Dem Memorial Day Political Stunt Backfires

Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for teens. Instagram teen accounts have built-in content settings and limits for who can contact teens. Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval. So parents can help teens connect safely. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see. Learn more at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Instagram teen accounts default teens into automatic protections for who can contact them and the content they can see. Explore teen accounts and all of our ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. heart of our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., backed by the trusted voices of Team Fox, a clear, fresh voice cutting through the noise to tell the truth. It's Guy Benson with Guy Benson. It is Tuesday, May 26th. 26, I'm Guy Benson. Welcome to Guy Benson, everyone. Glad you're with us. Guy Benson.com, podcast free every day on demand there or at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a political analyst at Fox News, a senior columnist at the Washington Examiner. Great, great lineup in store for you here on the radio side. First, a programming yacht on TV. I'll be on the bottom line tonight, FBN, around 630 Eastern. On the radio side, U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas later this hour, Josh Krasauer in the next hour, Byron York as well, and then Mark Teeson to wrap things up. I will have lots to say about my trip at the end of the show. Just got back from Argentina, really memorable, all those details upcoming in the home stretch. I do want to start, though, with a reference to Memorial Day yesterday. The reason that we had a best-of show here, and we weren't working, and most of you weren't either, and many of you were out having a great time, barbecues, et cetera, at least where the weather cooperated, we had that ability, we had that freedom, we had that joy because of the many men and women. over generations of Americans who gave it all for this country. They made the ultimate sacrifice. And these are slogans and cliches, perhaps, in some people's minds, and we mouth them ritually around certain times of the year. But it's more than that. It's real people, real lives. that were laid down for our flag and our country and what we stand for. And those scars, those emotional scars, are carried by the loved ones and the brothers and sisters in arms of the fallen for many years. And we should never overlook that. We should never take it for granted. It's the whole point of having Memorial Day is to remember.

And I think there's a lot wrong in our country these days. I think we would all agree on that. Striving toward a more perfect union and missing the Marco Rubio lot of the time. But sometimes with the negativity that's out there, it's important to remind ourselves not just of the heroes among us and those who are no longer with us, but also the fundamental goodness. of Americans, which brings me to something really special that I saw over the weekend, and it moved me almost to tears. It moved me immensely. And in case you missed it, I want to let you in on it because it just filled my heart with pride in this country, but also... other intense emotions on behalf of a woman who on social media goes by Cheryl Ann, I believe she's from Arkansas, and she tweeted, this is on X, on the afternoon of May 24th, so the day before Memorial Day, Sunday. And she was not someone with a big social media footprint or presence that has changed to some extent. since this all happened, but she posted on X just before 4 p.m. on Sunday. This is probably a long shot, but if anybody happens to be in D.C. this weekend and plans on visiting Arlington, I would love to see a fresh photo of my husband's grave in Section 60. SSG. Allen W. Shaw. Section 60, Grave 8451. And then she includes his cavalry division and his date of birth, November 10th, 1975, and the date of his death, February 9th, 2007. She added, there's just something about knowing people still stop by. Still say his name. Still remember. And then she has two American flags and a gold star, she being a gold star wife. Well, I can tell you now that as of this live broadcast, that post accumulated about six and a half million views, inspired tens of thousands of likes and retweets, reposts, and nearly a thousand replies. And the replies are, for the most part, just amazing. People wishing her the best, thanking her for her sacrifice and, of course, her late husband's sacrifice. And then so many people who were out on a rainy, steamy, Memorial Day at Arlington Cemetery who saw the tweet and decided to go do exactly what she had asked and post photos of that grave in his honor, really for her, but also remembering him, saying that name, Alan Shaw, who died in the Middle East while I, for example, was a college student, living my best life.

The fear is never just losing them. It's losing them slowly over time as the world moves on and fewer people remember their name. But today showed me that Alan will never be forgotten. After years of watching social media rewards some of the worst parts of humanity, today gave me a reminder that the good is still out there too. Thank you to every single person who stopped by to visit Alan today and said his name. Share it his story. or took a moment to honor the fallen. This right here is the America Allen knew and loved enough to fight and die for. And today, y'all showed us that it's still here. And it's still worth fighting for. And then an American flag. And that to me is the essence. of why we have a national holiday and a day off like we did yesterday. And I think it is incumbent on all of us, especially those of us who did not serve and have not had direct relatives people very close to us in harm's way, at least in the very recent past, as is my case, to take the moment to reflect. and to in some way show the gratitude that we as a nation, not just should have, but do have, for these heroes. I'm always struck by the photos, and they're tough of spouses who are at the casket of a husband or a wife, killed inaction often very far from home, dying while on duty. Photos of pets, dogs, standing guard by a coffin, that sort of thing. And, you know, it hits you the way that it should. Every year there's something that brings that home to me on Memorial Day. And in this case, this year, it was this simple, timid, hopeful request from a widow, a gold star widow, gold star wife, Could not imagine what the results would be and the response. And then here it was, the best of us. On behalf of the best of us. I wanted to start today's show on the heels of Memorial Day with that. Thanks to Cheryl Ann and to Alan and to everyone else. who've been in those shoes. God bless you. Guy Benson just underway on this Tuesday. We'll be right back. Miss a minute. Miss a lot. Guy Benson. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswinshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly. I'm Guy Benson. We're back.

So some other things happened yesterday on Memorial Day, not so great compared to what we were just talking about in the opening segment. And in fact, the Democratic Party did something so appalling and gross and politicized that even pretty prominent members of their party called them out and eventually they deleted a social media post. So the Democrats... At the Democrats, their official handle on X, they decided to mark Memorial Day by posting this, quote, Today we honor the American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in Trump's war with Iran. And then... They have an infographic that includes Donald Trump's name, and then the faces and names of the 13 American service members who died during Operation Epic Fury. And without getting into some of my thoughts on Epic Fury and Iran and the conflict and where things are going, in fact, we will have a lot to say about that later in the show with Mark Teeson. I think this is just an incredibly crass, cheap thing to do on Memorial Day. It's like, oh, here are the specific soldiers we're going to name in order to use this as a cudgel specifically to make a political point right now when Memorial Day is about much more than anything narrow like that, which is not to say that these... Men and women shouldn't be remembered or honored on Memorial Day. And of course, we think back to Afghanistan and the men and women who were killed in that terrorist attack near Abbey Gate and how the previous administration really was like they were allergic to even acknowledging those people. I'm not sure Joe Biden ever said their names. Of course, no one was ever held accountable for that or anything else had happened in that whole disaster. But it would be like if the Republicans. on Memorial Day, the following Memorial Day, only mentioned those people and tied them to Biden on Memorial Day itself. It's really, really distasteful. I'm sure some right-winger probably did that somewhere, and that would have been wrong, too. But that's how the Democrats decide to use a social media platform, at least for a while until they took it down because of people like, and I will give credit here, where it's deserved, Senator Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, from WLS country. I disagree with her on many, many things. She's also a double amputee and Purple Heart recipient who... was wounded gravely serving our country. She saw that post that I just read to you and had the same sense of revulsion that I did. Not because she shares my politics, she doesn't, but because it was such a terrible tone-deaf politicized thing to do. She tweeted, it is incredibly distasteful to use our heroic dead.

for a political attack on Memorial Day. I'm a Democrat, and I condemn this post by the DNC. And then the tweet was taken down. Maybe the DNC can do an autopsy on that tweet, how that came to be. Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado, also someone with whom I have many disagreements, also was appalled by this. He said, if we want to hold the moral high ground, we have to be better. I fought for our country and served with those who made the ultimate sacrifice. It's wrong to politicize this day. It was part of his tweet. And I guess ultimately the DNC, trying to make the point against Trump on Memorial Day that it did, was shamed into taking that down. I also saw a bit of a controversy in Minnesota because it happened to land on Memorial Day this year, the anniversary of George Floyd's death. And of course, we know what that precipitated and triggered in the Twin Cities and really around the whole country. And the decisions that were made by some of the local leaders there, Jacob Frey, the mayor, Tim Walz, the governor. what they decided to post on social media and when, what events they decided to attend or not. And so, unfortunately, there was some pretty nasty stuff and some highly, let's just say, questionable choices made by some people on Memorial Day. I think if we want to capture the spirit of what Memorial Day ought to be, I will refer you back to the previous segment. If you missed it, check out the podcast at Guy Benson.com. Senator John Cornyn, Texas, up next. Talking about the issues you care about, Guy Benson. Welcome back, everyone. Glad to have you here, Guy Benson.com, podcast always free when the show is over. Well, joining us now is United States Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, big day for him down in the Lone Star State. Senator, welcome back to the show. Good to be with you, guys. Thanks for having me. Sure. So there's been this long runoff in your Senate primary. It's you and the Attorney General of the state. And there's been a lot of movement there. You came out as the top vote getter and the initial primary than this very expensive, brutal runoff. The president came in and endorsed your opponent, Ken Paxton. And where does that leave you heading into tonight? Well, I'm very encouraged by the early voting in the primary about 16%.

