CNN Host Cuts Trump Spokesperson's Mic, and Bombshell New Bryan Kohberger Reporting, with Howard Blum and Erick Erickson | Ep. 820

This episode covers the controversial CNN incident involving a Trump spokesperson and delves into the latest developments in the Bryan Kohberger case with insights from Howard Blum and Erick Erickson.

1. The episode criticizes the lack of journalistic neutrality in the CNN incident involving a Trump spokesperson.
2. Howard Blum provides an in-depth look at the emotional and judicial aftermath of the Bryan Kohberger case.
3. There is significant frustration with the pace of the legal process in the Kohberger case, exacerbating the victims' families' grief.
4. Blum's new book sheds light on the complexities and personal stories behind the Idaho student murders.
5. Erick Erickson discusses the broader implications of media bias and its effect on public trust.

1: Introduction to the Episode

Megyn Kelly introduces the episode's themes and outlines the controversial cutting of a Trump spokesperson's mic on CNN, expressing concerns over media bias. Megyn Kelly: "Today we’re tackling media bias head-on, starting with the recent CNN controversy."

2: Discussion with Howard Blum

Howard Blum discusses his new book on the Bryan Kohberger case, focusing on the impact of the tragedy on the community and the slow judicial process. Howard Blum: "The delay in the trial process is a cruelty to the families of the victims."

3: Erick Erickson's Insights

Erick Erickson provides his perspective on the media's role in political discourse and its impact on public perception. Erick Erickson: "The media's portrayal of political figures can significantly influence public opinion."

1. Seek multiple news sources to obtain a balanced view of current events.
2. Support judicial reforms to expedite legal processes and reduce victim distress.
3. Engage in community support initiatives to help those affected by crime.
4. Advocate for media transparency and accountability to ensure fair reporting.
5. Educate others about the importance of critical thinking when consuming news.

Megyn Kelly is joined by Howard Blum, author of "When the Night Comes Falling," to discuss new details about Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger's conversations with his father on their cross-country road trip after the massacre, how his father may have suspected his son's involvement, new details about his behavior at Washington State University, whether Bryan Kohberger was casing the Idaho murder victims' house or having an internal conflict about it, Blum's reporting about who the target of the attack really was, the possibility Kohberger had seen the victim before, what the surviving roommate of the Idaho college murders Dylan Mortensen saw and texted with her other roommate at the time, theories on why she didn't call the police right away, Kohberger's older sister's suspicions of him, and more. Then Erick Erickson, author of "You Shall Be as Gods," joins to discuss how Biden and Trump are preparing for the important first debate on Thursday, whether Trump will be able to keep his composure, Trump's success in previous debate, the importance of creating a moment the audience will remember, CNN host Kasie Hunt cutting the mic of a Trump spokesperson who mildly criticized her colleagues, why debate moderators are subject to criticism, the left's instincts to silence those they disagree with, the lack of spirituality and faith in America and around the world, turning to government over religion, how to reverse the negative trends, and more.

People

Megyn Kelly, Howard Blum, Erick Erickson

Companies

SiriusXM, CNN

Books

"When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders" by Howard Blum

Guest Name(s):

Howard Blum, Erick Erickson

Content Warnings:

None

A
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B
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show. We have two long time authors on Today for their first digital interviews about their new books. I'm very excited for what we're about to bring you in just a bit. In our second hour, I'm going to be speaking with my old pal Eric, Eric Erickson. And he's got some thoughts. Have you seen what happened on CNN with this Casey hunt? I don't know. I don't actually, I don't really know her. I mean, I've seen her before, but she's a hot mess and she embarrassed herself. I hate this word, but sometimes it works. She beclowned herself. Scarborough is always using she becloud. We know what she did. She mclown herself. We'll talk about it in just a bit. When a Trump spokesperson came on CNN. But we begin with a story that we have been covering here on the MK show extensively. It's now been 590 days since four University of Idaho students were found savagely murdered. 590 days and still no closure for the families of the young victims. There's not even a trial date set at this point. How can that be?

Best selling author and journalist Howard Bloom has been reporting on this tragedy since day one like no other. I mean, if you read nothing about this case, read anything Howard Bloom writes. He's been writing for airmail, which is Graydon Carter's new online publication. It's doing really well, thanks in large part to Howard. You may remember we featured Howard's reporting in our special series on the murders back in December. You can go back and listen to all five parts, episodes 688 through 692.

Howard has done more fantastic reporting on this case for a new book just out today. It's called when the night comes falling, a requiem for the Idaho student murders. Again. It's out today. You can get it right now. I've read it both read it cover to cover, and I listened to the audio, too, and it's already rising up the Amazon charts. It's going to be number 10, doubt in my mind. And it'll be on the Times best seller list, too.

Welcome back to the show. Howard Bloom, this is a great, great book. I'm so glad you wrote it. Nobody's been reporting like you, so you put it on.

C
Thank you for your time. Words. It's always easy to use.

B
Look, it's not like, it's not a doorstop book. So it's, like, manageable. You can read this at the beach in a day or two. And I recommend it because you learn a ton about the case. Let's start with the title. What do you mean, a requiem for the Idaho student murders? What was in mind when you were writing that?

C
Well, something that's been lost in the whole coverage of this case and trying to get to the bottom of a perplexing mystery is the lives that were lost. These four young kids.

Four young children. As a father of three children, their heart has to go out to them. And I wanted to honor them. I wanted to honor the lives that they lived. Zannah Carnoodle, one of the young women who was killed at her high school graduation, carried a mortarboard with her. And it said on the underside, for the lives I will change, for the lives I will change. And that struck me all the time as I was writing this book. I even had it on a note above my desk. You know, these children will never have the opportunity to change these lives. And that affected me. And I wanted to try to do their memory justice.

B
Oh, wow.

That's awful when you think about it. I know. Just the other day they celebrated. I guess a better word is marked Kayla Gonsalves what would have been her 23rd birthday. I'll show you the tape.

There was a balloon release by friends and family of hers. This young girl's been dead now going on two years.

She should be celebrating her post college first career and time with friends. And I was struck by what the family said when they did the balloon release, talking about what, what they think of, when they think of, uh, Kaylee J Day, which is what they're calling it, which is how she liked to enjoy lunch with a friend or family member. They hope people will do things like this, planning vacations or holidays, trying out a new recipe, treating oneself to mimosas and appetizers at a local restaurant, embarking on a new hiking adventure, witnessing the sunrise, reconnecting with distant friends or family, and spreading kindness at a favorite drive through. That jives completely, Howard, with what we know of this young woman, how joyful she appeared in every picture, her tight best friendship with another victim, Maddie Mogan, and just how these girls were so young and had it all in front of them when their lives were taken.

C
And you mentioned the families, how they're trying to come to terms with this, but there really are no survivors in this story. This is a story about victims. And as you pointed out in your introduction, you know, there still is no sense of closure for the families. The trial drags on and on and on.

The delays are cruel. Cruel. It's a cruelty to the families.

B
It's amazing. I don't understand how you can be so into this case and still not even have a trial date. There's going to be a hearing on June 27 where they're going to try to get one again. But this defense attorney, whose name is Ann Taylor, has been doing a very good job of convincing the judge, whose last name is judge. So he's judge, judge to continue delaying. It's frustrating for those of us who want to see justice take its course. All right, let's get into, let's get into the substance of the book, because you've, I mean, we'll never be able to scratch the surface here because there's a ton of new stuff in here. And just, just for what it's worth, audience, the way Howard writes is absolutely, it makes you feel delirious with interest because he just chooses the right adjective. And he's very transparent about where, where he's using his own opinion and where he's reporting facts, but has a way of telling the story that is very illuminating. And I think that's one of my things. The favorite things I love about the book, when the night comes falling by Howard Bloom Blum. One of the big pieces that I learned in this, and I don't know how you got it, and I won't ask how you got it, is you tell us about the conversation.

The suspect who's under arrest, Brian Kohlberger, now for committing these four murders, had with his father, Michael, who had flown from the Poconos, Pennsylvania, all the way across country to Washington state to pick up his son some, I don't. A month. It was a month right after the murders. The murders took place November 13, 2022. The dad flew out there about a month later to get the son and drive back cross country to the Poconos with his kid, who was a teaching assistant at Wash u and also was getting his PhD in criminology there. And you walk us through their exchange. What was on the dad's mind, what was on the son's mind, who's now in prison awaiting trial. So talk to us a little bit about that.

C
Well, here is this father who makes this trip. His father is 68 years old, and he decides to go out to Washington state to then two days later, turn around completely and drive across country with his son.

He does this because he's nervous, he's anxious.

He is connecting the dots in his mind. He knows his son is a disturbed young man. He knows his son has had problems. He knows his son also lives about 10 miles away, where four young women, three young women and one young man were killed. And he knows his son has a white Hyundai Elantra. And that just happens to be the car, the model of the car the police are looking for. So he goes out there, not sure what he's going to find, and immediately his son is in a mood. And he's seen Brian's moods before, and he knows to sort of go with the flow. He doesn't want to anger him. But as he spends time with Brian, he's very.

