Outrageous Actions After Brown University Shooting, and Rob Reiner's Son Arrested For His Murder, with Emily Jashinsky | Ep. 1213

26:58Quickly. Go, go, go, go. All the kids have their hands up. They're all complying, of course, immediately. These poor kids.

27:12That is just heartbreaking. You know, it's like we mock Brown University a lot because it's so far left. It's so progressive. But it's like these poor kids, you have to be very smart to get into Brown University. It is IV. We're very connected. But you do, I mean, in general, you have to be an extraordinary student, truly, to get into there. And those kids just are trying to learn. Left, right, who gives a shit? They're just trying to learn, trying to get an education, trying to make it ahead in this world just like everyone else. Try to get a first good job. Try to get a home. Try to make it in an economy that is really not set up for success for young people.

27:47And this is the shit they have to deal with. For the listening audience, they were hiding behind, they were in the library, and you picture the stacks of books that only go up to, like, maybe five or six feet tall. and they're open at each end. So it's not like, it doesn't really block you from an active shooter. He would just have to turn the corner of the little bookcase and they're all cowering down there, hearing shots go on, you know, shots. And then you finally hear the police and I'm sure there was a huge sigh of relief as they lifted their arms and complied. But you can't help but think of the terror they must've been in.

28:20Relief and also probably for some of them still fear because what if someone is pretending to be the police, also not outside of the realm of possibility in a situation like that. And so I'm 32. I was in elementary school when Columbine happened. And I think people, especially younger than me, but everyone who is like 30 and under, just you ended up having to do those drills in school since you're like five years old, active shooter drills. And this is every student's worst nightmare. These kids were just trying to get through finals. And then the scene that they have seen play out on their smartphones from different cases, Parkland, over and over, over the years as they've been in school, it visits them like a couple of weeks before Christmas and it's happening to them in real life.

29:07So even though that was the police and they were hearing shots from the police, those kids are now traumatized. That will stay with a lot of them for a long, long time. That is literally the worst nightmare. And there was at least one, possibly two students who had been at Parkland at that shooting in Florida as high schoolers or would have had to be middle schoolers now. I'm trying to do my math. That happened in 2018. And now, so it's seven years ago. So they must have been more junior. Or maybe they took gap years in that because at least one was saying that they'd been at the high school when the shooting had taken place.

29:42And now again, now again. I mean, I don't even know how you'd handle going in public after that because we're all banking on it being, you know, a better chance of getting struck by lightning than finding yourself in one of these shooting situations. But they're happening so frequently that's starting to feel less comforting. And I use that term comfort, you know, with a huge grain of salt. We're seeing our fellow Americans get shot down in the prime of their lives. No one wants this. No one fucking wants this. I mean, most people don't want this. I don't know what the answer is. I was thinking for these students, you know, in this case, do we have to get to the point when they go to school, whatever school it is, college on down, the doors lock.

30:29The class starts at nine. You have a five minute grace period, say. And then that door locks. That's it. And it will not be reopened. If you don't get there on time, you miss the class that day, it's locked. So, I mean, that would be another layer. That's the one thing I've learned in dealing with lots of security over the course of my professional life and plenty recently. Layers, layers between you and potential danger is what it's all about. You just to give law enforcement the time to get to you. And on these college campuses, there aren't enough. No, I agree with that. I mean, I think I've been thinking a lot about this lately because in the Charlie case, We've been rightfully so focused on Charlie and his family.

31:16And then I think, you know, there were thousands of kids that day who had a bullet whiz past them. And they saw the carnage and the panic. And that's thousands of kids who just at that one school are now dealing with this panic and probably PTSD in a lot of their cases. and you think about Brown, you get an active shooter alert on your phone, which I assume went out in the case of Brown. It happens at schools. There was a mistaken one that was sent out when I was in college. It is absolutely terrifying. I mean, again, this is like nightmare fuel. It is everybody's worst case scenario when you're a teenager and you're in college.

31:53And so to get that in and of itself is terrifying. And just thinking a little bit also about the Australia story you introduced, Megan, And in that case, you know, I know we're going to talk about it, but they have really strict gun laws in Australia. Some of these shootings happen in places where there are really strict gun laws. College campuses are certainly those types of places. There's just evil. I mean, there's just unimaginable evil. And this this period of high tech modernity seems to be bringing out more and more of it in more and more dangerous ways. And to some extent, there's nothing you'll ever be able to do to protect yourself.

32:29There are two things we can do in the world. There are at least two things we can do. And I don't know how I feel about having like all kids armed on college campuses. That seems like, I don't know, extreme to me. But people are getting murdered on college campuses at an alarming rate. They are. Attempted murders and murders happening at the hands. This is when these young men are breaking, are having their psychotic breaks. and it does tend to happen to ask any shrink between basically 18 and 26. And look at, I haven't looked it up. I'll bet you the endowment for Brown University is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

33:13For sure, it's gonna be in the tens of millions. Is it really so hard for them to beef up their security? Is it so hard for them to have at Brown University, which actually isn't even that huge? I mean, it's very exclusive, so it's not that huge. to have a guard at every door, an armed guard at every building. An armed guard at every building. Is it so hard, including on Saturday? If the students are there, you're there with your loaded gun. And that way, at least, when you hear shots fired, you can minimize the carnage. Or as a deterrent. It serves as a deterrent. Can't they spend some of their damn millions on that?

33:50That's one thing. And I've said it after every school shooting for a long time since I figured out it was necessary. we need an institution, a lockup for people who are potential school shooters and their family and friends know who they are in most of the cases. You're going to tell me that guy who shot up the Ascension School in Minneapolis was not known by his family to be a seriously dangerous young man. It has to be a place - Uvalde, Parkland. It happens all the time. Sandy Hook. It has to be a place to which a loving mother would voluntarily commit her son. It's always a son. Stop. It is one one in New Orleans was sorry.

34:34Nashville was a woman, but they can go to I'm not trying to defend women. I'm just saying let's be honest about what the profile of these shooters is so that it's not going to get them all. It's not even going to get most of them, to be honest, because a lot of them don't show signs, but it's going to get a fair amount and it's going to save lives. And look, same thing for us. I'm sorry for the Ukrainians, but that$60 billion would have more than covered such a facility for the rest of your lifetime. Not even just my lifetime, your lifetime as well. I mean, easily. And think of the number of American lives that could have been spared if we had that kind of a lockup.

35:09It's a lockup. It's a prison-esque facility, but it's a mental health facility where, yes, your child is going to be locked up in a room and we'll have group time just like prisoners do and we'll have mental health carers, caregivers to medicate and look after them. And it's honestly as much for their sake as it is for ours. I've spoken to these mothers. They want these kids taken. They do not want to be responsible. They can't handle them any more than the prison system can. Anyway, those are my two things. We need good guys with guns and we need this kind of a facility and we needed it yesterday.

