Trump Makes Greenland Case in Davos, and Explosive New Busfield Details, with RealClearPolitics, Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis | Ep. 1235

26:34I think it's a question of scale. Like how many - But they're also building, they're building nuclear power plants. They're building coal fire plants. China really is doing all of the above. And if you cared about the economy and the environment, because you have to care about both, you would favor these other sources, the disfavored sources, particularly nuclear power. And what Trump is talking to these guys, You know, he has his own way of speaking. What he's telling Europe is use some common sense for Germany to take these plants offline and not build nuclear power plants and then have to buy gas from Russia while they're trying to oppose Russia.

27:08You know, it's a mess of governance. And what he's really saying to them, I think, is, you know, roll up your sleeves, get to work, do good for your economy, quit being so politically correct, quit being hamstrung by, you know, your ideology or what's the fad of the moment. He's talking to them like he's a business guy. And I think that that's a message they probably need to hear. And most people in Europe probably want to hear. He, you know, Andrew, when I listened to the speech today, what he was, it was, it was very much in line with that speech J.D. Vance made when he was over there and speaking to our European counterparts.

27:41Like, you got to stop this. You got to stop with the open borders and the mass migration. You got to stop with the free speech crackdowns. Like, if we're going to have this longstanding partnership where we're BFFs and special relationship, start acting like it, like start behaving like something that is familiar to us. And to me, this was Trump completely doubling down on that with a different, a different, slightly different angle. He mentioned those things, but his, his overall message to me was stop with the freeloading. Like those, those days are done. You know, you had the president of the European union, um, stand up yesterday and say, Oh, well, you know, I guess times are changing.

28:15And while we're really nostalgic for the way it used to be, We have to accept it and we're going to have to just like lean into our independence here in Europe. And he had all these leftists like crying a tear like, oh, he's broken up our BFF relationship with Europe. And it's no Trump is looking at them saying, no, you're the leech friend who always makes me pay when we go to the movies. Everything we do, we have dinner. I pay. We have drinks. I pay. You go to the movies. I pay. And by the way, I'm not even asking you to pay when we go to the movies. I'm just asking you to not object when I go into the radio shack and steal that radio.

28:51It's kind of where we are. Let me give you a little flavor as he takes a shot at Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who kind of ripped on us yesterday, saying, we stand with Greenland, we stand with Denmark. And here was Trump today in Sade. Going to be defending Canada. Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful. They should be grateful to us. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements? Okay. Okay. Thoughts? Well, I mean, I guess a couple of things.

29:36To me, to understand Trump, you sort of have to go back to the art of the deal. And if you look at this sort of chain of events, you go from Venezuela, where he uses military force, and he talks a lot about oil. And then he turns around, and he has the whole world sort of focused on the idea that he's going to use military force in Greenland to go after strategic minerals, right? Because it follows. It makes sense. But what he's really doing is sort of, he's amassing leverage is what he's doing. And I think that's the way you sort of have to look at what he does. Always think of like what leverage is he deriving from this latest action, even if you don't understand it in the moment.

30:20So today he goes there and he says, look, I'm taking, it's not about strategic minerals. And I'm taking military force off the table. And the market booms. The market's up about 500 points, I think, right now. And everyone has this sigh of relief. And all of a sudden, we seem to be in what now is the new normal, which is it seems okay that what we're negotiating for is to take over a piece of territory that belongs to another country. But everyone kind of sighs with relief at that. So he's moved. I don't want to call it four-dimensional chess or any of that. But he certainly has moved the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.

31:02And that's where we are. Very true. And to your broader point about Europe, I think the message there is, and I think Tom alluded to it, it's not just that we don't want you to be the freeloader anymore. You would be better if you got your act together. That's like saying to a friend, look, you really should stop drinking. You ought to wake up in the morning and do some exercise because that's what's good for you. It's good for me that I no longer have to pay for the popcorn. But it would be better for you if you actually got up on your two feet and manned up and took care of your economy, closed your borders, provided your own people with your own energy and control your destiny.

31:41That's what he wants America to do. In terms of Trump, Trump might understand. It's like looking at the girlfriend who's gained 100 pounds. Like, I'd love for you to lose the pounds. I'd love for you to get back down to like a size four to six. And then we can go out together again. We can be seen together again. You don't have to be my girlfriend who's in the dark bar. Like, I want to show you off. And Europe's like shoving, you know, processed food into its mouth. Like, what do you mean? What's wrong with us? There was this moment. I actually think it was kind of funny because, well, he's getting ripped for it.

32:21But I had a different take here. He kept confusing Iceland for Greenland. He kept saying Iceland instead of Greenland. Here's a bit of that in Sot 7. until the last few days when i told them about iceland they loved me they called me daddy right last time very smart man said he's our daddy he's running it i was like running it i went from running it to being a terrible human being but now what i'm asking for is a piece of ice cold and poorly located that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection with all of the money we expend with all of the blood sweat and tears i don't know that they'd be there for us they're not there for us on iceland that i can tell you i mean our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of iceland so iceland's already cost us a lot of money but that dip is peanuts compared to what it's gone up in response to which everybody in iceland was like what leave us out of it please well you know megan when we were in geography school when i was a kid i'm the teacher once told me how do you differentiate iceland from greenland iceland is green and greenland's icy so i think that's right iceland ironically is the nice warm one that's the one you know if we're talking about like tourism that would definitely be the one we prefer.

33:48What were you going to say, Tom? Do you think he scared the bejesus out of people in Iceland? Totally. I think Iceland's like, oh, shit. This is a Greenland problem. No, I was going to say, and it said everybody on the left screaming, you know, 25th Amendment, we've got to vote the 25th Amendment. Trump can't remember Iceland from Greenland. Meanwhile, I have to say that's a very easy one to confuse. I mean, he's talking about a block of ice, which is what Greenland is. It's one huge hunk of ice, slightly less hunky right now, because of all the melting, as I pointed out. So he went after Canada's PM.

34:23He got into it a little bit with Macron, who stood up there yesterday in these weird blue glasses. And there was a lot of speculation online about whether Brigitte had taken another shot at him. Remember, we saw her smack him getting off of their plane that time. It was very weird. And let's not forget, I mean, these two are very bizarre. Like she was almost 40 and he was a 14 year old in her class when she fell in love with him. I mean, it's very effed up his relationship with Brigitte Macron. So here he is in these weird glasses at the at the Davos summit. And many people were speculating why, of course, there's got to be a reason he wouldn't just wear those for his speech.

35:07So it was one of those things that kind of on the nose, but well, literally on the nose, but that we had no explanation for. and Trump, God love him, because truly any great TV producer, and at heart that's what Trump is, will mention the elephant in the room, right? I mean, just as a quick aside, when Anna Nicole Smith went to the US Supreme Court and I did my package for Brit Hume's show, special report, I did not mention how stunning and transformed she looked. She had lost like 40 pounds. And he pulled me aside and he's like, you've got to mention that. He's like, that's what everybody's noticing.

35:39All the audience is looking at this new, Like even more stunning Anna Nicole Smith. You didn't call attention to it. And everyone's thinking it like right behind their frontal lobe. And it's your job as the reporter to say the thing. And Trump says the thing. So here's Trump on Macron in Sot 10. So when I called up Emmanuel Macron, I watched him yesterday with his beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened? And I like him. I actually like them. Hard to believe, isn't it? And I said, Emmanuel, you're going to have to lift the price of that pill to$20, maybe$30. Think of that. That means it's a doubling, a doubling of prescription drugs.

36:29Might be a tripling, might be a quadrupling. It's not easy. No, no, no, Donald, I will not do that. I said, yes, you will, 100%. He said, no, no, no. And if you don't, I'm putting a 25 % tariff on everything that you sell into the United States and a 100 % tariff on your wines and champagnes. No, no, Donald, I will do it. I will do it. It took me, on average, three minutes a country saying the same thing. You will do it. They all said, no, no, no, I will not do it. you're asking me to double the cost of prescription i said that's right because you've been screwing us for 30 years there he is he's talking about prescription drugs and how he one of the hardest things that he had to negotiate was rfkj just said this is the toughest thing of his first year was to to change the drug policy here to make us most favored nation with our drug companies and American drugs that were selling to France for$10 a bottle.

37:37And we're selling to Americans for$300 a bottle, which Trump and RFKJ took on. And that's Trump giving us some of the backstory of how he handled it with the foreign leaders. Like, I'm sorry, but your price is going to go up and our price is going to go down. There's still going to be a huge imbalance in your favor, but we're going to do something to make it a little bit more even. That is the shoot it into my veins stuff that could win Trump the midterms, notwithstanding these terrible numbers that we mentioned earlier. Right. Like that's it right there. People love that stuff. I think hearing how he's fighting for us.