It is as if he's following footsteps, and these footsteps suddenly become bloody footsteps. And he realizes, oh, my gosh, my son might very well be involved in this. And yet he also refuses, refuses to make this leap, as any parent might. They can't put this on his son. So in a way, Michael Kohlberger, the father, is a victim, too.

He's one of the characters in this story. And I structure the book in many ways around this trip. It's sort of like Homer's odyssey, a long voyage, which is going to have a lot of traumatic events. And here, as the father is coming, the fears are coming closer and closer into focus in the father's mind. The car is stopped once by a state police, actually a sheriff's deputy in Indiana, and then nine minutes later by another sheriff's deputy, a state trooper. And the father is now realizing, perhaps this is it. Perhaps everything I was thinking about is true. And it becomes clearer and clearer. And then when the car is stopped, what's the first thing that father blurts out to the law enforcement people who are stopping the car? He talks about a shooting in the Washington State University that happened earlier that day. It's what's on his mind. All this violence out in the west is coming together, and he feels something benevolent is happening. And he begins to fear. As they make this cross country journey, he begins to fear with greater certainty that his son is involved in it. And he doesn't quite know what to do.

B
It's something to consider that the father, too, of course. Now, in retrospect, when you think about it, the father, too, was suspicious of his son. You know, we hear that all these facts, knowing that Brian Kohlberger was later arrested for these crimes, and then you hear that his father had gotten him at college, was driving him back home. The cops, well, not the cops, but the FBI. This is one of the points you make in the book, was already on to him, was aware, was following.

But of course the father would have suspicions. Of course the father knew about the quadruple murder, right. You know, 10 miles from where his son was a ta and getting his PhD.

He's got to know the son is weird, to just put it very mildly. He's off, very off socially. And we heard the detail prior to the book about how Brian, the sun rerouted the trip home. They had something all set.

The shortest distance between two lines is a straight one, right? And two points is a straight line.

And how Brian had changed it suddenly wanted it to go a much more circuitous route home. But you really lay some details in there about how angry he was about the dad pushing back on that at all and how the father had to handle him so gingerly. He knew he was dealing with the powder keg of a man.

C
It's also interesting that this was not the father, his first trip out with his son. He came out when Brian registered at the beginning of the term. He made the cross country trip with him. Now, the father is 68 years old. The family has had financial problems. They've been bankrupt twice. They went into bankruptcy proceedings. And yet he feels he still has to go with a 28 year old young man to be with him on this trip. Even when he's registering, he doesn't want his son to be alone at the crossroads. And what does his father do when he's out there? He goes to one of Brian's neighbors and says, you know, my son has a hard time making friends. Can you help him out? And this neighbor invites Brian to a pool party, which I talk about in the book. And that's really Brian's first trip to Moscow, Idaho.

B
The conversation they have relating to and the revelations about Brian Kohlberger's problems in his TA position are absolutely fascinating. So it was far worse for Brian Kohlberger in the weeks leading up to the murders of these four University of Idaho students on November 13. And also Brian's return to the Poconos in early December with his dad than I knew until I read your book.

He tell us about the problems Brian was having in the TA role and about the fact that he revealed a lot of what, what he did know to the dead, what you have to.

C
Begin with, I think, to understand how dramatic this was for Brian is where he came up from. He was an academic success story. He reinvented his life. He came from being a heroin addict at a junior college, gets into a graduate from Desal, and then he gets into a first rate graduate program at a Washington State University, and he's on his way to be a doctorate. And then in the course of his first term as a teaching assistant, the students start to complain. They don't like the way he's treating them.

They feel he's treating the women in a chauvinistic way. He always has to have the last say. He's marking too strictly. And the professor whose handling is his course, he's working for, Professor John Snyder, calls him in for a meeting. And what does Brian do?

He blows his top.

He really doesn't want to discuss it, but he exacerbates matters. And the professor, who was a lawyer before coming to teach at Washington state, starts making a paper trail, sending letters to the administration that we might have a problem here, whatever.

Finally, on November 2, just eleven days before the murders, he's given sort of an ultimatum by the authorities of Washington state. Get your act together or you're going to lose your teaching assistant job. Now, for Brian to lose this, it's not just a job. It's the tuition that allows him to go to graduate school. It's the opportunity to reinvent his life from the hard Scrabble life he was leading as a youth in the Poconos to become Professor Brian Kohlberger, become a forensic psychologist. And this was a shock to his already tentative system. I mean, Brian is always living every day on tenderhooks, and now it becomes even worse. So how he's, while he's driving across country with his father, he begins to reveal, and this was related to me by people who have spoken with Brian's father, to Michael Kohberger, that he's in a bit of trouble. That's how he describes it at the university.

But Brian tells his father, I'm going to have the last laugh. You know, they can't just get rid of me. I'm going to be able to have a, a disciplinary hearing and I will make my case and I will be able to continue teaching. And I believe until the moment he's arrested, he still believes that he's going to get away with things. And he's going to be back teaching in the next semester at Washington State University. He believes that he still is the smartest person in the room. And he can out talk these professors, because in his heart, he feels he's done nothing wrong. He's always right.

B
He's trying to spin it to his dad as if these are weak kneed students who just don't like tough grading. And, you know, they're. They're basically just snowflakes. And I'm a. I'm a tough grader, and that's the problem. And meanwhile, he was. It looked like he was harassing a couple of the young female students. He had zero tolerance for conflicting viewpoints. He was disdainful of these students. I mean, all the things that you would expect if this guy really is a quadruple murderer. He wasn't perfectly normal in the classroom. He was odd, to put it mildly. And these students actually spoke up en masse to the professor Snyder, saying, there's something wrong with this guy. And Snyder, when he started to kick the tires, seems to have found you're right.

C
And that's just it. Brian's behavior did not go unnoticed.

The students that he was teaching picked up on it. There was something really off, something really wrong, and he couldn't hide it. And this is what he was living with. He wanted to be something else. He wanted to fit in. He wanted to.

He reinvented his life, and he wanted to live this life he once had imagined. But he also was intelligent enough to realize that this was an impossibility to him. He could not make this complete leap. And that was the tortured state that he was living in.

B
So most of us, if we were, if our tuition were getting paid by this school, the school liking us, was the difference between us being able to get the PhD and not because they can't cut your scholarship at any time, would shape up. If we were sat down by our professor, never mind the department head, and said, and told, shape up or we're going to ship you out. He didn't do that. Professor Snyder called him in. And you write about how the Snyder, he was astonished that Kohlberger started arguing with him as opposed to just saying, I'm sorry, I'll do better, I'll resolve. The department head seems to have had a similar experience with him, where instead of being apologetic or falling on his sword, he was irascible. And then ultimately, when they reach sort of an accord, okay, he's gonna try to do better and keep this position.

You write about his self sabotage about how he couldn't do it.

C
He was just incapable of it at that point where he thought, maybe he's fooled them, that he can stay on. He then became more aggressive to some of the women in the class, and at 1.1 of the young women in his class said, related to the college authorities, that he followed her to her car and he acted in, she said, quote, an aggressive, unquote, manner.

And that was just the straw that broke the administration back. They said, we've got to get rid of this guy. And they sent him a letter. The problem is, when the letter reached his home in Washington State University, he was already on this car trip across America with his father. And he was lecturing his father or hectoring his father, how he was going to ultimately be able to go back because he was smarter than they were. And he would have a hearing and he would argue his case so successfully that they would have to bow to his superior intelligence.

B
In the midst of all of this, he allegedly committed four murders. That's what's so fascinating about the book and the story in general. Again, the book is called when the night comes falling by Howard Bloom. B L U M. He's going through all of this, and you're getting a real profile of who we believe is a killer and what he's going through in his private and personal life. His slow downward spiral in his TA position, his inability to control his anger and defensiveness, even to his own peril, like he knows what's going to happen if he continues pissing off his department chair and so on. They've made it very clear he just can't stop himself. As you. As you write, he.

He unleashed the full force of his considerable fury, and that was ultimately with the women and so on. When the department sent him that note, the department chair sent him an email. I'm reading from your book here, requesting that they meet you. Right. This was most likely a summons to the gallows. But before this execution could take place, Brian quite effectively placed the noose around his own neck. Several of his female students reported to the department that Brian was making them feel uncomfortable. In fact, the creepy TA had even followed one woman to her car. Now, there was nothing further to discuss. Brian's ta job was over. Mister Kohlberger, I am writing this letter to formally inform you of the termination of your teaching assistantship with the Department of Criminal justice and Criminology, effective December 31, 2022. But this, as you point out, was never received by him. He had already left the campus and was driving back to Pennsylvania. But Howard, by the time she sent this, if the prosecution is correct in this case, he had gone from having troubles in his TA job to murdering four students in cold blood at the neighboring university to back in with his superintendent, his director, on whether he could improve his behavior and then pieced out of there back to the Poconos.