35:47I don't know. I've got like three kids who are going to go to college within the next few years if that's what they choose to do. They're in schools right now. High schools are also dangerous. We just, we don't want to live like this and we just move on after all of these like, oh well, free society. It's all we can do. And I get it. I get the need to do that. I get the urge to do that. But I don't think it's futile. I don't. I think there are real things we can do to lower the number that have nothing to do with confiscating people's guns. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think armed guards would make me feel a lot safer with our schools.

36:25I don't have kids in schools, but that would make me feel way safer because we know you could you could do a full gun buyback in this country and there would still be guns. And so as so long as there are these mimetic copycat type events that have been happening for, what, 20 years now, deal with it and put armed guards in schools. Absolutely. And on top of that, a lot of institution. Yeah. And the institution point is so, so important. I mean, it is beyond obvious to everybody that particularly young men are in a mental health crisis. And one of the best prophylactics in that case is having strong civil society and social safety nets and people noticing red flags in their community and doing something, doing something.

37:09I mean, in so many of these cases, we find out that at least five, six people, even if it was just because of people's online activities, students' online activities, had some suspicion that there was something going deeply, deeply wrong. And they felt too weird to say something. Right. The police dropped the case. The FBI didn't follow up on all of the leads. It happens time and time again. And when you don't have strong families, which, again, this is just a reality. We don't have strong families anymore in this country. That is not a given. We have all kinds of people who are struggling and who are on the fringes of society, on the edges, and are clearly showing symptoms of a breakdown.

37:48And they are just roaming about. Nobody's helping them because they don't know what to do. There aren't institutions, to your point, Megan, where they can take people. We don't know what to do with them. Society doesn't know what to do with them. And I've spoken with therapists before, psychiatrists, psychologists, who say you really can't therapize someone out of sociopathy. Like if you're a sociopath, you're a sociopath. There's no real treating it. I mean, some people get away with teaching their child who's got sociopathic tendencies, like how to behave, what the proper response is when you hear that someone has died.

38:24It's not to laugh. It's to shed a tear or say, I'm sorry, or be stone-faced. They can learn those things. And I've spoken to mothers who have had to do this with their children. But by and large, what these mothers who, they're dealing with it at home. They're getting threatened by their kids. The family cat gets killed by the kid and so on. They want these kids out of their house. They're worried about their other children. They're worried about themselves. They understand that this problem, as soon as the child has reached the size of a mature adult, is beyond their capacity to handle. Um, Debbie Murphy tells me that the Brown endowment is 7.2 billion, 7.2 billion dollars.

39:06Get a fucking guard. It's ideological. I like get a guard. I'll bet you I love to take a look at like SMU and what are the what's the number of armed guards on the campus of SMU versus Brown University? One of, if not the most progressive campus in America, where I'm sure many, many classes are devoted to bashing the Second Amendment and guns. Get a good guy with a gun. Don't be ideologically opposed to it. It literally can save your life. All right, let's keep going. Let's talk about Rob Reiner next, and we'll get to Australia after that. So this shocking, shocking crime, this, again, this is an American icon.

39:46I mean, you're not going to find people much more famous than Rob Reiner, much more accomplished than Rob Reiner, much more wealthy than Rob Reiner, living in one of the most exclusive suburbs in America, Brentwood, which is, of course, where O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson. Brentwood is a beautiful suburb of L.A., and he and his wife, according to reports, had their throats slit and also suffered multiple additional stab wounds, which, of course, suggests crime of passion. It's not a robber. A robber doesn't slit your throat. A robber doesn't kill you, by the way. That's like TV shit that people just use to excuse their murder.

40:31It was a robber. No, robbers, burglars, burgle and get the hell out. And if they meet the homeowner, they run. These are generalizations. So this was, according to the authorities now, the couple's son. They met while they were filming when Harry met Sally. She was a well-known photographer. People are pointing out she shot the cover of Art of the Deal, Trump's book of Donald Trump. And she worked on When Harry Met Sally, which Rob Reiner directed. A great movie, by the way, a great movie. And by the way, so another example, like Billy Crystal starred Meg Ryan too. Billy Crystal's definitely leftist.

41:08So is obviously Rob Reiner. He was. That wasn't in When Harry Met Sally. They didn't inject their politics into their movie making like they do with everything today. You know, there was a golden era where no matter what your politics, your movie wouldn't reflect it. You just told a great story. And When Harry Met Sally was a great story. We actually pulled a clip of it. I'll show it just to honor Rob Reiner because it's one of the great films that he made so many to choose from. Princess Bride, another one. This is Spinal Tap, another one. Misery with Kathy Bates and James Caan, another one. A Few Good Men, my God, like one of the greatest films in American history.

41:44But here's one I asked the team for from When Harry Met Sally. It always makes me laugh when they were playing Pictionary with their friends.

41:54It's a monkey. It's a monkey. A monkey see, monkey do. It's an ape, going ape. It's a baby. Planet of the Apes. Planet of the Apes, she just said it's a baby. How about Planet of the Dopes? It doesn't look like a baby. Look at that, big mouth. Mick Jagger is a baby. Baby ape. Baby Ape. Stop with the apes, would you please? Baby's breast. Baby Rosemary's Baby's mouth. Baby Baby. Won't you come home, build baby? Baby Kiss the Baby. Melancholy Baby's mouth. Baby Fish Mouth. Baby Fish Mouth. Baby Fish Mouth. 15 seconds. A big baby mouth. Baby Boom. Baby... Draw something resembling anything. Baby Crying Baby.

42:30Kiss the Baby. Baby spitting up. Exorcist Baby. Baby. Yes, sir, that's my baby. No, sir, don't mean maybe. That's it. Time's up. Baby talk. Baby talk? What's that? That's not a saying. Oh, but baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation. I hear them talking. So funny and such, such, such, such a great film. And Rob Reiner was behind it. He directed it. And that's where he and his wife, Michelle, met. Ten year age difference between them and went on to have three kids. He had one adopted daughter as well from his first marriage to Penny Marshall, also known as Laverne. from Laverne and Shirley. And so he had four kids and he had two boys with Michelle and a girl.

43:16The girl was Romy. The boys were, I think, Jay and Nick. And Nick had serious problems from the sound of it his whole life. The reports are that I think it was Romy. They said his daughter, to be honest, it could be the daughter from the first marriage, but I think they said it was Romy, found the bodies. And I mean, this poor girl walking in and seeing her mom and dad with their throats slit and multiple stab wounds. She reportedly, according to TMZ, was the one who called the police and said, look inside the family. And that's a nice way of saying she turned her brother in, that he was her first suspect.

43:52And when you hear this reports, Emily, about the family, you understand why she knew that indeed it was Nick, as the police now say, it was innocent until proven guilty, but he is in police custody with$4 million bond. He apparently had problems right from the start. And there's an interview on the Daily Mail with the family yoga instructor, which may sound weird that they had a family yoga instructor, but A, Hollywood and big wealth. But B, I think it was because of Nick. So he was apparently like a very tough kid, very tough child. The yoga instructor telling the Daily Mail about how He would scream.