Hang on. Hold on, Senator. We've got a little phone issue there with you, and we'll get that sorted. In the meantime, what he was, I believe, alluding to is something that I saw from our friend Sarah Isger, who wrote a phenomenal book, by the way, about the Supreme Court. We had a long conversation with her recently about it. Last Branch Standing. She said some of that early balloting data could be good news for the Corning campaign. I think we have the Senator back. If you could just answer that question from scratch, Senator, hopefully we've got a better connection. Yeah, Guy, we were encouraged by the early voting numbers that came out about 60% of registered voters. I'm sorry, 60% of the total vote in the primary came in early voting. So if that percentage holds up, roughly 40% will vote on to vote today. And in the places where the early voting is strongest, it was in areas that we did well. Obviously, that could all change. We're optimistic, and we've done everything we can to encourage everybody to get out to vote, including the 75% of registered voters that didn't vote in either primary on March the 3rd who can now vote in this runoff. Okay, so there is a lot at stake in the U.S. Senate, just in general, and we've been highlighting a number of those races will continue to do so ahead of November. And it seems as though... Losing a seat in Texas would be potentially catastrophic for the Republicans' chances to maintain even a thin Senate majority. I know that your point of view is that if your opponent wins this runoff, then at the very least, the party's going to have to... plow a ton of money into this race to try to save the seat because, you know, he's got, I think it's fair to say, some real baggage. In your mind, how does that play into decisions voters ought to be making today, those who have not voted early who might be heading out to the polls this afternoon or this evening? Well, Guy, I think the question is, do Republicans want to win? If Republicans actually want to win and hold on to our majorities in the House and the Senate so we can continue to help President Trump with his agenda, then I'm their guy, so to speak, excuse me, guy. Fair enough. But the but the obvious, the converse is also true, and that is that if Ken Paxton is the nominee, he may have skated by in a Republican primary with a very small. percentage of registered voters. But once he's subjected to the general electorate, independents and Democrats included, I think it's going to be a far different ballgame. And he's going to spend most of his time playing defense trying to defend his scandalous record rather than prosecuting the case against James Talarico. And there's plenty of targets there, but not if Ken Paxton's going to be on his heels all during the general election. Now, something's going to happen one way or another tonight. And some of the analysis that I've read is that there's a path for you to win, even though, you know, President Trump is a pretty good batting average, to put it mildly, when it comes to his endorsements in Republican primaries. So there's obviously some substantial chance that Ken Paxton would win tonight, regardless of the victor, whether it's you, whether it's him.

Looking ahead to November, what are the stakes in Texas? You just mentioned James Talarico. I have joked on this show that he kind of looks like a youth pastor and kind of talks like one a little bit. When you look at his actual beliefs and you scratch, not even beneath the surface, just look at his voting record. This is an extraordinary, radical. left-wing figure for someone who's running statewide in Texas, let alone for the U.S. Senate. Talk about the importance of defeating James Talarico from your perspective. Well, I think you described him well. I called him a wolf in cheap's clothing or Beto O'Rourke 2.0. But, you know, in 2020, when I was last on the ballot, I won by 10. And I would say that the chances of me with me on the ballot are chances of winning not only the Senate seat back against a candidate like James Talarico, but also helping Republicans all up and down the ballot. including the five new congressional seats that have been redrawn as a result of redistricting. I know the president wants to, he doesn't want to get impeached for a third time, which will happen if Democrats win the majority in the House. So I think I can help the president and I can help our party by helping lift all boats rather than be an albatross around the neck of those candidates. It's been a long, bruising, very expensive runoff where the Democrats have had, you know, their nominee pretty clear here, just raising tons and tons of money over those ensuing months. Regardless of what happens tonight, you know, if you win, there's going to be a lot of supporters of... Ken Paxton and admirers of President Trump, who are going to be bent out of shape about that, and vice versa, right? If he wins, a lot of your supporters are going to be dejected and upset. What would your message be, if you win tonight, what would your message be to Republicans, conservatives, independents, everyone in between, some sensible Democrats in the state of Texas? What would your message be on unity after tonight? Well, I've been in a number of elections and including some of these family fights. And these family fights are always awkward and unpleasant. But I think we will unify. And that will be everybody who wants to see President Trump. successful in the remaining two years of his term of office, including me, we will come together and defeat James Talarico. So I think you'll see a very united Republican Party once we get by this runoff.

I also think you'll see a very united, so-called news media, trying to help James Talarico, the way that they tried to do with Beto O'Rourke. And that was, remember, 2018, tough year, blue wave year in a lot of ways. Your colleague, Ted Cruz, was able to get across the finish line. Ted winning by three points or so in a pretty red state. I know Texas went. red er than it has recently just in 2024, but nothing's ever permanent in politics. And the media will be trying to put their thumb on the scale I saw. This Chiron, it was Eric Erickson highlighted on social media. This is a graphic on CNN talking about Texas and James Talarico. And the graphic says Trump mocks James Talarico falsely claiming he's a vegan who, quote, believes in six genders. And the problem with the falsely, sort of qualifier there, Senator, is James Talarico at a previous campaign had bragged on camera that he had made his campaign vegan and was boasting about that. And he's on tape talking about six genders, not just at some left-wing conference, but in a hearing. In the Texas state legislature, here it is, you know, CNN's making it seem like Donald Trump's making this up about James Talarico. Here is the voice of James Talarico in a committee hearing in Texas cut 14. I want us all to be aware of is that that modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six, which honestly, Representative Hepner surprised me too. Surprise me too, because I, you know, am not well-versed in this issue area. I'm not a scientist. I'm a politician, a lot worse than a scientist. So, Senator, here's the thing. He didn't even say that there are six genders. As you heard there, he said there are six biological sexes. And I think that dovetails with his view also stated out loud on camera, that he believes that God is non-binary. I mean, even in a blue year, does this sell in Texas? No. No, James Chalricca was a whack job. But you're right about the mainstream media, you know, because he is a little different and he looks non-threatening. I think, you know, kind of like Joe Biden, although Biden wasn't different. But I think the reason he became the Democratic nominee is because Democrats wanted somebody who would. seem non-threatening even while being a very progressive president. And I think James Talarico is the same. And there's definitely to the left. I mean, in fairness, he's way to the left of even Biden, I would say. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. But I think just the part about them, the mainstream media is going to want to promote James Talarico at every opportunity out of Trump derangement syndrome or whatever reason. But I think.

Rather than have to defend scandals and all the baggage, I can prosecute that case, I think, most effectively, whereas as Ken Paxton would struggle because he would be worried about defending his own record and his own bona fides rather than going on attack against James Talarico. But Tau Rico is a dangerous, dangerous nominee. Finally, Senator, I do want to ask you about foreign policy, and we will be addressing this when we talk to Mark Teeson later in the show. But there's all these different rumors and questions and reports around what exactly the Trump administration is planning vis-a-vis Iran and whether or not at some point. You might see a resumption of bombing, whether there might be a deal that comes into focus. There's been some consternation that it could be a weak deal. It's all still being hashed out. Some of the reports are actually conflicting. Do you have a sense of how that's shaping up and what you are hoping to see on that front? Well, I don't believe you can trust the Iranian regime to abide by any agreement, any negotiation that they might come to the table on. But they're back on their heels, to be sure. I applaud President Trump and his willingness to take on the number one state sponsor of international terrorism and his willingness to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon, which would be catastrophic in the Middle East to be destabilizing and increase the likelihood of at least a regional war. So I applaud the president for doing that, but I would also believe that we can't leave there without. control of the straight of Hormuz. And we can't leave it up to Iran to operate the toll gate there for international shipping. But I know the president's got a lot of advisors. He's got a lot of information that I don't have and is not public. But I'm glad he's being very cautious about this because while I think what he has done has been very courageous in the proper course of action. trusting the Iranian regime and leaving them in charge of the Strait of Hormuz, I think, would be a mistake. Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right. And I would just add, and I look forward to chatting later with Mark and Mark Tyson about this, the objectives of this conflict from the get-go were righteous and critical, and there was huge progress made toward each of them. But if there's an opportunity to finish it,

Whether through diplomacy or otherwise, you don't want to leave that option on the table, in my view, and we will see where this goes in the days ahead. U.S. Senator John Cornyn down there in Texas, if you're in Texas right now, be part of the process. There is this runoff. today, and we just wanted to welcome back, John Cornyn to the show as people are making that decision. And, Senator, we look forward to having you back here, regardless of what happened tonight, win or lose, looking forward to next time. Well, thanks, Guy. You can vote in Texas till 7 p.m. Central Times, so get out and vote. Thanks. There you go. There you go. The public service announcement for those of you in the Lone Star State. And I know, by the way, many of you are on Team John Cornyn. Many of you are not. And that's why I was asking the question about unity and talking about James Talarico and what he poses as I think a threat in Texas. And I think John Cornyn's assessment of James Talarico is exactly right, A and B probably shared by his primary opponent. So with that said, we will step aside. We will come right back with more on Guy Benson after this. New Talk for a New Generation, Guy Benson. We continue here on Guy Benson. I had not heard that clip in a while. Of James Talarico, we played in the last segment, at a hearing. I believe through his mask, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, actually, there are six biological sexes. No. No. And look, here's the thing. I've made the point repeatedly here. That I am not interested in being mean-spirited to trans people, let adult trans people, within reason. I mean, you know, some of these activists really go out of their way to make it as difficult as possible, and it becomes, I think, totally unwieldy and sometimes the point to make people, you know, jump through all these hoops to get everything exactly right. I'm not talking about that type of, you know, activists. I'm saying in general, just accommodate and be kind to people. My thing is just leave kids alone and let's kind of leave sports alone, right? Those are the two big ones. Don't impose this on children and don't poison the integrity of women's and girls' sports. I think that's like a fairly reasonable position to take. And when you look at a guy like...