38:14France gets screwed, not Iowa. Thoughts? Well, Megan, you're a lawyer. So I want to know what you think of this, because when I watched that tariff part very carefully today, and I had two reactions. They're opposite. One is he said that the president of head of Switzerland, I don't know if it's a president or a prime minister. Well, I'll get to that. I have this. Yeah, he said, you know, OK, she kept saying, but we're a small country. And he was so irritated by her. He raised her tariff from 30 percent to 39 percent just because he was pissed off. And I thought, OK, if I'm on the Supreme Court, he's just giving me permission to say he can't raise tariffs.

38:54But then as he went on, you realize he's using tariffs. It's not an economic. He's conducting foreign policy there and in a very direct way. And, you know, the Supreme Court is reluctant to interfere with the president's right to do foreign policy. So I was wondering which of those you thought would be more. Would the Supreme Court notice? Would they notice those those two sort of opposite? So I don't think they're going to notice. He's made that argument. They've 100 percent. They've made the argument before the Supreme Court, which for the listening audience, they are deciding whether Trump single handedly manipulating tariffs is constitutional or whether this is something he needs congressional approval on.

39:31They made the argument that he's using them as a foreign policy tool, which is uniquely the function of the executive. I'm sorry to tell you, I think Trump's tariff regime is going to get struck down. I do not think he has any real hope of the Supreme Court upholding it. I hope I'm wrong. But the argument did not go well for the government. And I do not think Trump's tariff power is going to last much longer. And the real question in my mind is, what does that mean for all the tariffs he's already negotiated, manipulated? You know, like the Supreme Court, nine justices aren't going to get involved in figuring that out.

40:08Well, that was so I don't know what that was one of his arguments to the court, too, is like, well, they have to stay in place because we've already done it. And if we have to undo all this stuff, it's going to be a disaster. And so it's not a great position. Maybe Congress will do its job and get back involved in a way that they should be in the first place. Pollyanna over here on third base. We have all kinds on our show, Megan. I love that about you guys. We do have the Switzerland soundbite, which, I mean, it might have been my favorite soundbite of the whole thing. It was like an aside he decided to tell us about his dealings with the no longer prime minister of Switzerland.

40:51She just left in December. And now there's a new guy there. But here's, listen to this. So they come in, they sell their watches. No tariffs, no nothing. They walk away. They make$41 billion on just us. So I said, no, we can't do that. But I brought it up to 30%. And the, I guess, prime minister, I don't think president, I think prime minister called a woman. And she was very repetitive. She said, no, no, no, you cannot do that, 30%. You cannot do that. We are a small, small country. I said, yeah, but you have a big, big deficit. You may be small, but you have a bigger deficit than big countries.

41:37He said, no, no, no, please, you cannot do it. kept saying the same thing over and over. We are a small country. I said, but you're a big country in terms of, and he just rubbed me the wrong way. I'll be honest with you. And I said, all right, thank you, ma 'am. Appreciate it. Do not do this. Thank you very much, ma 'am. And I made it 39%. And then all hell really broke out. And I reduced it because I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to hurt him. I realized with that, I don't know, I was so, because she was so aggressive. And I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat.

42:21There it is. By the way, I guess it's the president, not the prime minister. Yeah, Corinne Keller Sutter is out. Her term ended in December. Now there's a new guy, but there it is. I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. I mean, if you could sum up the whole speech in one line, I think that's it. Like he's done. The freeloading days are over and we want something now. And the price that he's asking for at the moment, I mean, you talked about other, we talked about other prices he exacted. Like, yo, France, you're going to have to pay a bit more for these medications so that we pay a little less.

42:59and you're so dumb to rely on all this like wind farm energy and why don't you get more self-sufficient so then you wouldn't be so dependent on Russia, Germany. But what he's really saying is I want Greenland and I kind of want it now. And that leads me to the unexpected hero of the week, Mort Halperin. You guys may or may not have heard him. You know the last name. And his son happens to be a very famous journalist. by the name of Mark, who has his own podcast called Next Up with Mark Halperin, and it's on the MK Media Podcast Network. And Mark had his dad Mort on his show last week. And his dad, I think, is 92.

43:42And at first, I, like you, I'm like, why is he putting his dad on to talk about the foreign policy issues of the day? Well, it turns out his dad is a pretty famous foreign policy expert who worked for the Johnson, the Nixon, and the Clinton administrations, actually in government roles, I think both at Pentagon and at state, if I'm not mistaken, and knows a thing or two about foreign policy and in particular NATO in our history with NATO and the United States role in NATO. We played this on AM Update the other day. Listen to Morton Halperin on the Greenland issue. At the end of the day, our alternative is not to use military force.

44:21Our alternative is to leave NATO. And our position has always been, We will tell you what we need to remain in the alliance. And you will tell us whether you're prepared to do that. And if you're not, we won't be able to stay in the alliance. That's perfectly reasonable. Perfectly reasonable. And this is obviously a Democrat. He's connected with the open society. Like, this is not a right-leaning guy. And he went through on Mark's show some of the examples. Like, at the beginning of NATO, the U.S. wanted the Germans to rearm. And the rest of Europe did not want that at all, given what they'd just been through in World War II.

44:55They did not want it. They were forced to agree to it. The U.S. said we'll only do NATO, the formation of it, if we're allowed to put nuclear weapons in Europe. The Europeans didn't want nuclear weapons in Europe. We said you will agree or we're not doing it. They did it. He had multiple examples of where we, as the big dog of NATO, said, we understand you don't want it. We don't give a shit. It's happening because we're the most important member of NATO. So that plus the Don Rowe doctrine make me say, I get it. And Trump is out there like, you're a bunch of freeloaders. This is what we want. Stop complaining and just give it to me.

45:32So do we think it will happen? OK, we've fleshed out some of the arguments for and against. Do we think it's going to happen as a result of today or Trump in general? Tom? Do I think that we are going to purchase Greenland? We get Greenland. Yeah. I do not think that that is going to happen. I would probably peg it at like a 20 % chance, which is not nothing, but I think the odds are still against. I take the opposite. I'll take the 80 % chance by the time Trump leaves office. As I say, we have Greenland. It's a territory. It's not going to be a state. Nobody wants them to have voting rights as Americans.

46:10What do you say, Carl? I think it's going to blow up on our face, and Greenland's going to end up as an independent country with a government that resembles Mom Donnie's cabinet in New York City. Oh, good God. Oh, man. Okay. Andy? Well, I will say that Mort Halpern is a very prominent foreign policy expert, and it's great that he's still with us. I'm glad to hear that, and I'm glad that he's still talking. I would say it's a bigger chance today than it was yesterday. I think that I'd give it about a 33 and a third percent chance. I think it's a one and three. I actually think that there's some sort of agreement somewhere between statehood and where we are now that we end up.

47:02I think it'll change for sure. Who do you think, Megan? So we got 80. I say 80 % chance by the end of yeah we're going to get it we're getting agreed how are we getting it? like Puerto Rico? what's it going to be? we're going to negotiate we're not taking it over by military force but Trump is going to scare them to the point where they give it to us because it's just easier because we're footing all their bills they want the free dinners and they want the free movie tickets and they want the popcorn are they giving it to us or we're buying it right? we're going to pay for it right? we're buying it we're going to buy it I'll tell you something.

47:35And he'll come up with some deal. I'll tell you something. Seven million dollars we paid for Alaska? No. Unfortunately, I don't think it's that cheap anymore. But he'll find some way to say to the American people that we're not exactly paying for it. You know, he's going to use the Venezuelan oil money. Something like that. Keep going, Andy. Here's 100 percent. However it turns out, Trump will take credit for it and it will be a great victory. Well, I mean, it would be Trump's credit. I mean, then nobody else, you know, would have been able to push this through. But I think he's going to do it.

48:04So you got 80 from me, 20 from time, 33 and a third from Andy and zero. It blows up in our faces from the optimistic. If it does happen, Megan, I am looking forward to staying at Trump Tower and playing the golf course in Greenland. That's going to be a lot of fun. Let's go. We'll ride a dog sled together, Tom. All right. Let me ask you finally a political question, which is those polls. They're not good. Just a couple of CNN polls. His overall job approval now at 39. But what they show is that his approval rating amongst independents is now at 29. It was a 29 in October, too. So it's not exactly falling, but they're not feeling so rosy about the Trump presidency.

48:46and those who say they're extremely enthusiastic to vote in the midterms are all Democrats. The lopsidedness of enthusiasm and readiness to vote in November is alarming, I think, for anybody who likes Republican rule, shall we say. So is there any chance we turn this around? It's not tomorrow, but it's 10 months away. So I would say that Republicans have about six months if that. I mean, these days we're so tribal, like a lot of people have already decided who they're going to vote for, right? Republicans are locked in for Trump. Democrats are locked in, or I should say Republicans will vote for Republican in the midterms and Democrats will vote for Democrats.