44:31He would just come into rooms screaming bloody murder and required endless amounts of attention. And like, if you didn't give it stat, you were going to pay for it. And so she was an attempt by the parents to bring some calm into the child's life, like get him to have a moment of Zen and like connect with like his meditative spiritual side and do something physically taxing, which also can be good for whether it's a pet or a child, you know, that actually can be good for calmness. And, um, she, she said it was just very tough with him. And, um, she, was she the one who wrote the book, little Nikki?

45:13I think she was the one who wrote the book based or based on him, based on, on him and how a family hires her yoga instructor to help him through it. But it sounds like he never got through it because by age 15, he was addicted to drugs. He was in and out of rehab 17 or 18 times from age 15 to now he's 32. So that's what, 17 years in and out of rehab over and over and over. And he was so problematic that he and Rob Reiner, his father, made a movie about a father and son where the son is addicted to drugs. It was called Being Charlie. And here is a shot that we pulled from it, a clip, shot 10. Jesus, Charlie.

46:05The fuck are you doing? Hey, dad. It's great to see you. You know, I decided to stop by. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you want to live your life, huh? Messing things up so that daddy has to clean up after you? Clean about it. Yeah, yeah. If it's not smashing a church window, it's stealing a car. If you're not stealing a car, posting a video. Video? What are you talking about? It's all over the fucking internet. What, are you going to deny that now? Adam. Oh, yeah, sure. Keep blaming other people for your shit. Why can't you just be honest and own something for what? Honesty. Great. I'm really glad you brought that up, Dad.

46:41I am because, you know, I was never a big fan of your pirate movies, but that sociopath you played on the phone with that Utah bullshit, that was spot on. You left no choice. Oh, no choice. You're going to talk to me about choices. You've had plenty of fucking choices, Chad. Rehab or jail, you know, quite a wide selection there.

47:02You're really going to do this?

47:07It's really chilling now knowing that Rob and his son Nick were behind it, that they wrote it together. Rob directed it, but there's a clip of him saying, you know, I learned that while I was the most experienced director on that set and most experienced person in movies, I was not more experienced than my son in this world. And that I had to listen to him about certain scenes and so on. It sounds like a very tumultuous relationship, Emily. And just as we came to air, I think it was TMZ again, breaking that they had had an explosive argument at Conan O 'Brien's party on Saturday night, he and his son, to the point where Rob and Michelle left the party and to the point where, again, the sister knew immediately, according to reports, they needed to call her brother.

47:57Your thoughts on it? Well, I mean, it's heart-wrenching in, you know, it's always heart-wrenching when you see somebody who is kind of left to fend for themselves and people don't know what to do with them, but this is heart-wrenching in a different way. When you know, and you can tell from all of the reports piling up now, his parents, his family seemed to do absolutely everything that they could to get him help over the years, addressed it at film length, working together at film length to hash out this pain and the suffering and to know that they tried. I mean, even just that report about Conan O 'Brien's party, assuming it was a holiday party or something like that, you have a family, you know, bringing their troubled son to a party.

48:47That's, you know, it may sound like a small thing, but when you go through all of that tumult with your own child, it just shows to me, even in that little anecdote that they were trying so hard to to keep him in their lives and to keep him healthy and so to hear that it just it gets you because clearly they they wanted the best for him they wanted to do everything they could to help and sometimes you just feel like you run out of options and it sounds like that's what happened here but to your point the TMZ just dropped the following quoting from the report our family sources add Michelle, that's Rob's wife, had been anguishing to friends over the last few months that she and Rob were at their wits end over Nick's mental illness and alleged substance abuse issues and did not know what to do with their son, Nick, saying, quote, we've tried everything.

49:43I feel for them so acutely. If you guys have ever had an addict in your family, You know how explosive that issue can be and how difficult a monster it is to conquer. It's so difficult. And then think about the person suffering prior to that and adding in pre-existing mental illness. Stand by. Apologies. We do have to take a break and we will absolutely be continuing this talk right after. Don't go away. Ever read the label on a typical bag of chips? It's often a science experiment of seed oils, MSG, artificial dyes, and mystery ingredients. Masa is part of the growing movement to bring back real food.

50:25Masa chips contain just three ingredients, organic corn, sea salt, and 100 % grass-fed beef tallow. Not only do these chips avoid the bad stuff, they also taste delicious, too. Snacking on masa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. With Massa, you feel satisfied, light, and energetic with no crash and no bloat. And if you love Massa, then you will love Vandy Crisps. Vandy, which is Massa's sister company, makes the most delicious three-ingredient potato chips, too. Ready to give Massa or Vandy a try? Use code MK for 25 % off your first order at masachips.com or vandycrisps.com. or simply click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to claim this delicious offer.

51:15Don't feel like ordering online? Masa and Vandy are now available nationwide at your local Sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick a couple of bags up before they're all gone.

51:30You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives, And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties.

52:12You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. I mean, one of the all-time great scenes in American cinematic history, Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise across from one another with an assist in the background from Kevin Bacon and Demi Moore arguing over the proper role of our military and whether when they cross ethical lines, we should or would prefer to look the other way. It's one of the many movies where people have had a second look at modern day America. Emily's saying, were we too hard on Colonel Jessup? We might have been manipulated into thinking he was a bad guy when in fact he was a good guy.

52:53In any event, you can't argue with the acting and the directing of that American film, A Few Good Men, one of our best. And we're back now with Emily Jashinsky, who is the host of After Party with Emily Jashinsky. Go and subscribe right now. One of the many great Rob Reiner contributions to our national lexicon and one of our most storied industries, the Hollywood movie industry, which no one can do the way we can do. I know it's been very dark lately. It's gone woke and very annoying, but like the history of it is completely magical. It's magical. And many, many hours of most of our lives have been devoted to good times, fostered by films like that one, like Stand By Me and the others that Rob Reiner directed and put out there for us.

53:39And it's one of the reasons why so many people are affected by his death today. We were talking about the the scourge of drug addiction and mental illness, which often go hand in hand in this young man who's now been accused of killing Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, his own parents. And just updating a detail that I told you about his addiction, the Daily Mail report said that as of 2016, Nick had gone to rehab 18 times, which means he was, I think, 22 in 2016. And that means that in seven years, he went to rehab 18 times. Seven years. It's more than three. I can't do the math. Don't make me do the math.

54:27It's about three times a year, two times a year plus. And there's more here from the yoga instructor. It's a very interesting article in the Daily Mail. The headline is Daily Mail Exclusive Troubled Truth About Little Nikki. That's what she called him in her book. And she writes, the piece writes the following about Rob and the son. He had clashes with his family throughout the years, as documented in the film they did together, which portrays a young man who resents the way his father and mother are dealing with his addiction. They force him to spend time in rehab with their interactions a reflection of how Rob, Michelle, and Nick were with each other, the family said at the time.