C
I mean, you can imagine the chaos that was going on in his internal structure, in his mind, and he was always trying to become something better. And yet every time he succumbs to who he is, even on the nights of the murders, I believe that Kohberger was still not stalking the house, but he was trying to find the will to cross over that threshold into making the ideas in his mind become a reality. And he kept on fighting against it. He would go up towards the murder house, and then he would drive off. Up to the murder house, and then he would drive off. It was a colossal battle of wills. And when he finally turns off the key in his car and parks and makes up his mind, requires the strength, Hercules, to do this. But he decided at this point to give in to the demons. And I believe he grabs the knife sheath and parks on the top of the hill above King Road and starts walking down on the cold, frosty ground and making his way towards the kitchen door, back door of the house.

B
So this is a new. A new way of looking at the evidence. I thought this was interesting, too. We knew, according to the police, that he had cased the house. That's kind of how we saw it, that this white Hyundai Elantra, we believe, was his. It still has to be proven, had cased the joint three times or so before the actual moment of the murders, which the cops are putting at around 04:02 a.m. and your theory, having studied this more than any outsider, you know, outside of law enforcement, that I know, is that it wasn't a casing, that he was. This was a man who, other than his heroin addiction, had not led a life of violating the law and was in PhD studies to work against criminals and try to understand them and help law enforcement figuring out whether he could cross it in a profound and before and after way.

C
If he were actually casing it, he would have noticed all the cars in the driveway, a house full of people. He might have wondered if there were people he would have a physical confrontation with that he couldn't overcome. He also would have noticed a door dash driver coming at 04:00 a.m. delivering food to Zana. And he would have known that she was probably still awake. I don't think any of these more reasonable thoughts entered his mind. I think he was. It was an internal dialogue between Brian and his demons and that what was driving him back and forth at night until he crosses that threshold into complete mania.

B
The other theory that you reveal in here made a lot of headlines is that you believe that this actually was about one victim. This is something we've all wondered, and I apologize to the audience. I should have just offered a few details about the crime at the top of the hour. I just assume familiarity because our viewers have heard us cover this so often. But it was a murder of four young students at the University of Idaho, we believe by this ta PhD student at a neighboring university.

And the four students were two best friends, Kayleigh and Maddie, who are there on the left in the.

Maddie's up on the shoulders of Kayleigh there in this picture of all the roommates who live there. Zanner Kernodle, who's over there on screen, right, with her boyfriend Ethan's arm around her. Those two were killed. They were on the second floor. The two blondes, Kaylee and Maddie, were up on the third floor in a bed together. They were lifelong best friends. And these two gals on the left and the right were surviving roommates when they were surviving roommates. And the one, Dylan, who's on the left, would be an eyewitness as well. So you believe, just for the viewing audience, who's watching this with us on YouTube, that Maddie, who was on the top of that, of Kayleigh's shoulders, was the target of this attack. Why?

C
When Kohberger went to the house, he had no idea. I believe that Kelly was there. He goes in on the second because Kelly wasn't living in the house, really at that point. She was living up north in Coeur d'Alene.

She was just in for the weekend to show off. Her new car goes in through the second floor kitchen sliding door. If he was intent on just killing, he would have gone into any of the two bedrooms on the second floor. But he is on a deliberate path. He makes his way upward and he goes into Maddie's bedroom. And he then finds that there are two young women there. Two young, blond, pretty women. And his only target originally was Maddie. Kaylee tries to back away. She fights back. And she becomes, in a grim, gruesome way, collateral damage. I believe, according to the prosecution and defense, they both have stated categorically in the courtroom that there's no evidence of Kohberger having any interaction with any of the victims, either in person or on social media prior to the killings. And that Koh Burger, who was a vegan, went to the Mad Greek restaurant, which specialized in vegan food in Moscow. There weren't too many places to get it. And he met Maddie, who was a waitress there. He didn't even have to speak with her. He was a man who lived by obsessions. Look at his decision to become a heroin addict, then to break it, to become the best criminologist.

He did things with extremes, and he became, for whatever reason, obsessed by her beauty, her exuberance, her vivaciousness. And he focused on her. And I believe he went by the house on sometimes saw her. I believe the house was a party house.

We've all seen the videos of the police coming there and the kids interacting with them. And there's something full of poignancy in those videos. The kids being kids, the cops being rough town cops.

Sort of the dynamic, the dialectic of how kids and cops interact on a college campus. But Kohberger is outside of this. And it was a constant rebuke. He had done everything possible, traveled millions of miles in his own mental vision from this kid on the periphery of events in high school, becoming a heroin addict to now being a teaching assistant at a celebrated university and a celebrated department at that university.

And yet he still couldn't quite get into the thing of the swing of things. He still was an outsider, and his outside this was a constant insult to him. And that pushed him, I believe, into what is a. Can only be described as a mania to want to feel that he can't live in this world if these constant rebukes to him are going to be living in it, too.

B
That, I mean, it's a stunning theory. And it actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it, because you're right. Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there that night. Maddie did work at this mad greek restaurant. Zannah did, too.

Zannah Kernodle, who was another one of the victims, she was there with her boyfriend, which, you know, I mean, they've been inseparable from what we heard. And he walked past Zannah's bedroom, did he not, Howard, to get to Maddie's room.

C
He just goes right by. And I also believe that if Ethan and Zana had not come out, I think Ethan, after the murders, they hear the noise. Ethan goes out to confront Kohberger. And before he can even say anything, Kohberger slashes out with his knife and gets Ethan across the neck. Ethan is six'four, an athlete, and he was a wonderful young man, full of vitality, full of vivaciousness, a sort of happy go lucky life of the party person. And Kohberger snuffs him out.

Then Zana speaks up or starts crying. And Koberger, in one chilling moment, says to her, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you.

And of course, he moves in and kills her.

She has a defensive wound on her hand. The knife penetrates her palm.

It's shoved so strongly, so savagely at her, but she succumbs. And then after killing those two, he walks out towards the second floor. He's heading towards the sliding door, trying to leave. And there is Dylan.

Dylan sees him, and she can't speak. She's locked in a, I believe, as she describes it in the police affidavit, I think a shock state of fraud. But at the same time.

Exactly. Yes.

Brian is locked in his own sort of armory of hate. And if she had spoken up, she might have been penetrated this protective barrier that he had wrapped around himself, this narrow, focused vision.

And I think she would have become a victim, too. I think her silence saved her life.

B
Oh, wow.

The. I want to. And I'm going to get back to the roommate in a second. But the timeline for the murders is so compressed, you know, we know that they didn't happen before 04:00 a.m. because, as you point out, the doordash driver was there dropping off food to Zannah. And so they believe it started at 04:02, when Zannah and Ethan presumably would have been awake and in their room eating the food delivery.

And then I thought the timeline was to 418, which I think is when we see the Hyundai Elantra leaving there. But it. It may be even more compressed than that, down to, like, 410 408. You go ahead. You take it.

C
Yes, it's about 402 to 408 to 412. They're not exactly sure, but it's whatever it is. I mean, the point you're making is so accurate. It was such a short amount of time. It was such, you know, and he wasn't a trained assassin, and yet he was. One can only imagine if Kohberger was the assailant filled with so much rage that he was able to do this work with so much manic energy, so much manic viciousness.

It's a horrific crime.

B
You've got four victims potentially in the course of eight minutes. And you write in the book that that would be two minutes per person to commit these murders to take out these young, promising lives by a guy who, as far as we know. As far as we know, has never killed before.

The. You, you spend some time as potentially a weakness of the prosecution's case on something we've talked about before. And that is the difference in the coroner's descriptions of how at least three out of the four were killed. And I wondered if you wanted to say anything about that. Here. You say, okay, they, they talk about. The coroner writes about how Kaylee and Maddie were killed and suffered visible stab wounds, quoting here from the corner, suffered visible stab wounds. I think we all can understand what those are. Yet on the floor below, second floor, Xana succumbed to, quote, wounds caused by an edged weapon, which isn't the same thing as a visible stab wound. It sounds to me like they maybe slit her throat. That's. I don't know. And then just to finish it off, Ethan's wounds are described as, quote, caused by sharp focus injuries. I don't know what that means. Caused by injuries caused by. But what. Walk us through those details.

C
I think you're making. I think the defense is one of the defense's best case, that the coroner's report was so inexact.

There were lots of screw ups in this case, and I think the coroner's inexactitude was one of them. I don't, you know, he lays the coroner. Or she. Actually, I think the coroner is she former nurse in town, lays open the possibility for the defense to raise that maybe there were other assassins involved, maybe other weapons.

But I don't think that's the case. I think it's just poor use of language. The point that you're making about the differences will be made by the defense in court, and they will try to drive it home to raise doubts in the jury's mind.

B
Right. Like, how could one man have done this one, as far as we know, not trained assassin who, you know, worked for the CIA for years. It's 128 year old man. And if he did do it, where were the, where were the injuries on him? Because there's evidence that at least two of the victims fought. So where are the defensive wounds? Well, where are the attack wounds on Brian Kohlberger?