James Talarico calling God non-binary and saying there are six biological sexes. He gave a sermon from a pulpit talking about the importance of trans abortions, like abortions for trans people. I mean, it's, it is way, way out there. And you have to wonder, will. Even an electorate that might be upset with Republicans or Democrats extra motivated to go vote or what have you. In a place like Texas, are you going to go for someone who's that extreme? You go down the list. I'm just giving like one example. But it also reminds me of a vote that happened just last week in the U.S. House. It was a bill that would require schools to get parental consent before changing the pronouns. the gender identity of children, minors, in schools. All right? So you've got a government school saying you can't keep secret some sort of transition you're doing at school without getting consent from the parent of the minor child. All the Republicans voted yes, 198 Democrats. The vast majority of House Democrats voted no. There were seven or eight who voted yes. The overwhelming majority voted no. And I might make a case on the whole federalist front, federalism front. Like, is this the purview of the federal government or is that something that, you know, local and state officials should take care of? I mean, that is a separate, that is a separate question. But I think the lopsided vote here is not about that. It underscores that woke, and this is one of my ongoing themes, woke is not over. The crazy woke excesses of 2020 and 2021 are not over. They are on pause while the practitioners of wokeism and all this craziness are out of power. If they get the power back, they will bring it all back quite possibly with a vengeance. often with a smiling face like James Talarico's in Texas. Not interested in that personally. I don't know about you. Another hour. Guy Benson up next. Josh Crosshauer is here when we return.

generation of conservative talk right here right now fair fun and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of fox news you're listening to Guy Benson and now here's your host Guy Benson It's a new hour here on Guy Benson, our middle hour of three on this Tuesday. Thank you for tuning in. Guy Benson.com is our website, podcast free every day on demand. When the show is over, shortly after which I'll be jetting over to TV, Fox Business 630 Eastern or so. See you there on the bottom line. Fox News alert as we enter this middle hour. The Dow sliding 118 points at the close today in the red. Still well north of 50,000, though, closing at 50,000, 461. With us now, Josh Krasauer, Fox News Radio Political Analyst, Editor-in-Chief at Jewish Insider, at Josh Krausauer on social media. Josh, great to have you, as always. Hey, Guy, great to be back with you. All right, I want to just read for this audience some updates involving the Senate race in Maine. with yet more information coming out about Graham Platner, the left-wing candidate who appears ready to become the Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate against Susan Collins, the most moderate Republican really in Congress. And this guy has all sorts of problems. We've talked a lot about the Nazi tattoo, the things he said about women. I hear that there might be more some more substance coming on that front in the days to come. But setting that aside, Here's the latest one that I think got not enough attention last week. In an online post in 2019, so not ancient history at all, Graham Platner mocked helmet camera footage. This is from the Washington Free Beacon, mocked rather, helmet camera footage that depicted Army soldier Ted Daniels getting shot multiple times during a 2012 firefight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Daniels, a Purple Heart recipient, was on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan when his squad was pinned down by machine gun fire, as he put it upon his return to the United States. Daniel said he came out into the open to draw fire away from his colleagues so his squad could get to safety before he was hit. He was hit multiple times by the Taliban, and this was captured on video. And that video went public. This guy survived, of course, a hero, Purple Heart.

And what Graham Platner said, his color commentary on this video, was, quote, this video never gets old. Dumb mother bleeper didn't deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat bleep wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. And then he referred to this hero as a mouth breather and saying it was poor marksmanship by the Taliban and basically just trashed this guy. And according to the man who was shot by the enemy, he deliberately put himself at risk on behalf of his brethren. And then Graham Platner said what he said, seeming to enjoy the video. It never gets old and saying that this mother effort didn't deserve to live, referring to an American soldier. So Graham Platner was asked about this. Fox News Digital caught up with him. It seems like many in the media are not really sure what to do with this man. They want to support him. They want their team to win, but he's got all sorts of problems. So Fox did ask him whether he owes this purple heart recipient an apology. And his response was, I did four tours in the infantry. Any attempt to say that I disrespect veterans is slanderous and offensive. So that's the indignant response there from Graham Platner. I mean, this is another, I think, window into this man's character, and I'm not sure we're done yet with this type of thing. Yeah, I mean, Guy, this points to a pattern of behavior in which Graham Platner has made numerous comments condemning and attacking American troops. condemning the army, praising Hamas, supporting communism. The strategy from Graham Platner's campaign has been to say, well, these were old posts when he was, you know, suffering through PDSD. And so we shouldn't take a look at any of these posts. We shouldn't have these posts tell us any, they shouldn't allow us to tell us anything about his character, his values, his principles, that his whole political career started when he announced his campaign last year. I mean, to me, like, the most relevant and revealing parts of a candidate's biography are the things you say when you're not running for office, when you're actually revealing your true character and you're the most loose and least cautious about what you're saying publicly. And this is a long – so we reported a Jewish insider that he posted a similar type of kind of comment about – watching Israeli soldiers being murdered by Hamas terrorists and praising the Hamas tactics and joyfully watching that and offering similar color commentary. And that was in 2014. These comments, Guy, are five years later. Five years after that. 2019. So this guy, you know, it doesn't really pass the smell test. He may have been going through a rough patch and said some ridiculous things because five years later, he's engaging in the same type of behavior mocking American.

military servicemen who risk their lives in Afghanistan, you know, just a pattern of just obscene behavior that would have been disqualifying for any candidate for public office. You can run for dog catch. And these are the types of comments that would disqualify you not long ago. So the playbook from the Graham Platner camp has been disabled. You can't look at any of the public comments he's made until he ran for office. And then he wised up and he got through his PTSD. And now he was a much more serious person. But we have almost a decade's worth of radical, extreme, just guns. turning type type of commentary running through the gamut of issues we just would give this just the tip of the iceberg when you know talking about the American and Israeli military servicemen that to me is a lot more revealing I always like he seems to enjoy these videos of Americans and Israelis getting shot by terrorists Yeah, it's a pattern, right? I mean, we were fighting the Taliban and extremist elements in Afghanistan. Israel was fighting Hamas. These are separate... parts of the world, but similar goals with our allies. And he had only mocked, you know, in these posts that have been revealed, just total mockery and just a middle finger, really, to the United States and our ally Israel. And it's something sick about watching, you know, like in the case of Hamas, like watching soldiers being murdered and getting glee from it. And then attacking a Purple Hearts, you know, a hero of our country and attacking them with such. With such ease, there's something deeply wrong with that. It used to be that our politics would correct. A candidate like this would not have even passed the smell test. They wouldn't have even gotten to first base. This guy is now... likely going to be the nominee for the Democrats. And it would go into a general election probably as a favorite. I'm not sure. You know, Susan Collins is really tough out up there in Maine. But there are some Democrats who can't abide this. Jake, Oshin Klaus, from Massachusetts, a member of the House of Representatives, was talking about his record, the Nazi tattoo from that SS unit, famous for the most evil things really in the history of mankind, at least among them. And he, he, sort of took inventory of what Graham Platner has to offer and said this. This is a fellow Democrat on CNN Cut 21. No weighing in on Graham Platner. I've been clear about Graham Platner. I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying. I hope Maine voters agree with me. I think there would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham Platner's brand of the Democratic Party is what wins us durable majorities throughout this country.

Josh, 30 seconds, the backlash, not against Graham Platner for his Nazi tattoo and all of his behavior, the backlash against that congressman has been fierce on the left. They're talking about trying to drive him out of Congress for offering that commentary. It sort of gives you a sense of where things are, at least in the Democratic base right now. Yeah, it tells you a lot about where the Democratic Party grassroots is right now, that the person speaking out against the guy with a neo-Nazi tattoo is facing more political vulnerability as a result of speaking out, the person actually with a neo-Nazi tattoo who has a long history of making these repulsive statements. There's a sense of nihilism that's in the party, and this... speaks volumes to where the Democrats are. And they lecture us. They wag their fingers. Country over party. And then when someone on their side does something like that in this case, down his throat, they go. Josh Krasauer. Thank you for your time. We'll be right back. You're listening to a new generation of talk, Guy Benson.

