Unhinged Leftists Celebrate CEO Murderer and Smear Daniel Penny, and Gay Wedding Cake Update, with Heather Mac Donald, Kristen Waggoner, and Jack Phillips | Ep. 961
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I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. We are getting more information now on the alleged suspect in the, well, he's the suspect and the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Yesterday, Luigi Mangione was identified and arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald's

In the morning, police reported because some people thought it was the McRib. It's come back and they didn't think he could resist going in there. A lot of people get sucked back into McDonald's thanks to this thing. It was the morning. I don't it might have been a McMuffin. Police reported that when they approached Mangione, who's being hailed by the left as some sort of hero.

for committing murder in the streets of New York and shooting a man in the back, father of two, including a 16-year-old boy. This is their new hero. You know, what a badass he is for standing up for others. Okay, you know what? He basically peed his pants when the cops approached him in the McDonald's. He started shaking.

Just upon being asked the question of whether he'd recently been in New York, this guy who killed a man by shooting him in the back. That's your leftist hero. It's just so gross. Can I just say I'm really over this nonsense? This guy's not a hero at all. We should not be lauding his good looks.

which really are inexistent, all over the internet. Tim Miller, ye of the I won't ask Doug Emhoff a single question about his alleged assault of a woman in your stupid podcast is out there talking about how he wants to get together with this guy. Not to mention the Boston Marathon bomber. These people are fucking sick. Sorry. They're sick. And I just want to say one thing.

It is today, December 10th, right? It's December 10th, 2024. It was December 15th, 1985 that my own father died.

He died of a heart attack, an unexpected heart attack in our home at age 45, 10 days before Christmas. And I was a 15-year-old girl. And it was, of course, as any sane person already can see, deeply traumatic for me and my entire family. And it's something you never get over. It changes your life in a profound way.

And so this guy, Brian Thompson, had two boys. I think one was 18, one was 16, for sure. One was 16. And their father was killed three weeks before Christmas. And these assholes are out there talking about how they want to sleep with the killer, how hot he is, what a hero he is for taking out the CEO of a company in an unpopular industry.

and at some point we'll discuss why they're unpopular. As I said yesterday, now's not that time. But I mean, good luck getting through any piece of the healthcare system without insurance, nevermind government insurance, which is the realistic alternative to the private health insurance that we get.

I mean, you may think they're evil. They're a necessary evil. And they actually make more procedures possible than they do deny the ones that cause people to go nuts over them. I just, this is so wrong. What are we doing? A 16-year-old's life has been changed forever and that 18-year-old as well. They don't have a dad anymore. Young boys who don't have their dad. Screw you for talking about his abs, you disgusting cretins.

I'm just, oh, gross over these gross people. We'll get to Taylor Lorenz on with peers.

We've learned more about this guy's personal history, including that this alleged assassin was an Ivy League graduate, as we did tell you yesterday when this was breaking. He went to University of Pennsylvania from a very prominent Maryland family who owned several country clubs, as well as at least at his grandfather's generation. He's the one who seems to have made the money. A radio station, country clubs, a real estate company.

And it is being reported that a turning point for the suspect may have been a back surgery earlier this year. He had some sort of a surgery and then he reportedly went dark, stopped talking to his friends, stopped talking to his family. His family was sounding the alarm as recently as November on where is Luigi? We can't find him and he's not in touch with anybody. People, friends sending him messages online saying, are you coming to my wedding? As you said, you were or not. Where are you?

He went off to Hawaii. He tried a surf lesson. This is post his back surgery, I believe. And it was so debilitating. He was out in bed for a week. Okay. So meantime, you've got the Cretans, as I pointed out, the worst is Taylor Lorenz, who, I mean, the body wasn't even warm of Brian Thompson. And she was expressing how happy she was that he was dead. We're also going to get to more on the insane leftist reaction to Daniel Penny's acquittal yesterday in New York.

And there's no one to better ask, no one better to break it all down in response to our questions than my first guest, Heather McDonald. She's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor for City Journal. She's also author of the book When Race Trumps Merit. I mean, she's truly, she might be the number one, but she is one of the top intellectuals in the world.

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And it's a pleasure to have her on. Heather, welcome back. Thank you so much, Megan. It's great to be with you. I'm so grossed out by this reaction to the murder of this insurance company CEO. And it's pretty widespread on the left how they are lionizing the alleged murderer and

And I mentioned Taylor Lorenz because she's pretty indicative of it. She worked for The New York Times. She worked for The Washington Post. She was fired by The Washington Post this fall when she posted on her Instagram, Joe Biden is a war criminal. When they chastised her for posting such a thing as a so-called reporter, she denied she had done it and claimed she'd been hacked.

They fired her, not believing her excuse. And then a month or so later, she definitely posted on her social media, Joe Biden is a war criminal, kind of removing the mystery about whether it had been her the first time. And now this woman is all over online on her sub stack and elsewhere trying to justify this man's murder and goes on with Piers Morgan on his YouTube show last night saying the following.

I do believe in the sanctity of life. And I think that's why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like... Serious? I mean... Joy in a man's execution? Maybe not joy, but certainly not... No, certainly not...

empathy. He's a father and he's being gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why is that making you joyful? So are the tens of thousands of Americans that are being murdered. So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people. Should they all be killed then? Should they all be killed, these health care executives? Would that make you even more joyful?

Uh, no. Joyful or even to even say you're not empathetic about somebody losing their life when they leave behind two young boys. Yeah, Taylor, I don't mean to be rude, but why the fuck are you laughing all the time? I don't get it. Sorry, apologies for my language, but honestly, I find it unbelievable. What are you laughing at? I am laughing at Tommy's insane mischaracterization of why people are angry. Okay, your thoughts on it, Heather?

Wow. We have a real problem in this country. The left has a real problem. I found it, in a sense, frustrating to hear you initially, Megan, rebutting the claim that this was somehow a justified act because it seemed like

Like, it's tragic that we have to concede that much to even engage with these people. It should be so patently obvious that you're not allowed to kill because you disagree with somebody politically. And to even engage in that argument is to concede too much. But obviously, we need to.

Let's recall, these are the same group of intersectional allies that also celebrated the Hamas attacks. There's something that has gone fundamentally wrong there.

with the left's understanding about some basic moral truths, which is you don't get to narcissistically kill some figurehead because you'd feel like you're in pain after back surgery. And you don't get to kill on the basis of political beliefs. But we also have assassinations on Trump.

This is being a poison that's being bred in the universities, which proceeds with a Manichean worldview about the evil of anything associated with capitalism, with anything associated with Western civilization, and that glorifies alleged victims, alleged marginalized, and clearly is very closely related

to the next step, which is that it's okay to kill. Lawrence is basically a mainstream media figure. Yeah, and is giving voice to what we've seen all over the internet.

with thirsting after this guy and celebrating his looks and counting him as some sort of courageous guy, as they say, who shoots a man dead in the street, an unarmed man in the back. And in the left's world, this is courage. Here is that guy, Tim Miller, who couldn't find the stones, Heather, to ask Doug Emhoff, who he had right across from him right after the story broke that he had

according to his ex-girlfriend, slapped her with an open hand across the face so hard outside of a festival in Cannes, France that she spun. This is like a year before he got together with Kamala Harris. He couldn't find the stones to ask him the question, would you like to respond to that? Is it true that you hit this woman, you who are being lauded by the left as the new version of masculinity, non-toxic?

the way the Republican version is. This guy, Tim Miller, couldn't find the stones to ask him those questions. But here he is today with his thoughts about this alleged killer of CEO Brian Thompson. There's a lot to unpack here, including his six pack would be among the things you need to unpack. He did post it, yes. This is a very attractive man and I-

I'm attracted to the shooter. And I have to just say, not exactly my type. I mean, objectively handsome. I think once you kill someone... Not exactly my type, yeah. In that category, kind of the Boston Marathon bomber was kind of a little bit more my wheelhouse. He works for the bulwark. You know, we...