C
There are no scratches on Brian Kohberger. What the prosecution believes I've discovered is that prior to the murders, Kohberger had bought, they contend, a blue dickies work suit which covers from your ankles more or less up to your neck. And he wore that worksuit on the night of the murders after the killings. That worksuit was probably drenched in blood. According to the prosecution and law enforcement's theory, he took off that worksuit, put it in a plastic garbage bag and on his circuitous route back to his apartment in Washington. Somewhere along the way, he dropped it off, threw it in a river. But they've never found that, and they've never found the murder weapon. I mean, the prosecution is going to have, I believe, a difficult legal case to make. And I think defense, they've left defense lots of avenues to pursue. Lots of avenues not to raise facts, but to raise doubts.

B
Well, you point out in the book that Kaley's dad, Steve Gonsalves, has been working his own investigation into this case. And he apparently, among others, got his hands on a grand juror. Two of them. Two of the grand jurors. And this may be how we know some of these facts, like the dickies uniform that Brian Kohlberger allegedly purchased and may have been wearing. And like the fact that Brian Kohlberger bought a ka bar knife, just like the one used in these murders months before the murders. And interestingly, though there are reportedly receipts for both of those items and Brian's, you know, accounts, neither one has been found, which in some ways, Howard is even more suspicious than actually finding them.

C
Right. And you raised Steve Kang, Kalvus Kelley's dad. I mean, he's a fascinating figure in this entire story. I mean, my heart goes out to him as a father of three children myself, how could your heart not break over what he's been through after the events first happened? He says, you send your daughter off to college, and she comes back to you in an urn. That's one of the most poignant phrases I've ever heard. And yet I admire him and respect him for the fact that he refuses to give in to events. He's not going to just sit back passively and let anyone else do it. This was his daughter. And he's determined as best he can to get to the bottom of things. And even now, wow. I think he believes the suspect has been caught. He's still filled with a desire not just for justice, but also for retribution and vengeance. I mean, he and his family members support the Idaho law for a firing squad for execution on a guilty verdict if the chemicals needed for a chemical execution cannot be found.

Again, he is Hoberger's father is. These are all victims of this story. This is a story where there are, as I keep on saying, no survivors. Everyone has been victimized. An entire town has been victimized.

B
For the record, Brian Kohlberger denies having committed these crimes and has asserted in court that he has some sort of an alibi, something we've discussed at length on the show. It seems incredibly flimmy. Flimsy. He doesn't really have an alibi. His lawyer saying, as far as I can glean, he just likes to drive around at night. And that's why his car, he wasn't at his department at the time the murders were taking place. We'll learn more if we ever actually see a trial in this never ending pretrial motions. If they end in an actual trial.

Let's talk about Dylan, because she's the eyewitness the police had in their back pocket, an eyewitness of sorts. She didn't see him commit murders, but she described a man who matches Kohlberg's description with the bushy eyebrows and a Covid type mask in her apartment, in her house on the night of the murders. We believe this was as he was leaving post murders. And what I didn't fully understand, this has been reported, but she and the other roommate, who was not an eyewitness but was also there. Was she also there? I don't know why I'm forgetting this, but they were texting during the midst of the murders, Howard.

C
Well, according to what I've heard and according to what was given to the grand jury, they were, they were concerned about the noise. At the same time.

You know, you're asking, I'm asking.

The fence will ask all sorts of reasonable, rational questions. You know, how could you not say anything? How, how could you not pick up the phone and call 911?

These are not rational moments. These are, I believed, and I went into this with a great deal of suspicion about what was going on. I believe Dylan was, as she describes it, in a state of shock, a frozen state of shock and fright. And she just couldn't respond. And her mind was not making sense of events. It's incredible that she waited until the next morning to make a call, and she doesn't even call the police even at that point.

She calls friends at one of the fraternities, and they come down and one of Ethan's friends makes the 911 call to the police.

These are all incredible events. It's one of the reasons why this entire story has, I think, captivated and perplexed so many people, because it's not nice and neat the way you see things on a television movie, for example. But there are a lot of things that really don't make sense because a night like that doesn't make sense. And that's sort of why I called the book. When the night comes falling. When the night came falling on that night and that morning, on November 12, into the 13th, chaos, madness, it all rained.

B
Silence about this only makes sense to me. If she did not know what was happening, if she didn't think that anybody was in danger, if she thought this was a guy visiting one of the roommates, she's annoyed. She's texting with the other roommate. They're so loud. They're annoying. That would make sense to me. That's how young people behave. Like, God, shut up. It's four in the morning, having zero idea they're being killed.

And that then when she saw Brian leaving, she thought this was an invited guest and not a killer. That would make perfect sense to me. It doesn't line up with what's in the police affidavit, however.

C
No, I think the scenario that you are saying makes sense. I think her realization at the same time, who's very much like Michael Kohberger in the sense they have intimations of what's going, but they refuse to make the leap because the leap is too horrific. It's too horrific for her to make this leap, that this guy is not just a party reveler who's leaving the house, if they've been, whatever, fooling around upstairs. But he actually is a murderer.

That sends her trying to make that thought process into a complete detachment. It's the same sort of detachment that Michael Kohberger does when he realizes in his mind that, oh, my gosh, my son might have been involved in these murders. So instead of taking a step forward, they both take a step back.

B
Well, this leads me to one of the most interesting things in this book, and it's Melissa.

Melissa is Brian Kohlberger's older sister. And much like Michael Kohlberger, who you write in the book, seems to have had suspicions about his son from the start, long before the cops knew the name Brian Kohlberger. Melissa, too, had reason to suspect him and spoke to the dad, Michael, about it. Tell us about her.

C
Well, Melissa is a family psychologist, and she's like, we all are reading the papers. She knows her brother who's had problems, who was a heroin addict, who has violent tempers, tantrums. And he's just a little weird, is out there. He lives 10 miles from where the killings occurred, and he happens to be driving a white Hyundai Elantra. And that just happens to be the car the police are looking for.

She has her psychology degree she's able to put the pieces together. And when she finally comes back for the Christmas holiday and she sees her brother meticulously cleaning his Hyundai, seeing him at one point, she sees him taking his garbage and keeping it separate from the families, but into plastic bags. And, you know, two and two make four. And she confronts the father. And the father is now has his daughter articulating all the thoughts that were simmering, coming into realization in his own mind. And there suddenly, he's given them. Someone is telling them that everything you've been thinking is true, is in fact true.

And the only thing he can do when confronted with this, let's do what Dylan does. He sort of walks back into his room. He walks off just the way she walks back into the room. They don't want to deal with this overpowering reality.

B
It is how could a process, any of that, that your son may have committed this kind of heinous crime? You write in the book as follows, about Melissa. Then there was. Okay, there he was in the kitchen late at night, sorting his day's personal detritus into plastic Ziploc bags. And though she had not set out to spy and afterward wished she had never seen it at all, there was her brother sneaking out after midnight like a man on a mission. He walked down the long drive in the starlit chill to deposit the family's trash bags in a next door neighbor's bins.

When she put a name and purpose to all she'd been witnessing, it left her shaking.

At last, though, Melissa found the will to share her increasingly certain deduction with her father. Michael listened, and yet he could not respond.

A long agonized silence filled the room until at last he turned his back and walked away.

And it would have had to have been within days of that, Howard, that they were all woken up in the middle of the night by the police, guns drawn, arresting Bryan Kohlberger.

C
Right. And there's an irony to that, because it was Michael's DNA that the police had that connected him to the knife sheet. So the father, in effect, his DNA caught his son. He was trying to escape from that. And yet it was almost like a greek tragedy. He couldn't. It was inexorably drawn to that, that he was going to be the one to condemn his son.

B
Yes, because of genetic genealogy, which is another revelation in the book about how the FBI knew it was Brian Kohlberger or suspected him. Thanks to genetic genealogy, there was a touch DNA on the knife sheath. Thanks to genetic genealogy, they traced it to someone related to Michael Kohlberger, which led them to Bryan, and they didn't share it with the local cops. There's all sorts of interesting details on why and theories as well that you're going to want to read again. The book is called when the night comes falling, a requiem for the Idaho student murders by Howard Bloom. Please check it out. It's available now in whatever form you want. As I said, I already consumed it twice and recommended to all, Howard. Thank you.

C
Thank you. Pleasure talking with you, Megan.

B
My gosh, such a horrific crime. And again on 627, we'll find out, we think, whether they're going to set a trial date anytime soon. Fingers crossed.

The first presidential debate, and, you know, honestly, possibly the only we'll see whether they do, the one in September between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is just two days away.

I'm psyched. I'm looking forward to this. I can't wait. I can't believe they're actually doing it. And it's taking place in the state of my next guest, who says the problems in America run deeper than politics. Isn't that the truth, that we are in the midst of a spiritual crisis? Eric Erickson is the host of the Eric Erickson show and the author of the brand new book, you shall be as gods, pagans, progressives, and the rise of the woke gnostic left, which is out today. He joins me now. Eric, hi. Great to see you again.

A
You too. Thanks for having me. I'm glad one of us is excited about grumpy old men part three.

B
Yeah, I want to see it. I want to see what happens between them. I'm so fascinated to see whether Joe.

A
Watch trainwrecks, don't you?