49:29And as you mentioned, Democrats right now are way more enthusiastic than Republicans are. And then the question is, is there movement among independents, right? Can Trump and Republicans win back some of the independents before they actually go to the polls? I think the answer is yes. And I think they've got about six months to do it. Trump has been promising, Mike Johnson has been promising, hey, the one big, beautiful bill is just kicking in. Just give us some more time. Trump just complained about his PR folks the other day, right? Which is, when your poll numbers are bad and Biden did this, I mean, Obama did this, it's always like, it's a messaging problem.

50:06It's not a policy problem. It's just, our message is, you know, voters are too dumb to understand or we're just not getting through to them. There's a it's not a good. No, that's not a good sign. And I think Republicans. But I have to say that part of me thinks it might actually be true in Trump's case because he does have a good story to tell. I think it's there's a reason he's out there now personally telling it. Got to run. Love you guys. Thanks for being on the MK channel. To be continued up next, our legal panel with Dave Ehrenberg and Mike Davis. Don't go away. If you are looking to make smarter choices for your health this year, consider Riverbend Ranch.

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51:42All right, there's a lot to get to on the legal front today, including can Don Lemon be prosecuted over the outrageous protest at the Minnesota church on Sunday? What about the others who are there? What charges are going to be brought against them? And what do we make now of the charges against Timothy Busfield after having learned more about the shady past of the two little boys' parents? Not the two little boys, but their parents. All right, we're going to get into all of it today with our MK True Crime contributor, Dave Ehrenberg, who you can find on Substack at Dave Ehrenberg. And Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article 3 Project.

52:24I'm so happy to have you guys here. There's a lot to dig into on just those few matters. OK, let's just start with the I mean, I thought it was an act of terrorism, what we watched in that church on Sunday. I don't call it a protest. It wasn't a riot. Exactly. It was more of like an act of terrorism targeting innocent people minding their own business who had done nothing and trying to scare them. Yeah, there's a little bit of it. Even Don Lemon admits on the tape that he saw little children frightened and scared. Didn't care. Neither did the protesters who clearly wanted to scare the people there.

53:03And what we heard Kristi Noem say last night on Fox, Mike, or no, it was on maybe Newsmax, was you're going to see arrests within hours. Now, before I officially toss it to you, a lot of people saying they're taking too long. Pam Bondi, Harmeet, Harmeet runs civil rights. Pam Bondi is, of course, the overall AG. It's taking too long. But when you're in federal court, when you're the DOJ, you have to bring charges with a criminal complaint and a warrant. And that requires a judge's signature. This happened on Sunday. Courts are closed. Monday courts were closed because of MLK Day, which gives them Tuesday to possibly get all this stuff ready, cross all the T's and dot the I's because this is going to be challenged and scrutinized.

53:50And there's going to be 10 ,000 ACLU type groups looking to poke holes in whatever they file. So it is important that they be very careful here. But I think today's the day, Wednesday, that we'll probably see a rest. And if not today, then tomorrow. You take it from there, Mike Davis, because I have a feeling you're more in the loop than I am. Well, I think that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dillon, along with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Cash Patel, they have all made it crystal clear that people who terrorize church services, people who trespass into Sunday services, disrupt the service.

54:36they're going to face federal criminal charges. And there are two federal statutes that are directly on point here. There's the Federal Face Act passed in 1994 by Bill Clinton to protect both abortion clinics from obstruction and as a compromise for Republicans to get the 60 votes to get this passed in the Senate. They also passed the FACE Act to include houses of worship. So that is a federal crime to obstruct churches, to obstruct synagogues and mosques. And it's very clear that that's what Don Lemon and his co-conspirators, his modern day Klansmen, did when they went into this Minnesota church and disrupted the service.

55:28Don Lemon actually went up to the pulpit and disrupted the pastor during the middle of the service. This is a slam dunk Facebook Act violation. It's also a violation of the Ku Klux Klan statute, 18 U.S.C. section 241, Conspiracy Against Rights. when you have a mob of people going into churches to disrupt the churches because of their Christian faith, because of their race. And Don Lemon made it very clear in his so-called reporting, that's why he did it. That's why his co-conspirators did it. He's also going to face charges under the Klan statute. I'm with you, Megan. I wish that Don Lemon would have been charged under the Klan statute on MLK Day.

56:22It would have been so rich, but the grand juries are not in service on federal holidays. Yes. So we looked into it, and it does appear to me, Dave, that the likely charges coming are going to be exactly what Mike just said. It's not just going to be the FACE Act. It's not just going to be the Klan Act. It's going to be both. And if you charge both, then you have the effect of basically raising the FACE Act from a misdemeanor to a felony. If you use the Klan Act, you can charge a felony. And there was just case law out of the 11th Circuit, which oversees where you are down in Florida. This, of course, happened in Minneapolis.

57:02But it's persuasive. And it's not binding out of the 11th Circuit over Minnesota, but it's persuasive. saying that the violation of rights under the Klan Act can be, like you can charge somebody with violation of rights under the Klan Act, if they have violated the FACE Act. So if they have obstructed physically or intimidated anyone attending a religious service, that can be the predicate violation for a violation of the Klan Act, which raises what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony, potentially up to 10 years in jail. I mean, no one is really expecting that to be the penalty, but it does make this a lot more serious than a misdemeanor, which could be more of a slap on the wrist.

57:46Your thoughts on it? Megan, good to be back with you and Mike. And thank you, by the way, for your nice words. I heard them on a previous show about me, that I'm one of the good liberals, although I don't consider myself a liberal, sort of a centrist, but I appreciate the nice words. Thank you. It was all heartfelt. Thank you. Well, I disagree with my friend, Mike. I know that surprised you, But when it comes to the Ku Klux Klan Act, and then we can talk about the FACE Act, but the Ku Klux Klan Act has to face the Supreme Court decision from 1983. It's called Bray v. Alexandra Women's Health Clinic.

58:19The issue is you have to show that they blocked the church because they had animus towards Christians. And Justice Scalia was the one who wrote for the majority in that opinion. He said that the opposition to abortion, this was an abortion clinic case, opposition to abortion did not equate to animus against women. So the Ku Klux Klan Act did not apply. The protesters targeted women only because they were the ones obtaining abortions. The goal was to stop the activity, not to hurt the class. So if you apply that here, that the reason why they were there was not because they hated Christians, because they went after David Easterwood.

58:55He is the pastor of that church who is also an ICE guy. He's like high up somehow in ICE in that area. If Easterwood had been on a golf course, they would have protested there. So I don't think you can show the animus against Christians there. I think that the Ku Klux Klan Act does not apply. You could have trespass. You could have disorderly conduct. But I don't think there's a federal crime here. You definitely have trespass. Yeah, and I agree. You have trespass, dead to rights. But that's a state crime. And we probably aren't going to see a state prosecutor that wants to pursue it. So we have to stay in federal lane if we actually want to get these folks charged.

59:28Mike Davis, this is an interesting argument, though, about is there animus by the protesters, so-called, against the church? I know you've raised this. Their number one protester, Don Lemon, seems to have served Pam Bondi up a beautiful dessert on a silver platter here with the following comments because he can't keep his stupid mouth shut. But he decided to go talk all about his great feet on the Angry Leftist Ladies podcast and said a couple of things about these churchgoers. I'm going to play 31 and 32. Listen. Jesus turned the tables over in the temple, right? He flipped the tables because he was tired of them not doing what they're supposed to do in his father's house and not living up to the tenets of Christianity.

1:00:15And so, you know, it is surprising to me if it is true that this person is somehow works for ICE. And also it is true that they're not understanding now of the protesters is that they're doing the exact opposite of what Christianity is supposed to be about. I think that there is obviously there's racism. And the whole point of it is that they're trying to they're detaining people on the streets because of accents and the color of their skin. and they're also targeting people of color and black people as well as brown people. So there is a certain degree of racism there. And there's a certain degree of entitlement.

1:00:50I think people who are in religious groups like that, it's not the type of Christianity that I practice, but I think that they're entitled and that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a white supremacy. And they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country when actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom. It's religious freedom, but only if you're a Christian and only if you're a white male, pretty much. And so, yeah, absolutely 100 percent. But it's an intimidation tactic. Okay, Mike, thoughts? Don Lemon is probably the dumbest person on television right now.

1:01:25He just admitted to his criminal intent under the Klan statute when he made it very clear that they were going into that church because they are Christians, A, and B, because they're white Christians. So you have religious bigotry and racial bigotry, which makes this fall squarely into the Klan statute. Don Lemon, he is, if I'm not, if I were a betting man, I would put everything on the line that Don Lemon will be indicted under the FACE Act and the Klan statute under felony charges. Now remember under the FACE Act as well. It is a class A misdemeanor up to one year in jail for first time offenders.