I have to feel sometimes that the anarchism of the early 20th century, that we're past that, that that kind of solipsistic embrace of evil and of the notion that you have a right to go around killing people that you disagree with, we're certainly never going to return to that degree of

contagious insanity. But listening to this, I don't know. We are moving in that direction. And it's not even an underground movement. The anarchists were understood as enemies of the state, and they did everything they could to cover their tracks and cover their propaganda to a certain extent. Although they were also out there leafleting. But their homicidal intentions were not

exactly out in the open. But these are people that are going on to social media, the most public realm in the world, and proclaiming that they don't have a problem with murder. I lack the language, Megan, to really describe as in a sort of a Cassandra-like position what may be going on here. We all thought that there was a course correction. I

with the Trump election and people are saying no more with the identity-based grievance, which this is related to in a certain way. But we clearly have a very, very long road to tread to get back to some kind of shared value system. I mean, the irony, you know, you mentioned the Daniel Penny, Jordan Neely verdict that this killer is being described as a hero and

And then an actual hero was being treated as a homicidal criminal and villain. We're living in an upside down world, at least to the extent that you live in the elite bubble ideology.

I have a lot for you on Daniel Penny today, which we'll do next. But you're exactly right. I mean, I think the Trump election was a declaration that the normies are with us. We've reclaimed the normies who were leftist adjacent.

you know, open-minded to self-flagellation as required by BLM and the trans activists. Like, okay, if that's what I need to do to be a good person, I'm open, I'm listening. And now they've just been completely rejiggered to normalcy. Wait a minute, you people are the loons. We're not doing that. We're not opening the border. I'm going back with a side of reason. I think they're back with us, but it doesn't mean the loons went away. They're still a part of the Democrat party and they're vocal.

and they're not giving one inch. Taylor Lorenz is one example of that, but they're all over CNN and MSNBC in the wake of Penny, which is the other big story today, saying all the things you'd expect them to say about how we've normalized vigilantism. The same people, they see him as, we're celebrating a vigilante in the case of Penny, but on the CEO, Brian Thompson, you've got some of those same people saying right on, you know, the guy had some good points.

I don't know. I hope that there's more people like Piers Morgan out there in the mainstream media that are distancing themselves from these views, because if they're not, you're allowing it to stay out there unrebutted. And it's...

I think Trump is under constant threat of another assassination to the extent that you whip people up. And of course, let's be fair. The left probably thinks that the right's rhetoric is just as unhinged and just as dangerous, just as apocryphal and unduly Manichean that could give rise to right-wing kooks. And there's always a real...

about directly linking rhetoric to action, there should be a very, very wide berth for politically extreme rhetoric. As long as you're not calling for violence, it's not clear that anybody that embraces a certain kind of discourse should be held responsible for somebody who acts out in the name of that discourse. So, you know, both sides view the other as engaged in violence

completely unhinged rhetoric. Nevertheless, I don't think there's anything comparable. I mean, maybe there is. Maybe there's some right-wing kooks that are justifying in advance using violence against people you disagree with. But we've seen...

Young people have completely lost understanding of the First Amendment. They do not understand fundamental principles of discourse, of the free market of ideas, that the best way to counter ideas that you disagree with is to argue against them. You don't silence people. You don't arrogate to yourself the power of censorship.

So that's bad enough that we've lost sight of that fundamental principle of democracy, a principle that has given power to the marginalized throughout the ages. You have Frederick Douglass saying the thing that tyrants fear most is freedom of the press because it allows those who oppose slavery to throw off their chains. Now you have the left saying,

opposing the freedom of the press. But it's even worse than that. It's even worse. Now you have the left saying thou shalt kill people who you think are denying services because you have a certain view of health insurance.

This is a principle that is going to lead to a complete civil war. There's many health insurance executives out there, as Piers Morgan said, should they all be killed? Follow the principle and the answer is yes. And then you move on to oil executives. Wall Street.

Absolutely. Although, you know, Wall Street is it's weird. It's in sort of a transition mode because Wall Street is, of course, also very left. So, you know, we get to rail against capitalism, except

when we're drawing on billions to support our left-wing campaigns. So, but yeah. But it is interesting. I mean, like, and then you move on, of course, to politicians where it's like, and certainly nobody's advocating this. I'm just saying that if you want to talk about a politician who's really had a massive effect on healthcare, the first person to come to mind would be Barack Obama. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your law, your doctor, which was a lie. And his Obamacare plan led to the loss of

individual relationships between a patient and his doctor over and over and over again, a patient and her plan over and over and over. So if we're green lighting, we're now green lighting violence against public figures who affect our health care. How do they reconcile that? I mean, how is it not a call for multiple assassinations? It's just such insanity.

And that's why I refuse to even have the discussion. I refuse to have the discussion about the state of modern insurance care in America right now. Maybe at some point we'll discuss it, but certainly not in response to this lunatic who is being covered like this. Heather, just give you one other example. Would you look at CNN talking about this murderer, this suspected murderer? Watch this.

The reaction online is also just such a reinforcement of how much aesthetics, attractiveness, I mean, like the shallowness of the American people, the American people who are online, we'll say, is very much on display here. Part of, yes, there's absolutely a bubbling anger about the inequity in the country writ large and in the health care system, no question. But so much of the clips we were watching at the top of this segment are driven by the fact that this is this is an attractive. We got to drop.

the banner to show why. And it is deeply troubling that we are celebrating this person who's committed cold-blooded murder because, you know, he clearly went to the gym. Okay, so what happened in that Clifford Listing audience is that Casey Hunt, the anchor, chimes in, we've got to drop the banner to show them why. Like, show him his abs. There's something incredibly crass about

very sophomoric, simple about the discussions these people are having around this man who gunned down a fellow American. We haven't seen an open assassination attempt like this in a long time, Heather, and the seriousness is just missing.

Again, part of me rebels against us even having this conversation, Megan. We should not be having to persuade other people that you don't get to kill a corporate executive because you disagree with his policies. Why are we drawn into this? But if we didn't have it, I guess they'd go unchallenged. But one wonders again and again, what common ground do we have now with people engaging

on the progressive left and even liberals. If you can't even agree, I used to think that, well, there's no common ground because we can't even agree that chromosomes are

determine one's biological sex, that we have made this enormous progress in understanding genetics. We should be celebrating that. We have cracked the genetic code. This is one of the greatest feats of human understanding. And now we're throwing that all out in favor of this completely politicized gender theory view that, in fact, sex is something assigned at birth, not

written into every single cell in our body and can be changed at will by people that decide they hate the patriarchy. I used to think if we can't agree about that, it's hopeless. But now it turns out

It's even worse than that. The fundamental law that you cannot kill, you shall not commit murder. We can't even agree on that. So what do we do? I mean, what? No, we have to forge on without them. These are not people we can reason with. We just have to defeat them and forge on without them. I do want to ask you just, you're not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but

It is bizarre, Heather, that this guy was valedictorian of this Tony Boyce School in Maryland, went on to the University of Pennsylvania where he got a BA and an MA in computer science, engineering, and math, I think was his minor.

goes on to work for some tech companies, though I will say the employment history started to get a little sketchy. They say he's worked, he worked for 10 different companies in the past 10 years. Now that would have been six when he was 16 to 26, but it's not like he found a great job and just kept it upon graduating from UPenn. Um, I'll

I'll just show you a little bit from his high school graduation speech as valedictorian. He wasn't particularly articulate or impressive, I will admit, but he seemed normal. He seemed normal. And this is just, you know, eight years ago. Listen to this. Just like we've done these past few years, we'll be exploring the unknown, whether that be attending colleges across the country, traveling the world during gap years, fulfilling military service in foreign countries.

As we embrace the new, however, we won't forget the old. Our friendships, values, and memories from Gilman will always stay with us. So, to the class of 2016, a kind of class that only comes around once every 50 years. It's been an incredible journey, and I simply can't imagine the last few years with any other group of guys.

All the advantages, education, wealth, apparently a nice family that was was looking for him when he went missing at age 26, couldn't find him, was doing its best to try to retrieve him. Lots of friends, you know, according to them, good looks.

It's just it's very strange what would make him go from that to I'll listen. I'll let you hear it from John Miller, who's an intel analyst now on CNN. He's the chief law enforcement and intel analyst talking about what was in his manifesto that the police found on his person when they arrested him, Sot 10.