I'm Guy Benson, and we are back. One of the jurisdictions that we keep an eye on here on this show when it comes to law and order and crime is Fairfax County, Virginia. One of the deep blue counties just outside Washington, D.C. that has been overwhelmingly captured by the left. And it has a prosecutor, and I almost hesitate to call him a prosecutor because he seems to be pro-criminal, pro-crime, and often just terribly incompetent on top of it. And the result has been disastrous for the county. And he is particularly not just soft on crime and lenient towards criminals. He has a special place in his non-prosecutorial heart for illegal immigrants. Almost like it's this special protected class in Fairfax County. the policies of which have now been implemented statewide by the fake moderate governor, Abigail Spanberger. But Steve Descana, one of these Soros-style prosecutors, has come up over and over and over again on this show and many others because of exactly this mentality and this worldview that is actively dangerous to the people of Fairfax County. Many of who apparently are fine with it and keep voting for this stuff. But Steve Descano in his office in particular, in my mind, are a menace. There's a guy that I refer to only half jokingly as the only reporter in the state of Virginia, Nick Minnock at ABC 7 in D.C. He recently did a whole package and a report about how since Descano took office. Back in January 2020, so you can imagine what has happened since that month of that year, violent crime in Fairfax County has increased 92% on his watch. And just last week, he was on Capitol Hill. Descano was. He was called before members of Congress to discuss his record in public safety and did not go terribly well for him because the record is so abysmal. And so many of the things that he has done are indefensible. But he was there trying to spar with these lawmakers. And at one point, he offered this sort of half-hearted pro forma apology to the mother of Stephanie Minter. who was the young woman who was murdered at a bus stop in Fairfax County, allegedly by an illegal immigrant with a long criminal history, including violent charges, many of which had been dropped, of course, by Descano. The local police begged Descano's office, do not release this guy. He's going to kill someone, and then Descano's office released him, and he now allegedly has killed someone. And Stephanie Minter's mom, an angel mom,

understandably blames him and the system for allowing this to happen. And because she was there in the room at the hearing, he kind of apologized, not for his poor performance or his policies, but just for her loss. And then when the meeting was over, the hearing was over, apparently, Descano went rushing over to chat with the Democrat members of the committee and did not actually... apologize face to face or even deal with this grieving mother even though they were in the same room he didn't have the courage apparently to do that He's maybe more afraid of an angel mom than he is of hardened criminals, including those who are in the country illegally. Just a complete mess. So some of that you're already aware of, although the detail on increased violent crime was a new stat that I saw from this Nick Minnock reporter. Then there was also via Minnock an update about just yet another example. of this pro-criminal madness and lunacy that prevails under not just Descano, but people like him across the country, often in the bluest jurisdictions. So here's the background to a story. There was a girl, an underage girl, who was missing, believed to have been taken by a man, a man with a history. I'll let Minnock explain the rest here, cut 26. His name is Ronnie Reel. He's 39 years old and a convicted felon. In fact, Seven News covered the case when he was accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in Fairfax County in 2021. Real was facing life in prison. But because Fairfax County Commonwealth's attorney Steve Descano's office missed, required legal deadlines in the case, the judge ruled that critical evidence, including Reel's confession to the crime, could not be used at trial. That led to a plea deal for... a misdemeanor, and Real walked out of the courthouse with time served. My son was sexually assaulted. Today I spoke with the mother of that boy who Reel admitted to assaulting five years ago. She's heartbroken for the family now looking for their daughter. So that was last week. There's an update that I'll get to here in a second, but I mean, that clip really speaks for itself. Here's someone in Fairfax County who allegedly, now I think it's... conclusively proven, committed a horrible crime against a child, sexually abused a middle schooler, a boy. And because Steve Descano and his team could not be bothered to do their job in a functional and competent way, maybe they were too busy figuring out, get out of jail free scenarios for other criminals, especially illegal immigrants, they were distracted, but they botched the case. And this child sexual predator was released back out onto the street with time served. And as we unfortunately know about sexual assailants, especially of children, the recidivism rate is very high. So in this case, there was an underage girl who had gone missing and was believed to be last seen with him, this same person.

And the update, according to Minok, is that over the weekend, police in Prince William County were able to locate the girl with this man. And now he's back in custody. So he's charged with abducting a minor. Hopefully, Descano and team don't royally screw this one up too. because they've been known to do such things. And then there's, in other cases, I would describe the malice of forethought of actively helping the criminals. And that terrible record involving the previous abuse of a minor then allowed this monster to be walking the streets to, it would seem, at least on some level, strike again this time an underage girl. God willing, she is okay. I pray that is the case, but new charges, surprise, surprise against this exact same guy who was ultimately allowed to walk by Descano and company in that whole brain trust. Elections have consequences. Left-wing, hardcore woke, anti-enforcement ideology has consequences, often visited upon completely innocent people, including children. And as long as voters think that this is a okay with them, then there will be more innocent victims in perpetuity in places like this. Why voters would ever tolerate anything like this completely beyond me? And I think some of it is people don't know. And the local press likes to, for the most part, cover it up. They leave out details. They bury certain things. And so it's up to others. To blow the whistle on this stuff, which is exactly what we're doing here. An update out of Fairfax County, I can't say I'm surprised, but I am sickened, and I'm sure many of you are as well. Steve Descano strikes again. Guy Benson resumes after this break. Byron York is here talking politics, the DNC Autopsy, 2026, and so much more. You don't want to miss it. Coming up.

Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. Halfway through Guy Benson on this Tuesday, thank you very much for joining us. Guy Benson.com, podcast always free. And with us now is Byron New York, my colleague twice over here at Fox News, and also he's the chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, where I write. Byron, always good to have you. Welcome. Hi, Guy. Good to be here. All right, let's talk about the long-awaited and bizarre controversy riddled DNC autopsy from 2024. We talked about it a bit on this show. I wrote a column last week, actually puzzling over why the DNC was hiding it under so much pressure, and I had, I think, a pretty strong theory behind that. And then... Amidst that pressure that I mentioned, finally Ken Martin relented and said, yep, it's not really any good. It won't live up to your standards. It doesn't mind either. But here you go. And it came out. What are your overall takeaways from the timing of the release, the substance of the release, etc.? Well, it's so shoddy and it's so incomplete and it's so almost intentionally clueless. that my reaction was that I wondered whether the Democrats ever wanted to know anything about their failure or not, or whether they wanted to be able to say that they were investigating what went wrong, analyzing what went wrong, when in fact, they just didn't. I mean... You laid it out correctly. The longer that Ken Martin delayed releasing the autopsy, the stronger the speculation became that, wow, there must be something really good in there. I mean, maybe there's something kind of explosive. When, in fact, it wasn't finished. It wasn't anywhere close to finished. I mean, it is filled with disclaimers that the author did not hand this over to us, or there's no data to support this, or this was never finished. So it's clearly not in any shape. to be released. So my guess is Martin just felt so much pressure, and he was telling you, you know, he was telling everybody, this is a total hot mess, I'm telling you. And now they're saying, wow, you're right. Yeah, a bit of a dud. My thought was, because number one, they were saying it would be too embarrassing for Kamala Harris. I said that explanation does not make any sense. The other explanation was, oh, it's... going to tell the truth about Gaza and how that really was the issue that tipped this whole thing away from us. And not only was that not true, which I anticipated it was not going to be true, they didn't really mention Gaza at all, which really angered that crowd, saying, oh, they're silent on this. Maybe the DNC recognized there'd be some anger and recriminations over that angle. I thought that part of it might be that they didn't want to seem like they were...

urging moderation on some issues moving forward to make it seem like they were capitulating on something or maybe don't resist Trump all the time moving forward. And there were a couple of little indications of that, the effectiveness of the they-them attacks and that ad against Kamala Harris, for example. But that wasn't really ultimately, I think, the big reason why they were sitting on this thing. I think they were just embarrassed of it. I don't know why they couldn't have said from the very beginning. This thing is terrible. It is not worth the paper it's written on. It is shoddy and filled with holes and a big, big mess. So if you want it, you can have it, but we don't really endorse this or stand by it. Why couldn't they have just done that? Well, I mean, that's a good question, but I think my bigger question is, how did they allow this? to happen in this sense. And you're right. There's just tons of stuff that's not mentioned. People should read. They read just one thing. It's the treatment of the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which was a total disaster and was the turning point of the race. I mean, it's why Joe Biden had to get out of the race, and Kamala Harris got in. And they don't delve into this at all. They don't talk about the president's senility. They don't talk about... anything, really, other than that dial groups. They had dial groups watching the debate, and amazingly enough, the dial groups were not very impressed. Responded badly like every other sentient person watching? Every other person in the world. So the thing is, Ken Martin, just into the job, assigned it to a man named Paul Rivera. He's not really a very well-known Democratic operative. He'd been in the Bill Clinton White House. and he had been on John Kerry's failed campaign, but clearly not kind of a star in these ranks. But my question is, you assign him this autopsy. You know, six months past, you want an update on what's going on. And it's clear that either he's not doing it, because their disclaimers say that many key players were just never, ever interviewed. Either he's not doing it or he's not up to handling it. At which point, what do you do if you're the head of the DNC, you get somebody else? If he's really your friend and everything, maybe you just add somebody, some competent staffer to work with him. But how do you let this go for this long, knowing that it's a mess, knowing that it's incomplete, and knowing that it should be a product of the Democratic National Committee? I think you have to get somebody. There are plenty of competent people in the Democratic National Committee. Why not get one of them to start working on this? It's beyond me. how he let all this go so far in such a mess if he did not believe that he could just keep it secret forever. I wonder if there was just a tipping point or some kind of a moment where the chairman and the team around him said, okay, we've crossed the Rubicon where Trump is sufficiently unpopular and certainly so hyper-loathe. among our base. And you look at all the normal historical patterns for midterm elections and we probably are going to have a pretty good year in 2026. So why put a damper on any of that and why sow divisions looking backward when it's going to tick off some people no matter what? So maybe people will just forget about this and it can just go away and we can win despite making any real changes, honestly, just because of those aforementioned.