1:02:11But if there is repeat offenders or if there is violence as part of the FACE Act violation, it becomes a felony. So he could face two felony charges if you are threatening people inside the church like they did. You saw the terrified child. I don't think any jury is going to be. Does he have to do it, Mike? Does he have to do the threatening? No, it's part of the conspiracy. Everyone who's involved with the conspiracy is responsible for the conspiracy. So I think Don Lemon is totally screwed here. You know, he's the non-lawyer, non-attorney Don Lemon is going out there telling people what the law is.

1:02:52He's trying to cover his ass. It's not going to work. Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dillon are almost certainly going to indict him. He did something very dumb, Dave, and it was the same thing that Timothy Busfield did. He spoke out about his alleged crime in a way that no lawyer would have wanted him to. Timothy Busfield spoke directly to police and made a bunch of admissions that came back in his face yesterday. And Don Lemon, speaking with the angry lady made a bunch of admissions there about targeting these churchgoers for a specific reason that they they're doing the exact opposite of Christianity, that he believes they target people of color.

1:03:34They're racists. They're white supremacists. They have a sense of entitlement that they don't practice Christianity the way I practice Christianity. That's what he actually said on camera. I mean, it went on and on. He like it's not enough to say triple down. He like quintupled down on this messaging, which is not great for his defense lawyer. Well, I watched the interviews that he had on his channel, and he was showing people on both sides of this debate. And I didn't get that he was anti-Christian. He may have said they have a different interpretation of the religion as I do. But Justice Scalia himself said that protesting an activity like ICE enforcement is not the same as hating a class of people.

1:04:13They were chanting slogans like justice. They were chanting slogans like ice out. They weren't chanting anti-Christian slogans. So I don't think they can get there on this. In fact, approve this case beyond a reasonable doubt. The one thing I agree with, Mike, is that I do think that they'll all be indicted because we saw this with the Trump administration going after James Comey and Letitia James. But I think he'll meet the same fate where he'll get dismissed before it ever gets to a jury. One last thing on this. Just for Don, just to be just be clear, are you talking about just for Don or you're saying all the protesters.

1:04:44There's no criminal charges against all the protesters. I think against Don, it's weaker than the others because he is a journalist. I think the others, I think they'll all be charged, but I don't think you can get the federal crimes here. I think they could be convicted of trespass and disorderly conduct, but those are low-level misdemeanors. You're right, they're state charges, not federal charges. I don't see them being convicted of either the KKK Act or the FACE Act, which is what we mentioned earlier, which is supposed to protect houses of worship because also they didn't block people from leaving.

1:05:14They were chanting. They were, they were really made people uncomfortable, but the standard is in the eighth circuit, which is a conservative circuit that you got to block people from leaving. It's like chaining yourself to an abortion clinic. That's a no, no chanting outside of abortion clinic. That's free speech. No, no, no, no. Okay. Just so we know what the statute says. I'm going to give it to you, Mike, but let me just read the statute in part, the FACE Act, 18 U.S. Code section 248. Um, whoever by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with, or attempts, attempts by, again, this is by force or threat of force or physical obstruction.

1:05:56You can do it by any one of those means. You can use force against the people. You can threaten to use force against them or by physical obstruction. If you do what any of those means, if you attempt to intimidate, injure or interfere with any person who is trying to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom, you're done. You're like you're guilty. So that's the question. Did they, by force, by threat of force, or by physical obstruction, intimidate or interfere with someone exercising their First Amendment right of religious freedom? I mean, Mike, to me, that is so clear. It's so clearly a yes.

1:06:38It's crystal clear. When Don Lemon, the agitator, went up to the pulpit and stopped the church service and argued with the pastor during the middle of the church service, I don't think you can get more facey in the FACE Act. He was literally in the pastor's face under the FACE Act. So I think the FACE Act is squarely on point here, and so is the Klan statute. and he was told specifically by the pastor they don't want to talk to you like he made perfectly clear the church pastor made perfectly clear to to don lemon who emerges their spokesperson they want you out of here the people don't want you here and the pastor screamed from the pulpit through his microphone this is this is wrong this is immoral he wanted them out he made all of them aware of that and they continued to terrorize the group so i mean you tell me no they didn't like hold people down, Dave, but they were blocking the aisles.

1:07:37We saw that quite clearly. They came in a mass of them and blocked the aisles, overtook the front where the pulpit is to the point where people felt intimidated and were in tears. Did those people feel totally free to leave? They just decided to stay there crying? Well, people left. And as far as whether - Some did. Right. And some just sat there crying. Well, it's an important factual point here as to whether they did block the ingress and egress. That's important because the term physical obstruction, that's the key here, and that is defined in the statute. If you look at subsection E4, it says the term physical obstruction means rendering impassable ingress to or egress from a facility or rendering passage to or from such a facility unreasonably difficult or hazardous.

1:08:24So you've got to show that they made the service more than just uncomfortable. You've got to show that they made movement impossible or hazardous. That's not what Don Lemon did. As far as the protesters, I don't know. Hold on. The Biden Justice Department imprisoned for years 75-year-old Christian men and women who went into abortion clinics and prayed, right? If you can throw elderly Christians in prison for praying in an abortion clinic, you can put Don Lemon and his fellow Klansmen in prison for what they did at that church last Sunday. Remember, this is the same Minnesota where you had a trans terrorist go shoot people inside of the Catholic church.

1:09:11I can't remember which one it is. I'm a bad Catholic. But I said, Asensione. So yeah, there was a trans terrorist who just lit up that church and killed two children and injured many others, right? So I think people were certainly in reasonable fear for their safety when Don Lemon and his fellow Klansmen barged into that church, stormed into that church, and disrupted it the way that they did. They need to go to prison. Yeah, I mean, go ahead. There is a case in the Eighth Circuit. Eighth Circuit is tough on the government on this one because it's the Dinwiddle case. What circuit is Minnesota?

1:09:48Eighth Circuit, Eighth Circuit. Dave's got that right. So within the Eighth Circuit, this Dinwiddle case from 1996, they said that there's a distinction between physical blockades and aggressive speech. So you've got to show it's a physical barrier. So if they were physically blocking them from leaving, the parishioners, then, yes, that would be a crime. But that's not what it appears to be, and that would be a factual dispute. Also, as far as Mike, I don't know of any peaceful protesters outside of abortion clinics who are not blocking people that were locked up and put in prison. OK, and by the way, though, it's not just physical obstruction.

1:10:23It's also threat of force. And there'll be an argument about what that means and what was perceived by those audience, by the by the people who are the congregants, because take it away from Don Lemon for a second. That guy, William Kelly, was extremely aggressive in the faces of the churchgoers, screaming at the top of his lungs. I mean, screaming in their faces. I don't know. Do we have it? Do we have it? Do we have some of that here? I think it's, is it SOT45? Is that him in the church? We have a bunch of William Kelly. But the point is there you can absolutely see this guy and some of the more aggressive so-called protesters in there reasonably putting people in fear of their safety.

1:11:07And I think there will be an argument that they did feel there was a threat of force being used against them by this extremely aggressive, unhinged man. But by the way, if I could say, I think that this was a huge miscalculation by these protesters. First off, I disagree with their tactics, but also look at what we're talking about now. Instead of the debate over the shooting itself of Renee Good, this has given Republicans a good talking point. And so I think that's a total miscalculation by this group. And I think that they should rethink their tactics. But also when you talk about that standard of threat of force, it's got to be something more than just chanting.

1:11:43Like they have to chant sort of we will burn this church or we will hurt you. It was more than chanting, Dave. It was more they went in, they infiltrated the service. They stood up at a certain time. They they rushed to the front of the church, the most holy part, the altar, you know, where they keep the communion. And they turned on the congregants and started chanting at the top of their lungs, some screaming in their faces, an unhinged guy. And then their religion got attacked. They got attacked on an individual basis. What what they're doing there. Why are you here? Why aren't you out there at the at the facility where the feds are?

1:12:16like aggressive confrontations person by person. That is not the same as we quietly stood up. Here's just an example of that guy, William Kelly. Just here's one. As you can see, all these pretend Christians, all these comfortable white people who are living lavish, comfortable lives while children are dragged into concentration camps. You're living real life, nice lives with your lattes, doing absolutely nothing for your Latino and Somali brothers and sisters. You are a fake Christian. Why are you not standing with your Somali and Latino communities? Why do I not see you out at Whipple every day protesting this attack on humanity?