B
Yes, of course. Everybody does. That's why the traffic slows down, because we want to see what's happening, what happened. Oh, I mean, the worst of us comes out right? Where we're like, oh, that's it. And then you remember, no, no, I'm supposed to be happy that that's it. That's okay, right? Check it.

No, I want to see, my main things are, I want to see whether Joe Biden can do it. I really do, because I don't, I know the media has been an overdrive and the campaign has to trying to convince us that he's had no senior moments, that these are, quote, cheap fakes, according to Korean. Korean Jean Pierre. I. That that's a lie. I, it's not to say no one's ever taken a Biden moment out of context, but there have been scores of Biden senior moments.

What? I couldn't care less whether one or two are misrepresented. We know the man is having some serious age related impairment, so I'm very interested in whether he can do it. This isn't like a state of the union where he just has to read, he has to be nimble, he has to fight, he has to respond. No trouble, no notes. Right? Exactly. And no help from your team, even in the breaks. And I'm also interested to see whether Trump can do it. Trump has gotten a little rambly in his older age. That is a fair criticism of him. He, too, forgets words here and there, but it's nothing on the scale of what we've seen from Biden. But we saw him during his first presidential debate in 2020, not be able to keep himself composed. You know, the, the old joke that, you know, your kids say, knock, knock, who's there? Interrupting.

A
Moo.

B
Right? Like, like you.

He wasn't able to hold himself together. He had to keep interrupting Biden. I realize they're going to turn the mics off. That was a mistake by Joe Biden. He should have insisted that the mics remain on because that hurt Trump. Trump being Trump and too interrupty hurts Trump. He should have let him. Let him hurt himself. Give him enough rope if that's what he wants to do. In any event, I'd like to see whether Trump can contain himself and also whether he's good Trump or mean Trump or a combination of both. Right. If you could charming Trump, it would be such a huge win. But if Biden's being a douchebag, then he needs to be a little douchey himself.

A
Right?

B
The crass analysis. Anyway, those are all the reasons I'm excited. What do you think?

A
Yeah, look, I agree with you. In fact, I know Maggie Haberman from the New York Times has reported, but a bunch of others now have as well, that Trump is actually mindful he interrupted too much in the first debate. There's a big story out of the New York Times today about the Biden prep, that it's kind of free form and they're going over amazing stuff, but Biden is. It's impossible to predict Donald Trump. It's hard to gameplay against him where Biden's actually fairly predictable. And if Trump doesn't come off like a brain biblical donkey, so to speak, on, on stage and Biden has a senior moment, I think Trump wins.

B
Well, that's the other thing. It's like someone could emerge the winner and someone, someone could lose. The debate, if somebody emerges the clear loser, that will make massive news. If Biden freezes.

I mean, every, every campaign staffer will have an oh shit moment.

We just ordered the cardiac resuscitators.

I worry about heart health. They're going to need those for every single one of his staff if he has a senior moment on that stage.

A
As an aside, I got to paint the scene here locally. For us in Atlanta as well is while two presidents are at the CNN center debating or Turner broadcast debating. Just down the street from them will be the US Olympic soccer team in a debut match. So gridlock in the city, nobody's going to be able to get in or out. In fact, CNN asked if I would come be on tv is like, absolutely not. There's, I don't want to be part of the Donner party getting stuck on the side of the road, unable to escape. The whole thing is going to be a mess. For those of us in Atlanta, Eric.

B
Erickson, you should just done with what my brilliant brother Pete Kelly did. He lives in Atlanta too, and he arrives here with me. I'm at the beach now in New Jersey, where I go with my family this summer. He arrives here today. Get out of town.

A
Yes, I'm an hour outside the city. I have no desire to go anywhere near the city on Thursday.

B
Yeah, I know I'm going to watch it on tv, but we're actually going to do live coverage of it for our audience right after, so please tune in for that. YouTube.com Megyn Kelly let's talk about that New York Times article. I think this is the one you're referring to. Inside Biden's Camp David debate prep by Katie Rogers. It's so interesting, I have to say, like, good luck. I really feel for his, his team. I do. I'm sure the stakes are very high, but here's a bit from the article. President Biden's aides are working to position him as a campaign season fighter who can counterpunch on the fly and combat voters concerns about his age. At Camp David, a movie theater and an airplane hangar have been outfitted with lights and production equipment to create a mock debate stage. At least 16 current and former aides summoned from Washington and Wilmington whiz back and forth on golf carts to join President Biden in strategy sessions. They're now entering the fifth day of preps, hoping he can shake off the rust that often comes with being an incumbent on the defense. Now, as much as I want to mock this, Eric, I can't help but say it's smart.

Preparation helps. And I know Trump is saying he's not preparing. I actually hope that that's not true.

Speaker one.

A
Look, I know Trump is preparing. He prepares in different ways than Biden. Biden being a standard, predictable politician. He goes through these. But, you know, Donald Trump has had a series of meetings with different individuals. He's vetting for vice president for policy reasons, to discuss policies he may want to bring up, one liners he may want to bring up, but he doesn't tend to stand and do these. Now, he did with Chris Christie in 2016 and 2020, but obviously that's off the table now. Christie's not helping him, but I don't know. And in his sense, apparently he doesn't think that those sorts of stand up debates really helped him as much as thinking about one liners, thinking about policies, thinking about responses. With Biden, though, he's kind of got to go through the rigors of this to build the stamina in addition to adjusting his sleep schedule so that he can be awake from nine to 11:00 on Thursday night, in addition to having his aides come in. Remember, historically, every incumbent president has a bad first debate. Jimmy Carter against Reagan, Reagan against Mondale, George HW Bush against Clinton, Clinton against Dole. They all tend to have a first bad debate and then they rebound. Biden's debates are so spread out. If he doesn't do a good first debate, it could be fatal to him actually staying on the nomination.

B
Yeah, the Obama first debate in, well, in 2012. Right. It was in 2012 when he was running for a reelection was a disaster against Mitt Romney to the point where the papers were reporting about how he went backstage and a lot of his advisors were saying that was not good and he didn't believe them. He was used to being told how wonderful he was his whole life. And Michelle actually pulled him aside and said, you sucked out there tonight. And she was the one who kicked him in the pants to where he had to turn it around and actually put in the work to do better on the next debate.

A
Yeah, it was remarkable. And of course, you know, you had George W. Bush and his, George Hw. Bush looking at his watch with, in his debate its first presidents in their first debates tend not to. Ronald Reagan very famously was the one where age caught up with him and he had to come back in the second debate with his, won't hold Walter Mondale's youth and inexperience against him as a rebound. And it's tough because you are in the cloistered bubble surrounded by yes men all the time. But to a degree, Donald Trump, living in Mar a Lago, has as well for the last several years. So both men have rust to shake off, not just for age, but for they get surrounded with so many people who always tell them they're infallible. And here they're going to be confronted not just with an opponent, but with someone who very viscerally hates his guts on both sides.

B
So Frank Luntz, you know, a mutual former colleague of our, both yours and mine at Fox and elsewhere, he does all this, you know, actual polling of focus groups before these big events. And he has an interesting op out talking about how in all the years of him covering these debates and reactions to them, one of his big takeaways is what matters is not so much who wins on the policy exchanges, but who gets, like, a moment, who, who is memorable. And he wrote about, for example, Trump's line to hillary.

She says something like, if I, if I become president. And she's like, if Trump becomes president, something, something. And he said, if I become president, you'd be in jail.

And while the media class was horrified by it, you know, oh, he's going to weaponize the Justice Department against her. Hello.

He was pointing out that his focus group didn't have that reaction and that if you're just like the memorable one, in a way, that's something not like interrupting cow. Right. But like, you have a zinger, you have something that made the people laugh. You had just a moment that made you connect with them. And he was saying, the thing about that moment with Trump was it showed Frank's focus group. Here's this outsider who's not afraid to throw a brass knuckled punch at this beloved establishment figure of the left. You know, he wasn't afraid to punch below the belt. And they, it wasn't so much that they liked crassness, it was just that they liked something very different. Who would challenge authority for them?

A
Yeah, he's right. And I'm always impressed with how Frank does the focus groups. And you have that one moment where someone connects, they come across as likable, maybe somewhat empathetic. Like Joe Biden did have a moment in his debate with Trump where he came off as more empathetic. He showed the lie to that after the evacuation of Afghanistan and never got it back. Can one of these men do that? The thing with Donald Trump is he comes across in a way that a lot of people, he says publicly, the things they say privately and the media that reacts to it in such a hostile way, it actually amplifies what he said and reinforces to people that he said something they liked because so many members of the media are so hostile to him. When you have the positive reaction, when you watch the debate and you're like, I can't believe he said that. That's kind of funny. And the media is outraged by it, well, suddenly they're the jerks, not Trump. And you then become, have more affinity for Trump. It's kind of been the secret to his success in these debates and his campaign style throughout is how the media reacts to him more than how people react to him.

B
That's true. And that if Frank Luntz is right, I think he's got a very good point there, that it's about a moment. I mean, I've said that about good tv.

Good tv really isn't necessarily about your hour long show. It's whether you've delivered a moment that people remember and can hang on to.