sort of historical cycles that you see, I don't. really think it's that far afield to suggest that they were hoping that they could just kind of get away with it and that winning solves the problems and that they were headed maybe toward winning so why bother pursuing this thing further i can sort of understand that as the path of least resistance until it became a path of enormous resistance with all these dark theories out there about what was lurking within the document and I feel like the Band-Aid being ripped off could have happened a lot sooner than it did. Last word on that, Byron, quickly. No, I absolutely agree with that because it does seem like a different world politically right now that it did the day after the election. And you're right. Maybe they thought if enough time just passes, everybody will just kind of forget about it and move on. The problem is there's another presidential election coming up. And by the way, Kamala Harris is leading the extremely early polls. and all that. So knowing what went wrong with her in 2024, it'd be useful to the party. Also, if you go back to 2012, after the Mitt Romney loss, and Republicans were kind of shocked by that loss, I don't know why, but they were, and they conducted an autopsy of that loss, but they decided going up front. that they really weren't going to talk about policies. They were going to talk about all of the sort of logistical and mechanical things that they did wrong with getting out the vote and all that sort of stuff. They only had one policy recommendation, by the way, which was that the Republican Party must embrace comprehensive immigration reform immediately. It was the one recommendation that was completely ignored by their next candidate, Donald Trump. as part of his winning campaign in 2016. Right. But the party just released this autopsy. You know, some people laughed at it, scoffed at it, but it got out there. It was a serious thing, even though it was wrong. I don't know why Democrats couldn't have just maybe limited the scope of this thing and gotten it out there instead of making this terrible mess. Byron, New York, stand by. When we come back, I want to turn to the mayor's race in Los Angeles and a few other questions surrounding the midterm election cycle, the next election cycle, not looking back, looking forward. We'll get to that as soon as we return after a very short break. America is listening to Guy Benson.

Back here on Guy Benson, thank you for joining us. Byron, York is still with us. Byron, let's talk about Los Angeles. We're going to have these primaries coming up in California next week. We've talked about them a lot here, statewide in California and then some of the local races as well. And one of the contests that has gotten so much attention is that mayoral. competition in Los Angeles. And our audience at KABC, of course, dialed in on this. I think a lot of people are because, and this was a subject that I addressed earlier today on America's Newsroom on the news channel, Spencer Pratt has captured the attention certainly of social media. If there's like an attention primary. He is winning it, right? In an attention economy, he is definitely thriving there. He's also raising a bunch of money. He is speaking to, I think, the failures that are evident when it comes to governance in Los Angeles. And he, according to some polls, is in second place, would move forward to a general election and a runoff looking ahead to November. There's also then the other little detail of the actual electorate in Los Angeles, which is very, very blue. The question seems to be Karen Bass versus who. Is it going to be a real choice between failure and someone who wants to do things very differently or failure, personified by the flailing incumbent in Karen Bass, and something potentially worse as a Zohran Mamdani-type figure from the city council? Nithya Raman character. I wonder what you make of that race because, again, if you were just on X or Twitter, you would think that Spencer Pratt was running away with this thing. Obviously, online space versus actual electorate, not always the same thing. But Pratt, very compelling and speaking to, I think, some very real concerns out there. Where do you come down on where that race stands? Well, I think a little dose of realism, which you just gave, is a good idea because the Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the city of Los Angeles by, I think, almost 4 to 1. So, you know, Spencer Pratt victory running away with it just seems not in the cards. But I think this is a very healthy phenomenon. First of all, Pratt has had just incredible commercials, some of which are done by people who are not on his staff, but just on his side. A lot of the commercials seems to be focused on the themes of two people talking to each other in Los Angeles about the problems in Los Angeles, things like homelessness. And one of them kind of admits. that he or she is going to vote for Spencer Pratt. And the other one says, wow, me too. So it's this, you know, this dark secret. It kind of reminds you of some of the early days of the Trump campaign in which I would be interviewing people and asked who they supported in the campaign. Like a silent majority type thing, a permission structure. Like, hey, you're not alone. And they'd say Trump. You know, so I think that there is this thing going on.

in Los Angeles. I have no idea, given the 4-to-1 ratio, I have no idea how far that will get. But it's a healthy situation that people are coming out and speaking about this. I saw a poll earlier today from Signal that showed by nearly a 2-1 margin, Angelinos are dissatisfied with the direction of the city. So that's obviously something that an outsider unhappy with the status quo and promising to change it could tap into. The question is, can it be him? And will that work in a place that is so dominated by one party? And we'll get a sense of things when the results start coming in next week. Byron. I want to just quickly get your thoughts on this. I actually have a column coming out later in the week in the Washington Examiner about the Democrats perhaps coming to grips with the reality that despite a lot of their theatrics and chest thumping and triumphalism, it looks like at least for this round they have lost the redistricting fight and might lose it again after 2030 and the new census, which is... a result, I think, of their own failed governance, people losing, people leaving their states and moving to other places, right? So I think they could be in for a bit of a bruising again after the next census, but they thought. For a moment there, like they had the upper hand and Trump started this, but we're finishing it and all of that. Maximum warfare everywhere all the time, as Hakeem Jeffries referred to it. And I'm not really sure it has played out that way, especially in light of the anti-racial gerrymandering decision at the U.S. Supreme Court. In your mind, what's the... new political, structural reality here, and how does it impact the midterms for the Republicans who right now are in a really tough polling position, generally speaking? Well, I think the Democrats have lost this round of redistricting fight. I think the Supreme Court of Virginia's... decision kind of just broke their back and their spirit in all of this. So Republicans have won. Generally, I've said it before, I think it's a bad idea to be having this whole redistricting fight in the middle of a census cycle. I just, I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think it will lead to good things because even though Republicans have won this redistricting fight, there will be many, many others, and I'm not sure it's a good sort of race to the bottom. to get into. As far as the midterms are concerned, I don't think that the gains that the Republicans have in seats will be big enough to overcome their more likely losses in the House, given this narrow margin. If they literally lose a handful of seats, by which I mean five, they lose control of the House. So the margin is so tight.

And in just looking historically at midterms, it looks like the Democrats are in for a bigger victory than that. And finally, you did raise an extremely important point about 2030, the next coming census. And you're going to see losses of seats in California. in New York and Illinois, and gains of seats in Florida and Texas. This is going to be huge, not just for the control of the House, but for the electoral college, which is based on that. And it's entirely possible that after the electoral votes are sort of redistributed via the census of 2030. Republicans will need to win fewer states. Some of those blue wall states, they won't have to win those states to win the presidency. So that's a huge change. It won't be a wall, actually, right? The blue wall won't be a wall anymore, yeah. Yeah, I agree with basically everything that you just said. The one note I would add, and the audience certainly is aware of this, I'm not a big fan of the mid. decade redistricting fight either, and you call it the rates to the bottom, and I have concerns about that. And I would be very happy with the current Virginia situation and the commission that they have and how they were able to put together, I think, a very representative and fair map. If you could replicate that across the country and cut down on all this partisan gerrymandering, that's something I'd be very interested in, although I have concerns about the good faith of the Democrats for reasons that I think are valid. In any case, the 2020 census. was screwed up. It was botched by the Census Bureau. They admitted their badly wrong counts in roughly a dozen states, which disproportionately benefited blue states and harmed red states. So I understand why the Republicans felt like they got screwed over and why do we have to stick to these incorrect, wrongly counted maps for an entire decade, especially with the Bureau admitting that it had messed it up. That's the one counterpoint I would make. And I just hope that by 2030, the Bureau gets its act together and doesn't make the same mistakes again, actually does the job properly. So the counting of heads in the country. more accurately reflects the actual populations in these places, in which case I think it really is a pretty bleak story for the Democrats, both on the House front and the Electoral College for reasons that you have just outlined. Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor as well. Byron, always appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Guy. When we come back, the final hour of Guy Benson, Mark Tyson is here. on Iran, the negotiations. Is Trump about to make a mistake and blink? What about Russia and Ukraine? A lot to get to with Mark. Straight ahead.

