You did nothing." I thought that was one of the great moments of that debate, when Bruce Blakeman looked at Kathy Hochul and said, "You're part of the problem at Cornell." I thought that was huge.

Yep.

Now, Bruce is, Bruce and I, look, I love Bruce.

You know, I met him really through you.

Um, and, and so I, I...

He, look, we need him.

[laughs] We need him.

[laughs] The U- "US judge tosses Trump administration lawsuit over New York City sanctuary laws." Why? What's the deal with that?

You did nothing." I thought that was one of the great moments of that debate, when Bruce Blakeman looked at Kathy Hochul and said, "You're part of the problem at Cornell." I thought that was huge.

Yep.

Now, Bruce is Bruce and I'm look- I love Bruce.

You know, I met him really through you.

Um, and, and so I, I ...

He, look, we need him.

[laughs] We need him.

Why? What's the deal with that?

You did nothing." I thought that was one of the great moments of that debate, when Bruce Blakeman looked at Kathy Hochul and said, "You're part of the problem at Cornell." I thought that was huge.

Yep.

Now, Bruce is Bruce and I'm ...

Look, I love Bruce.

You know, I met him really through you.

Um, and, and so I, I ...

He, look, we need him.

Why? What's the deal with that?

That doesn't mean, I know Joe agrees, that doesn't mean they're criminally guilty, which as you said, Letitia James already said on social media before she officially was appointed with this case, yes?

She said it.

She said that they're...

Y- yes, she said they're guilty because she stands with the, quote, unquote, "victim." It's a- a- appalling what happened to her.

Um, I mean, it- it's an act, so that means there was an act.

There was a, a crime.

The, that she is the victim.

Yep.

Were they all trying to get on the same page? Do you think that's something that Letitia James is going to work with? If I were the prosecutor in this

case and I believed in my case, yeah, that's something I would work with because, you know, It does sound rehearsed, I should say.

And it sounds very, the fact that they're all saying the same words, taglines, does sound rehearsed.

And it sounds like they're supporting the fraternity brothers.

Now, you mentioned a name that I have to address in this show, Letitia James.

Of course.

I could not think of a less qualified prosecutor to prosecute this case.

Why would the mayor want that guy back on the streets, regardless of what ICE did?

... or anything like that? If they're going in and watching or-

Well, no.

What ...

No. There's no, there's no crime going and watching.

Um, you know, whether, you know, it ...

You're morally bankrupt if you go in and watch someone who's incapacitated have sex with, with fraternity brothers of yours is another story.

But I'm not that impressed by statements of fraternity members who are saying, um, you know, uh, she consented to sex, the ones who didn't participate but apparently were there.

Yeah.

Are you gonna argue that?

Never.

I argue, I'll argue that you're right.

Never argue against that.

It's ...

They're cowards.

They're, they're animals.

I guess you gotta try everything, right?

Look,

I think Iran, the Iran war has reached sort of a dangerous decision point, right? The Strait of Hormuz is operating at a fraction of normal traffic.

Tankers are being attacked.

Oil remains above $100 a barrel.

And Iran's effectively trying to charge ships for safe passage.

The United States cannot permit this revolutionary guard to operate in this international maritime area.

protection racket.

What is the whole controversy around this 12th juror?

What did you think about the vice president's response?

I just mind boggling, mind bogglingly stupid.

I mean, really, honestly, just it's political nonsense.

It is all is.

I just got to listen to it again.

You know, first of all, Dan Driscoll wasn't some holdover fighting the Trump agenda.

OK, he was President Trump's own army secretary, J.D. Vance's close friend, an Iraq war veteran and someone the White House praised for readiness and lethality.

And instead, I want to punch him across the face.

So many people had the same reaction you just had.

You know what? Here's the thing.

I'm not taking anything away from Rob O'Neill or any of those SEAL Team 6 members, okay? They're Tier 1 operators.

And they're, you know, along with the Rangers and the Delta Force.

And, you know, they're the best we have in our military.

But, but, but, the problem is, people from the ranger regiment in general have with seals is we say you know when seals go to a grocery store they bring their press agent with them um you know so it's like there's always a book there's always a story this guy is you know he left right after that rob only left the military right after that and began writing books and becoming you know celebrity A lot of SEALs don't like him for that reason.