So if that's true in this debate, then Trump is perhaps on the right path not to over prepare, not to over study for the test, not to be too robotic when he gets up there, but to remember to rely on his own inherent and very good sense of humor. You know, you and I both watched those debates and participated in some in 1516 where, like, the one that I remember, it was great, I have to say.

And at the time, I was much more kind of sympathetic towards Jeb Bush than I was towards Trump. But he, remember, he called him low energy. And then the next debate, Jeb Bush came out and he was, like, ready to fight. And Trump goes, oh, more energy. I like that. And it just killed Jeb Bush. I was like, oh, my God, he's so right. He did it for you, and now you're calling him out on it. That's the Trump who could lay out Biden without any prep, just going off of instinct.

A
Yeah. You know, I'm glad you said that because I tend to agree with the people who've said Trump's instincts and his showmanship kind of overwhelmed the debate prep. He might as well go with his gut on the stuff as long as he himself and apparently is mindful he interrupted too much in 2020, and he needs to let Joe Biden talk to make his own gaffes that Trump can then amplify and play up the gaffes. I think his instincts are right.

B
Well, especially because the people who are turned off by the interrupting cow version, not calling Trump a cow, that's my, my joke. Everyone's heard that joke with their child are women. They were women. Women reacted very negatively to Trump interrupting Biden at every turn. They generally don't like candidates who run over the time limits either. And so playing within those rules is somewhat important. Not necessarily out of respect for the CNN moderators or your opponent, but for those who are watching at home who just like a sense of order, you know, it's like, these are the things that you agreed to, and we all expect you to follow them so we can follow along and, you know, be a polite human as you go through this process. So we'll see whether he can do it, whether he wants to do it. Now, this leads me to already some of the absurdities around the debate.

This news anchor over on CNN, her name is Cassie Hunt, and she had on a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, national press Secretary Caroline Levitt. And Caroline was trying to in advance, I don't know if it's working the refs or criticizing the refs by taking a shot at the CNN moderators.

Totally fine. This is literally done in every debate where one side starts, I don't know about this moderate. I don't know about this, like, okay, this always happens.

And for some reason throws what could only be described as a hissy fit from the anchor chair. We've got the longer clip. There's a shorter one going around. We've got the longer clip queued up for the audience. Take a listen.

President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years and their biased coverage of him. So President Trump is willing to bring his message to every corner of this country. So I'll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I'll also say that if you talk to analysts of debates previous, that if you're attacking the moderators, you're usually losing. So I really want to focus in on what these two men are going to do. What do you expect from Joe Biden?

Well, first of all, it's to take someone five minutes to Google Jake Tapper, Donald Trump to see that Jake Tapper has eight. Hilter. Ma'am, I'm going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues. I would like to talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who you work for. Yes. If you are here to speak on his behalf, and I will do this conversation.

I am stating facts that your colleagues have stated in the past. Now, I'm sorry, guys. We're going to come back out to the panel. Caroline, thank you very much for your time. You are welcome to come back at any point. She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump. And Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us now at next early later this week in Atlanta for this debate.

Okay. She embarrassed herself. She embarrassed herself. She embarrassed womankind, she embarrassed female journalists, and she embarrassed CNN. That was a disgrace. First of all, it was embarrassing because she was afraid. And you could tell her timidity rang through loud and clear. Her voice started shaking. She looked like she was shaking. And her, you know, effort to play the tough guy was immediately seen through by any audience member watching that. Second of all, the moderators are 100% subject to criticism. And if she doesn't know that, she's in the wrong business.

Sure, there are lines that can be crossed that you could argue are inappropriate. Been there. However, criticism that the moderator may be biased is not one of them. And it's completely fair game for someone from the Trump camp to say, we've got concerns about CNN, which was the worst offender. They were an active part of the resistance during all four years that Trump was president.

She could have easily handled this by saying, I understand.

Nevertheless, your boss thought this was an appropriate forum for a debate. So let's talk about that. Maintain your cool, your dignity. And by the way, stop trying to look like Princess Valiant because you embarrassed Jake Tapper, too, and Dana Bash, who don't need your defense. They can take the slings and arrows. I'm sure they would have been fine if you hadn't gone out there trying to, oh, my smelling salts. Where's my fainting couch with the criticism of the anchors. Meanwhile, all this woman was saying was, google the remarks that the anchors have made about Donald Trump. They're not fair. The whole thing was an embarrassment to Cassie Hunt and CNN. Try to do better, sweetheart. Try to do better. What do you make of it, Eric?

A
Yeah, you know, look, I understand her position. She's new to the network, came over from MSNBC, NBC. She wants to defend her colleagues. But you're right, she, I think she made Dana and Jake, who are friends of mine, by the way, come across as scared or defense where they didn't need to be. I think the great response would have been, so is Donald Trump going to bring these remarks up on stage on Thursday night, engage that way, blowing her off in the way she did. I understand she wanted to show team loyalty, but I don't think that was the way to show team loyalty, particularly. You had a newsworthy presentation there. And now Casey Hunt's become the new story. Not what the Trump spokeswoman was saying. So. Yeah, and Jake Tapper and Dana, they can spin for themselves. They made remarks that Trump wants to challenge. He wants to rough the refs. It's part of the game.

B
Yeah, of course. And I mean, I don't know this person. I didn't really know her on C, on MSNBC, and I certainly don't watch her program on CNN. But I can see why she obviously failed.

She's not good at what she's doing. Maybe she's good at softer interest, focus. Maybe she doesn't understand politics or the political arena or what it's like to moderate a debate. But taking some sharp elbows is part of it. And I guarantee you Dana Bash knows that and so does Jake Tapper. And she humiliated them by trying to act like they can't take it either. The woman was not out of line. Levitt, in making her, she was completely within bounds in criticizing their prior comments. She wasn't saying Jake Tapper's a hack. She was saying do some Google searching to see what he said about Donald Trump. That's totally fair game. And by the way, I'm sure Trump is well aware of those comments, too, and nonetheless gave them the debate that you don't have to waste time defending them. They're not private citizens who President Trump just decided to go after. They're the debate moderators. They're in the arena. They are throwing barbs and arrows at him all the time.

Only, is it Cassie Hunt? I don't know. This person seems to take. All right, whatever. Seems to take offense at how our jobs are done in modern day America. I just, the whole thing upsets me because she looked like a weak, just, I don't know what the word is. Like a shaky legged little child out there. And I'd much rather see a strong woman who's like, you know what? You threw through punches. Good for you. Let's keep going with the interview. Good for you. And look, whatever. Like, she cut her off, Eric. Sorry. I'm going to make one more point. She cut her off, which is indicative of another problem we see all over the left these days, which is. I don't hear it. I cannot hear. I am not listening to you, Jeffrey. Right. It's ridiculous how they can't hear any opinions that challenge their own or that they find offensive. Too damn bad.

A
Also, Trump's spokeswoman, was it Carolyn Levitt? Look at the attention. She's been able to get one for herself and for a campaign. And the number of people who probably did go google the remarks. She, it's like a Streisand moment. Remember, Barbra Streisand one time very famously tried to get a guy blocked from showing a photo of her house from the beach. And by trying to block it, gave it ample exposure. That's what's happened here by making that scene. Trump's spokeswoman I mean, she should get a bonus for having done that on CNN. It also does, to your point, show how the press does not like to be challenged on the comments the press makes. And if Trump gets to be challenged on the comments he makes, they get to be challenged on theirs. They should get used to this.

B
I just, it's so pathetic. Like, I just, first of all, she should be true to who she is. She's obviously not tough. She's obviously afraid of confrontation. That's okay. That's actually how most people feel. You can, you can be that, try to just lean into who you are as opposed to trying to act like you're, you know, Joan of Arc out there because we all smelled the phony that you are. And that's what made the clip not work as a news item, as a presentation matter. Now, you won't be surprised to hear, Eric, that the ladies over at the view had a very different reaction to it. Here. Here's what they said.

That was so good.

So good. This is how they tee up. Even things they end up doing well at. They say I'm gonna lose. Just in case. Like this is problem. Just in case. You know what it sounds to me? Sounds like the people who call folks snowflakes are snowflaking.

C
Sounds to me like somebody's running a little scared. Chicken, chicken, chicken.

B
She refused to get to the fact. She instead wanted to sort of, it was ad hominem attacks.

And when that happened, you cut the mic. You cut the mic. And that's what she did.

Okay, Mike, this is the left today.

We will not listen to you. You're anti abortion, we won't listen to you. You are pro Israel, we won't listen to you. Like your mic gets cut. Because if you're this leftist, committed to this worldview, it's offensive. Just hear it.

A
Speaker one, this is, that show is indicative of the bubble the left is in. You know, I had a member of the press last night. I noted on social media that I would not be surprised at the number of jews who don't like Donald Trump but decide they have to vote for him, given what's happening in the country. You got a president who's too busy doing debate prep to address the nation over the synagogue attack in Los Angeles and the like. And this reporter says, you clearly don't know any jews. And I was like, actually, I know a lot. And they're all saying this. And the view is in that sort of bubble where everyone in that show agrees with each other, agrees inside the bubble that Casey Hunt is in at CNN. And they don't understand how this actually plays with a lot of people that, oh, the anchors said things that were belittling to Donald Trump that seemed to republicans to be partisan. They get to be called out on it.

