49I mean, there were many other people who were shot, but the reporting that Mark is getting is that Ella was the one who was targeted and she and this other young man are the ones who were killed. It's just one of the many reasons why we need to find this guy, you guys, because of course people, if this is some sort of a Republican targeting, no matter what kind of targeting it is, we need to know it's bad enough. If it's, it's the worst case scenario, if it's targeting of young adults, I mean, does that mean other universities need to be on alert? Schools need to be on alert. Again, I would not send my kids to public school or any any school this week, were we in Providence?

1:34:24Yeah. Well, and there's also, I mean, what happened at Bondi Beach, the bust that happened out in California of that, I don't even know how you classify those psychopaths that were trying to bomb New Year's Eve. Oh, the Turtle Island Liberation Front or whatever? And this, all within a 48-hour period. Like, I don't know. I mean, did I read that there is some kind of a strained relationship there between the local law enforcement and the FBI on this too? because I mean, it strikes me. They're pointing fingers at each other. The FBI definitely wants you to know that this is being handled locally and that the FBI is just in an assisting supportive role.

1:35:02And the locals were very sure to tell us that it was the FBI who told them the guy in the hotel is indeed a person of interest and that its cell phone analysis unit had zeroed in on him. So there's definitely one of these things going where they're each pointing at each other. Yeah, I mean, look at a time like this. I don't think that's acceptable at all. I mean, this is all hands on deck situation. Also, I don't want to blackpill on this, but let's say it is a Republican who is targeted and let's say it is radical left-wing violence. Are we going to get any justice? Are we going to get any results from that?

1:35:40Has there been any nationwide crackdown on Antifa? If you're out there hunting and hurting Republicans, have you felt justice? or are you allowed back on the streets? Are you celebrated? It's ridiculous. You know, like when is there going to be consequences for targeting Republicans, for killing conservatives, for attacking them? When's there going to be consequences? When's there going to be the crackdown? Because I remember under Biden, doors were getting kicked in if you're conservative. If you're a granny on Facebook, your door's getting kicked in. Yeah, a parent at a teacher. Yeah, the FBI was tracking conservative moms who show up to PTA meetings.

1:36:17as radicalized troublemakers. But you're out there shooting or killing Republicans? If Ella Cook was targeted and they know that and they're not releasing that, they're endangering us all. Like right now. If that is a fact that they know. Same thing with the Allahu Akbar. If this was somehow Muslim violence inspired by radical Islam, we need to know that. I don't trust these Providence, Rhode Island leftists to tell us all the relevant information. And there's a killer on the loose right now. This just came in for CNN. Providence police say they'll release at least one additional image of the person of interest seen in the surveillance video soon.

1:36:58A spokesman for the Rhode Island AG telling CNN that there is a quote, an enhanced photo that would be distributed on Tuesday. They anticipate footage will be released later. Picture first, later than footage. Shifting gears. uh oh and by the way i think we're at 4 p.m at 4 p.m we're getting an update out of california on nick reiner and the status again we began that segment by noting he they said he was not physically capable of showing up at the court appearance now there's two breaking pieces of news unrelated we think president trump just released that he is going to address the nation tomorrow night wednesday night at 9 p.m eastern all he writes is my fellow americans i'll be giving an address to the nation tomorrow night, live from the White House at 9 p.m.

1:37:43Eastern. I look forward to, quote, seeing you then. It has been a great year for our country, and the best is yet to come. President Donald J. Trump. No idea what that's about. And last but not least, J.D. Vance, who was just giving some public remarks, was asked the first question about whether he is a conspiracy theorist referencing that piece in Vanity Fair. Here's his answer. The White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles gave to Vanity Fair, in which she's quoted as referring to you as, excuse me, and again, not my words, sir, but a conspiracy theorist of a decade. Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.

1:38:26By the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic. I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job. And I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win an argument against his political opponents.

1:39:00So at least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it. And that's that's my understanding. Mike, drop. Yeah, so good. Fantastic. Yeah, it's the kind of common sense you get in Middletown, Ohio. Oh, here we go. We'll benefit from more of it. That's why he's 48. That's why we call him 48. So good. Took it on head on, didn't shy away from it, turned it into a positive. Like, he just completely neutralized it, right? And not the Susie Wiles, I think, meant to hurt him. But, of course, Vanity Fair did.

1:39:37Yeah. I mean, that crack you hear is the barrel of the bat. And that is what he does. But it's also why I don't think this piece does any damage beyond the, you know, 48 hours where everybody in D.C. sort of fumbles around with their accusations. is because the commentary, almost all of it, is relatable internally in the way that they interact with each other, which is the only thing that matters. The design of that piece was to try to pull them apart. And that is clearly not happening. Why do we think Trump is addressing the nation tomorrow night? I think what happens, we did this in Congress a lot, and I think this is what he's doing now, is you want to do a year-end review.

1:40:14And I think it's more important now. And I think that's what that's about. I don't know. I would guess. That's my guess. It's more important now than ever when you've got a Democratic Party that woke up from ruining our economy over four years and all of a sudden have concerns about affordability. You might want to reset the dial on that and reset the narrative going into 2026. Yeah. The tone of that Truth Social post would suggest it's something upbeat. It wasn't somber. Guys, what a pleasure to see you again. It's been too long. Thanks for being here. Yeah, great to see you, Megan. Thanks so much.

1:40:45Merry Christmas. Lots of love. Merry Christmas. Yeah, to you too. And Happy New Year. And we are back tomorrow with Kelly's Court and more. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.