Raise your glass to Guy Benson Happy Hour. Brought to you by the Finnish Long Drink. Finland's most popular alcoholic beverage is taking America by storm. Visit thelongdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson. It's our happy hour here on Guy Benson. It's the Tuesday edition. We're very grateful that you're listening. Thank you always for that. Guy Benson.com is our online home podcast free every day on demand when the show is over. I'll be on the bottom line. Fox Business this evening, 6.30 or so. And that's FBN with Dagan and... Brian and that whole crew, so hope you will tune in for that. This radio hour is sponsored by the Finnish Long Drink, which is delicious and refreshing. It's alcoholic, so please drink responsibly, 21 plus only, the longdrink.com. Well, joining us now is Mark Tieson, a Fox News contributor, columnist at the Washington Post, former chief presidential speechwriter for George W. Bush. Mark, great to have you here. Great to be with you, guy. We had some really cool experiences together with some of our friends and spouses. Your wife was great down in Argentina over the long weekend. I'll be talking more about that later this hour, actually, with the audience. But just wanted to say, so much fun spending time with you and your better half in picking your brain about so many of these issues. So I will definitely be remembering that one for a while. I will as well. Thank you so much for inviting me on that. We had a absolutely fantastic time. And Argentina, boy, Javier Milei is a great leader. We just spent some time with the leaders in the minister of deregulation and other people who are telling us how they're just slashing government and getting inflation under control. It's really quite a conservative revolution happening down there. Very much. Very much so, and it's cool to be down there just to witness some of it, and then also just enjoy some of the natural beauty and the food and all of that, which we will talk more about at the end of the hour during today's home stretch. Mark, let's turn further afield, as a matter of fact, to the Middle East and the theater there. I have a piece out today at the Washington Examiner on these rumors about a deal. and some of the concerns that i have i think a lot of people are completely overlooking downplaying or discarding entirely much of which was achieved in a concrete way against the Iranian regime in the opening weeks of Epic Fury on top of Midnight Hammer from last summer. Big, important things happen there, regardless of what comes next. But what comes next still matters a lot. And I am worried that we might be now sucked into this vortex with the Iranian regime, the new...

team learned from the old team, which is if they're talking endlessly and promising and vacillating and asking for extensions, then they're winning, especially these days in the sense that they aren't actually fighting. They're surviving. And I wonder if Team Trump might be falling into the trap where we saw a very dark picture emerge under the Obama administration where it seemed like they were so obsessed with getting a deal, any deal, that they made a really terrible one. I have much more faith in Trump as a commander in chief not to settle for an awful deal the way that Obama did. But I am at least... a little bit anxious about the direction this thing is moving, and the whispers are all over the place, and it seems like the Iranians are giving us whiplash and agreeing to things and then coming out publicly and mocking Trump and saying, well, actually, no, that's not true. What's actually real right now, Mark, as best you can tell? Well, let's start with the beginning where you began. I mean, 13,500 strikes. destroyed 40 years of Iranian military investment in just 38 days. We have destroyed 85% of their missile drone and naval defense industrial base, which means, at least in the short term, they are incapable of rebuilding. They only have about 2,000 drones left. Their air force and their Navy are functionally and operationally irrelevant. We dropped out 82% of their air defense systems. They basically, according to CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper, they retain a nuisance capability, but their ability to supply their proxies is broken. They no longer can project power across the region. So that is a huge, huge achievement of Operation Epic Fury. Now, the problem is 80 to 85% is not 100%. inability to reproduce it in the short term doesn't mean they can't do it in the long term. What Trump is facing is the challenge of how do you make these accomplishments irreversible or are they going to be temporary? And that's what and so he's tried, there's two ways to do that. You finish the job on the battlefield and get to 100% destruction of those things, which we were about, I think, quite frankly, we stopped the war about two weeks early with the ceasefire. If we had gone for another two weeks, we could have gotten this to 90, 95% destruction and set them back decades as opposed to years. Or do you get it at the negotiating table? Now, what does he want at the negotiating table? He wants the dust. He wants the centrifuges. He wants the new, all the enriched uranium, including not just the 60% enriched uranium, but all of it. And so the question is, are the Iranian going to give that to us? And if they're not going to give that to us, then we're going to have to finish the job militarily. And he's not going to, I mean, he posted, you know, either it's going to get handed over to us or we're going to go, we're going to have to come in and have it and supervise the destruction of these things. And I think that's really the big test.

is whether or not, you know, we can do what we did, essentially what we did, what the Bush administration did in 2003 in Libya, where we send U.S. aircraft into Libya, we carted up all the uranium hexafluoride, all the centrifuges, all the plans for making bombs, all of it, and we flew it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and it's still sitting there in secure storage. If we can do that with Iran, that's going to be a huge accomplishment. If we don't get that, then we're going to have to finish it some other way. Well, the... at least contours of a potential temporary deal that emerged just days ago were, I think, alarming to a lot of Trump's supporters on this issue. Of course, the detractors, many of them have been rooting for failure from the very beginning, ignoring that whole roster of success and all those accomplishments like they had never happened. So I think watching those people operate the way that they do is one thing. But this development, or at least the rumors, swirling around what Trump's team might have been on the brink of agreeing to was very, I think, concerning to people who have been full-throated in their support for what Trump has done so far vis-a-vis the regime, particularly because it sounded like it was just going to be an extension for two more months of a ceasefire that's barely even a ceasefire, really, because there is firing happening on a pretty regular basis. But... The ceasefire would continue for additional months to allow more talks about conversations around frameworks when it comes to the core missions, the core objectives of Operation Epic Fury in the first place. And we would, in the interim, allegedly, be giving concessions to the Iranians, to the regime, perhaps some sanctions relief and enriching them and kind of taking the boot off of their neck economically in return for, maybe a pre-war status quo at the Strait of Hormuz, which the regime has been loudly denying, in fact, would be the case. Even that little bit of a concession, which really isn't very much of a concession. So I think that's where some of the worries creep in, Mark. And I just don't know if those were trial balloons that launched and have failed, or if... You know, they're scribbling away on these documents, hoping that the Iranians will agree to eventually agree to something, and then we fritter all this time away and give them this luxury, this oxygen of more time. Is that a fair concern to have? It is a fair concern. I don't think what I get from the highest levels of the administration is that there's not going to be any sanctions relief or any money transferred from the United States that we control until the dust is destroyed or handed over. And so I don't think there's going to be any upfront financial aid to that. Now, I saw that cutter. is offering like a $12 billion loan for food and medicine supposedly. Yeah, right, like they're going to use it for food and medicine. So we got to put a stop to that. But I don't think that Trump is going to just give them money for doing nothing. But you're right. I mean, the risk here is, and the Democrats will use to say this, is that so Donald Trump tore up the Obama nuclear deal and then went to war and got the Obama nuclear deal.

So unless it's something that is concrete, like we, they literally hand over their uranium. They hand over the centrifuges. They allow us to supervise their destruction. We completely eliminate this capability. Now the promises on paper saying, you know, we're not going to produce a new, we force a swear a nuclear weapon or, you know, it's worth, you know, toilet paper. It's nothing. You have to have concrete things delivered to deliverables, and that's very important. Yeah, and I would say. He ripped up, I think, correctly the weak, fatally flawed Obama nuclear deal, and then did, in fact, Green Light, Midnight Hammer, and Epic Fury, which pounded. the regime in really meaningful ways that you were, I think, very eloquent mark in sort of listing those off. So then going back into a subpar deal, it's not like it was status quo to status quo. Some intervening events were hugely impactful in the interim, right? So that is true. But you also don't want to then backslide on the gains. into another weak deal that would allow the regime to survive and potentially down the road rebuild or reverse the degradation that we were able to wreak using our military along with the Israelis. That's, I think, one of the question marks here. And then there's all the incoherence coming from the Iranian side as well. I want to get to that plus Russia and Ukraine when we come back. Stepping aside briefly with Mark Ties and our guest on Guy Benson. We'll be right back. In the swamp, not of the swamp. Guy Benson.