55:08Evidencing the years of clashes the parents had with their son, it ends with an apology from the dad for the occasionally unsympathetic way he treated his son. Rob Reiner said in an interview afterward that he owed and gave this apology to his son in real life. But Nick's unpredictability and even aggression toward his family seemingly continued. And here's a little bit more from the actual, we played you a clip from the movie played by actors, but here's the actual Nick on camera in an interview with AOL promoting this movie we're discussing being charlie in 2016 talking about his relationship with rob sod 11 it really clicked for me because we didn't bond a lot as a kid like he really like baseball i like basketball and he could watch that with my brother but baseball but i just when i saw him do that and it was something that i'm interested in i was like wow like he really knows a lot and like it made me feel closer to him and be like yeah you're like wow my dad's rob reiner I never had thought about it.

56:11It didn't cross your mind, right? Never. Here's a little bit more. This is Sot12A from the Paul Mercurio podcast. Two chairs and a microphone. Again, same thing, 2016. We both learned what each other went through during that time. But really the thing I took away from it was I got to see him in his element sort of directing and do all these things. And when I said that in the past, people would be like, well, weren't you on movie sets before? Yeah, but it's different because it's something I wrote it's my dad and it's something that we're collaborating on and I saw he has sometimes a hard time expressing himself through just conversation But through his what do you mean by that because it seems like he's very expressive through conversation.

56:52Well, we're on a show right now, but Really no, but he's pretty quiet and he's he's quieter, but he's still he's listens He's a great dad and like I just mean that like he's a he's best explaining himself when he is in his element making a movie showing his how much he cares through that There's a lot in there, Emily.

57:15you never know what goes on behind closed doors and how people are. And clearly you have a son there frustrated at not being able to effectively communicate with his own father for whatever reason, that his father couldn't express himself in the way the kid needed. I'm not blaming Rob Reiner. We're just taking a look at the relationship here, given what's happened. And so while you might think he's an expressive guy and actually kind of gifted at expressing himself given the movies. He certainly didn't seem to have a tough time expressing himself politically. It's different with your kid and certainly different with a kid who is, in a way, special needs.

57:53And it also, I think, represents what we all know, which is that money, you can't throw money at a problem like that because to go to rehab that many times, you know, that's an extraordinary financial expense for his son. And obviously, Rob Reiner had lots and lots of money. The family had lots and lots of money. And so it doesn't make life, it may make life easier in some ways, but it doesn't necessarily make life better. And so when you think about a family here who is trying everything over the course of a decade plus to help their son, including, by the way, doing the emotionally taxing work of producing, directing his film that he wrote about your relationship.

58:35I mean, I cannot possibly fathom how difficult it was to do that. In some ways, obviously, they're saying it was rewarding. But that's, you know, days and days spent in the muck of your emotional trauma, your family's sufferings, your failings and successes as a parent and a child. I mean, you're putting a lot of effort into dealing with this relationship. And for it to end so tragically and violently is very upsetting. It sounds like the parents did not only the rehab thing 18 times in seven years, but also tough love. Because this Daily Mail piece points out that he told People Magazine in 2016, I don't know if my math is correct, it's almost 2026, and he was 32.

59:22He is 32. So 10 years ago, he would have been 22, and 15 to 22 is seven years. That's where I got it. My math is right, give or take a few months. He told People Magazine in 2016, Nick, the son, that he wound up homeless. Okay, again, this is when he was 22. He said, I've been homeless in three states because I've repeatedly refused treatment. But he says, I've since been on the mend. I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas. I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun. If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless.

1:00:00In other words, they did tough love. That's what he's saying here, that the parents said, we are not going to fund your, your life, your apartments, your landlord, your, your bills until you get help. And honestly, we've been through this in my own family. I've talked to before, like I've had somebody I really, really love dearly, severely addicted to prescription drugs. And you really do wrestle with like, what do we do? Do we how to save them? Do we do hard love? And there was a divide in my family over. I mean, I've said it's my sister who's since passed, but you know, my brother and I were much more like, mom, we have to do hard love.

1:00:36We have to let her hit rock bottom. And it's much different for the parent, much different for the parent who, you know, my mom did not want to allow that to happen to my sister. We had no money like the Reiners do, but I can relate to these struggles and you, the person you love is in there. You can say they're not dead, you know, like they're alive. They're just like, there's several layers between you and them in like this weird exterior that doesn't represent the true them. And you get angry at these drugs and you blame the drugs. And it's like, you just, you so desperately want the drug addiction to go away because then the person will come out again.

1:01:13Like it's like an invasion of the body snatcher, you know, like you want the force to be gone so that your relative is back present again and you will throw any amount of money, tough love and what feels like cruelty, whatever at it to get to the end result. But then when it doesn't come, and in this case, it seems like it was constant relapse. You get to the point that they got to, according to that quote, we read from TMZ, the mother saying, we are at our wits end and we do not know what to do. And to the point that you mentioned, it looks like the picture that's emerging is that over the years they have tried both tough love and abundant love.

1:01:49I mean, everything from saying, you know, we have to at some point cut him off so that he knows that you can hit rock bottom as opposed to what everybody who's dealt with us experiences where it is when you do the abundant love approach, sometimes there are limits to that too, but they did it both ways. Clearly, that's what we're seeing. And you mentioned this earlier, but what we're learning from this crime scene obviously is a stabbing situation. The report horrifically is a throat slitting situation. And that is, to the point you made, a crime of passion. And so when we're thinking about a person being inside, the real person being inside, I mean, what it has to take to do that to your own parents, reportedly after a heated argument at a party, that is sociopathic.

1:02:42I mean, that's really the only way to look at it, which means that what they were dealing with is unimaginable. And there's no ration. There's no reason. There's nothing you can do in a situation like that. That'll definitely work. You just have to keep trying. And the clock ran out on them, unfortunately. That's exactly right. And the sister, if you see the pictures of Romy, the sister, I guarantee you she knew. And again, reportedly she was the one who called the cops and said, check out Nick. But you see these pictures. There were just a couple snapshots. But in each one, there's the other brother.

1:03:16I think his name is Jay. He's all smiles. He seems like a genuinely happy person. He projects joy in just his facial expression and energy. In all the pictures of Romy, Jake, Jake. In all the pictures of Romy, you can see, at least I think I see in the eyes, like a concern, like a pain. there's some, there's the absence of a joy that you see in the other brother's face. And then you see Nick who looks deeply disturbed in every photo. He looks progressively disturbed, progressively more like a criminal, um, someone who doesn't appear to be taking care of himself. Somebody who's not well-groomed, somebody who has got like a madness in his eyes.