1:12:54You're sinners. You're pretending to be Christians, but we know you live an easy life, don't you? Living real comfortable while children are dragged into concentration camps. You're all living real comfortable, aren't you? Shame on you. Do something. Stand with the Somalis. Stand with the Latinos. Quit ignoring this injustice. And also, Dave, calling them fake Christians and sinners. It's really not great for your side. Oh, that's why I think they miscalculated here. I mean, that is a mistake, what they did. They should not have done that. Those tactics are going to turn people off all across the country.

1:13:32But it does make it look like it's about religion, and you can easily see an argument on that the people felt threat, that there was a threat of force. The guy's following them out of the church. He's screaming at young teenagers as they try to get away from him. It's really not that hard to prove threat of force. It's race and religion, race and religion. But in the Dinwiddle case, I mentioned the Eighth Circuit said that aggressive speech, and that's aggressive speech, is protected unless it crosses the line into a true threat. I didn't see a true threat of violence there. I saw aggressive speech.

1:14:02And so I don't think they're going to be able to get a conviction here. Can I just, can I point this out? You may Can I point this out, Megan? I'm sorry. I think they've got a very good shot. Go ahead, Mike. This is outrageous. Like, what Don Lemon did is the most outrageous thing you can do. You're going into a Christian church on a Sunday and scaring the hell out of everyone, including the kids, and you're doing it because of their Christian faith, and you're doing it because of their race, and they say that very explicitly because Don Lemon is so stupid that he would actually say this. This is unacceptable behavior.

1:14:35Not only is it bad political judgment, like Dave says, this is felonious conduct. Remember, the Biden Justice Department put 75-year-old Christian women in prison for praying inside of abortion clinics. Outside of abortion clinics, they put a young black mother in prison for 41 months for praying and obstructing an abortion clinic. This behavior last Sunday was much more egregious than that. Imagine if this were a mosque or a black Christian church instead of a white Christian church, and the left would be effing outraged. Or even Mike Davis with the MAGA hat. Like, I would be strung up by now.

1:15:20Picture the worst possible example, and it just makes it so obvious. You have a bunch of skinheads going into a temple or going into a mosque and getting in the face saying, you're fake Muslims. You're fake. Following their children as they rushed to leave to get away from these nutcases. Following them right up to the side of the van as they tried to slam the door closed. Saying, you're sinners. You're fake. And attacking their religion and screaming at them inside the church, outside the church. While their ringleader is saying, trauma is part of the process. Trauma is what protests are all about.

1:15:55Not his, not Don Lemon's, but the children. With kids crying inside the mosque or the temple. Are you kidding me? This would be a fucking no-brainer. Just because it's Christians, we have to bend over backwards to find a way out for them. It's bullshit. And there's a new sheriff in town, all right? And his name is Donald Trump. And Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dillon, they've had it. There will be criminal charges coming, I'm sure, either today, tomorrow, or Friday. Be patient, MAGA, because it does take a while to cross the T's in federal court. It is not as easy as it is in state court. But I'm telling you, the charges are coming.

1:16:26And I have to say, I don't know. I mean, do I really know what a Minneapolis federal court judge is going to do? I don't. You could be right, Dave, that this judge is going to be sympathetic or read the law the way you say it should be read and throw these charges out. But we have to see them brought. They must be brought because MAGA has sat back too long and watched its favorite members get dragged across the coals, starting with President Trump himself. And they've had it. They've had it. I mean, what if you were the state prosecutor and you were a state prosecutor up until very, very recently down in Florida, would you charge them with anything under state law?

1:17:02You know, there is a Minnesota law that makes this illegal to go in the house of worship and do what they did. So I would charge that under the state law. Not sure if it's a misdemeanor or felony under state law, but I think it's just a misdemeanor, which is why they want the federal government to come in and impose these more serious laws. But like I said, I think you can get them on the trespass and disorderly conduct. And I wish those protesters, those people who claim to be pro-Palestinian protesters who went into synagogues and protested while people were praying, I wish they would have been charged with crimes.

1:17:32I haven't seen that either. So all this stuff is really distasteful. But as far as whether it's a federal crime— But it's more than that. I just don't see it as a felony. Yes, they should be— Okay, I get it. I accept that. I mean, I don't agree with it, but I totally accept your position as the one that will be argued. Um, here's the other thing. If I were one of those parents, Mike Davis, with the children crying next to me in those pews, I would sue Don Lemon for intentional infliction of emotional distress. He knew it. He's on camera repeatedly endorsing it. We played the bit yesterday of him outside the church as they're fleeing, saying trauma is part of the process.

1:18:11Trauma is part of protests. Sorry, not his. The children fleeing. He was enjoying it. Here's stop 30. Is it 30? Hold on. No, no. Sorry. I think. Yeah, it's 30. Here's stop 30. Watch this. This is the beginning of what's going to happen here. When you violate people's due process, when you pull people off the street and you start dragging them and hurting them and and not abiding by the Constitution, when you start doing all of that, people get upset and angry. And if you remember what the civil rights movement was about, the civil rights movement was about these very kinds of protests. And for some reason in our modern era, people think that in order to have protests, you got to be, you know, cordoned off to a certain area and, uh, you know, what time you can protest.

1:19:01There's nothing in the constitution that tells you what time you can protest. You can protest at any time. That's the whole point of it, is to disrupt, to make uncomfortable. And that's what they're doing. And that's what I believe when I say everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something. You have to make people uncomfortable in these times. If you see how uncomfortable people uncomfortably and how harsh people are being treated on the streets, you have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable. That is what this country is about. OK, all of that's going to be used against him in the criminal case.

1:19:38All of it, Mike Davis. But I think you have a strong case if you're a parent of one of those crying children or if you yourself are traumatized on the heels of a sense on where these kids, they don't know what hands up, don't shoot is. They have no idea who Michael Brown was or Ferguson, Missouri, or how that's a lie. All they see is a bunch of strangers hijack their Sunday service and start screaming about shooting and hands up. That's what these kids do. Then they see their friends trying to flee and get getting chased by fucking nutcases like William Kelly. And that's what they went through.

1:20:08And so I doubt William Kelly has two nickels to rub together in between his ears or otherwise. But Don Lemon does. And I would 100 % sue him civilly for intentional infliction. What do you think? Absolutely. I watched that with Don Lemon and he makes my blood boil. That guy is a fucking monster. Not only should he be put in federal prison for many, many years. He should be bankrupted, like you said, Megan, for intentional infliction of emotional distress. There's also a federal civil cause of action under our federal civil rights statutes. When you go after people, when you target people like Don Lemon and his fellow Klansmen did there because of their Christian faith and because of their white race, There needs to be no mercy for Don Lemon because he has shown zero remorse.

1:21:01Like you said, he's tripling and quadrupling down on his felonious misconduct. He's an asshole, and he needs to go to prison. He needs to be bankrupted. Yeah, I look forward to watching that process play out. All right, we have more to discuss. We've got to get into BuzzField. Quick break, then we'll do that. Don't go away. Mike and Dave, stay with me. grand canyon university an affordable private christian university based in beautiful phoenix arizona is one of the largest universities in the country praised for its culture of community and impact gcu integrates the free market system a welcoming christian worldview and free and open discourse into more than 360 academic programs including more than 300 online join a nationwide community of learners redefining what online education looks like through academically rigorous industry-driven programs that can spark bold ideas and prepare you for a future that matters.

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1:22:19Dave Ehrenberg and Mike Davis are back with me now. So we've got to talk about what happened in the Timothy Busfield bail hearing yesterday, where he was granted bail and was not held in state custody pending his trial on charges of alleged child abuse, alleged child molestation. Two little boys, ages seven at the time, 11 today, alleged, twin brothers, alleged that he molested them, that he fondled one outside of his clothing, and that with the other one, it was less of a fondling, more of like inappropriate touching, but one explicitly having his private genitalia touched, he claims, by Timothy Busfield, who was the kid's director on this show, The House Cleaner, I think it was called.

1:23:05In any event, he's denied the charges. And then when the arrest warrant was issued for him on last Friday out of New Mexico, he took a total of five days. He didn't turn himself in Albuquerque, New Mexico until Tuesday. And now we know that he was driving cross country and he was working with a lawyer to take what they say is a legit polygraph that he says he passed. Sit with a sexual assault like evaluator to assess just how threatening he may or may not be to children. and issue a statement on camera to TMZ, which we've already addressed as having signs of deception, per Phil Houston, the human lie detector and CIA agent of 25 years who invented their deception detection methods.

1:23:48Now, we said at the time we had not heard his defense, and now we're getting a look at it because his lawyers came in both guns blazing to try to get him bail. And the most shocking allegation, pretty much everything they alleged in his defense, We kind of knew, but we did not know that the parents of the two boys are a couple of, as the defense lawyers, I'm sorry, adequately said, con men. The mother and the father both appear to be serial fraudsters, which, let's face it, changes the outlook of this case, changes the likely outcome and changes how we need to view the allegations themselves. I'm going to give you guys just a little bit from the defendant's opposition to the state's motion to hold Busfield without bail.