Well, he was railing against the healthcare industry, which of course fits into the scenario here. He talks about how these parasites had it coming. He starts off basically saying, I don't want to cause any trauma, but...

but it had to be done. So a second page really kind of goes into problems with the health industry. He raises the question, you know, why do we have the most expensive health care in the world, but we're 42, rated 42 in life expectancy around the world? It was talking about the health care industry and the need for violence. I mean, especially when you talk about, you know, the opening, which is...

that it had to be done. These parasites, you know, had it coming. Any thoughts on that? It's always a question, you know, are these people just simply crazy? And again, if it's the other guy that's committed this atrocity,

We are going to be inclined to blame the rhetoric, to blame the ideology. If it's our guy – and again, let's be honest. It is conceivable that some right-wing kook –

you know, especially during the election could take the language that Biden is a threat to democracy, that he is a fascist or a totalitarian, which there's an argument and given their censorship of speech, that that's a completely deserved label and, and then acted totally unjustifiably upon that. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, that's, that's that difficult link between when does ideology work?

to

or is it a complete break? It's irrelevant. And what's really going on is you've got somebody here who's just psychologically deranged and is psychotic and does not understand basic moral principles and has no human empathy. I can tell you, you know, as far as the STEM background, because I was surprised by that too, you know, you think engineering. In my experience, scientists, and with all due respect, and I revere scientists and for their work,

for their

what should be their commitment to universal reason and the colorblind pursuit of knowledge, but they can be very naive politically. You know, I would say about half of them are actually in favor of totally destructive race and gender preferences and scientific hiring and can be very naive about economic matters. You know, they're pure redistributionists and anti-capitalists. So anyway, that's not an inoculation against this, but it just may be that he's got

disintegrating moral compass and cognitive capacities to be able to assess actions. In fact, I thought his getaway plans were kind of crazy. I think he let himself wide open. Other people I've seen on TV thought, oh, he's a very smart guy. I don't know why he's still holding onto the gun. I would have biked all the way to the East River and thrown it in. I don't think they could...

possibly find it there. So something else may be going on and maybe...

It's not fair to blame the left-wing Antifa, Occupy Wall Street rhetoric against the so-called capitalist parasites. But nevertheless, I just- He's the right age. He's the right age for a psychotic break. We don't know. He had all sorts of icons on his social media that suggested he might have been into psychedelics. That's not confirmed.

Um, they don't make you normally psychotic, but the, the God of psychedelics was on this show telling us this Hopkins researcher saying, if you have any history of schizophrenia in your family, you should not be doing these. You should not be doing these. They can, they can be helpful to people who are, um, who don't have that history and are depressed and need to look at the world in a different way. We've had those people on the show too, but it's,

they would rule out anybody who had that sort of a history in their family because they can cause a psychotic break from which you cannot return. That's what's so nuts about it. That's pure speculation on my part. His back issues have been documented. Now his friends are coming out talking to CNN about how he had some massive back problem that caused him a lot of pain, but no reports so far of any beef with an insurance company. We will learn more. And this guy's, I mean, it sounds like the cops have got him dead to

two rights, the manifesto on him, the gun on him, the silencer on him, both of which they say appear to have been the product of a 3d printer, which is nuts along with hollow point bullets, which he would have to have had to have purchased, um, false IDs. He confessed to holding a false ID into presenting it to the police saying he was a New Jersey resident under a different name. Um,

And now he's in custody and not talking and ultimately today charged so far with second degree murder in New York. And I expect that will be increased to first degree once they proceed down the line with this case. There he is in his mugshot looking super tough. It's not super tough to kill an unarmed man in the back, Luigi, at all. OK, let's talk about Daniel Penny, who is a genuine hero, who I

Unlike this guy, like they want to say, oh, they're the same. They're just being treated differently. That's what the left is saying, because both were trying to act in defense of others. That's what the Taylor Lorenz of the world see when they look at Penny and this guy.

But it's it isn't so you could say that to justify the murder of just about anybody who had caused any harm in their business life or professional life. It doesn't make your murder of them justified. Daniel Penny was actually trying to defend himself.

weaker people around him on the subway, a fact which is not being acknowledged by the BLM, NAACP, Al Sharpton types today, which want to paint him like he's another Luigi. Also, he was not intending to kill Jordan Neely. That was not part of his

At all. He was simply trying to restrain him until first responders could arrive in the subway at the next station. And there was evidence presented that, in fact, he was not putting particular amount of pressure on Neely's chest and neck.

that it was just holding him down there because if you let him go, one of the arguments is, well, once people got off the train, then he should have let him go. You don't know what he's going to do if he's still crazy and you let him go. He could go right back to assaulting people. You don't know if he's armed, but there's simply no parallel there.

This was somebody who was simply trying to get somebody out of the range of being able to kill other people. And the fear that he might kill other people is completely legitimate and rational. We just went through on November 18th in this country, in New York City, a mentally ill, deranged vagrant.

who went on a stabbing spree across Manhattan and killed three people, stabbing them to death. We regularly have vagrants in the subway who slam people's heads into the subways 10 days after the Jordan Neely, Daniel Penny incident happened.

A vagrant slammed a woman's head into the subway. She's now paralyzed for life. You know, the argument made by the prosecution was that Penny was either reckless or negligent in his disregarding the risk that by putting Penny in this so-called chokehold, and there's a lot of always a lot of semantic placements.

around what constitutes a chokehold, what's not, but he basically brought him down in a bear hug. Penny lay on the subway floor with Neely on top of him that somehow Penny should have known and he was indifferent to the risk that by just holding this guy who was high on synthetic marijuana that that could have led to his death. Under that standard,

It is the city that is every single day

Because they know it is not just a possibility, it is a certainty. Given the number, the thousands of untreated mentally ill drug addicts who are roaming the streets, it is a virtual certainty that every couple of days, every couple of weeks, one of them will assault an innocent pedestrian, possibly lethally.

And they are on notice. It's not a chance, it is a certainty. And the city and state do nothing. They spend all their money on vanity left-wing projects, whether it's protecting migrants from deportation or various trans projects or affordable housing for single mothers who have made themselves poor by not marrying when they have children.

Instead of dropping everything and saying our primary responsibility is to protect the public from known obvious risks, we are going to transfer all of the money that we're now wasting on feckless social service providers who cater to the dysfunctional. We're going to build however many mental institutions it takes to confine people who should not be for their own sake.

left to decompose on the streets. Talk about, you know, we're all supposed to feel like Penny was indifferent to the human dignity of Neely. The people who are indifferent to Neely's human dignity are the outreach workers and who let him go to sit in his own feces to expose himself on platforms to go battering elderly people and don't give a damn.

The homeless, you are not helping the homeless, vagrant, mentally ill, chemical abusers by letting them roam the streets. You are subjecting them to a life of squalor and sheer just abuse, self-abuse and abuse of others. And yet the

The reason we do this is because the homeless lobby needs the homeless on the streets so that they can make their million-dollar contracts, and they want to have a symbol of the heartlessness of capitalism. The whole thing is a perverse narrative, and

we haven't even gotten to the race issue, Megan. I have frankly, as- Which we will. Let's put a pin in that because that's next, but let's stay where you are. I'll give you one example. So this was community noted on X Yesterday, a commentator named Tiffany Caban.

writes, Jordan Neely deserved better than the violence of being denied access to stable housing and healthcare and then to be dehumanized for it. Jordan Neely deserved better than the systems that allow for and justify extrajudicial white supremacist violence against black people. The community note reads as follows.

As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors after he punched a 67 year old woman in the, in the face in the street in 2021, Jordan Neely was given free access to stable housing and healthcare at a treatment facility in the Bronx. He abandoned the facility after 13 days. So there there's a, she's a New York city council member that Tiffany Caban, um,

They're just not getting it. They refuse to get it intentionally, willfully blind to the problems.

New Yorkers, New York taxpayers who are working every day, they're getting up early, they're going to the job, they're putting up with possibly obnoxious co-workers or bosses, but because they believe in making self-sufficiency, that they're not going to be leeches on the system, they're really screwed because a judge, thanks to Legal Aid Society lawsuit, has held that we are obligated to provide shelter to everyone on demand.

Okay, so we'll just cast aside whether that's just or not. Let's take that as a given. The rule should be, if we have to provide you shelter on demand, whether you're a single mother that gets a subsidized...

private apartment with your own cooking and bathroom facilities, or you're in a congregate shelter as a childless adult, the rule should be you got to use it. If we're going to be paying billions of dollars a year to provide this shelter, you don't get to stay on the streets. It's one or the other.