1:03:55I realized I'm, this is 2020 hindsight. So forgive the armchair analysis, but it's what I see. And this yoga instructor, again, who taught with the family for a decade, wrote a book about Nick, Little Nikki. She described the Reiner parents as passionate, hands-on parents, and loving. She said Michelle was a New Yorker living in California. She was really mindful trying to raise her kids out of the pressures of LA and Hollywood. It was challenging and full-time. She pointed out that the family was Jewish. They were likely preparing for a family get-together to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah on Sunday before they were killed.

1:04:29She said that the discord she witnessed between Nick and his family, quote, was a product of their fame, quoting from the Daily Mail piece. This is how they quoted her. I think it's really challenging for children of Hollywood stars to have a clear sense of reality. It's really not easy, but it's not an excuse, she said. This is still her. The sense of neglect can breed its own delusion in kids. So she does say that they're hands-on parents and loving, but she also speaks of a sense of neglect breeding a delusion in Hollywood kids and saying that there was a discord as a product of his fame. Again, saying it's not an excuse for what happened, but giving us an insight as to somebody who knew the family well about, what one of the issues was.

1:05:21Now, of course, he has three other children who are fine, you know, who are fine. It's this one who did this dastardly deed, but it does make you wonder, you know, like, I don't know, you've got a kid who's 15, he's severely addicted. Do you leave Hollywood? Do you give up your directing career? Do you devote your full time to this teenager, this child who you've brought into the world, who is legally and morally your responsibility? Like, do you give up your career directing movies and being the toast of the town to just focus full time on that child and the others who you still have in your home?

1:06:04I don't know. Here's Rob Reiner kind of defending the notion that his son Nick was privileged on that same Paul Mercurio podcast in 2016. Saw 12. It's not hard to reveal that stuff. It's only hard to reveal that stuff to then get told, you're a spoiled, white, rich kid, and it's like, okay, maybe all these things. Well, who would say that to you? Not your dad. No, no, but the world, you know. Listen, I had to talk to him about this. Listen, I know what it's like to be the son of and to have people assume certain things about you, and it's very very difficult well how did you handle that well I mean I mean obviously you didn't go to drugs but you had must have had those issues your father's an icon these there was plenty of drugs around yeah but I you just have to you know what you do and that you have to block out all that extraneous noise and it's hard for him because it's the first time he's you know all of a sudden there's a lot of attention people are talking and you know he has the double whammy he's got me and he got his grandfather and they're gonna say whatever the heck they want, but they don't know.

1:07:10They don't know what he's experienced. They don't know what he's gone through. They don't know why he's done what he does. And it's pretty dumb, pretty ignorant of people to say, just because you're born and you have money, that doesn't mean anything. I don't know, Emily, what do you make of all that? I mean, in all of the clips that you've played of them on this press tour together, the son looks deeply uncomfortable, which is understandable. Nick looks deeply, deeply uncomfortable. And that line from apparently the family yoga instructor in the Daily Mail about struggling to cope with fame. I mean, I was doing the math.

1:07:48He would have been born in the early 90s, probably like 1993. So honestly, that's arguably the height of Rob Reiner's power and fame. And so he's born into that, which is just that time to be a toddler than to be a teenager. I mean, it had to have been enormously, enormously difficult. And I think that's what they're kind of getting at is that, you know, people look at somebody in that position as privileged and spoiled and all of that, which they are, but that brings with it its own special bag of suffering and difficulties and all of that. And when I saw that first clip that we played from this press tour, he mentioned when the interviewer said, your dad's Rob Reiner, you know, sort of like, isn't that amazing?

1:08:34You got to learn that your dad is Rob Reiner. He did not seem to find it nearly as amusing as the interviewer kind of set him up to express. It looked like there's, he looks like he was struggling with a lot of resentment. And again, it is, it's armchair quarterbacking, but I feel like it's just jumping off of the screen in those interviews, sadly. God, it reminded me so much of, it was late last week. You know how you scroll your phone in the morning. I know we're not supposed to, Gary Brecka, but I did it. And this video was fed to me on my Instagram of Presley Gerber, the son, the beautiful son of Cindy Crawford and Randy Gerber.

1:09:15He's a businessman and came up with George Clooney with Casamigos tequila, and they've got more money than God and very good genes, thanks to Cindy. And they have two children, Kaya Gerber, who's a very successful model, and Presley Gerber, her brother, he's the older, who's also a model and deeply troubled, deeply troubled. We had seen him in the past, like, get a facial tattoo, which, by the way, is not visible in the video I'm about to show you. Maybe he's had it removed. Maybe that was BS. I don't know, but he had a facial tattoo, it looked like for a while. And he has been in and out of rehab himself and now is posting, I guess he's clean and sober at the moment, and he's posting something like Mental Health Mondays posts on his Instagram.

1:10:00And he too, he's only 26 years old, very young. And I could not believe the level of issues that he espoused of his own in what's like an eight minute video. We cut it way down just to give you a feel. watch this saw 12b long story short where i'm at currently three classes of medications i don't know four blood pressure opiate benzo antidepressant xanax when the panic attacks are really really bad the valium i take a little bit in the morning or not i don't know if it's a little or a lot antidepressant wise or tazapine and then i take prazosin also used to treat night Carers and PTSD and ketamine drips.

1:10:47I definitely use that more than I should. Sometimes it's not in a clinical setting. In a way, he's a walking time bomb. Presley says he is now five months alcohol free and wants to wean off these drugs. But getting help from his doctors hasn't been easy. Once you start taking them, you don't take them to quote unquote withdrawal from certain medications. That was a clip from Entertainment Tonight talking about how, you know, he wants to get off of all of this, but he can't. That's what he talks about in that clip. Like, I don't even know how to begin to get off of all these. And he also talks about being in and out of rehab.

1:11:22I think he said seven or eight times, and he's only 26. I don't, like, I'm not blaming their fame and wealth. As I just pointed out, I had a sister who was an addict, and we had no money. So it's not, you know, it's not about that. Like some people do come into the world with a different body chemistry. I really do believe that. That can lead them down a dark path. Like the truth is my sister was never like super happy. You know, I think she was more prone to this type of addiction. It was, I mean, she was given the drug as though it was not addictive. And so I just think she was more vulnerable to it.

1:11:59But so that can also be, I don't mean to say, oh, Cindy Crawford sucks and she shouldn't work. But I do also think that like, no matter how big your life is, if your kid has got this issue, it's all hands on deck, full time attention, or it doesn't go down a good path. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the hard things, I mean, this is almost a tragic irony is that we were just watching that interview where Rob Reiner talks about, actually, he's one of the few people if ever there were because I think a lot of the suffering in cases like this, just listening to Presley Gerber there is that there are so few people, if you're ultra famous, and maybe some of your suffering or some of your addiction issues stem from trying to cope with the entire world, knowing who your mom is having camera, like cameras everywhere paparazzi sometimes like there's just a psychological stress that has to come with that that so few people can understand and in this case rob reiner we watched a clip of him talking about how he actually is one of the few people who could have understood possibly what his son was going through because he was also as he put it a son of and so in this case I mean that should have been a a help and maybe it was over the years but I have to imagine so many.