1:24:36They say the dad is has been he's a former attorney who was convicted of federal conspiracy and wire fraud and was later disbarred following the prosecution for a multimillion dollar scheme in which he used his law license to deceive vulnerable victims for profit. He pleaded guilty. So there's no question he did it to conspiracy to commit wire fraud arising from a mortgage modification enterprise that defrauded more than fifteen hundred homeowners of approximately six million dollars. It happened, I believe, during covid where he was taking advantage of vulnerable people. This is as an officer of the court where he has a duty to be an extra duty to be ethical and honest.

1:25:15The children's mother, they write, has an equally disturbing history. She has had multiple civil judgments entered against her and not just civil judgments like you had a car accident and you know, you whatever or like you you punch somebody. It's judgments that relate to her honesty. So it's all like it's all very relevant for fraudulent and dishonest behavior. She was sued in 2011 by somebody to whom she sold her Bentley for ninety one thousand dollars. The guy took possession of the Bentley, but she never transferred him the actual title. And then she had the vehicle unlawfully repossessed and then traded the Bentley in and got a Porsche instead, which she registered in her mother's name.

1:26:02Then a complaint came against her, and apparently they are alleging that there was a judgment against her. And then in addition, there were judgments against her for over four hundred thousand dollars for unpaid gambling debts in which she allegedly wrote bad checks to MGM Grand in one other casino trying to pay for it. But the checks were bad. So, I mean, this is like if all this is true, it's alleged by Busfield in his response. It was stated in court yesterday. The prosecutor did not take it on at all, saying it's not true. These are lies. So it's not a case of mistaken identity from the look of it.

1:26:38This is deeply problematic. Now, I don't know, Dave, I'm gonna start with you on this, because, again, you're just coming off of yours as a state prosecutor. So you would be, you know, the guy saddled with this revelation of your two minor plaintiffs in a child sex abuse case. It's not like the children have been found guilty of fraud. I don't know that it even gets admitted, to be honest, right? Because it's like, the whole defense is going to be the children were coached by the parents. The initial statements that they gave to an investigator were that they weren't molested. Then a year later, it changed to, yes, I was molested.

1:27:15And they're going to say that that's because of these con man parents. But is it admissible when the parents are fraudsters and the children are alleging sex abuse? I think, Megan, for the defense, they're going to lean into the motive here for the kids to lie at the behest of their parents, because there's also a report during the internal investigation that the mother was found to have said something to the effect of if the twins did not get their contract renewed for the show, that she would get Timothy Busfield. Yeah, she was going to get her revenge on him. Right. So in that sense, her past and a history of fraud and shakedown schemes and things like that could be relevant here.

1:28:00So the judge is more lenient to allow the defense to pursue motive than they would to allow the prosecution to expose prior bad facts about the defense. So that's why I think that it could come in, because that's how you have a fair trial. You have to flush out whether there was a motive to lie, especially because these kids are minors. And they originally said to investigators that there was no inappropriate touching and then later changed their story. They played that on his defense lawyer played audio of the boys initially denying that Busfield had inappropriately touched them. Here it is in SOT 50.

1:28:43And you know what's right and wrong, right? You know, where people can't touch, where people can't. Yeah, you know that, right? Does Tim ever do that? No, he's never touched me. Never touched you? Yeah.

1:29:01In the, in like, you know, your private areas, right? Never did that? Never. Okay.

1:29:11Let's go on, Your Honor, to defense exhibit AA. This is five minutes later, separate, the boys were separated. The same, the same police officer, this time speaking to SL. out of the presence of his brother. So you know what's right and wrong, right? Yeah. You don't know when he could touch your private areas? Yeah, but he doesn't touch them. Doesn't touch your private parts? Okay. That's not, your honor, a failure to disclose. That's an express denial. That's Busfield's defense attorney, Mike. But the problem there is, of course, that little kids who are molested often do and express denial when they're first asked about it.

1:30:00There's a lot of shame associated with it. So, I mean, that's not as probing as like a lay witness might think like it's, it is very frequent that an abuse victim initially denies it, but the parents background as somebody who I think Timothy Busfield is a creep, an absolute creep. And we've learned he's even more creepy than we knew because we learned about two other females who have come forward complaining about him at yesterday's hearing. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's a child molester. So we really do need to look at the credibility. I mean, yes, of the boys, but they're little ones, you know, but these parents, is it relevant?

1:30:35Yes. I mean, I would say this. I look, I've had friends who are sexually abused as kids and it destroys them for the rest of their lives. It's it's it's it's there's nothing worse you can do than sexually abuse a kid. And I personally think you should bring back medieval punishment for the people who sexually abuse kids. I know the Supreme Court says we can't have the death penalty anymore for child rape. I think the Supreme Court should reverse that now that Justice Kennedy is no longer on the Supreme Court. I think these people should be brutally and publicly executed to people who abuse kids.

1:31:07But we also have the presumption of innocence. And we also have sexual abuse allegations that have been weaponized for political or financial reasons many times in our past. I saw this when I ran Justice Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hearing as the chief counsel for nominations when six bullshit allegations were brought against Justice Kavanaugh. So I am very leery about these allegations, particularly when you have these shady ass parents who look like they have a financial motive. It looks like it was a shakedown here that they when they what Dave just said, when they said if they continue this contract, these allegations go away.

1:31:51If you're a parent, your kids are sexually abused. You don't give a damn about some contract. You want to make sure that someone who's sexually abusing the kids are arrested and held accountable. Well, they're saying they didn't know at the time that the kids were employed by the show, that the parents did not know. The kids went to, they got examined by a doctor. The doctor saw evidence of grooming. The doctor called in to the police. The police interviewed the children. They denied it. You heard that. But then the parents put the children into therapy and the therapist a year later, now the other side says it was right after Warner Brothers denied their claim and did an independent investigation and said, guess what?

1:32:31You're not getting anything. You're not getting any money. But a year later, the boys said to the therapist that they were touched. The therapist, who would typically have an ethical obligation to mention if she thought the boys had been coached by the parents, did not say that. The prosecution was quick to point that out. The prosecutors would, too, have an obligation to say if they thought the boys were groomed by the parents or were not groomed, manipulated by the parents into saying that they'd been touched when they hadn't been. And obviously the prosecution believes these boys, but yeah, it's the timing of it.

1:33:03It's not ideal. And Dave, the reality is in a sexual abuse case like this involving children, they're very hard to make anyway. There's almost never a witness. There's not a witness here. Now the story has changed because the boys initially in the Warner Brothers investigation appear to have said that this happened when it was just Busfield in the room with them, but they pointed out the defense did. I didn't hear the prosecution respond to this exactly. Yesterday they pointed out, oh no, now, now it's the room was filled. No, there were lots of people there, but he just managed to sort of sneak it in.

1:33:34But it's like the prosecutor claimed, oh, we never said that nobody was in the room, but the defense said, yes, they did. And they read a transcript of the Warner Brothers investigation where they claimed initially that nobody else had been in the room. All these contradictions undermine their credibility. Right. Witnesses are really powerful here. Normally it's a, he said, they said, but here you've had the show's director of photography, a guy named Alan Caudillo, who testified that the children were never left alone with adults on the set. And he also said that it was the parents who frequently encouraged the children to hug the adults.

1:34:06So all of that is relevant. And that the adults felt uncomfortable with it. Like Alan testified, I didn't appreciate that. I didn't want some guy sending a seven-year-old over to hug me when clearly the kid didn't want to do it. Right. But again, that kind of suggests What was his father up to? Was he trying to get like some sort of lay of the foundation for a claim that like people on this set were inappropriate? Well, that's why these cases are so hard. You're dealing with minors. You're dealing with repressed memories and you're dealing with contradictory statements. So they're naturally tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

1:34:41And then you add the specter of the defendant's past where it could go either way. Right. because he's been accused of misconduct with teenagers in the past. And yet, perhaps you could argue the parents knew about that and knew this was the weak spot for him. And when they said, apparently, according to a witness, that they were going to get him if their kids did not get renewed and then they didn't get renewed. And perhaps that's the way they got him because they knew about his past allegations against him. So this is a convoluted mess right now. That's why the judge allowed the defendant to go home instead of staying in jail pretrial.

1:35:18And that's why it's going to be hard to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. I have to say, I would have let him go home, too. I just feel like now having heard the defense, I'm not persuaded it didn't happen. I'm really not because I don't impugn the children because of their parents' fraud. But there's enough defense evidence that this case suggesting this case could go away or certainly result in and not guilty that I don't think it's fair to hold him in jail pending trial. He's not allowed to have any contact with children. But, you know, there's there is more to the story, Mike, because Timothy Busfield got on the phone with the police on November 3rd.