But in fact, they do get to stay on the streets. They do not accept housing. You know, we've lived with this lie for now, what is it, 40 years since the 1990s. It was completely blown out of the water by some early sociologists, the idea that housing is

it's a homelessness is a housing problem. No, it's not. It's a problem of mental illness, drug abuse, and what, what some early researchers called disaffiliation. That means you've broken your social ties, those social ties that may allow you to shack up with your mother or sister. You're so obnoxious. You're so involved in your own addictions that people say, Oh,

I can't take you any longer. So you don't have that social safety net. But nevertheless, so it's not about housing. These people are offered housing numerous times. Homelessness, vagrancy, I don't even like to use the phrase homelessness, but sometimes it just comes ready to hand. It's a lifestyle choice.

I've written on Skid Row in Los Angeles, which is the biggest hell on earth. There's no, there's no Vista that you've ever seen like it unless you've actually seen Skid Row of Skid

block after block of human degradation beyond belief. But people come from across the country to be in Skid Row because they know they can party without interference. They run prostitution rings out of their carboards. This is a choice. And if you allow certain people to make that choice, they will, whether they're capable of making it or not.

But frankly, you do not get to colonize public space. We used to understand this. For centuries, people understood this. We had Skid Row's cheap cage housing, SRO, single room occupancy hotels, and the police did something that now you're not allowed to talk about. They moved people along.

If you say you don't get to stay here, people make other arrangements. And now the government believes that its only duty is to the dysfunctional and the antisocial. It owes nothing to the law-abiding, the hardworking, the taxpaying. They're simply supposed to put up with crime and squalor and feel lucky to be paying taxes to support this massive, speckless, totally incompetent social service industry.

This, this is, this gets right to the befuddlement of many on the left in the media, uh,

as to the reaction that you and I and other sane people are having to this verdict. They don't understand why we're applauding Daniel Penny, because we've seen all the things that you just described. We object to this current system, which none of us voted for or okayed in any way. We miss the old days of there being law and order and of the law abiding citizens being the ones who are protected and at the front of mind for police. Right.

And we're cheering a strong, brave man like Daniel Penny who fills the gap to keep us safe. But I'll just give you just listen to this CNN anchor, Adi Cornish, who seems genuinely confused about this reaction that some of us are having. Here's SOT6.

When I hear lawmakers hailing Penny as a hero, as a good Samaritan, really being promoted, can you help me understand the thinking? We started at the top of the show talking about the killer of the United Healthcare CEO being hailed in similar terms. Yeah, let me just help you understand. If you're on the American left tonight, here's my chart. The good guys today, Daniel Penny. The bad guys, Luigi Mangione. It seems to me- How do you- Everybody on the list- What's the chart for victims?

I'm just telling you what I see out in the world today. I know, I know. I just want you to finish the chart. Which victim is good and which victim is bad? What I'm telling you is people on the left

People on the left can't seem to tell the difference between the good guy and the bad guy. I'm not actually asking you about people on the left. I'm asking you whether you consider this person. We have people praising him. I want to know whether you think that, as Congressman Crane does, that Daniel Penny should get the Congressional Gold Medal to recognize his heroism. I'm not asking you about anyone. I think he ought to get medal. I think he ought to build a statute of this guy. Thoughts on that, Heather?

Fantastic. I completely agree. I mean, he represents something so archaic, which is male chivalry. Selfless help of others, stepping in to protect the weak. People were terrified on that subway car, again, for good reason. It is perfectly rational. You mentioned before, with regards to taking psychedelics, if you're psychotic, the casualty

category of, it's called MICAs, M-I-C-As, mentally ill chemical abusers. They are very violent. When you cross being mentally ill, schizophrenic, and chemical abuse, that leads to very high rates of violence. So those people who were terrified when Jordan Neely burst into the subway claiming he wanted to die, he wanted to go back to jail, implicitly, I'm going to kill somebody to go back to jail. They were

Completely based on reality. What kills me the most, Megan, we have two types of hypocrisy. We're bracketing for now the race hypocrisy, but it overlaps with all this maudlin, lacrimose, well, why didn't people help people?

Jordan Neely, you know, at the start of this, the New York Times ran this hilarious feature about what to do if you see somebody acting out on the subway. And the first suggestion was, well, get the hell out of there, which is what most people do. But it also said, well, go up to that person and say,

Do you need something? Is there anything I can do for you? All of these people, Al Sharpton, all of the race baiters and, and, and, and, and Audrey Cornish and whoever else it is that are saying, well, why didn't Daniel Penny help him? Jordan, Jordan Neely was just, this was just a cry for help. None of them. I can guarantee you Megan. And I'm happy to be proven wrong. Somebody come up and prove to me that you on the left have gone up

to a psychotic, raving, drug addicted vagrant and said, how can I help you? None of them have done it. Sharpton is going on saying he needed help. I can guarantee you he has never done that. And especially you've never done it in a subway car. Maybe people- He's also saying he wasn't a threat. He said at his, he went to the funeral of Jordan Neely and said he posed no threat.

He's just such a hustler, non-fact based, who tries to gin up anger and riots and protests. He tried again here without any care for the consequences that follow. And that will bring us officially to the race discussion here where the Sharptons and the NAACP and this lunatic from BLM, Shavonna Newsom, who's the co-founder of the Greater New York chapter, after the verdict had passed.

this to say, listen. There is no one coming to save black people or else we wouldn't live in these ghettos. We wouldn't be in these prisons and we

we would be further along than we are. We wouldn't be at the absolute bottom. So forgive me for being jaded and cynical, but once we saw those non-white jurors, we knew that this case was over. The only crime that Jordan Neely was guilty of was the color of his skin. And shame on this jury. Because to be real, they didn't even try. These wonderful white people, I hope they celebrate their Christmas while the Neely family is praying and asking God for comfort.

God damn them and God damn America. Hypocrite. She's a total hypocrite. Ten days after the Jordan Neely Penny incident, there was a 16-year-old girl named Claudia Quanti who was sitting in an SUV at a Queens Park. Three guys came up, opened fire on her.

She was brain dead for several days. She was in a Queens hospital brain dead during the Jordan Neely funeral, which was another fake, totally fake outpouring of fake compassion.

Nobody mentioned Claudia Quanti. There's been every single month there are black children who are gunned down by insane black gangbangers. None of them have ever been protested by Black Lives Matter activists, by this woman, never. It is, again, this is going on. Dozens of blacks are killed by other blacks every single day, and there's never any protest about it.

The only time that a black victim gets any attention from the civil rights so-called activists is when there's the remote possibility of a white person killing someone.

that black person. And we're going to bracket whether this is even causal here with Penny and Neely. The fact of the matter is, is that blacks are 35 times more likely to engage in violence against whites than whites are against blacks. If we wanted vigilantism, you know, there's a lot more cause for vigilantism on the white side. I'm not justifying it. But the idea that white people are the source of violence

of danger to black lives is completely preposterous. Blacks die of homicide between the ages of 10 and 24 at 25 times the rate of whites. So in one sense, when President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden say that black people should be right to fear that their kids will be shot when they step outside,

That's right in one sense, because the black crime rate is so high. But what they mean is their right to fear that white people will kill their black children. That is a complete lie, but it is one that has not been rebutted. It continues to create hatred, animosity in inner city neighborhoods and throughout academia.

And I'm looking forward to a president in the White House that is not going to continue this total, total fabrication and insult to the police officers of this country that they are a threat to black people rather than their best chance, short of the reconstitution of the black family, to lead safe, normal lives.

Um, we have a minute to break, but I'll say this on the subject of good cops. They, the, the two cops who arrested Luigi Mangione in that McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, two hours outside of Pittsburgh, one, the one who confronted him was a rookie. He'd been on the job, uh, as a police officer for this group, uh, for this jurisdiction six months.

and went over there, managed to get him to take his mask down, managed to ask him the question about whether he'd recently been in New York and managed to affect an arrest that easily could have gone wrong, could have wound up in gun violence. The guy was carrying a weapon with his silencer and his hollow point bullets.

and managed to take this killer, suspected killer into custody with absolutely no problem. I mean, an example in how it's done. So, you know, while we're always on the subject of how terrible our cops are, maybe a word for him, Al Sharpton. We'd love to. He's not interested because Luigi's not black. All right. Stand by. We have more with Heather McDonald after this quick break.