This rally around the flag, circle the wagon sort of nonsense that the left wants to do on these things is why they have started losing so often in these fights.

B
She has her own history of bias. That's why she was shutting down the criticisms, I believe, because she shared in those opinions that were controversial enough that Levitt felt she had to raise them. Cassie Hunt tweeted out, sorry, I'm sorry, I can't get your name right, and I honestly don't really care. We're not going to have an ongoing relationship. But in any event, she tweeted out the following on December 4, 2020. Okay, December 4, 2020. This is after Joe Biden had won the election, but before inauguration. Joe Biden wouldn't say if he's talked to Mitch McConnell. I'm just struck by the reality that will now have a president who as a rule, doesn't lie, even when it might be easier.

This is. It makes sense to me, Eric. She was coming from MSNBC. This is the same man she's talking about who stood up there at the presidential debates, what, two months earlier before her tweet saying that the hunter Biden laptop was russian disinformation. I mean, that's the one who doesn't lie. And she's just so thankful that we're going to have him. And by the way, here's the other thing. Um, where is. Do we have the, uh, her tweet as she doubles down on this nonsense? Hold on. I might try to organize my paper. This was her tweet trying to defend herself.

You come on my show, you respect my colleagues, period. I don't care what side of the aisle. This is my accent, miss my. Like, this is how the kids talk these days. I don't care what side of the aisle you stand on, as my track record clearly shows, it does not clearly show that I refer you back to this tweet and many others in which she was critical of Trump and praising Biden. And even the banner on her Twitter now x account is her sitting across from Joe Biden, I'm sure lovingly with the doe eyes.

A
Eric, look, I think anyone who's come from the NBC MSNBC World should be careful about claiming to be nonpartisan or non biased, including Casey Hunt, that you. I mean, the tweet in and of itself, the. I can't believe we're going to have a president who's honest. Forget the Trump Biden dichotomy and the hatred of Donald Trump. Joe Biden's a politician from Washington, DC, which definitely means he's a liar. And to think that he's honest is just out there. And this defense of it that you've got to respect me, yes, defend your colleagues, that's fine. But you didn't really defend your colleagues. There's.

B
Oh, my God. You could go like Victor Davis Hansen. He could come on and recite 50 lies that Joe Biden has told off the top of his head. But go back and look at his overstatements of his resume. He graduated the top of his class. In fact, he was down at the bottom. He might have been a plagiarism scandal.

He stole people's work and represented as his own. It goes on and on and on. This is all long before he became president. He lies every other day. If his lips are moving, you're getting a lie. That you're right.

A
He was traumatized by his uncle getting eaten by cannibals.

B
It's a lie, too. There was no, no. Even the people, the locals where he claimed they got the guy got eaten, came out and said, corn pop ate.

Yeah, corn pop ate him.

Okay. Anyway, the list is long. She should do a little Google search before she speaks.

I wanted to talk about one other news story, and then I want to get into the book.

You mentioned american Jews, and I believe that they are the reason that Jamal Bowman is now going to lose his seat. This first member of the squad certainly looks like he's going to. I don't know for sure.

And I think, you know what I hear is that all these jewish voters in and around the Bronx are saying, hell, no, we're done. Like they're paying attention now. And amazingly, I don't think those dissatisfied, unhappy voters who don't like this guy with his weird 911 conspiracy theories from his blog are going to be persuaded by this performance from AOC, who decided to go to the Bronx and pretend she was Cardi B. Watch, please. Dumbest on.

A
The bride.

Are you ready to call a. Damn it.

B
No. Are you ready to take this photo back?

Are you ready to win.

A
The country back?

B
Okay.

Yet another poser, right?

A
Like, wasn't in German.

B
She doesn't have it. She doesn't have. She's not exciting. She can do social media. I get it. This was a fail. She was trying to look like some, you know, boxer going into the arena in her weird little khaki shorts and with taking the hair down, which is a sex move, that is not a fire you up for the debate move. That's weird. And it's called modulation. Her voice was over modulated, screaming into the mic, madam, does not work. Doesn't work on a podcast set, in a radio set. Eric knows, and it certainly doesn't work out on a stage in front of people in the Bronx. You're not Cardi B. You're not Muhammad Ali. You're a congressional Kardashian. That's what you want to be a social media star. Just admit it. And please stop trying to govern and, God forbid, inspire us, because you're equally bad at both of those things. So what do you make of AOC? And what do you make of the likelihood that in tonight's election, Jamal Bowman, first member of the squad, is likely to go down?

A
First of all, I'm horrified. I've had to watch that clip. Now this is the third time, and it's going to give me nightmares.

Listen, they're posing as something, and they want to be revolutionaries on the left. What I found very interesting was how Politico in their playbook described this, that the House democratic caucus wants them to have their comeuppance because of their. Their pull on the grassroots and because of their tactics. Actually, believe it or not, the media may be where AOC is politically, but House Democrats as a whole tend to be to her right. They're still very liberal, but not that progressive. And they're upset that the squad has tried to pull the Democrats in that direction. And so Jamal Boma is going to get his comeuppance, because when you go in that direction on the left, you turn into rabid anti Semites, which he is. The KKK. The stuff, I mean, rhetoric that he sees, like David Duke against jews and the 911 conspiracies, he's going to be reputed. Ironically, he won in 2020. By going after the then House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Elliot Engel in a democratic primary, St. Ingall was two in the pocket of Netanyahu and Israel, and he won the election. So I think he interpreted that as he could double down on antisemitism. And actually, it turns out those Bronx jewish voters, they didn't like Netanyahu, but they still like Israel. And they don't like a guy who makes excuses for Hamas. He deserves to lose. And if he does lose, there's a playbook for people like Corey Bush and others to be taken out who are deeply, deeply anti semitic.

B
Yeah, we'll see whether AOC's little routine worked. This is also the guy who claimed he didn't understand the fire drill and wasn't actually trying to.

A
High school principal doesn't know how to use a fire alarm.

B
Right. He just genuinely got confused about the big thing saying fire alarm and door do not open.

All right, we've got to take a quick break then. I really do want to get into the substance of this book because I think you're right. And the more places I go and the more news stories I cover, Eric, the more I feel like in my core, the very thing that you're positing here, the godlessness that's overtaken our culture, put politics to the side. We can talk about that for fun all day, every day. But the godlessness is what's really eating at our souls. And even if we got the politics right tomorrow, it wouldn't fix what's really ailing us. So we'll pick it up right after this quick break. Don't go away. Eric Erickson stays with us. And hold on a second because I want to make sure that people have the book name. You shall be as gods by Eric Erickson. Stand by. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. 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 SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love, great people like Doctor Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

A
Go to siriusxm.com mkshow to subscribe and get three months free. That's siriusxm.com mkshow, and get three months free. Offer details apply.

B
Let me give you a little bit from the book, and we'll kick it off with this. The bottom line is this. Our country doesn't have a partisan problem, a political problem, a social problem, or an economic problem. We have a spiritual problem. In the absence of God, Americans across partisan lines have turned to government and celebrity for their gods. They have gone off to worship idols. At the core, they have reverted to the original mistake made in the Garden of Eden. They choose to see themselves as gods, which explains the title, you shall be as gods. Pretty darn well. So put some meat on those bones for us, Eric.

A
We're seeing this on the left and the right. With the increase in despair, the suicide rate, depression, the rise of transgenderism, people believing they can make themselves as they see fit, it transcends partisanship to this deep underpinning of we as people have now lost our perspective on who we are, why we're here, and what our purpose is.

We're called to something higher. We're called to something eternal. We're created in the image of God and have instead decided that this is the best we have here and now. And you see this manifested in politics, for example, with the left, where if your neighbor drives a gas guzzling suv and has five kids and you've done everything right, your house is on solar panels, you're a vegan, and you aborted your child, so it's just you and your partner. You're still going to burn because of your neighbor, so your neighbor's got to be punished. So we've lost a sense of grace. We've lost a sense of eternal. And people are turning to hopelessness, which is causing all sorts of tribalism and violence and despair.

B
I'm so interested in this because I see it everywhere in America, and the audience knows. I'm just fresh back from a trip to Scandinavia, where we got the same story in particular in Sweden and I think in Norway and Denmark, trying to remember exactly the guides and the information.

The central theme was, we used to be Christians, and then we became Lutherans or Protestants, and now we're nothing. Now there's, like, one church, and overwhelmingly, our countries are not believers at all. And, you know, my family's traveling around, and we would have grace, and we'd say grace before our meals, even if we're in a restaurant. People would stare, you know, like, what are they doing?

And you could feel like, I really love the visit. I don't mean to rip on these.

A
Lovely people, wonderful people, beautiful countries.

B
They absolutely right. But while they kept saying that they're the happiest people or second happiest people on earth, I guess Finland ranks number one and Denmark ranks number two, and Sweden's up there as well. They also are either number one or number two on antidepressants.