A lot of SEALs feel, and again, I'm not opining, but a lot of SEALs and military people don't like him because they said, okay, so he capitalized on this and he just left the military.

What does that mean exactly?

That's how I feel about it.

I've lost friends and family members on 9-11.

So did you.

And for people who have direct losses, I mean, like their fathers, their husbands, their sons, whomever, it is outrageous to think he is going to despise their very clear position that they do not want him at this 9-11 event because families have concluded he has no place at this 25th anniversary ceremony and he's going to come anyway because he needs to be shown and he needs to have that super smile there.

He's going to make this, unfortunately, what it shouldn't be.

It's not about politics.

This is not about this.

were you exactly you know before you what were you exactly in your car on the street where were you when that happened west

Is there any doubt in your mind, Joseph, that the mayor jumped in, which he never does in these cases ever, and vetoed the Leventhal pick because Leventhal is Jewish?

Zero doubt, Sid, and I'm on fire at 8.50 in the morning.

Usually I'm not on fire until about 9.30, but 8.50, which is when the courts start, you know, but this has gotten me.

This one is disgusting.

It's blatant.

It's anti-Semitism, and more importantly, it's damn dangerous, okay? John Levin, I know John, great, great guy.

I mean, clearly someone we want on the bench, okay? No question, but He's not being excluded because he represented an unpopular client.

What is the issue there?

You agree with that?

It's 100% true.

I mean, we're here now.

Whether we should have been here or not, that's a different story.

It's debatable and it's not, it doesn't matter at this point.

We're here now.

So we have to really go in there, annihilate it.

Tell me, Joseph Takapina, the DOJ's effort to prove perjury on trader Jack Smith, is that going to be successful?

Wow

... beyond any line he's ever crossed.

And what he did was removed our greatest war fighter.

Um, you know, he has this thing, and, and I know he has an issue, a little bit of a vendetta against the Army.

You know, he was a National Guardsman, and he was sort of not treated well, he thought.

And, you know, he, he's now in a position, and I'm gonna just shoot straight with you, where, you know, first of all, he's made some not good statements publicly.

Statements that have come back to haunt us.

Is he, is he doing all this because he's paranoid? What's his, what's his problem?

Am I right about any of those three?

Jesse, one, who knows, right? Because here's what we don't know.

What happened with the conversation last night between the attorneys and the client, right? The client could have been like, I want to take that back.

I don't want to do that.

This happens all the time, right? This is the stuff where, you know, behind the curtains where the sausage is made that we all here can't speculate on.

We don't know.

But it's often that alone is enough.

By the way, just point of view, could they still present this defense but just not bring in evidence? I mean, it's crazy to say, but just not bring in evidence of it?

Uh, is that true? If you were asked, would you-

Well, sure.

I mean, I've, I've been, I've been contacted by someone from Netanyahu's team and want to know if I'd be interested, and when I looked into it, um, interested would be an understatement, Bill.

Um, this to me is, uh, as close to a ground ball, uh, as you get as far as a defamation suit.

Because look, the New York Times knew exactly what global reaction these accusations would trigger, and they published them anyway.

So this case is gonna turn, and I think they have a great defamation case.

The case is gonna turn on one question: Did The New York Times meet the extraordinary verification burden required when publishing accusations this inflammatory? Because when you publish something so outrageous, so inflammatory, so extraordinary, the level of verification has to go up.

What do you, what do you tell him to do going forward?

Is that true? Well,

sure.

I mean, I've been contacted by someone from Netanyahu's team and want to know if I'd be interested.

And when I looked into it, interested would be an understatement, Bill.

This, to me, is as close to a ground ball as you get as far as a defamation suit.

Because, look, the New York Times knew exactly what global reaction these accusations would trigger.

And they published them anyway.

What do you tell him to do going forward?

"... that he approached you with..." Well, h- what do you suggest that the defense does in closings?

You can't say, "Well, then every other athlete who's done this," and Eliot Spitzer with the things I just said, you can't say that to a jury.

It's not part of the evidence in this case.

There's no evidence that every professional athlete or this sort of stuff.

But you can say without saying it, well, you have to basically say to the jury, "Ladies and gentlemen, I think you know what's going on here.

I think you understand the landscape.

Violation of the Mann Act? You are the conscience of this community.

Yeah.