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I'm dying to talk to you about Trump's cabinet picks, including Pete Hegseth. I heard your discussion with Ann Coulter and I thought it was typically fascinating. And I'll just get the audience caught up on where Pete's nomination stands right now, where he's still facing some challenges.

potentially with Murkowski, Collins, maybe McConnell, and maybe Joni Ernst. And the first three are not expected. Joni Ernst

is causing a lot of anger on the right because she's a Republican senator from Iowa, which is a red state. And I think they expected better from her. And, uh, there for the past few days now, there has been trending on X, the hashtag Judas Joni, where Republicans are expressing their outrage that she seems to be getting ready to, in their view, betray them by holding up this nomination. She had a second meeting with Pete,

on Monday and put out a statement that may or may not be indicative of some softening. I'm not sure if I believe it is. Here's what she wrote. I appreciate Pete Hegseth's responsiveness and respect for the process. And that's anodyne. Following our encouraging conversations, okay, Pete committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the rules, uh,

the roles and value of our servicemen and women based on quality and standards, not quotas, and who will prioritize and strengthen my work to prevent sexual assault within the ranks. As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources. She later called it a very productive process.

reading a meeting. Sorry. And then she said, we're just moving through the process, but he does respect that I'm taking the time. Um, I don't know what that means, Heather. What I, my understanding is she's no more committed to doing anything with Pete than

besides getting him a hearing and listening to what is said in the hearing. But I have to be honest, I don't really sense a bunch of softening in that statement. And I, too, think Joni Ernst may still be a no and she could take this nomination. What do you make of Pete Hegseth? Well, my concern with Pete Hegseth is that he doesn't have the bureaucratic experience to be able to manage the world's largest, most clotted, most overfunded, most bloated government.

self-involved bureaucracy on the planet, which is the Pentagon, I think that being a disruptor may not be enough in something like that, that you have to have...

Again, and I'm not in that world, so I may be over-romanticizing it, but I would think that there's a certain degree of almost military skill of understanding when you strike, when you pull back, and otherwise the blob will consume you. That's my concern with Hegseth as far as the Joni Ernst-Hegseth interaction. What really depressed me was

was after their interaction, he had some comments about, well, you know, I'm so happy to work with a wonderful combat service woman. And, you know, we're all for our combat men and women in combat. My strong support for

for Hegseth is based on one issue and one issue alone, his promise to end females in combat units, which is a complete travesty. It has nothing to do with military preparedness.

It is only about being able to credentialize females because you need to have combat experience in order to be a four-star Pentagon general. It has nothing to do with making us a stronger fighting force. In fact, it is a certainty that it will weaken it because when you introduce females into combat units, you introduce Eros into

which destroys combat cohesiveness. It is inevitable that you are going to have jealousies, you're going to have fistfights breaking out, you're going to have pregnant females as we've seen in our submarines, which is also not at all compatible with combat readiness.

But I fear that in order to get these dissenters or fence sitters on board, he's going to have to throw out that pledge. Now, obviously, the elephant in the room that I'm not addressing yet is the sexual assault allegations. And my position on that, Megan, is that I really don't care about

short of an actual crime that's been committed and there are real sexual crimes and those are should be punished and they should be disqualifying if somebody is simply a sexual aggressor a boor i do not care i i i have a strict distinction between public virtues of leadership and

and private behavior of Eros. Eros makes everybody crazy, but it has no bearing on whether somebody can be a good public leader, a leader of men able to engage in political persuasion, to make compromises where necessary, to carry people along on a transformative mission, which is what has to happen with the Pentagon.

And especially in this case where these are anonymous accusers, I'm even less willing to credit that. But I would just – those who feel like there should be an absolutely porous membrane between somebody's private sexual life and their public capacities, just imagine if James Madison –

had been a skirt chaser. And let's say under Me Too standards, he was seen as being too aggressive towards subordinates. This would be maybe in his household, maybe towards maids working in his household, that he was too handsy with them. A Me Too hater of males, a Me Too warrior who believes in tearing down male civilization would say that because James Madison

did not always have his erotic impulses under complete check. He therefore should have been thrown out of the Constitutional Convention, and we never would have had the most extraordinary document that grows out of centuries of development of constitutional theory, which is uniquely a Western creation, that the fact that James Madison was maybe acclaimed

acted out improperly in his household should discredit him from public leadership. I simply don't believe in that. So I'm going to judge Pete Hegseth on his public capacities. And as I say, the concern I have there is whether he's got the clout, the knowledge, the understanding to be able to reform the Pentagon.

He's certainly got the desire, which I think is the main goal of Trump selecting him, that they're on the same page with respect to mission. But I listened to you and I listened to Ann and Ann was much more in the old school Republican camp of character matters. He cheated on all three of his wives. He reportedly cheated on the first wife some five times. That's unconfirmed. But Gabe Sherman is reporting that the ex-wife says he told her that.

And so how can he sit atop a military where we prosecute people for infidelity and in effect pass judgment on these guys who still do get court-martialed for doing things like that?

Okay, well, that's a different issue. I didn't remember she made that point. If that's the case... No, I don't know if she made that last point. That was me. But if we prosecute for infidelity, then I would say that that's the choice the Pentagon has made. I would say...

I'm all for fidelity. I'm all for marriage. I think the disappearance of marriage is a very – it's the most catastrophic thing of modern culture. I don't know about prosecuting for infidelity, but if that's the case, then clearly he shouldn't be prosecuted.

because he has violated the oath of office and the conditions of leadership. Short of that, though, if there wasn't that rule, I just think cheating on your wife, it's very regrettable and it's extraordinarily painful within a domestic situation.

I've been through divorce. I can tell you it is traumatic and it leaves lifetime scars. But I don't think that that has any bearing on whether somebody can be a leader of men. I can well imagine that some of the greatest military heroes, some of the greatest public leaders, whether it's Bonaparte, when there's a division of opinion on him, Alexander the Great, people, but even people within America's own history, that they...

didn't control themselves completely to normal standards when it comes to females. Same with females to men. I just don't think that that's relevant for public leadership. I think there's character matters, but I think that it's the character of public character. Are you magnanimous towards your enemies?

Are you willing to extend an olive branch after conflict? I think the great reconciliation after the World War, after Civil War between Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee, that was an extraordinary moment.

that both men showed magnanimity of spirit. That's one of my complaints about Trump, is I don't care about his private behavior, but I don't particularly respect him for his public character. I think he's nasty. I think he's vindictive. I think he should model male virtues in a way that Daniel Penny did.

which is chivalry, heroism, self-sacrifice. I don't see that in Trump. I see a narcissist in Trump. Those are the values that I care about, especially today with males being viewed as pariahs, with being, they are hated,

by the elite establishment, especially straight white males. They are viewed with contempt and basically an effort to replace them from every institution. I look for males who can model what traditional male virtues are and be proud of them. I do think Trump's a narcissist. No big surprise. Most of the people who run for and become president are. But I can defend him on that other

front in that, you know, look at him now after the election, Joe Biden telling everybody that he's Hitler, he's a Nazi, he's a white supremacist fascist. He sat down with him and said, you know, it's a tough election. A lot of tough things get said in these elections, but that's politics. Same thing with Jill Biden over in Notre Dame Cathedral this week, smiled at her, was nice to her. Um,

sat down. I mean, Marco Rubio as secretary of state, those two did strong rhetorical battle back in 16 yours truly. He didn't like me for a year, but we're great now. You know, he, I think he actually is set to, he accepted a meeting with Joe and Mika from morning Joe. They came down to Mar-a-Lago and he was kind to them. Like I think Trump is capable of looking past the

strife and an adversarial relationship just as long as the other person would like to do that too. I hope you're right. I would say that's turning over a new leaf. I think that his behavior towards Jeff Sessions was appalling. People defend Trump and say, yeah, but look at what Jeff Sessions did. Jeff Sessions was acting on what he believed the constitutional principles were. I'm not a fan of his nicknames. I think they're

they're juvenile, they're an embarrassment, but that's the one area where I guess I'm a girl because most boys that I know, most males think they're funny. I don't, but, and I, but I know there's many females who think they're funny too.