1:35:58Melissa Gilbert was on the phone and admitted that he would playfully tickle the boys on set. And also, after admitting that and admitting that they had taken the children out to dinner and given them Christmas gifts, then said, I don't remember these boys. Now he directed them for two and a half years. So that's why I referenced earlier, he did what you're not supposed to do, right? Which is talk to the cops. Even if you're innocent, don't talk to the cops. I think most defense lawyers say, keep your mouth shut. I'll do your talking for you. But he did do those things according to the police.

1:36:34And then he looked guilty as hell in his TMZ video. I mean, he just reeked of dishonesty to me and to Phil Houston's AI tool, which is accurate 97 % of the time in detecting lies. And then when we're going to take a quick break, but on the, on the back end, we'll talk about the serial abuse of teenage girls, which is not of course the same as a seven-year-old boy, But it is a pattern of abuse. So I don't want to be too harsh on these children just because the parents appear to be absolute losers. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. This is a tough case because you have shady ass parents. You have a story that's changed, but you have a guy who appears to be a creep.

1:37:20So this, again, there's a presumption of innocence in this country. This man, like every other criminal defendant, deserves the presumption of innocence. But this is a very, very messy case. And the prosecutor tried to address, you know, the business about the parents' backgrounds just by saying the parents have troubles, but we can't impute those to the boys. I mean, that was really her defense, which is probably the only defense you can go with. But it's amazing to me. I mean, you tell me, Dave, in the next 30 seconds, would the prosecutor have known about the parents' history at the time they brought these charges?

1:38:02Not necessarily. That's why the defense hires their own investigators. And they probably found that out after the fact. So I don't blame prosecutors for moving full speed ahead on this. I would, too. But then when you find this out, you're like, oh, boy, that's not something naturally you would find out on your own until you did more digging. If you were in this position and you found that out after you filed, what would you do? I would question the case. I would make sure I would look up, get all the discovery I could. And if I believe that because of this and other things that I could not get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, I wouldn't file the case or I would dismiss it.

1:38:39OK, stand by. There's another piece to talk about right after this break. Don't go away. If your credit card balance is freaking you out after all the holiday spending, real, I have something that can save you money right now. You could cut your cell phone bill in half by switching to Pure Talk's Saver Plan. Just$20 a month for unlimited talk, text, and three gigs of high-speed data on Pure Talk's super-fast nationwide 5G network. And as a veteran-led company that cares about giving back to those who serve, if you are active or former military or a first responder, you will save an additional 20 % every single month.

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1:40:08News only on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111 and on the Sirius XM app.

1:40:17Back with me now, Dave Ehrenberg, host of MK True Crime and Mike Davis, founder of the Article 3 project. I do want to offer what the prosecutor was saying because I want to be fair to these to young boys. She pointed out that it was November 2024 when the doctor first raised concerns of abuse. What we know from the police complaint is that the parents had heard that Timothy Busfield had a history of being inappropriate with underaged women. And that prompted them to start asking questions, which eventually brought them into the medical center with their boys. The doctor interviewed the boys and the doctor, based on his interview with the boys, said they need to be evaluated for potential child sexual abuse.

1:41:08The police interviewed them. You heard the excerpts of the boys saying, no, he didn't touch me. And then I gave the chronology of what happened after there. They've started getting therapy. The therapist said the one boy allegedly was having nightmares. It came out that court hearing yesterday that allegedly, according to the defense, the boy had told the therapist he was just waking up several times in the middle of the night because he was hot or cold, I think hot. And the father was the one who said he's having nightmares. So the defense is suggesting the dad's trying to like layer up the kid's injuries.

1:41:40And the suggestion is that they're fake. I don't know what's true. But in any event, the contact with the therapist went on and ultimately the therapist said that the boys changed their story and that the one said he had been physically touched, you know, inappropriately, his genitals had been touched by Timothy Busfield. And the other brother did not go that far, which, you know, I did think the prosecutor raised several times yesterday that that's actually inures to their benefit. If this is just some money grab, two is better than one. You get paid higher if both boys have been molested. And they did not allege that.

1:42:14The one boy whose name begins with a V said it didn't go that far. The one boy whose name begins with an S said, indeed it did. And that Timothy Busfield molested him by touching, forgive me, his penis and his bottom. They went on to say it's normal for children to deny it. And the questions asked, she said, by that first police officer did not comply with best practices. She said the kids continued to show signs of abuse and continued to disclose they should not be tarred with their parents' past. She said it's very difficult to coach children at that age. And even though they gave, even though it's tough to coach children, she said they managed to actually come out and tell their stories and they gave details.

1:43:01And then she points to, oh, then she says the therapists know about coaching. She would have put that in her note. She didn't. Same with the doctor. Doctors know about coaching. He would have put that in his note. These are people who know these boys who have spent many hours with them. In the case of the therapist, they did not sense coaching. They thought that these were real complaints. And then she got into, um, defendants admission. Timothy Busfield admitted, and I pulled back up the complete, the police complaint. Um, according to the police, he admitted the following. He writes, I did ask Timothy if he ever had any physical contact with these boys and if he ever picked them up and tickled them.

1:43:38Timothy said it was highly likely that he would have. Timothy said it was a playful environment like he wanted. I'm sorry, right there. This is why I'm not ready to completely rule him out despite these weird parents. I know, I know if I ever said to you, Dave Ehrenberg, did you ever pick up somebody else's boy in a professional setting and tickle him, you easily would say, hell no. Every man knows not to do that, whether he's directing them in a film or not. It's a very strange answer. Can we agree on that? Yes. He's 68 years old, so he's a little different generation than I don't know anyone who just does that normally.

1:44:17And anyone who did, maybe that was like three generations prior where that was OK. It's not OK. It hasn't been OK for a long time. Also, it is true that when he was accused of improper conduct, they were not children. They were teenagers. But he did pay out one hundred fifty thousand dollars to a 17 year old girl. It was relating to costs and fees after an unsuccessful countersuit. But there is some past conduct here that could become relevant in a trial where they could bring it up as what's called Williams rule in Florida. Every state has it where it doesn't have to be a conviction. It just can be if it's like his M.O., a pattern of conduct.

1:44:58And so that's where it could come back to hurt him. So it is a messy case, Megan. But our conversation here by no means means that he is not guilty of this. We just don't know. And the fact that it's messy makes it harder for prosecutors. Yeah. I mean, well, my my obligation as a reporter is to bring the audience updated information when I get it. And this is certainly worth them considering in deciding what they think of this case. Here's the other thing from the police affidavit. He says, Timothy then stated, I don't remember those boys. No, I don't. I don't actually. I don't remember if it happened.

1:45:32I don't remember overtly tickling the boys ever, but it wouldn't be uncommon for me. So now he's gone from he's directed them in his show for two and a half years and had social engagements with them. And Melissa's bought them presents, too. And I probably did. It's highly likely that I tickled them, too. I don't remember them. What? Like what, boys? OK, that, too, is highly sketchy. And then I do want to get into the other alleged incidents of abuse and tell me what you think, Mike Davis, because what we learned is that Mike mentions there was a 17 year old girl. who accused him of molesting her physically and sexually in some way.

1:46:13And she sued him and he countersued, he sued her law firm because they were trying to get$150 ,000 in fees and costs. And he lost, he said that they had defamed him. And he lost that defamation claim. He did have to pay the money and he settled with the 17 year old. Okay, we don't really know much about that. Maybe it was a money grab. I don't know. Then there was a 28-year-old who alleges that they went out to a movie together and that in the movie theater, he took what was a kiss and turned it into a physical sexual assault, shoving his hands down her pants, grabbing her genitals. She was squirming to get away from him.

1:46:54She wanted nothing to do with him to the point where she went to the police. Okay, the police said, we can't really make anything out of this because it's like he said, she said, and you were on a date with him, something to that effect. That's, that's a lot. I mean, I don't like the average guy doesn't have somebody turning like a movie kiss into something that results in a phone call to the cops, but there's that one. Then there is, um, this other report that, that they read. There are two other reports. One is like a, eh, from an assistant who worked for both Melissa and Timothy recently that suggests he's kind of a douchebag.

1:47:30But then there was a new one by name, by an actress named Claudia Christian, who is out there. Actually, I Googled her. And if you look at her face, she's, she looks kind of familiar. I think she's a fairly successful, like character actress, um, who back in 1991, I think it was, because that's when they started a movie together. She and Timothy Busfield were working together, alleges that when she was 16, he, he came for her too. Here's the prosecutor describing those other two incidents, SOT 48. States Exhibit 5 is from the defendant and his wife's personal assistant. They worked, I believe, through the May of 2017 until 2019.