Back here on Guy Benson, Mark Teeson, is our guest talking about Iran and some of the leaks and reports out there about the U.S. position. We also have heard from the regime itself. Some of it's just bravado, but I think some of this is just incorrigible. It's who they are lying out of one side of their mouth. Oh, yes, we are swearing off nuclear weapons and terrorism. We're not interested in that. We don't want instability in the region. Of course they do. It's the whole reason. It's practically the whole raison d'etra. for this regime is pursuing nuclear weapons and regional instability. That's what they do. So that's a lie. Then out of the other side of their mouth, they're putting out statements and memes on social media like Trump groveling and surrendering, like, you know, mocking him. Then you had their current president come out and just straight up say, oh, yeah, if they get some money from sanctions relief or whatever, of course they'll be using some of it to reconstitute their drone program and replenish their missiles, not even hiding the ball there. Some of that is just the chaos of no one knowing exactly who's in charge, but I think it underscores how difficult it is to take anything seriously that they say with words because words are worse than empty with this crew. 100%. Words are meaningless. We have to have actual, you know, we have to have actual concrete elimination of their nuclear capability. And here's the fundamental problem that we're trapped in by pursuing a deal as opposed to doing this unilaterally by finishing the job militarily, which is that let's say they do laws to supervise the destruction of their centrifuges and their enrichment and everything else like that. Then we have to give them sanctions relief and we have to give them money. And that gives the regime a new lease on life. And then they just wait, you know, 10 years or whatever it is like that and start the whole, they'll start the whole thing over again. And the problem is not eliminated. It's as long as this regime continues to exist and gets a new lease on life, the progress is reversible. And so they'll wait out until Trump is gone. And we have another weak president like Biden who would never do this. And we started all over again. It's the same problem, by the way, we have in Venezuela, which is a huge, huge success. in eliminating the Maduro regime. Delci Rodriguez is basically doing whatever Donald Trump wants because she's just got to get through two and a half years and just, you know, do you think that she's going to do whatever Gavin Newsom tells her or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells her? Of course not. So you need to have at some point a democratic transition in that country. So you have a, so you have. You know, you can take your hand off the bicycle seat, and they're going to go in the right direction without our help, right? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might want to take notes from her, by the way, which is sort of the frightening, frightening thought, not order. She wants to take notes. She's like orders from her. Exactly, exactly. So, look, the setback nature. of what has been achieved should not be understated at all. But it is, how does this look in the medium to long term? That is the big thorny question here. And right now it's unresolved. I am hesitant to be overly critical based on rumors, which is a point that I made in my column today at the Washington Examiner. But because I want to be intellectually honest, I am at least hearing enough that has me worried.

We will certainly have you back, Mark, to see where this thing goes, because I think there has to be... a very credible threat that we will resume hostilities along with the Israelis and potentially other coalition partners if the Iranians aren't serious, but they seem to be getting away with a major lack of seriousness here now for weeks on end. And I'm just not sure what the end game looks like, which is, I think, stirring some consternation for reasons that we have gone over. Meanwhile, in some very... positive news and we were getting inklings of this in recent weeks and now it's almost official in becoming a new conventional wisdom i saw general kean's outfit the institute for the study of war has basically shifted formally their assessment of Russia's war against Ukraine in Ukraine's direction. It's almost like one of those prognosticators politically where they'll announce a ratings shift in a seat from, you know, toss up to lean blue or lean red, something like that. This group and others are saying, okay, this conflict has moved from potential stalemate to lean Ukraine again. advancements that we're seeing from the Ukrainians in their own self-defense getting aggressive. including strikes very close to Moscow. This is remarkable, Mark, and I know that you've covered this war very, very closely. How do you see it right now? So the tide is definitely turning. I don't think it's turning in a way that you could see that Ukraine's on the verge of driving Russia completely out of Ukraine, but the momentum has shifted against Russia. And what the difference is is you have, on one hand, a stagnant... sclerotic totalitarian regime fighting against a vibrant, innovative democracy. And the Ukrainians are just, you know, innovating themselves towards success. I mean, one of the things they, one of the, they've been able to, I mean, think about this, Vladimir Putin had to ask Volodymyr Zelensky's permission to have a parade in Moscow's Red Square. Because the Ukrainians can reach right into Red Square right now. And they're, for example, one of the challenges they have is that they don't have drones that can go deep enough into Russia to hit, for example, the drone factories where the Iranian drones are being produced, which is like 2,000 kilometers away from Ukraine's border. They just tested a weather, putting up a drone in a weather balloon that goes two kilometers in the sky, can float over Russia.

and then be deployed from there with a full battery anywhere, you know, across Russia. They'll be able to hit anything with a drone at some point. Who would have even thought about that, putting a drone on a weather balloon? It's just genius. So these Ukrainians are just fighting for the survival of their country. They're in a democracy. They have freedom. They have innovation. They have creativity. And the Russians can't beat them. And so, you know, we got to end this. We got to end it on terms favorable to Ukraine. And I think we're in a place where we can do that. And by the way, Mark, just 30 seconds here, while they're also in this ingenious way turning the tide, defending themselves, the Ukrainians also helping us in the all-important emerging realm of drone warfare, where they have drawn closer to us as an ally, as we've seen a lot of, I'd say, a frustrating. equivocations or even treachery from other so-called allies recently, Mark, the Ukrainians are helping us big time in that department not to be overlooked. 15 seconds. Just simply, the Ukrainian military is the strongest military in Europe next to Poland, and certainly the most battle-hardened. And they're also the most reliable ally we have alongside Poland, some of the Baltic states. We've got all these European countries that wouldn't help us. Ukraine is actually on the ground in Middle East helping us. Mark Teeson, columnist at The Washington Post, our colleague here of Fox News contributor. He was chief presidential speechwriter under George W. Bush. Mark, thank you so much as always. Take care, Guy. More of Guy Benson coming right up after this.

Talking about the issues you care about. Guy Benson. Earlier on today's show, Josh Krasauer joined us, Fox News Radio Political Analyst, editor-in-chief at Jewish Insider, talking politics, of course. Here's part of that conversation. All right, I wanted to just read for this audience some updates involving the Senate race in Maine. With yet more information coming out about Graham Platner, the left-wing candidate who appears ready to become the Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate against Susan Collins, the most moderate Republican really in Congress. And this guy has all sorts of problems. We've talked a lot about the Nazi tattoo, the things he said about women. I hear that there might be more substance coming on that front in the days to come. But setting that aside. Here's the latest one that I think got not enough attention last week. In an online post in 2019, so not ancient history at all, Graham Platner mocked helmet camera footage. This is from the Washington Free Beacon, mocked rather, helmet camera footage that depicted Army soldier Ted Daniels getting shot multiple times during a 2012 firefight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Daniels, a Purple Heart recipient, was on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan when his squad was pinned down by machine gun fire, as he put it upon his return to the United States. Daniel said he came out into the open to draw fire away from his colleagues so his squad could get to safety before he was hit. He was hit multiple times by the Taliban, and this was captured on video. And that video went public. This guy survived, of course, a hero, Purple Heart. And what Graham Platner said, his color commentary on this video was, quote, This video never gets old. Dumb mother bleeper didn't deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat bleep wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. And then he referred to this hero as a mouth breather and saying it was poor marksmanship by the Taliban and basically just trashed this guy. And according to the man who was shot by the enemy, he deliberately put himself at risk on behalf of his brethren. And then Graham Platner said what he said, seeming to enjoy the video. It never gets old and saying that this mother effort didn't deserve to live, referring to an American soldier. So Graham Platner was asked about this.

Fox News Digital caught up with him. It seems like many in the media are not really sure what to do with this man. They want to support him. They want their team to win, but he's got all sorts of problems. So Fox did ask him whether he owes this purple heart recipient. An apology, and his response was, I did four tours in the infantry. Any attempt to say that I disrespect veterans is slanderous and offensive. So that's the indignant response there from Graham Platner. I mean, this is another, I think, window into this man's character, and I'm not sure we're done yet with this type of thing. Yeah, I mean, guy, this points to a pattern of behavior in which Graham Platner has made numerous comments condemning and attacking American troops, condemning the army, praising Hamas. supporting communism. The strategy from Graham Platner's campaign has been to say, well, these were old posts when he was, you know, suffering through PDSD. And so we shouldn't take a look at any of these posts. We shouldn't have these posts tell us any, they shouldn't allow us to tell us anything about his character, his values, his principles, that his whole political career started when he announced his campaign last year. I mean, to me, like, the most relevant and revealing parts of a candidate's biography are the things you say when you're not running for office, when you're actually revealing your true character and you're the most loose and least cautious about what you're saying publicly. And this is a long... We reported a Jewish insider that he posted a similar type of kind of comment about watching Israeli soldiers being murdered by Hamas terrorists and praising the Hamas tactics and joyfully watching that and offering similar color commentary. And that was in 2014. These comments, Guy, are five years later. Five years after that. 2019. 2019. So this guy, you know, it doesn't really pass the smell test. He may have been going through a rough patch and said some ridiculous things because five years later, he's engaging in the same type of behavior, mocking American military servicemen who risk their lives in Afghanistan, you know, just a pattern of just obscene behavior that would have been disqualifying for any candidate for public office. You can run for dog. catcher in Maine. And these are the types of comments that would disqualify you not long ago. So the playbook from the Graham Platner camp has been disabled. You can't look at any of the public comments he's made until he ran for office. And then that he wised up and he got through his PTSD. And now, now was a much more serious person. But we have almost a decades worth of radical, extreme, just gutt churning type of. commentary running through the gamut of issues. We just would give us just the tip of the iceberg. You know, he's talking about American and Israeli military servicemen. My full interview with Josh Kay, available online, is part of the podcast. Every day on demand, no charge at all. Guy Benson.com, Fox Newspodcast.com, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. When we come back, it's the home stretch, got home yesterday from a pretty cool trip, bit of a whirlwind.