Which one? Who was Rocketman? For Kim Jong-un. Oh, okay. That's okay. I guess you're allowed to maybe – the enemy. They don't deserve any respect. But I think our political – domestic opponents we should be a little bit more adult towards. But Rocketman was good. But I've run to sanctimonious. But anyway, let's just hope it's a new –

It's a new era for Trump. I would also say I think Joe Biden deserves credit, too, for for his behavior with Trump. You know, it's easy for Trump to extend the olive branch. But but Biden was the one, you know, who was pushed aside. And and and so he that was that was a good moment for our country.

Yep. Yep. So how are you feeling now? I mean, we elected Trump. The Republicans are going to control the Senate and the House. They don't have a filibuster proof majority. We've got a six three majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I don't know. How are you feeling, Heather? I'm optimistic for the first time in my life. I actually found myself imagining what could happen with 12 years of Republican rule that I think we could really get this country back on track. So I just hope that Trump restrains himself so that J.D. Vance is a shoo-in because I would love to see a Vance presidency. I think that the

Trump is much wiser now. I think he started in on trying to end the anti-white male hatred at the end of his administration. It was too late by then. Now, some of his picks are just fantastic. Jay Bhattacharya, the head of NIH. Bhattacharya, of course, was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which was

came out against lockdowns, which came out against the arbitrary tyranny of the public health establishment with these rules that were pulled out of thin air against school closures. We've seen the real problem with the school closures. It's not only the learning loss. It is that it has widened the academic skills gap between blacks and whites, which guarantees further racial strife in the future.

Bhattacharya was the victim of censorship on the government's part. He is going to restore our science establishment to meritocratic excellence. He will ream out the

billions of dollars that are spent on promoting race and sex in science rather than accomplishment. The immigration agenda, I think Trump is much more hard-hitting at this point. I love Tom Homan. So I think this could be an amazing thing. I'm totally...

thrilled, enthralled by the Vivek Musk alliance. I just hope that they're not such big egos that they end up going after each other. Ultimately, we'll have like some big cage fight, you know, but if they can work together, if they can work together, it's,

How can this not be a good thing? So I'm usually a pessimist. I've lost four steak bed dinners on the Trump election. I thought he would. There's no way he'd be reelected. But I think that the momentum is so great now. It's hard to see that at least in the first hundred days, he's not going to take accomplish a hell of a lot.

Yeah. Tom Homan apparently was speaking at an event in Chicago yesterday and began the remarks by saying your mayor sucks and your governor sucks. Yes. Right. Right. Speak for us all, sir.

Brandon Johnson, he's the worst. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we will soon find out whether Hegseth and these others get through. But the reports right now are that Team MAGA has effectively gotten it, that the Pete Hegseth nomination is about more than Pete because if they give on him, waiting to see what they do to Bobby Kennedy and a lot of the others, getting into their personal lives, making bad personal choices, the stakes for the nomination, it's like now's the time to fight and...

If we give on this one, we're probably going to lose RFKJ among others. Heather McDonald, I love talking to you. Please come back anytime. Thank you so much, Megan. It's such an honor. Oh, gosh. It's such a privilege for me to be able to engage in these conversations. Love her. Okay. So before we take a break, I want to bring you a couple of updates that we're getting now on the arrest of this Luigi Mangione and the latest in this case because some stuff is happening. Okay.

There are now death threats against the police officers who arrested the guy. People have lost their minds. They're threatening the lives of the cops who arrested him because he's already seen as such a folk hero. I mean...

I don't think this guy thought this through because it was very clear he would eventually wind up arrested. I mean, with this picture plastered all over the United States like that, what did he think was going to happen? Of course they were going to get him in modern day America. And how did he see that going? Does he think his back troubles are going to do any better in prison?

with the health care there? Does he think he's going to be getting an interventional radiologist or interventional pain management doctor giving him radiculopathy while he's locked up as a convicted felon? Probably in one of the worst, most maximum security prisons we have. I'm not sure it's going to work out so well for Luigi.

And by the way, I don't know if I even believe the whole insurance thing because I don't know that it was personal to him since it sounds like he comes from a very rich family. And those are the families that can handle bad insurance news. It tends to be the poor families who wind up paying the price if an insurer doesn't cover something. So I...

I don't know. To me, it seems more likely that this guy's in the psychotic break camp, either because of schizophrenia, which is right around now. It's like 19 to mid-20s that it kicks in, even with people who seemed fine before. Or maybe there was a psychedelic-induced break. Maybe he overused some medications. Maybe it was in connection with back pain that he made that choice. Total speculation on my part. I'm just thinking out loud here. But there's got to be an explanation for why he went postal.

I mean, he, that's what happened here. And, um, we just need to learn more about it. Now I will say that the, there was a former NYPD guy, former NYPD captain, uh, named John Monahan. He was on CNN last night and he was suggesting that he did not believe Luigi, if this is in fact, is that our guy Mangione was done, uh,

that he actually thought he was probably on his way back to New York and possibly to commit another crime. He was making the point that the buses, you know, he took a Greyhound bus, the buses out of Penn Station, which I think is where he left, go to, he said, New York, Philadelphia, and one other town to D.C. And that he believes Luigi got on a bus to Philly,

and then headed back to Pittsburgh and Altoona, and that he believed, based on the route that the guy was traveling, New York was next, that he was going to go back there. And this may not have been the end of his crime spree, which would explain why he still had the gun on him. I mean, yes, you could say it was for a confrontation with cops, but...

But there's no report that he lurched for his backpack, which I believe was right there in the McDonald's. Actually, can we show the pictures that we've seen now of him in the McDonald's? I mean, it does look just like him, but his backpack was reportedly right by him in the McDonald's. Hello. Are we going to put it up in the air? I guess we'll get to it there. There he is. I don't know what he's sipping there.

But he's sitting there with something in his right hand. It's a hash brown. He's eating a hash brown with his mask off of his face and a big sort of burnt orange beanie on his head. And anyway, reportedly his backpack was right there. His laptop was right there. So he didn't lurch for it. He didn't try to have a shootout with cops. So you tell me why he held onto the gun. Listen to John Monaghan last night on Anderson Cooper 360, it's not 11.

What stands out to me is the fact that, you know, earlier they were asked, the Pennsylvania leadership was asked, is he cooperating? And he said initially that he was, but then he stopped and then we charged him. And he said that is the exact sequence of events that has to occur if you want to get information from this prisoner. And that gun? I'm no ballistics expert, but it doesn't look like something that was created by a 3D printer. He went to Philly. Then he went to Pittsburgh.

Now, Commissioner Miller asked a very good question. What was next? He started Pittsburgh is well west of Altoona. He's heading back to New York as he approaches Altoona, Pennsylvania. I wonder how much ammunition was in that backpack. Let's think about what did not happen in that McDonald's.

He didn't have a chance to draw that weapon to commit suicide, which he may have been prone to do. He didn't have a chance to draw that weapon to fight it out with the cops. And he was still there. What kind of restaurant is that? Fast food restaurant? They were there very quickly. How long do people sit in McDonald's, eat their breakfast? Ten minutes. Pops. They got there right away.

And we're getting more now on exactly how they got there. So now, you know, remember yesterday we talked about, was it an elderly patron who ID'd him or was it an employee? And now what we understand, at least as of today, is that there was a guy who was there with his buddy eating McDonald's and they saw him

And they were saying, looks like the guy. Hello, looks like the guy from the shooting. And then a female employee agreed and called the police. Well, one of those customers to whom I just referred gave an interview to Fox and described what went down that morning. Listen here. A group of us are here every day. And one of my friends, and I thought he was kidding.

when the shooter, I'm assuming was the shooter who they made the arrest on, came in, he made a comment, well, that looks like the shooter from New York. But I thought he was, the group of us, I thought it was more of a joke. And we were kidding about it. But then as it turned out, it was him. And like I said, the employee that,

Thought it was him that, I guess, started the initial investigation on it. I talked to her later. I said, was I here when he came in? And she goes, yeah. And she goes, actually, you and your friends and all were making a joke almost, like saying, you know,

And that's pretty much about it. My friend Mike said this, I asked him again this morning, I said, "Were you kidding or not?" He said, "No, I was serious." He goes, "The backpack, the jacket, all resembled the one he said the day of the shooting." There was no reaction like from him whenever my friend said that.

And the worker, if she heard us talking, he had to have heard us. But there was no no. Wow. Think of that. Just two regular guys sitting there having their McDonald's saying that looks a lot like him. And it did. I mean, you see that picture. He's got that burnt orange beanie. He's got here's the other shot of him. He's got the sort of medical mask on the covid mask on again.