1:48:17And she mostly describes how the defendant was inappropriate, intimidating, that there was a lot of, you know, this position of authority that we've kind of seen play out in this case, and all of the other victims that have come forward, and had made comments to her about the way she acted, and that he might have a crush on her if she continues that behavior. So there was concerns of inappropriate conduct with her as well. State six, Claudia Christian, who is an actress, she has reported that when they were filming the strays, the defendant in her, she was already cast as an actress, and during the show they were running lines, which was common, and they went to his trailer.

1:49:25She stated that once she got there, he was alone, and almost immediately after she entered his trailer, he forcibly grabbed her and threw her against the wall and started kissing her, and he had an erection. Okay. So that's Claudia Christian, who went on the record, apparently, with the prosecutor. Would have been 1991. By my math, she would have been 26 when that happened to her. So we've got a 28-year-old on a date. We've got a 26-year-old on set with him. We've got a 17-year-old who he accused of defaming him when she accused him. And instead, he had to settle that case and pay her Her lawyer is$150 ,000.

1:50:08And then there's a 16-year-old girl who's come forward as well. She was 16 when this happened to her, who claims he molested her when she was auditioning at his children's theater. And it was so significant. Hold on a second. I have the allegations here. in a seven-page filing, New Mexico prosecutor said the law enforcement, they received a report Tuesday from her father, who said Busfield kissed his 16-year-old daughter and touched her intimate parts several years ago, and that when the father went to him, Busfield, quote, begged the family to hold off on reporting the alleged misconduct to the police if Busfield got therapy.

1:50:51The father was himself a therapist and so agreed to that. So that's a 16-year-old girl whose dad is on the record. It's a 17-year-old girl who got a settlement and her lawyers did too. It's a 28-year-old girl who said she was on a date this happened to her in a movie theater. And then there is Claudia Christian, who I guess would have been 26 when she says she went into his trailer. He molested her, threw her against the wall, and started grabbing her. Okay, that's four. Payouts in a couple of them. One case, an agreed therapy that he got. and now we have these boys. So all of this, look, has me, I got the same questions you guys have about these parents, but Timothy Busfield is a creep and Melissa Gilbert is gross too because this whole thing started for me because she was out there trying to suggest that I downplayed the abuse of women because I was making the distinction about whether Jeffrey Epstein technically, legally qualified as a pedophile if his thing was 15-year-olds versus if it were five-year-olds.

1:51:53And legally, that definition only applies to an attraction to prepubescent girls. Meanwhile, she knows full well her husband was out there allegedly molesting a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 26-year-old, a 28-year-old. And she's out there trying to cloak herself in this sort of moral glory when she knows full well that he's done all those things or at least settled the cases. And on top of that, when she's doing it, knew he'd been accused by these seven year old boys. They're now 11, but the abuse allegedly happened between seven and nine. All of it is speaks to her and her husband's disgusting hypocrisy.

1:52:31But it also could be pattern evidence, Mike Davis, that potentially could get admitted some of those claims. Yeah, I mean, generally under our criminal procedures, you could not bring in propensity evidence, meaning you can't. if someone robs a bank, you can't bring in prior bank robberies to show that they are likely to, or they have a disposition to rob banks. That is generally not permitted. But as Dave talked about, you have MO evidence or modus operandi evidence. If you show that you rob banks wearing a clown outfit, you can bring that in generally under MO evidence. That's not propensity evidence.

1:53:09That shows that's how you go about doing these bank robberies. And so it shows evidence that you committed this bank robbery. So the distinction between propensity and MO evidence. Generally, with sex crimes, and I think this would apply in New Mexico. I'm not licensed in New Mexico, but I think the same rule applies in New Mexico. With sex crimes, you can bring in propensity evidence. So this would all get admitted or it probably would get admitted if this case goes to trial. And it would be very damning for him if the jury heard this evidence. Megan, this is the key to the case. It's whether you can bring in that MO evidence, the prior bad acts.

1:53:51It does not bode well for the prosecution when you look at the words from Judge Murphy when he ordered Busfield's release. If you look at his order, he said this, there is no evidence of a pattern of criminal conduct. There are no similar allegations involving children in his past. So that tells me, at least for now, that the judge is skeptical of the prosecution's pattern argument that he is separating. But also he did say, I mean, I listened to the whole hearing and what he said was that have been tested in a legal forum. Like he's talking about no one's no criminal convictions with respect to these other women.

1:54:28Well, if he was only talking about convictions, then then that is good for the prosecution, because you don't have to have a conviction to bring in past bad acts. But it did seem like he was differentiating, as you did in that whole Epstein controversy, between a young child, a seven year old and a in this case, a 17 or 16 year old. Yeah. Oh, Doug and I were laughing because the irony of of Melissa Gilbert's attack on me is she should have been leaning into that defense. She should have been like, yeah, there's a big difference between the teenagers and the young ones, because, of course, that's what her lawyers are going to argue on Timothy Busfield's behalf and trying to keep all this evidence of him molesting teenagers and women in their 20s out out of the jury's purview.

1:55:14But unlike Timothy Busfield, I actually do think there's a serious problem in molesting 15 year olds. I just didn't think it legally qualifies as pedophilia, which is true. OK, last but not least, Riley Gaines gets attacked. The reason I'm raising this, Dave, is because you told me last time you were on that you actually went to school with the disgusting Scott Wiener, who's running for Nancy Pelosi's seat. He's a state legislature and legislator in California. But now he's running for Nancy Pelosi. See, and even California, I know how left they are. They have to stop it. You have to say no. I'm sorry, but you cannot vote for this man.

1:55:50He gets online to attack Riley Gaines as a, quote, weird grifter who's mad she tied a trans swimmer for sixth place and the ad that she's doing for milk. These creepy people keep one upping themselves. So he's calling Riley Gaines weird and creepy in response to which I tweeted out a photo of Scott Weiner on the public transit in California wearing stiletto hot pink heels. Hello, California. This is what you want in your U.S. congressman. Bad enough. He's a state legislator. Now you're going to put him. Can we see the picture, please? Show it to the audience or he's parading. All right, we're going to add it parading around there in his high stiletto heels.

1:56:33And then all these other audience members started to pile on with other disgusting pictures of Scott Wiener, which I can't unsee, of his disgusting naked body with weird little like, I don't know what this is, his tie. He's parading around without his shirt on. I'm not sure what we're dealing with here, Dave, but we don't need any more weird, creepy, to use his words. And I'll use my own. Perverts in the U.S. Congress. He's a pervert. That's my opinion. So this is your friend from school, law school or college? Both. I knew him in both. He was I knew him better in college. I didn't know him well, I must say, but he was a campus activist.

1:57:12And so everyone knew Scott Wiener. He was the head of the LGBTQ group on campus and he made it known. He was out and proud. And I knew him a little bit then in law school. He was much quieter, at least. I must say this. I had respect for his principles. He seemed like he had principles. And the same was true when he was in the state Senate. He believed in what he was saying, I thought. And he actually, because he was born into a religious Jewish family, that he believed in the state of Israel. And now what's crazy is that after he got razzed at a hearing at a campaign event because he said that it was not a genocide, Israel's defensive war against Hamas, then he decided to switch.

1:57:54So he literally compromised everything he's been saying and believed in for his entire career and switched overnight to gain votes. So that to me makes him no better than any other self-obsessed politician who just looks at the next election rather than the next generation. So I don't put any stock in anything he says. I'm done with that guy. And he should get all the criticism that's leveled his way. Yes, I'm sorry, but he absolutely strikes me as a creepy pervert who we absolutely should not let into the U.S. House of Representatives. Mike Davis, any thoughts on Scott Wiener? Do you know of this guy?

1:58:28I've seen him online. I would say this as a highly partisan, lunatic Republican. I love the fact that Democrats are going to put this new boogeyman or actually boogeywoman if he's wearing stilettos in the House of Representatives. Unclear. He's definitely not a woman, but he could be a wannabe. But boogie woman Scott Stilettos, I love that the Democrats may put this guy in the House. He will be the number one political target for Republicans. We will run against this Scott Wiener every election. So as a partisan Republican, yes, if we're going to get some goofy Democrat in San Francisco, we'll take this guy.

1:59:10Just think of all the renewed New York Post headlines we'll get that we had to say goodbye to once Anthony Wiener was out of the news. Wiener out. There were so many, so many great ones by the post. It was endless. So that will be our one comfort if he winds up winning. Guys, thank you. Thanks for sticking around over time. Always great to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And we are back tomorrow with Allie, Beth, Stuckey, and more. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

1:59:47Thank you.