Down to South America. We'll talk about that. Give you some of the details. What a fun crew. When we come back. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson. it's time for your favorite segment of the day. Home Stretch. It's basically the only segment I'm on, so I've declared it the audience's favorite segment. Guy Benson. Home Stretch on Guy Benson on this Tuesday. So glad you're here. Thanks for tuning in, Guy Benson.com. Podcast always free. Jumping over to TV and Fox Business Network half past the hour in the next hour on the bottom line. Looking forward to that. Well, before I get to anything else, big congratulations to the Northwestern University, women's lacrosse team, the Wildcats winning the national title over the weekend. Their ninth national title in that program's history, since Kelly Amante Hiller, the coach there, restarted it in the early 2000s. They have been a juggernaut, and they won against UNC, actually on the lakefront in Evanston on campus. Here are the final moments of that victory on ESPN, Cut 44. Crowd showed up. People thought North Carolina could not be taken down, but Northwestern left, no doubt. Northwestern are national champions.

The crowd goes wild, as you can hear there. More than 8,000 fans at that game. Obviously, a pretty major home field advantage for NU. This was the first time the final four was held in the sport of women's lacrosse outside of the eastern time zone. And it was lined up to be on Northwestern's campus all along. And then... The ladies, the Wildcats, made it to the final four, beat Johns Hopkins in the final four, and then vanquished for the second time this season the really, really good UNC Tar Heels and their champs again. So to Kelly and her whole team, big, big congratulations. Go Cats well-deserved. And I was actually following that game very closely, and it was back and forth. It was a nail-biter. from Argentina. I was down there, and many of you know this from last week. I was off toward the end of the week on this show, part of a media trip down to Buenos Aires and had an incredible time. We were just touching on that just briefly earlier with Mark Ties and he and his wife were on the trip. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was there, Mary Catherine Hamm, Carol Markowitz, the Hemingways. I mean, it was a really fun... crew, many of the names that I just mentioned, of course, very familiar to this audience. We were down there talking politics and elections and learning more about Argentina and some of the changes down there. But it was just terrific. And on Sunday, which was my last day down there, Adam and I were there together, I had my phone out and I was watching parts of the game and following it on my phone very nervously and then, of course, was thrilled at the result after a really fun, enriching, terrific visit down in Argentina. It is a very long way to travel for just a handful of days, but because the flights are overnight... And because the time zone doesn't really change very much, it's one hour. If you can sleep on planes, and I can. It's almost like it's my job. Even when I don't want to sleep on planes, I do. If you can sleep overnight on the flight, you wake up, it's the morning. Go grab a coffee or an espresso or something, and you're good to go for the day. And it makes it a lot more doable than some of the crazy time zone stuff with jet lag and all of that on even shorter trips around the world. And we just... I think had a tremendous experience, and it's hard to even know where to begin to describe what was this whirlwind. Visit, one thing I will mention is on my social media, specifically Instagram. If you want to follow me, feel free, at Guy Benson. We always remind you about our show pages as well on social media, at Guy Benson's show, our email address, GBS at Fox.com. I do remind you of my personal social media. It's Guy Benson on Twitter and Instagram. I only posted this on Instagram, though. It's my latest permanent post on my feed.

And it is a flashback photo juxtaposed with a picture from this past weekend of me cheersing with a glass of beer. their sort of national light lager beer down there is called kilmes and the last time i tasted kilmes was when i was in argentina 15 years ago was down there with my cousin on vacation in 2011 and really enjoyed that particular beer or servesa and i wanted to have more of it on this trip and so i did and i just decided to try to recreate To some extent, the photo of cheersing with that glass and then just put them side by side just for some fun, and you can go check out that post and then scroll through because there's group selfies with some of our friends, and you'll recognize certainly some of the faces if you're a Fox News fan. So Guy Benson on Instagram, just to a plug there, we ate very well, as one does. The dollar is strong. The red meat in particular is amazing. The Italian food also very good down there. The red wine. Something that's very familiar when it comes to Argentina, really famous actually, worldwide, Mulbeck and other varietals. So we ate and drank quite well on this trip, which was a plus. That's kind of how I like to roll. That's part of the joy for me of traveling anywhere is trying the local sort of cocktails, wine. food, cuisine, certainly, and there was plenty of that. I also had an amazing experience for the first, and I would wager probably the only time in my life. One day we went to this place called an Estancia, which is this huge estate, an incredible place, and one of the activities was to go learn about, and I thought, see the game of polo, right? people on horses with the mallets and the helmets and all of that galloping around trying to score goals or whatever the technical term is. What I didn't realize was they had a spread of empanadas for us. They gave us a little primer. They're like, okay, who wants to play? Now it was like very much with training wheels. This was like bowling with bumpers. This was not real polo, but it was on horseback with the mallets and everything. And so I decided this was not necessarily right up my... Ali, so to speak. But I thought to myself, when are you going to have the opportunity to play polo again, especially in a place like Argentina, where I guess it's one of the polo capitals of the world? I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. So I put on the helmet, grabbed the mallet, was not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I did it and it was memorable and cool and fun. And actually in that photo collage, on Instagram at Guy Benson, one of those pictures is of me aboard the horse with my green helmet. And so that was definitely very, very cool.

The last thing I want to mention, just in recapping this trip and then maybe Cookie might want to jump in if she's curious, as she often is about anything, one of the most breathtaking things and developments that I learned about on this trip was how acute the inflation crisis has been down in Argentina. Now, Javier Milei and his free market economics, they have put a huge dent in the problem. I mean, beyond a lot of people's wildest expectations, a lot of the so-called experts were saying there's no way any of this is going to work. And then free markets worked again. And these moronic experts, frankly, were proven wrong again. But he inherited a mess that was so bad. that when you go into some of the stores around Argentina, even some of like these sort of shishi boutiques in Buenos Aires, and there were some people who wanted to get certain leather, bags and that kind of thing, some nice souvenirs. In many cases, there were no price tags on the items. There were QR codes. And the reason that was the case is because these businesses could not keep up with the rate of inflation. to the point that they couldn't even put stickers on their goods because the price would change day to day. It was that unstable and so out of control they gave up on having price tags because the price tags would be out of date almost immediately. So instead they're like, oh, just, you know, scan the QR code and then whatever the price might be today, the price of the day, that'll pop up on your phone and you can pay that. That is how crazy. The inflation got. under multiple decades of really bad economic policy down there. And one of, I think, the real life indicators of how things have gotten a lot better under Javier Milei and this conservative free market government is one of our tour guides. There's a very famous cemetery in Buenos Aires called Recoleta, and that's where a lot of the prominent people are buried, including Eva Perron, et cetera. So we were there doing the tourist thing. And our tour guide mentioned, that one of the joys recently has been, like this refreshing update, that you can go into a grocery store on Monday, and the prices would not be dramatically different by Wednesday or Thursday. And in fact, the price of his favorite beer has gone down because of the curbed inflation. Still some big problems with the economy down there, but they have put a big dent into that dysfunction and getting to see examples of that. up close and personal, and then learn about some of the policy changes, really rewarding, certainly to a political nerd like myself and, frankly, some of the people that I was down there where I don't think they would be offended at all with that characterization. So really cool, maybe a little too short, but I had to get back here, was chomping at the bit to get back on the air. There's so much happening here at home. Christine.

I'm sure you're at least looking at that photo. It's probably on your phone right now of me aboard the pony. And I can only imagine what's happening in that brain of yours as you see me on a pony, given your history with ponies. I hesitate to even ask, but you have thoughts. Well, did you enjoy riding the pony? Did you, are you, are you, are you, do you feel comfortable on a horse? Not super comfortable, but comfortable enough. I did it. I played, quote, unquote, a little bit of polo, quote, unquote. I mean, it was... It was not high level, to put it very mildly. And then later on went on a horseback ride as well around the Estancia. That was a bigger horse. The ponies for polo are significantly smaller than a lot of horses that people would otherwise ride. So I was on two different noble steeds. And I managed Christine not to kill either of them, which I know is maybe a foreign concept to you. I actually found a treasure trove of carousel and cookie pictures from when I was a wee. Little lad writing on a... Would we call this evidence? Stop that. Just evidence? Because that's chilling. I will say I'm going to post some to Cookies jar in 1988 on Twitter. I have to say in some of these pictures, like Carousel doesn't look happy and neither just cookie. We just both look miserable. Well, you ended up with a solution to that one, as we all know. And it's one that I cannot endorse, especially after having experienced. The joys of horseback riding and polo playing down in Argentina. If you want to look at some of those pictures, Guy Benson, my most recent post there, really, really cool. But now back in the saddle, so to speak, on the radio show here for the rest of the week and beyond. So glad that you've joined us after your long weekend. Hope you had a great one yourself. And we'll be back here in 21 hours for more of Guy Benson, same time, same place. We'll talk about. We just both look miserable.

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