And, you know, thanks to law enforcement in New York that went back and got pictures of him at the youth hostel where he'd been staying. We did have that picture of him barefaced. Remember, he pulled on his mask for a minute to flirt with a girl. And we had the second picture of him in the back of either a taxi or an Uber, totally barefaced, where you could see his face. And it's a pretty distinctive face very clearly. And they got that everywhere.

So these customers and the employee had two visions of the guy in their head with the mask and without. And apparently they saw both.

while he sat there at McDonald's. Why didn't he, this guy who planned this elaborate crime, why wouldn't he have changed the color of his hair? Gotten into a disguise, right? Like, hello, you still look exactly like the picture that's everywhere of you. Of course, we're going to notice you. And by the way, you're not even that far from New York. How is this a disguise? Like, I think the color of the beanie may be different. I'm not sure. But

I don't get why he wasn't dressed in like a woman's wig or shaving his head and walking around with glasses and no mask. Like, why wouldn't he have changed his look dramatically in order not to be caught? I don't totally understand that.

On the subject of his alleged back pain and who he was, there was an interesting exchange again on CNN with R.J. Martin, who lived with Luigi Mangione.

at some, quote, co-living community in Hawaii. Apparently this is some community he joined with a lot of gamers who were out there who were kind of living ragtag with one another. It's not exactly what you think your kid's going to do after he graduates with a master's degree from UPenn, but listen to R.J. Martin in Sade.

So when I first interviewed him before he moved in, I remember he said he had a back issue and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii. So he's always focused on trying. When he first came, he went on a surf lesson with other members. And unfortunately, just a basic surf lesson, he was in bed for about a week.

We had to get a different bed for him that was more firm. And I know it was really traumatic and difficult. Did he have any conversations with you then or even afterwards about that issue? And I mean, his back, how he heard it. I mean, obviously anything to do with the insurance process of it.

You know, I don't, the only thing he ever mentioned, um, you know, he mentioned, oh, I need to go back to see my doctor and then I'm going to have to have a degree. Um, I encouraged him and brought him to yoga classes. He would do calisthenics on his own. Um, I know he was really focused on being strong and healthy, but it also weighed on him that he knew that there was, um, an impending surgery. Hmm. He went on, uh, to speak about whether he seemed embittered. Listen to sat nine.

Did you have conversations about any of the issues that we now even see in the writings that he had on him when he was arrested? I mean, did he talk about, I mean, not even as maybe as specific as health insurance, but capitalism, anything of that nature?

Um, you know, I apologize. I haven't read any of the media that's happened. I heard about it when a reporter called me. So I'm not familiar with what his writings were. But I know we talked about social issues. And we talked about how to improve the world. And we talked about, you know, issues that are, you know, say, with capitalism, or with the healthcare system, or with housing, or the food systems, it wasn't, you know, anything specific. It wasn't like he had an axe to grind or

He was even upset or angry about a particular issue. They were just natural intellectual conversations that you have when you're inquisitive.

He also confirmed that Luigi did have surgery and that Luigi sent him an x-ray of his back saying that he confirmed he had surgery. He sent me the x-ray. It looked heinous with giant screws going into the spine. He said that Luigi was not a violent person, never once talked about guns or violence.

um, that he cannot make sense of what has happened here. And others who knew him too, who are speaking out now said similar things about him. A former college classmate told Fox news, very polite, driven engineering student usually had a smile. Um, he was a little removed from the bar and party scene. He seemed like someone who's more likely to start a nonprofit than,

than to read manifestos. Uh, another former college classmate told Fox news. I wanted to set him up with one of my best friends because he would be a great boyfriend. Uh, um, someone named Aaron Cranston, former classmate of his at the Gilman school, the Cy high school in Baltimore said he was a smart and ambitious student. It was hard to understand him being suspected in such a crime, but he did know that, um,

He and other peers had been forwarded a message earlier this year when Mangione's family was trying to track him down. This man, Cranston, said the message reported that the family members had not heard from Luigi for several months following his back surgery.

and were looking for him. A person who had been in the same fraternity with him at the University of Pennsylvania said he had heard that Mangione had been out of contact with many people from campus for the last year. And he said the last time he'd spoken to Mangione was in February of 23, when Mangione mentioned that he had suffered a spine injury.

So we're not totally sure of the chronology, but it does appear that this guy was withdrawing from society bit by bit and that it may have related to the back. His family issued the following statement. Our family shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest. We offer prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We don't know whether the family was looking at those photos thinking, oh my God, that's Luigi. We do know that they

had no obligation to call police and report him. That is not yet a thing in America. You do not have to call police and turn in a relative. Now, if you harbor him, that's a different story, but you don't have to say that looks just like Luigi. You should look him up. So we don't know whether they recognized him from the pictures that were everywhere, but man, what a story. I'll leave you with this FBI profiler, Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole, who did help capture the Unabomber

was speaking out on local news about Luigi and what could possibly be behind this kind of act. And here's what she said. And early on to me, it was pretty clear that you had a person that had practiced but wasn't experienced. Yes, he wore a mask. Yes, he wore gloves. Yes, he got rid of his backpack. He did things to show that he thought things through, but he had never been through it.

until last week when he shot and killed the CEO. Because I hear that come up a lot in different cases. This person really wanted to be caught. And I really have not seen that. I see people that want to get credit for their criminal behavior. I see people that want to be recognized for their ideology, their

recognized for their beliefs and their philosophies. If the manifesto and his ideation and his philosophies were really important, he would want credit for those. But to say, I want to be arrested and go to prison for most of my rest of my life or most of it, I don't see that. But the one question that I would have is,

What precipitated your decision to take this to a criminal level? I certainly would allow him to explain to me what his thinking is and his manifesto, because I do think that that's something that he'd want to talk about. And I do think he does not want it to be misunderstood. Right now, he's not talking. Online, he praised Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, saying he's been misunderstood.

Maybe he'll start talking, but usually the way this works is after you've been officially charged, which he now has, as I said, second degree murder, it's gonna have to go up to first.

Then you get a lawyer and your rights kick in and you don't have to talk. And, um, so far he's not talking. So we'll see. This case is going to rely on the physical evidence that they found on him when they arrested him. In addition to a forensics comparison between the gun and the bullets and what was found in the victim and at the crime scene. What a case. Uh,

Thank you. All stand by. I'm going to bring on a guest next who you may know, maybe not by his name, but as the guy who baked the cakes out in Colorado, who then refused to bake a cake for a gay marriage, whose case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. And then a trans customer started harassing poor Jack Phillips. And now that case has gone all the way up to the Colorado Supreme Court.

And boy, oh boy, has there been a result. He's here to tell us what it is in person next. Four years of crushing interest rates, runaway inflation and reckless government spending. And who's paying the price now? You are. You might have bills stacking up, debt collectors on your back. You might barely be able to keep food on the table.

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I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave

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Religious Americans have been under attack by former President Barack Obama and then President Joe Biden's far left policies for years. Don't believe me? The Little Sisters of the Poor, of all people, had to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to get an exemption to Obamacare's contraception mandate. Bunch of nuns. And that brings us to the case of Jack Phillips.

He is the incredibly talented cake artist from Colorado who declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding due to his sincerely held Christian beliefs. His case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the ordeal took a major emotional toll on Jack, his family, and his employees. Here's part of my interview with him back in 2017. But it's been emotional for us as well. There were days where my wife was afraid.

But the mainstream media won't tell you about Jack's pain.

He wound up winning his case in 2018, but that was not the end of the story. On the very same day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear that case, a transgender attorney requested that Jack make him, it was a man posing as a woman, a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate a, quote, gender transition. Jack won the case.

once again declined, and that trans attorney took legal action against him. That case has been in the courts for years. Thankfully, in October, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed the case, which is good for Jack, but they did it on procedural grounds. They didn't get into the substance about whether there was an obligation to bake the cake or not. They just said that the case had not been properly filed.

Here with me to discuss whether the harassment of Jack Phillips is finally over is the man himself, along with his attorney, Kristen Wagoner, who is the president and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom. Welcome to you both. Great to see you both again. Well, congratulations, Jack, because at least this chapter of harassment against you is over. But how confident are we that the saga is over?