1:13:13I agree. I mean, there are people who are just born into the world with a darkness, although I've seen that also be lifted. And I think faith is an enormous help. And Megan, I don't know if you saw that video that Andrew Colvett posted of Rob Reiner reacting after Charlie was killed. We have it. We have it. Hold on. I'll show it. Here it is, Sot 13. When you first heard about the murder of Charlie Kirk, what was your immediate gut reaction to it? Well, horror. Absolute horror. And I unfortunately saw the video of it. And it's beyond belief what happened to him. And that should never happen to anybody.

1:14:03I don't care what your political beliefs are. That's not acceptable. That's not a solution to solving problems. And I felt like what his wife said at the service, at the memorial they had, was exactly right. And totally, I believe, you know, I'm Jewish, but I believe in the teachings of Jesus. And I believe in doing to others. And I believe in forgiveness. And what she said to me was beautiful. And absolutely, you know, she forgave his assassin. And I think that that is admirable. and the reason i thought of that dead it just it liberates you from so much of that pain uh to be able to forgive and obviously the more we're learning uh his son was not able to forgive and that can happen when you have chemical addiction issues chemical depression issues obviously uh but i thought seeing that clip i mean it just gives you chills as you said megan within three months, he would be dead.

1:15:10What a classy response that is Rob Reiner, I think in a nutshell, somebody who was able to muster these very soaring depictions of America, the best, maybe the best who ever did it, even if it's New York City and when Harry met Sally, if it's a courtroom like what we just saw. I mean, he was able to do that in such a beautiful way. He played Michael Stivick, one of the great American characters and the best of Norman Lear, I think, is Michael Stivick and the relationship between Michael Stivick, Meathead, and Archie Bunker. And so, I just think, you know, watching that clip of Rob Reiner saying how moved he was by Erica Kirk being able to forgive, you know, believing in the teachings of Jesus, being able to forgive Charlie's killer, it's a reminder to me of how liberating just the act, the difficult act of forgiveness can be and how burdensome it can be when you're unable to do that.

1:16:06He also tweeted out, until Trump goes to prison, I will no longer be posting on Twitter. I've had it with the insults and put downs. Fuck all of you MAGA assholes. Now, I only raise that. We've all had nasty tweets. He was particularly nasty in his tweets, and he really hated Trump. And that is not an excuse, but it is an explanation in part for what Trump did this morning, which was no bueno. know. He posted on True Social, a very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner starts off good. Well, Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star has passed away together with his wife, Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome.

1:16:58Oh, good gracious. Sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the golden age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michelle rest in peace. This is so bad. This is not a good post in any way, shape, or form. And I really wish he hadn't done it, because can I say, the right has been responding totally appropriately to Rob Reiner's murder. I haven't seen anyone offer any sort of the vile contempt for Reiner that we saw the left say about Charlie Kirk after he was killed.

1:17:45Again, not Rob Reiner in response to Charlie, but the left, a lot of them. And then in comes the chief of the Republican Party and the commander in chief of the country with that. Not helpful, not the right tone for the moment, not a good example, and really just unfair to just don't do that to a man when he's just died. There's a time, there's a time, it's much later. It's much later in my view. There are a lot of people say, oh, you can talk about, when you're talking about legacy, you can talk about the bad stuff too. Okay, I get it. But like, let's not be petty about the suffering. Like, not only did he die, he died in the most brutal possible fashion with his family completely blowing up.

1:18:28like just a touch of empathy or just say nothing, even though he hated you and you hated him. It's perfectly acceptable to say nothing if the alternative is saying that. And I saw a reporter just before we went to air actually posting the responses on Truth Social to Trump's post. And it was a bunch of MAGA people saying this was the wrong move. This was not the move for the moment. And so you have this juxtaposition of basically no mainstream conservative, other than the actual president of the United States, the leader of the Republican Party, in any way, in any way, you know, dancing on Rob Reiner's grave.

1:19:06And that might be a hyperbolic way to describe what Trump just did, but he is politicizing it in ways that the right, I think, appropriately criticized people for doing after Charlie died. And it does remind me of that moment at Charlie's funeral, because we were talking about forgiveness, where Trump jokingly said, You know, I'm not quite like Erica, because we were talking about Rob Reiner's extension of gratitude for what Erica Kirk said, an agreement with what Erica Kirk said. That is not Donald Trump. It never will be Donald Trump. I think it is, you know, to the extent that he's a sort of moral representative that has always posed problems.

1:19:42And it poses problems now because whether you like Rob Reiner or not, his politics, that post that you read really typified Rob Reiner's approach to politics. Kind of a Hollywood liberal who was really had had it with MAGA, was looking down on MAGA. But people loved him. People loved him. They remembered him as Meathead. And maybe he turned into a little bit of a reverse Archie Bunker in his later years. But we are accustomed to that as a country, partially because of Rob Reiner helping us work through that with the examples. I don't know. Personally, I am praying for his family. This is a hellacious day and the start of the holiday season and Hanukkah.

1:20:23And I cannot imagine what they're going through. My heart goes out. I want to keep going because what happened in Australia is also disturbing. It's that kind of day. And that is a different kettle of fish. That is an Islamic terror attack. And I'll tell you what happened. You know how every family has got that one holiday cooking disaster story? Some of us have more than one, like maybe trying to serve the turkey that was still frozen. Well, if that's the case, you could have used Chef IQ. Chef IQ Sense is the wireless cooking thermometer that takes all the guesswork out of holiday meals. Your roast turkey or prime rib comes out perfect every time, turning I think it's done into I know it's perfect.

1:21:06It even tells you when to flip, when to take it off the heat, and how long to let it rest. Basically, it's like having a personal chef right in your kitchen. With Chef IQ, you can sip your cocoa and actually spend time with your family instead of hovering over the oven. It's the gift everyone will love. Perfect for seasoned cooks, kitchen rookies, and everyone in between. This season, give yourself and your loved ones the gift of perfectly cooked meals with Chef IQ. And with my promo code MK, you can save 30 % and get all your shopping done. Go to chefiq.com, promo code MK, chefiq.com. It's that time of year again, and the clock is ticking.

1:21:47Want to give a gift they'll really love? Luckily, there's still time to get your hands on Firecracker Farm hot salt. That's right, hot salt. You've heard the buzz because it's incredible. This small batch product is genuinely special and made with love. Delicious is an understatement. It has the perfect amount of heat and flavor and elevates everything you put it on. Plus, it comes in these sleek, laser-etched, stainless steel push grinders. The presentation alone tells you someone cares about what they are doing. And they do. I've met the owners. They're great. They have a ton of different flavors, gift sets, and you'll be very happy to know you are supporting a small family business that is also now available at Black Rifle Coffee locations.