And yes, in large part, I'm sure has to do with the many hours of darkness. For ten months of the year, you know, it's been 16 to 20 hours of darkness. But there's another form of darkness in those countries as a result of what we're talking about, Eric. And I do think the absence of God and an active belief, an active faith in your life leads to a different kind of listlessness that they may not even be aware they've lost.

A
Well, so, not to get too deep theologically, but, you know, if you go to the Old Testament, there are all these commandments for the Israelites of, you can't have tattoos or mixed fabric clothing or eat certain foods. And the reason was we can extract from that that the cultures around them were cultures where those things happened. Tattoos were very common. Now fast forward to today. My wife has tattoos.

It's hard to find a youth minister in a church in America who doesn't. It's our culture has kind of, the christian culture has absorbed the culture around it and we look like it. And so what the New Testament says, the Old Testament was, was you behave differently, dress differently, do differently. And what the New Testament says is you've got to stand out in your community by loving your neighbor and loving God. And even in a lot of churches, we don't have that tendency anymore where a Christian is supposed to be someone who stands out and acts a little weird to the culture around them and seems to have a little joy. The rest of the culture doesn't. And that culture, it's losing the joy. And it kind of is time for churches to stand up. Politics isn't going to fix this. It's the people who know there's, there's an eternity we're called to, who have the joy because they know it. I mean, look, as you know, Megan, my, my wife, has this incurable form of lung cancer. There's, there's no cure for it. And yet we live every day with this joy that if, if, God forbid, the worst case scenario happens, uh, she's going on to eternity and, and we've got her now and we should live like that. And the world, I think, is forgotten that there's so many people who think it's, it's here and now. This is all we have. And look at how bad it is as opposed to just love your neighbor. You're never going to fix Washington, DC, but if you fix your town and be a part of it and show you love your town, well, you're going to find your salvation there, here on.

B
Earth, you know, I mean, in principle, I agree with it. But then when you get into the book and you talk about, you know, sort of the politics of revenge and because you're critical of the left, of course, in the ways that we're discussing, but also of what you call the new right and kind of where they're going.

But I wonder if we're on the same page on it because we've been talking on the show about the warfare, the law fair against Trump. And I've gotten to the point where I really feel like the only way the left is going to stop doing this is if we do it to them. That's just the only way. It's not going to be pleasant. It's not something I agree with. But I feel like the only way of stopping it is to give them a taste of their own medicine because until they have the same skin in the game, they're going to keep doing it. And we're talking about the presidency. So is it, is that what you're talking about?

A
Because I, so there's a corporate level. So at an individual level, we got to love our neighbor. And in fact, I occasionally preach in churches and this comes up and I tell them, you know, you as a person of faith need to love your far left, transgender progressive neighbor enough that when they go on vacation, they want to leave a key with you to make sure their house to save where they're gone. At a corporate level, as american citizens. Yeah, I do agree that we on the right have the means within the law to do to the left and use the precedents the left has set so that they can say, maybe we should stop setting these precedents. I mean, for example, they're, a great example is the president has used the Civil Rights act to go after pro lifers who are blocking access to abortion clinics. We should be doing the same thing to pro hamas supporters blocking access to synagogues. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. There are ways to do it. Where I think I draw the line, though, is we should not be engaged so much in revenge that we're willing to cross legal lines that then they cross, because inevitably we see the cycle where each side makes precedent. And at some point, we've all lost concept of the law. And those of us who are people of faith should be the ones who are saying, you know, maybe we should go throw the ring back in the volcano, and nobody have this power. And I personally think my solution is Republicans, when they get back to power, got the power, so the left can't do these things to us, we can't do it to them.

And that takes away the desire to everyone control Washington. We've made Washington too powerful, and we need to go back to remembering that we have 50 sovereign states and let the power be diffused that way.

B
I agree with that. I mean, I can't stand a strong federal government. We need. That's not how this country was envisioned. We've morphed into some weird, Frankenstein version of what, you know, Madison and Jefferson envisioned, and now we're just. We've morphed into this bloated, disgusting mess that tries to govern everybody in the way they live. And it needs to shrink. No matter who's in the oval office, it needs to shrink dramatically.

A
I mean, honestly, the greatest revenge we could have on the left is to take back power and get rid of the power so they can never use it again. They can't sink the EPA on people. They can't seek the National Labor Relations Board on people, take away all their power.

B
All right, but what about this absence of spirituality that's infecting us? Because, you know, you. You have some good stats in the book, and I. We've talked about them on the show. Um, in 2021, Pew Research released the results of a survey that showed nearly 30% of Americans consider themselves unaffiliated with any religion. The percentage of nuns, n o n e s, doubled in just over a decade. In the same time period, self identified christians dropped from 75% to 63% of the population.

So why. Why is that happening? What. What is it about us today?

A
The data is actually really interesting. When you get into the subset, a lot of the nuns and the unaffiliated people, they're still believers. They're just kind of tired of going to church and hearing political sermons, or they're tired of hearing preachers say something that they don't practice. The fastest growing denominations in the country are actually the deeply evangelical denominations that practice what they preach, and I think for the conservative side of things. So, pulling back the curtain a little bit. While you and I are talking on your show, I'm pretending to do my show live as well. And I can tell you what I'm talking about right now is that conservatives like to build alternative institutions. And then we're always surprised when the left eventually takes them over, too, because we've built it and we say, okay, we've done this, we've done a good thing. No, stay involved. So I've got a friend of mine in Atlanta. His kids go to public school and he's a preacher. He's the head of the PTA. His wife's the head of the talent show. They've got all the other christians in the school so involved that they've largely taken over in a way that oftentimes you don't see in public schools. We can't just build an institution and rest on our laurels. We've got to stay engaged. It's not a coincidence that most of the food banks and soup kitchens in the country run by churches are run by theologically progressive churches. Conservatives can do these things, too. We should be doing these things.

B
But that's so much easier said than done. I'm thinking about our own flight from our New York City private schools where it was abusive, what they were doing to these kids, what they were teaching them, and injecting the gender question where it was not existent at all, all for third grade boys. I just like the thought of I'll stay and I'll fight and I'll just let my children get abused for the next five years.

A
That's not what I'm saying.

I think you got to extract yourself from that. I think it's when we go build the new institutions, we stand and fight there. What happens is we conservatives a lot of times started private schools and then we kind of rested on our laurels and other people came in and co opted them and took them over. My kids are in a private school where you have to be interviewed about your faith before you're allowed to come. So when you go start the new institution, don't abandon it. Once you've started it, and to the extent you can be engaged in your existing institutions, be seen, but also be seen as someone who actually is a kind person, it's harder and harder for them to come for you. The left at the national level wants to come for all the conservatives and all the pro lifers. Well, when your next door neighbor is a pro abortion progressive, but you're the person who checks their mail when they're out of town, they don't really want to come for you. And it's not something we can do at an abstract, national level. This is neighbor by neighbor, block by block. All of us have to actually be within our community. I mean, just, there is this part of scripture after the jews are cast into exile in Babylon, where God sends them a note through Jeremiah and says, seek the welfare of the community in which you live. Plant gardens, have families, raise families, be a part of your community, because there you'll find your welfare. And we all get so worked up about Washington. Well, what about my block, my apartment building, my.

My local community? We should be focused there instead of just angry at Washington.

B
I like that a lot. So my mom, she still lives in upstate New York, and she's got the best neighborhood, Eric, like this. Her neighbors restore my faith in humanity. They're. I don't know if they're. They're probably going to read your book and say, this is familiar to me. This resonates with me. But, like, obviously, I could happily get my mom a lawn mower, you know, to make sure that her lawn stay and all of that. And I do help my mom in a number of ways, but there are certain things around her home and house and property I don't have to do because Marty, the guy across the street, comes over, he maintains that lawn like it's in a magazine competition, and he's responsible for it. Helmut, who's across the way, he comes over and helps my mom if it's like a pipe breaks or something. This whole community comes together to make sure she's okay. They'll come over without anybody asking and shovel her walk if it snows. And it does a lot. And I've seen, it's just, it does restore your faith in your fellow human beings, but you can't only receive. Right? You've got to put yourself out there and give a little, too.

A
Yeah. And it's not always going to work. You prepare to be disappointed, but one person at a time. It's a slow process, but I just, I refuse to give up on him. And, you know, Tim Keller, the theologian who died, he had a great saying that if we really are all made in the image of God as he believes and as scripture says, all of us have a little bit of God that reflects back. And even if we vehemently disagree with someone, we should try to find that little piece of God reflecting back to us.

B
Yeah. And not replace the actual God with false idols like social media and climate change. And take your pick from the left's favorite causes. From the woke Topia. Great to see you. The book is called you shall be as gods. It's by Eric Erickson. It's available right now. Pagans, progressives, and the rise of the woke gnostic left. Come back soon.

A
Thank you so much.

B
All right. All the best. And all the best to Christy, too.

We're back tomorrow with Mike Rowe. Looking forward to that. He's got something exciting to promote. I think you're going to enjoy it.

Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No b's, no agenda, and no fear.