You never know what other people are going to do, but I know this case cannot be appealed by the other side, and so it's completely finished. Were you thrilled when you finally got this ruling? I was. It was a really good ruling. The court did exactly what we asked them to do. They dismissed the case, and after 12 years, 12 years plus, it's over, and I can go back to my baking and the things that I love this business for. So the shop's still open?

The shop is still open. It's a lot different than it was before all this started. First, I just want to make sure that it's clear that we serve everybody, including the person who sued us this time in the state of Colorado, representing the two men who sued us before. We serve everybody, but we just can't create every cake and every message with our art, express every message with our custom cakes.

Exactly. If they want to come in and have a random cake or get a coffee or whatever, they can do all that. It's that you didn't want to be compelled to celebrate gay marriage or pretend that men can become women through a cake. Here's my question for you, Kristen. I'm worried because they didn't decide it on the substance, the Colorado Supreme Court, and they should have. To me, this is a no-brainer. There should have at least been dictum in there saying –

Okay, they screwed up procedurally, so we're going to throw it out. But by the way, since this case was started, 303 Creative was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. And that case made very clear that a state's civil rights laws cannot force a business like Jax to engage in compelled speech, even if the state lawmakers think the compelled speech is really, really good and really, really moral.

You're absolutely right. And essentially what the Colorado court did, which is about as far left of a court as you can find, is they tried to not follow the 303 creative decision because it protects Jack and kick the case on procedural grounds. But in terms of what happens next, Jack is going to continue to speak freely, and I

I think what's important is to realize his case started in 2012. He's been on this journey for 12 years now. And he was one of the first where government was trying to weaponize the law to silence, censor and punish people because they disagreed with the government's view. And because of Jack Stan, it didn't just lead to one decision that protected religious freedom. It led to the 303 creative decision that protects his speech as well as all of our speech.

He's a warrior and he's been put through hell for two cakes. He's been put through hell over two cakes because he's become their favorite target. They're trying to bully you, Jack. Can you just tell us, can you give us a little bit about your childhood? Like what made you strong enough to stand up to people trying to bully you into saying, no, you know, I'll just get past my beliefs because I don't want this aggravation.

But I know that my background was with art. I loved to draw and paint and sketch and sculpt and all those things growing up. And when I got to...

and I found out there was cake decorating, then I knew that I could use that, my skills and talents and experience to use the cakes as a canvas to help people express their messages and special events and special occasions. As far as being able to stand up to all of this for the last 12 years, Alliance Defending Freedom has been there right from the start to help us out. But one of the commissioners compared my decision

compared religious freedom, said it was a, quote, "despicable piece of rhetoric," and it's been used for all kinds of things like slavery and the Holocaust. And my father fought in World War II.

He landed in Normandy, he crossed France and Germany and Belgium, and he ended up being part of a group that liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. And for her to compare a decision to stand by my principles and not create a cake expressing a message that went so far against him to the Holocaust of Hitler was just ludicrous. So...

That kind of background. It's part of the destruction of your life and your business and your character. I mean, it does take a very strong man to go through what you've been through, even with a group as great as Alliance Defending Freedom standing by your side. It takes a lot of temerity. I salute you again for fighting for all of us because 303 Creative was huge, Kristen. I do think it's important that when...

The lower courts in Colorado were ruling against Jack on this trans case. It had not yet been decided. They were ruling against him substantively, like on the merits, but they had not yet been, you know, they're bound by that Supreme Court precedent 303 creative, which says you can't force compelled speech on a business.

Then it came down and then the Colorado Supreme Court got the case, but they didn't deal with it. They just said, we're bouncing, we're throwing out, we're going to rule for Jack because the other side screwed up procedurally. So we haven't yet had the case that tries to test the trans thing

in the wake of 303 Creative. And the reason it's really important is because Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in 303 Creative, but he was critical to Bostock, which is the reason it's illegal to make any hiring decisions or firing decisions that factor in somebody's trans status. So we're gonna get a case, are we not? That's gonna go up like maybe Jack's situation or I think it could happen

In the case of a company that demands somebody say the quote preferred pronouns, right? Because that's what the state human rights law requires. And the person says, I'm not doing that in my religion, like mine. We don't believe that God makes mistakes on people and that there are only two sexes, male and female, and I'm going to pretend that you can change.

And that's exactly the kind of case where you could file it and you could say, I refuse. That's compelled speech. I'm not going to say it. And you tell me at some point the Supreme Court is going to have to deal with what 303 Creative means in that context.

Megan, I would say I'm not sure that the case will go up, that it has to go up, because I do feel like in some respects we've turned the tide on the gender identity issue. That's not to say that it won't, but I guess I would put it this way. In Gorsuch's opinion in 303 Creative, he made it very clear and explicitly said that you can't use these types of laws to violate people's constitutional rights and that you do have the right to be able to speak freely. At

Alliance Defending Freedom, we have had the privilege of representing a number of teachers and counselors who have fought for their right to speak freely and not use the wrong pronouns, and they've won. I believe that the majority of the Supreme Court will continue to protect the right of free speech in this area, but

I also think it's critical to remember that doesn't mean the battles won't be fought in the lower courts and that perhaps they will have to take a case in the end because courts have ruled incorrectly. I think right now of the global censorship that we're seeing around the world and how it's playing out in the digital sphere, and it is gender identity that's the Trojan horse to this.

But again, I would just say as we stand up, Jack provides an example for every average, normal American that's just trying to go about their business to say, when my rights are violated, I can stand and I can make a difference and I can change the laws of a nation in doing so.

Hmm. You gave me a chill there. Yes, that's exactly right, Jack. So you mentioned it in passing that things have changed. I mean, there has been a cost to you and we saw it in that NBC clip that, you know, you got emotional. It's not been easy, even though you have Kristen's help. It's been quite a journey.

Yeah, it has been quite a journey. Back when this started, we had a fantastic wedding business, a great reputation across the city. We had achieved awards from a national wedding magazine, a lot of employees, a lot of customers. It was just a lot of fun, a lot of energy going on, and just creating the cakes to help these people celebrate all these special occasions. And now, yeah,

The government took all that away at the beginning. And so we're still trying to figure out what we're going to do now that the Supreme Court of Colorado has dismissed this case, how we go forward. What's the name of the cake shop? Masterpiece Cake Shop. And is it, do you ship cakes?

No, we don't ship cakes, but we do have a site where we can ship brownies and cookies. And the brownies are better, Megan. I'm just telling you, if you buy a dozen brownies, you'll eat them all. Well, I have a feeling that a lot of my audience has just decided to send their friends and family some masterpiece cake shop brownies and cookies this Christmas season as a way of supporting you and making sure you stay on your feet, Jack. Well, thank you so much.

I'm just thrilled about all of this. So, all right, last bit. We just had a case go up, Kristen, where we were arguing about this issue yet again and whether children have a right to medications that sterilize them and deprive them of sexual function and enjoyment for the rest of their lives when their parents go in and say to a doctor they're trans.

I think that's going to go our way, too. I think the Supreme Court is going to rule there is no such right. And the bans on those procedures and medicines in some 22 states will be upheld. But what do you think? You're a lot closer to that one, too.

I'm optimistic. I think that the science is clear. You saw the Department of Justice in the Supreme Court argument walk back their claims that science supports this. We know it's experimental on children and that it's bringing great harm, irreversible harm. But I do think it's important that we continue this fight because, one, they won't give up.

even if there's a win here at the Supreme Court. And two, there are real victims that are resulting from this. So I would just encourage people need to understand what's at stake and on gender ideology, refuse to speak things that are not true. Biological reality matters and we need to insist on it. All right, quickly in the time we have left, is there any chance a federal ban on these medicines, so-called medicines for children could be upheld?

Well, I'm not going to speculate on whether it can be upheld. I think it will determine what the Congress hinges the right with which they have to act on it. But there is every chance, again, that states especially have the right to be able to regulate the practice of medicine. And you can't use dangerous drugs that are illegal on children. And we're optimistic that it will be upheld. Twenty-six states now have these laws. We just need more states to follow suit.

Yes. And to see reason as they have in Scandinavia and the UK and elsewhere. Kristen, thank you. Jack, Merry Christmas. All the best to you both. Same to you, Megan. Thanks for having us. Merry Christmas. Wow. Great. Great. All right. We'll bring you the latest on all the news tomorrow. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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