1:22:26but it's made in small batches. So when it's gone, it's gone. With Christmas right around the corner, they're going to sell out. To get the widest selection and score a discount, head over to their website, firecracker.farm. Do yourself a favor and get your best gift shopping done today. That's firecracker.farm and use the code MK at checkout for 10 % off your order. Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies.

1:23:02Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:23:23There was a pair of gunmen that targeted a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on Sunday. Our pal Dan Wooten says Bondi Beach is like Times Square. It's like the place you go when you go to Australia, which sadly I've never been. The death toll now stands at 15 with over 40 injured. And the scenes of the shooters and the people running for their lives are unforgettable. Here's some.

1:23:58This is dark.

1:24:11It's so weird because it's, again, on a beach. It's just people are frolicking. You know, you go to the beach, it's super fun. Like, it's frivolous. frivolous, and now there's a death threat. Multiple outlets have reported the shooters are father and son, 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son, Naveed. Sajid was shot dead. Naveed was shot and is in critical condition. Per the BBC, the father came to Australia on a student visa, and he stayed on in the country for decades on different kinds of visas. They were refusing to say what country he came from. Why is that? Why can't we know what country he came from as he shows up to murder Australians with an ISIS flag on his fucking car.

1:24:55Tell us what country he's from. The prime minister of Australia is omitting that from the details. His son was born in Australia and thus was Australian. The Daily Telegraph in Australia reporting that the pair had spent a month in the Philippines in the lead up to the massacre. One of the world's top extremist hotspots. And ABC News in Australia is reporting that the son came to the attention of Australia's domestic intelligence agency six years ago for potential ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State terror cell, but ultimately they deemed him to not be a threat. That was a fail. Despite all that and Australia's strict, very strict gun laws, the father, Sajid, owned six guns registered to his name.

1:25:41During the shooting, a bystander risked his own life to try to stop one of the gunmen. In this video I'm about to play you, you will see the bystander, now identified as 43-year-old Ahmed Al-Akhmed, a Muslim father of two, run at the gunman and strip away his gun. Watch.

1:26:09Oh!

1:26:13It's incredible. He's trying to wrestle him to the ground. He got his gun. He's got his gun on On the shooter Fires Missing Oh, it's the other guy firing at him And he does get shot Ahmed gets shot

1:26:35And the son stumbles away The gunman later retreats You saw the beginning of it there To the bridge from which the Tepera were firing And started firing again at the direction of Al-Akhmed and another man hiding with him behind a tree. When the other man hiding with Al-Akhmed behind the tree starts running away, he was shot. Watch.

1:27:02In fact, he recovered the gun from the guy who was in his hand. One gets up. Yes, I saw it. He starts running. Yes.

1:27:18And he got shot. Al-Akmed now recovering in the hospital. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports he was shot in the hand and the arm. This is a picture of this man who tried to stop what he saw and without a gun just ran in there and tried to disarm the, we believe it was the son. He's a local fruit shop owner, but did have experience working in law enforcement. His father told ABC, my son is a hero. He served in the police. He has the passion to defend people. When he saw people lying on the ground in the blood, quickly his conscience pushed him to attack one of the terrorists. Now, Emily, we're learning a lot more.

1:27:59They say that this went on for minutes and minutes and minutes. We hear sirens throughout the video that we've seen. And you can also hear in some of these videos, witnesses shouting, where are the cops? It's more than four minutes into the video before incoming shots targeting the attacker strike the bridge. And eyewitnesses to the attack say that four armed police officers who were there did not return fire. There is video of one female cop appearing to cower behind a police car instead of shooting at the attackers. Maybe there's more to the story. That bystander didn't seem to feel any fear.

1:28:41And this is from a country that has the world's strictest gun control measures, you know, anywhere. I mean, literally the world's strictest. And yet still, bad men who are on the radar of the police, at least one of them, as being connected with ISIS. Then, I guess, it gets moved off the radar and then they go to the Philippines for a month, become further radicalized. You'd think they'd be at least still on the watch list for flights like that. Come back, put the ISIS flag on their car, have two more ISIS flags inside their vehicle reportedly, get out with the six guns that the dad had and shoot 40 people.

1:29:14I mean, how does this happen? Australia is obviously already talking about guns, but they should consider that whether it's guns, pressure cooker bombs or cars, we have seen plenty of car attacks in Europe, actually here in the United States. states what they're sharing in common here is is Islamic militant Islamism and Roger had an interesting note on his sub stack this morning where he wrote reportedly the the hero in this case when you're playing that video I basically wanted to jump out of my chair and start applauding is also Muslim and Dre wrote you know there are Muslims around the world but we should keep in mind who are also sick of this bullshit militant Islamism and that's what you see in this case apparently, with the hero who stops the shooting.

1:30:04But if you're going to talk about guns, there's something so much deeper, so much deeper that political correctness in the West has blinded us to paying attention at the degree. We all know this. I mean, everybody knows this. We've known this for, what, 20 years, the degree to which we need to take these cases seriously. I mean, one of them being on the radar of police and being cleared. I am very curious to hear the various layers of that story and how that ended up happening, because I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that there was a lack of seriousness dedicated to the ideological component.

1:30:43Good point. We see it. We see it all the time. Did you hear the prime minister saying, yeah, we've got to look into, you know, radical Islamic violence and right-wing violence, right-wing violence too. What? Who says that at this moment? You've got two jihadis, one dead, one in the hospital who just shot 40 people. And you're going to, why would you even mention right-wing violence right now? It's politics once again. It's politics. And then the politics bleeds into the substance where you end up for the sake of political correctness, trying to devote as many resources to what's less of a threat.

1:31:20I'm not saying that it's zero threat. But when you have examples like this time and again, I mean, I remember when the car examples, the parade examples first started happening, really in the 2010s, it reminds me of what we're thinking about now where you're at a beach. I mean, you and I, we're both Americans. I actually don't know. I know a lot of people who conceal carry. I don't know many people who conceal carry at a beach. That is one of the places where you just don't even think. I mean, it's associated with total relaxation and zen. But now you have to, of course you now have to, just like we've had to start putting up these stanchions during parades, Christmas parades, and to be aware of cars.

1:31:57I mean, it's all rooted, all of these cases over and over again, have all been rooted in the same ideological poison of militant Islamism. And to even, you know, gesture at right-wing violence in this case suggests not just a posturing, but also something that's going to happen in the substance of law enforcement in Australia, which again, we've seen happening for years now too. I mean, it's amazed me because Australia does not F around when it comes to immigration. It's very hard to immigrate into Australia. It's next to impossible to illegally immigrate into Australia. But there has been a growing cry there, as here, as in Europe, from people whose families have been there for generations saying, what are we doing?

1:32:44Who are we letting in here? Why are we actively changing our culture and our country by assimilator or trying to let in people who will not assimilate, who don't share our values, who don't share our cultures, and who wind up posing a threat to us? You know, I mean, it's not so long and it still exists in many cultures and many communities. You're not allowed to ask that question. Now, can we ask that question? Can we ask it in Australia? Can we ask it here? You know, it's like here we're seeing massive fraud in the Midwest with our money, which we and we've also seen jihad in America domestically.

1:33:20In Minnesota. In Minnesota. In Minnesota. But this is one of the most dark examples we've seen as of late. They don't normally tack on the ISIS flag and make super clear exactly what they're doing. Tim Walls and Ilhan Omar can't even admit, as other Somalis have done, by the way, that there may be a cultural component, indeed, that there is a cultural component to the fraud cases. They can't even admit the fraud could stem from cultural reasons of assimilating a population. By the way, that has, according to UNICEF, a 99 percent rate of female genital mutilation into the upper Midwest. They can't even admit that there could be a cultural component to welfare fraud, let alone imagine that.

1:34:00Imagine getting them to admit then that there would be something rooted in a religion where, by the way, it's not politically correct to say, but the prophet was a warlord. assimilating that into Western democracies, they can't even admit if the fraud is coming from it. So let alone dedicating the necessary resources to actually stopping potential militant Islamic extremism, you can see what a problem we have on our hands when the refugee politicization, the political correctness of refugee resettlement prevents people from even having a conversation about assimilation and fraud. I mean, we are in, there are a lot of people in this country.

1:34:42There are millions of people who came over the border during the Biden administration, some of whom were economic migrants, some of whom were genuine asylum seekers, some of whom actually want to do this country harm, many of whom actually want to do this country harm. We have no idea where they are. The Trump administration now has to dig the country out of that hole. So good luck to all of us because this is, the door has been open for the last four years. Yeah, it's, and of course, were getting dealt blow after blow in the courts as Trump tries to get the ones who are here who have committed additional crimes out, like Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, who just got released yet again by an Obama-appointed judge.

1:35:19She's dying for this guy to stay here. MS-13, accused gang member, accused serial wife abuser, accused trafficker of humans. They're dying for him to stay here, Obama. Obama-appointed judges. Except because their judges make a nice living, they may have security. they actually won't be the ones to die. It's going to be the people in lower income communities who get killed by these illegals, like a Jocelyn Nungare, the 12 year old killed by those two illegals who sexually assaulted her and then threw her off a bridge. Um, the, the most bizarre take on this has got to go to Chuck Schumer who wanted to address both the mass shooting at Brown University and that in Australia.

1:36:03And I'm not sure why, but handled it this way. Sot9. And of course, I'm going to say a few words about the terrible shooting in Sydney, Australia. Okay. So, and first, of course, as I always say, no matter what, go Bills. They beat the Patriots today. It's a big deal.

1:36:25What? I got nothing. I got nothing. That's a life. That is a career politician. How dumb do you how bad do you have to be at your career to say that? It's amazing. Like, if that had been Trump, that'd be headline news everywhere. Trump's true social was definitely insensitive. No question. We covered that. So was this. What is that? I don't care if you like the bill. Who gives a shit about the bills when you as a lawmaker who has real responsibility for keeping people safe, are supposed to be speaking to teenagers dead at Brown University and kids from 10 all the way up to adults of 87, including a Holocaust survivor, dead at the hands of ISIS extremists while sunning themselves on a beach in one of our closest allies.

1:37:13Like, what the fuck? Who goes with Go Bills? he represents one of the most jewish like dense jewish populations in the world and on top of that rhode island is not that far from new york and there is a suspect who is not in detention there's there's somebody who is actually there's a perpetrator i shouldn't say suspect there's a perpetrator there's somebody who committed this crime a violent murderer who was on the loose in new england so on so many levels that was just the worst possible response from chuck schumer you know his staff is behind the cameras just absolutely cringing. He also doesn't care about the bills.

1:37:51I'm sorry, Chuck Schumer doesn't care about the bills outside of politics. So that kind of makes it even worse. It's like he's trying to posture as like manly New York bro and can't even do that right. All right. But his is not the worst response. Speaking of politicians, the worst response has to go to Chris Murphy. And this is about Brown University, which he tried to blame on Trump. Watch this. Not shocking because over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country. He is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns.

1:38:30He eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022 bill. So he has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country. That is unhinged. You're right. That's worse. Right? We used to have like some standards where we wouldn't do that shit. Unless you had clear evidence, the guy was like, I got my gun thanks to Donald Trump doing X. You would never say that as a journalist, never mind a senator, a sitting U.S.

1:39:12senator. Caution to the wind. It's Trump's fault. And by the way, I mean, I know you mentioned this earlier in the show. We are being careful about drawing any political conclusions from the fact that one of the students who was killed shot in the face reportedly was the vice president of the college Republicans chapter. But that caution should have extended for obvious reasons. I mean, this is one of the reasons you don't politicize in the early hours of a shooting like this, because it could turn out, in fact, that this was from a leftist with political motivations. Again, one of the many reasons why Chris Murphy should probably have stuffed his politicization back into the recesses of his brain where it belonged on a Sunday morning show in the middle of a tragedy when the killer is still on the list.

1:39:59Just a completely crazy thing to do. With really no pushback from CNN, like Dana Bash. Like, okay. As a Western lensman who I follow on Twitter put it, Dana Bash provides an assist for this garbage rhetoric. I'm not offended. No problem. Yeah. Sounds about right. What a day, Emily. I don't know what to make of it. You know, it's like, you have to touch grass. You have to hug your kids. Maybe have an eggnog. You know, like you have, you can't get too wrapped up in the darkness because it can really affect you, right? It's like, this is one of those days. It just snowed over the weekend in the Northeast.

1:40:36You got to go outside, walk in the snow-covered streets and take deep breaths into your lungs and thank God that you're alive and hopefully your family is alive and well. And try not to focus too much on these tragedies. When you have a series of them, it can really get you down. But it's a wonderful time of the year, like the Christmas carols and the Christmas lights and the snow coming and Santa. There's so much to feel good about. it's just you know we got to do the news and today man what a whopper i was inspired to drink eggnog by you and doug on friday so thank you for that it's like oh it's eggnog season did you add the nutmeg that makes a nice difference it's wonderful it's and that's what they do at a lot of restaurants if you order the eggnog too so it feels extra professional um but you know it's it's another reminder it did feel like mk true crime day here but uh and doug was right like dateline is what today's show felt like because of the news but it's another reminder that forgiveness really does set you free and that example erica kirk set uh set in in her speech at the memorial that can be so liberating if you're feeling like you're going into a dark place just remembering going to scripture learning about forgiveness and how powerful it can be it can make us all so much healthier uh to follow that example speaking of erica kirk there is big news uh she's having a one-on-one meeting today with Candace Owens.

1:41:59I'll have a lot more to say about that tomorrow. Here's a tease for you. In the meantime, Emily's coming up at 2 p.m. with the Megan Kelly Wrap-Up Show. Go call in to talk with her about all today's news at 833-44-MEGAN. That's 833-446-3496. Back tomorrow with Ruthless. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.